Reagan shrugged. She knew the answers, but they were hard to explain to others. “Freedom. He wasn’t always looking over my shoulder when I had to stay late at work. Back then, my career was the most important thing to me.”
“You never talk about that either.”
“Do you think I need to?” Reagan asked, perturbed at her cousin. She didn’t want to chew over a career that left her broken. She missed her customers, she missed the work, and she missed feeling she had something to give back to the world. But she wouldn’t let those yearnings destroy her. Her relationship with Kyle and her career had held her down. She didn’t want to be held down anymore, she wanted to fly. Run with her arms outstretched, embracing whatever came her way.
Reagan watched a lone skier trail down the mountain, moving his body in a zigzag of lines and reminding her of her own rampant emotions sketching her life, impossible to erase. It was like an artist using a pencil and notebook paper to outline a quick draft with shapes that would eventually fade. Hers would never fade. They’d always affect her life in some way.
She glanced at Naomi. “I spent my life putting my all into my career and got nothing out of it but heartbreak,” Reagan said, this time calmer. “If I wail and lament, they’ll take even more from me. I have the opportunity to create a new life. How many people get that opportunity? And as far as Kyle, I have to blame myself to an extent. I kept myself emotionally detached from him — ”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself,” Naomi interrupted. “It’s not your fault.”
Reagan bit her tongue. She wouldn’t mention Caleb to Naomi yet, and how his problems weren’t her fault. “I’m not torn up over it,” Reagan continued as she flailed her arms. “That should tell you something. I’m actually relieved.”
“Why?”
Reagan groaned. Naomi planned to draw out everything she could. “God, Naomi. You are so … exasperating.”
“Didn’t you come here to start anew?”
“Don’t I go everywhere to start anew? Didn’t my parents teach me that?”
“Well, they did move a lot.”
Reagan glanced out across the landscape surrounding her, unfettering her, freeing her for once in her life. “That’s what I love about this place. The terrain, so ambiguous. Restless, just like me.”
“So your mom denied everything,” Naomi said, shifting subjects.
“Yes. She even went so far as to say Ray was a dangerous man.”
“What are you going to do?
“I’ll ignore her, like I have most of my life.” Reagan stood. “Now let’s go build a snowman.”
• • •
Naomi looped her arm through Reagan’s and opened the door of a shop where a huge simulated bear loomed like a 3-D object behind the polished glass. “If you don’t buy this outfit, I will,” she said, stopping to admire the pink and red ski jacket Reagan had admired earlier.
“Go ahead,” Reagan said. “I don’t plan on skiing any time soon.”
“It’d look better on you,” Naomi said.
“Whatever.”
“Besides, I have to go home at the end of the week.”
Reagan stopped beside a shelf of knick-knacks. “What?” She didn’t want Naomi to leave, didn’t want to be left alone to figure things out for herself. If Naomi left, it would no longer be a vacation, and she’d have to start contemplating her life.
“I have clients to tend to,” Naomi said. “And an important one needs my help. I can’t afford to lose her.”
Reagan paid for her purchases and they wended their way outside, without a new snowsuit.
“I need your help.” Reagan plopped down on a bench.
“You’re not paying for my help,” Naomi said.
“Maybe I could.”
“You knew I couldn’t stay longer than a month at the most, and you’re beyond my help. You need stability. Roots. You need to stay here and figure out what it is you want. You need to stop running.”
“I’m not running,” Reagan said, perfectly happy to live frivolously. She was tired of being responsible, tired of trying so hard for things to work out then blowing up in her face. “I’m only trying to find myself.”
“There you are,” Tanner said as he approached the women. Reagan bit back a groan, fighting the urge to rant and wail. She wasn’t in the mood for him today, but he sat between her and Naomi. “Shopping, are we?”
“Yes,” Naomi said. “And you are?”
“Tanner Merkel,” he said as he proffered his hand. “A friend of Reagan’s.”
