Keep On Loving you

by Christie Ridgway

  “May his days be cursed,” Poppy muttered.

  Zan didn’t bother to suppress a grin. This was such a Walker thing. They were a ferocious band, and he’d reveled being associated with them when he’d lived here. Still, the explanation wasn’t completely clear. “Cabins?”

  From her place at the end of the table, Poppy—hostess, mother, almost-wife, it still boggled the mind—leaned his way. “Don’t you remember? There are a dozen of them—now eleven—that have been sitting empty all these years. I came up with the brilliant idea to refurbish them and rent them out.”

  High-end seclusion, she went on to explain. No Wi-Fi. Rustic surroundings with luxury bedding. Gourmet food and drink available for delivery.

  “Sounds good to me,” Zan said.

  “I know.” Poppy beamed. “We’re all on board—and excited.”

  Near the other end of the table, Mac raised her hand. “Voice of reason calling.”

  Poppy groaned and Shay and Brett frowned at her.

  “Voice of pessimism,” Poppy grumbled.

  Which was weird, Zan thought, as Mac talked about advertising and discoverability and maintenance costs—all communicating her clear doubts. Truly, as Poppy said, very pessimistic, which wasn’t like the old Mac at all. The old Mac had been full-speed-ahead, we-can-do-anything, let’s-put-on-a-show.

  This Mac was... Maybe it was just maturity.

  Angelica leaned close, speaking under the general conversation. “I wish they could find a way to regain the mountaintop property and rebuild the ski resort,” she said. “Let me show you the drawing that Brett did in college for a lodge.”

  Pulling out her phone, she called up a photo on the screen, then passed the device over. Zan gazed down at the image, his fingers tightening on the pink plastic case. It brought him back. The three amigos—Brett, Mac and himself—lying in the grasses on the mountain peak, dreaming up a vacation destination from which families could hike or bike in the summer, spring and fall, and ski and sled in the winter months. They’d argued and debated and refined their idea time after time.

  Brett had drawn it just as Zan remembered.

  Maybe better than he’d imagined.

  Pain radiated from his chest, and his throat felt strangled again. Shit, was he getting sentimental in his old age?

  Feeling eyes on him, he looked up to see Mac was staring.

  She abruptly stood, stacking a few plates, and headed to the kitchen with them. Without thinking, Zan followed with more dishes. There was some protest around the table, Poppy telling him he was a guest, but he just announced that he and Mac had the dishes.

  Her back to him, she was already rinsing and putting items in the dishwasher. He saw her spine stiffen as he came up behind her.

  Sheesh. So damn prickly, he thought, feeling another echo of that earlier pain. Where had his Mac gone, that fun-loving girl full of enthusiasm and zest for life? He wanted to find her inside this new hard shell.

  As he put his dishes onto the counter, an idea came to him on the fly. “Hey, I have a proposition for you.”

  “No.”

  “A business proposition.” Which he immediately realized was how he should have couched it. And it was a sensible idea, really. If she complied, then he’d be able to dispatch his obligations here that much more quickly and get on with...whatever he was going to do next.

  “No,” she said again.

  Brat. “You don’t even know what it is yet.” And the more he considered it, the more necessary it was to him.

  In the distance, he could hear the Walkers still talking around the dining room table. Arguing, really, and the kids were even getting into it. The sound of the good-natured squabble made him grin. He couldn’t let go of these people quite yet.

  Walking out of here tonight might mean not seeing them again. But if he could get to Mac, that would get him a small toehold into their lives. Temporarily, yes, but he’d take it.

  “I need some help at my grandfather’s place,” he said to her. “Clearing out belongings, sorting things, cleaning up so the house is ready to be put on the market.”

  She’d gone still. “I suppose I could send over Tilda or one of my other employees...”

  “Oh, it has to be you.”

  Over her shoulder, she sent him a narrow-eyed glance.

  He hoped he looked innocent. “I need your good advice on what should stay, what should go. You’d be good at that, since you’re in and out of other people’s homes around here all the time.”