Naomi had been in the store the day Reagan met Tanner. She’d practically pushed Reagan into meeting him, yet playacted like she didn’t know him.
“Can I buy you ladies lunch?” Tanner asked.
“Sounds lovely,” Naomi said, standing.
Tanner stood. Reagan hesitated. She didn’t want to have lunch with Tanner. Naomi looked back and waved her arm. Reagan reluctantly followed them to a café on the corner. No sense in starting an argument now. Let Naomi have her fun before she left. Lunch wouldn’t hurt, and she was kind of hungry.
“What are you doing?” Reagan muttered to Naomi after Tanner had opened the door and let them enter first.
“Making the guys jealous.”
“Like this will work?”
“Oh yes it will, because look who’s sitting in a booth in the corner window.”
This couldn’t be. But no, her eyes didn’t deceive her. Garret and Chayton sat in the booth and eyed them as they shuffled in. Tanner nodded a greeting. Naomi’s smile sauntered across her face as she accepted the chair Tanner held out. Reagan’s smile was more like a bear’s grin, baring her teeth and, she was sure, exposing her discomfort. She looked away.
Even though Reagan wasn’t hungry, she ordered a burger and fries. Anything to distract her from the glare on Garret’s face.
He’d warned her about Tanner. She didn’t know if it was because he was jealous, or if he was only looking out for her. But he warned her, and now she was here with Tanner. What did that tell him?
She tore off her cap and twisted her hair — full of static electricity — pinning it underneath her sweater.
“I’ll be back,” Tanner said after they ordered.
Reagan scowled at Naomi. “I thought you said you didn’t like Chayton.”
Naomi shrugged. “Not in that sense.”
“Then why are you doing this?” She moved in closer, keeping her voice low, talking between clenched teeth.
“I’m doing it for you. For you and Garret.”
Reagan rolled her eyes and leaned against the booth.
“Since I’ll be leaving, and you’re obviously not going to take matters into your own hands, and you said you needed my help.” Naomi shrugged and parked her hands on the table, palms up. “Well, I’m helping.”
“This isn’t helping. You said I needed to stay awhile. Find my roots and all that. Then you try to set me up with some guy I couldn’t care less about to make some guy that cares less about me jealous. Geez, Naomi, maybe you should go home.” She dug her hands in her hair.
“Sorry about that,” Tanner interrupted as he sat beside Reagan. Reagan straightened and lowered her hands to the table. And why choose her side? Why not sit on Naomi’s side? Great, now Garret would think they were a couple.
And why did she care?
• • •
“Relax, man,” Chayton said to Garret as Garret dragged his eyes away from the girls. “You’ll shatter the glass into a million pieces.”
Garret’s grip on his water glass was so hard the slivers damn near pierced him, and it wasn’t even broken. Yet. He stretched his fingers from the tumbler, focusing on easing the tension before he made a total fool of himself.
“You got feelings for this girl?” Chayton asked.
“Hell no,” Garret replied, his voice guttural. Even he wouldn’t have believed himself. “I just don’t like Tanner.”
“You don’t like Tanner? Or you don’t like that
Tanner is with your woman?”
“She’s not my woman.”
“Uh huh.”
“What about you and Naomi?”
“There’s nothing with me and Naomi.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
Garret didn’t answer. The waitress brought their bill. They both threw in money, but didn’t get in a hurry to leave. Instead, they sat. Watching. Waiting. For what, Garret didn’t know, but he wasn’t ready to leave Reagan alone with Tanner.
Tension snaked up his spine. The greasy burger, the onions, and the pepper that Chayton had sprinkled across the fries all clustered in Garret’s stomach, wending through a tunnel in his chest, making it impossible to breathe. No, that was the frustration, the crazed flames of jealousy.
Tanner promised he’d stay away. Going out for lunch was not staying away. Garret wondered if Tanner had talked to Buchanan, made him think Garret wasn’t doing his job.
“Okay, let’s go kick some ass.” Chayton smacked his hands on the table and stood.
“What are you doing?” Garret asked, but followed his brother anyway.
“Ladies,” Chayton said, stopping at their table. “Tanner. How are you?”
“Good,” Naomi said in a singsong voice.
What was she trying to do? Punish them by throwing Tanner in their face? As far as he knew, she’d thrown off Chayton’s advancements as if he were toxic. Maybe she liked men who slapped her around. Maybe Reagan did, too, for that matter.
“We’re going snowmobiling,” Chayton said.
Snowmobiling? Since when had they decided this? Garret let him continue to talk. He was better at sweet-talking women.
“You girls care to join us after lunch?” Chayton continued.
“I’d love to,” Reagan said. A blush swept across her face as if she’d regretted her hasty decision. Garret’s heart skipped a beat.
Over a woman. A damn woman. Garret’s heart never skipped a beat, especially over a woman. What the hell was wrong with him?
“Good,” Chayton said. “Meet us at my ski shop in thirty minutes? Tanner, you’re welcome to come along.”
Tanner’s face screwed into a ball of fury, the redness on his cheeks not caused from the cold outside. Garret saw the tension in his shoulders, in his fingers as he chomped down on his fries. Garret was trained to recognize tension, and it flaked off Tanner in waves.
Good. Served him right.
“I have plans but I appreciate the offer,” Tanner said.
Did that mean he’d show up later, unannounced, like last time? It’d be over Garret’s dead body.
“See you ladies later,” Chayton said. Garret followed him out the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” Garret asked when they were outside.
“It’s obvious Reagan doesn’t want to be there. And now, she’ll be on the back of a snowmobile, her legs wrapped around you. If that doesn’t seduce her, nothing will.”
“I’m not trying to seduce her, you idiot.”
Chapter Twelve
“So where’d you go last night?”
Okay, Reagan should have waited until her legs were around Garret’s waist — on the snowmobile — but he could feign deafness from the engine’s roar and she’d have to ask again. She didn’t want to ask again. Once was hard enough. She shouldn’t have asked at all. What gave her the right? Just because they’d been out at the same bar and he wanted her to climb on stage and sing karaoke did not mean they were on a date.
“I had some things to take care of.”
“Things? Like what?”
Garret shrugged and fumbled with the snowmobile. “It was late, I was tired. I had a phone call that took longer than expected.”
Oh God, he was lying. It was obvious. But why? Because of a woman? Was it any of her business?
“Come on, climb on.”
She situated herself on the snowmobile and secured her legs around him. Maybe he was a womanizer. Maybe he’d met a woman at the bar and took her home. Just because he didn’t want to sleep with her didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in others.
Chayton and Naomi had disappeared in Chayton’s Jeep, and now she and Garret were alone in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. Snowflakes dotted the earth, surrounding her vision in a shell of white. Reagan’s heart pattered as they clambered higher up the slopes. When he finally stopped on top of a hill, he killed the machine and stood, taking her hand to help her stand. Her stomach plummeted as she glanced down at a creek.
The spongy ground threatened to give way. Or at least, she felt it did. It could have been Garret’s hand in hers making her feel so unstable. A cavity beyond the creek in front of them opened to reveal an infinite sky. A canvas for the caricature clouds. For miles and miles, the land leveled into prairie but to get there, one would have to climb down the mountain. From this angle, it wasn’t difficult to perceive forever. Behind them, the rolling hills and trees caged the sky and wrapped them in a snow globe, reminding her that her time here on this earth and with this man was temporary.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” she said.
“That’s why this is called Big Sky Country.”
“Whoa.” Reagan swayed and reached for Garret’s arm to steady her balance, only that made it worse. She tumbled backward and shrieked, landing against a soft knoll.
Garret laughed and took out his camera for a picture. She glared, only the smile cracking her face didn’t allow the glare to linger.
“You okay down there?” he asked as he lumbered toward her and reached out his arm to help her up. Taking his arm, she pulled him forward and down, maneuvering herself so he didn’t fall on her, then leapt up and left him on the ground.