  She’d yet to reply when Shay came into the room, followed by teenager London. They halted, their gazes going between him and Mac, as if they sensed the tension between them.

  “Um, everything okay?” Shay asked.

  “Sure,” Zan said, all casual attitude. “I just presented a business opportunity to your sister and she’s mulling it over.”

  “Mac’s mulling over a chance to make money?” Shay asked, in obvious surprise.

  “It involves my grandfather’s house. I think she’s afraid—”

  “I’m not afraid of anything!” Mac retorted.

  “Then I guess that means yes,” Zan said, on a smile.

  It didn’t die until Shay brushed past him. “Dude,” she murmured. “You should be careful what you wish for.”

  * * *

  ASH ROBBINS HAD a few terms he liked to think described himself. Well educated was one, and he believed just about anyone would agree it fit, thanks to his parents’ money and his own pride in achievement. His name and hardworking had been mentioned in tandem more than once, and he’d also been taught to never stand on others to get ahead. He strove to be kind to everyone, small children and animals in particular.

  His parents, successful and respectable John and Veronica Robbins, for twenty-two years by word and through example had raised their only son to become an upstanding, decent man.

  He could only imagine their disappointment if they knew he was also a latent stalker.

  Still, Ash’s gaze stayed glued to the back of Tilda Smith’s hair. Its waves bounced against her thin jacket. He frowned at that. While it was sunny today and the last weather event here in Blue Arrow Lake had been rain, there was snow on the higher peaks. It glistened between the evergreens on the mountainsides, and the breeze wafted like frosty breath across his face.

  Tilda should be dressed more warmly.

  She turned a corner and he hurried, instinct pushing him to keep her in sight while still maintaining distance. Something about the girl was like floating dandelion fluff, a rainbow-hued bubble passing in the air, that great idea hovering at the edge of your mind that you’d lose if you reached for it too quickly or grasped too greedily once your fingers closed around it.

  If he wanted her, he had to take great care.

  And yeah, he wanted her.

  Again.

  From across the street, he saw her slip inside a little hole-in-the wall eatery. The place looked to be nothing more than a counter and a few molded plastic tables, chairs bolted to their metal legs like student desks in a classroom. Aware too much aggression might spook her, he didn’t follow her in immediately. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and watched as she ordered, then passed a couple of bills to a ponytailed girl.

  Next she took a seat at one of the tables, her back to the window. After a few minutes she stood to retrieve what appeared to be a cup of soup and a few packets of crackers.

  “You need something, pal?”

  Ash jerked his attention from Tilda. Another guy, about his age, was giving him a suspicious stare. His unremarkable jeans, navy watch cap and battered boots proclaimed him a local. Vacationers and the day-pass boarders who visited the area dressed in garishly colored winter resort gear and footwear that looked right out of the box.

  “I’m thinki
ng about lunch,” Ash lied. He tilted his head to indicate the eatery. “That place any good?”

  “No sushi, no sweet potato fries, nothing made with kale,” the stranger said. “For that you need the cafés on the main drag.”

  “Burger? Shake?”

  The other guy’s gaze flicked over Ash, clearly skeptical that he was after something so prosaic. He stood his ground under the scrutiny. Until he’d wandered into an old-school restaurant in the village last May, he hadn’t been aware of the decided separation between the mountain visitors and the mountain natives. That night, he’d caught the raised eyebrows and the distrustful glances and realized he’d crossed a gulch without an invitation. He might have gotten the shit kicked out of him by a knot of young drunks, but he’d sent a drink to Tilda before he’d fully realized the danger.

  Then she’d taken a shine to him. Once he’d slipped into a chair at the table with her and her girl pals, he’d been safe.

  The man taking stock of him now might well have been one of the toughs who’d wanted to kick his ass from their hangout. “You had your eyes on Tilda,” the guy said now.

  Ash shrugged. What was the point of denying it? “You know her?”

  “Only since kindergarten.”