“That’s what you get for laughing at me,” she said as she dusted the snow from her legs.
“Hey, I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Uh huh.” She flounced away from him.
A snowball thumped her in the back. She pivoted, and Garret blasted off running. Balling snow into her hands, she chased after him and threw, missing him by a mile.
She hid behind a rock and waited for him to emerge, her throat bursting with laughter. A naked tree, clothed only in a splendor of white, danced behind her, twirling with the wind. She felt like dancing, too, joy riding in her as she relaxed. Snow-dusted greens towered her in a welcoming trail, and she peered behind each one. Like a cat ready to pounce, she waited for Garret and planned her ambush.
He tapped her on the side of her cheek. She launched up and released a giggly scream, whirling to face him. Wadding the ball of snow she’d hidden in her hands, she swiped it across his cheek. She ran, but he seized her by the arm before she got far. They both tumbled downhill.
They came to a stop near an embankment, trees flanking them. Some rose stiffly from the ground, others lined in a silhouette with those ahead, and still others relaxed and accepted their lot in life. Something Reagan was trying to learn to do.
She lost her hat on the way down, and snow matted in her hair. Shivering, she planted her gloves around her ears. “It’s cold.”
Garret recovered her hat and parked it on her head, his fingers lingering before he stood and took her hand. Hand in hand, they climbed up the mountain to the snowmobile.
He didn’t attempt to kiss her. Most men who were interested in a woman at least tried something, a peck on the cheek, anything. Garret didn’t even look at her a bit longer than necessary, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
It hurt. Being friends with a man when she craved so much more. She shouldn’t desire anything, and she couldn’t ruin a good friendship. She should be grateful to have his companionship. She usually pushed men away, but for some reason she wanted more with Garret. Probably because he didn’t want more with her. Wasn’t that how human nature usually worked?
“You want to drive?” he asked when they stopped at the snowmobile.
Glancing at the machine in terror, she planted her palms crosswise on her c
hest and shook her head. “What? Me? No.”
“Why not?”
“Did you not see me tumble on my ass? And you want me to drive that thing? No way.”
“Come on. I’ll steer it away from the overhang, then you drive us downhill.”
He drove them to a place that seemed safer, or at least one where she wouldn’t drive them over the mountain and into infinity. He showed her the maneuvers and though it didn’t look difficult, once his strong, steady legs were on either side of her back, she froze.
He was a friend, a friend a friend a friend. Why ruin a perfectly good friendship just because she was attracted to him? Friends could have chemistry without sleeping together. They could. They could. And she would.
“There’s nothing you can do to hurt us,” he said, his breath a little too close to her ear, even if they were covered by her cap.
She hadn’t stalled because she’d feared hurting them, but she went with that excuse. “Right. Except run into a tree and kill us both.”
He reached around and started the engine. The machine rumbled beneath her. Everything pulsed, as if unseen energy fields were on high alert, bouncing off the earth, the trees, the sky and roosting into a hard knot in her belly. Her legs quivered.
“You’ll be fine.”
Letting out a roar, she set off downhill. Hills curved around them, creating a white path to the earth’s horizon. The drive was exhilarating. She laughed, she shrieked, she sideswiped several trees at a crawl, but still, she had a blast.
At Garret’s indication, she came to a stop.
“I want to take you to a place you can’t get to except by a long hike or snowmobile. You game?”
A place he wanted to take her? Did it involve taking off their clothes in a warm bed?
They switched seats and he drove through tall pine trees she imagined lounging in the snow much like she’d relax at the beach. The sky opened, loosening its grip on the sun as it stretched downward, trailing sparks of orange past mountains and irradiating the pines.
He stopped under a canopy of trees where they remained a moment, her face inches from his back. Her body tightened as she visualized his physique.
He dismounted the machine and took her hand. She sensed his touch through the gloves they both wore, inflaming her.
Burn on the Western Slope (Crimson Romance) Page 13