  “I met her last May,” Ash said.

  “Yeah? That was a rough time for her. Lost her mom in April.”

  Hell. Ash frowned. She hadn’t told him that. She hadn’t told him much of anything about herself, except it was her twenty-first birthday. That had prompted him to order the first bottle of champagne. And then another, later, when they were alone.

  He’d thought perhaps she considered him a birthday present to herself.

  But maybe it had been something else altogether. A way to numb her pain?

  Then he’d gone all smooth operator on her—ha—by passing out in bed so that she’d left him without a goodbye.

  “Order the patty melt,” the stranger said, then touched his cap with two fingers in a goodbye salute.

  Leaving Ash alone with his second thoughts.

  After all, she’d not exactly thrown herself into his arms at Zan’s the other day. When he’d asked her out, she hadn’t said yes.

  She’d told him she was running late and had to be on her way.

  But that meant she hadn’t refused him, either.

  It was enough to get him on the move again, and he slowly crossed the street. It gave him time to consider why he was so bent on taking that night they’d shared out of the serendipitous column.

  One answer: he hadn’t felt right about the single shag aspect. His father always emphasized treating the opposite sex with the utmost respect, and buying a girl some birthday drinks, then sweet-talking her into a hotel room, and then basically going near-cadaver on her after the deed was done didn’t feel very honorable.

  Another answer: because something told him any subsequent nights with her might just be stupendous.

  It was that simple.

  Or not. Because when he opened the diner’s door, Tilda stood in the frame, clearly on her way out. God, their timing sucked.

  They both sidestepped to avoid a collision of their bodies—but they sidestepped in the same direction, their actions becoming a dance move.

  That night, back in May, she’d taught him how to two-step.

  In sixth grade his mother had sent him to Mr. Preston’s School of Manners. Honest to God, they called it that. Boys and girls had to put on fancy clothes and learn to address each other as if they were people from the era of Mad Men. Boys wore stiff shoes. The girls wore gloves.

  There, he’d learned to fox-trot and waltz, keeping his body a precise number of inches from his partner—and his elbow ached just remembering the required angle necessary to keep that precise distance. The music had come out of an old-fashioned boom box and not once after that sixteen-week experience had he ever danced again. At the dances after football games in high school he’d lounged at the back of the gym with his buddies.

  In college, on Friday nights he’d hung in his dorm room or apartment and got buzzed on beer like every other normal student.

  So last May, when she’d pulled him onto the dance floor he’d been two left feet and very little rhythm.

  But her laugh had distracted him—delighted him—and it hadn’t taken him long to get the hang of quick-quick, slow slow. They’d moved together counterclockwise around the dance floor and he’d not thought about his feet or the hokey country ballad or his odd outsider status.

  He’d only thought about getting closer to Tilda.

  The same urge overtook him now.

  As he moved closer, she moved back—dancing again!—and the door swung shut behind him.

  Ash stared into her beautiful face, her cheeks just the slightest bit pink, making her green eyes stand out all the more. Her lashes were long and curly and her mouth... Oh, God, he remembered how soft and sweet it was to kiss.

  The memory muddled his good sense.

  All his life he’d been taught to use his head by the man he esteemed above all others. Think things through, Ash! his father always warned. Consider first, talk second had been drummed into him from an early age.

  Strategizing had become second nature. But when it came to Tilda, he wanted only to obey his instincts.

  Be with me. The words were on the tip of his tongue. Be mine.

  But he curled his fingers into fists and exhorted himself to take it slow and not overwhelm the girl. Go out with me. He’d start with that.

  “Tilda—”

  “I never expected to see you again,” she said in a rush, preempting him. “Especially not now—in winter. Guys like you...they’re summer guys.”

  “Summer guys?”

  She shrugged. “Temporary. Vacationers.”

  “My parents had a place here they primarily used in the warmer months. But upon retiring, last spring they bought a new house, and they’ve moved here permanently. My mom loves the mountains.”

  Tilda crossed her arms over her body, hugging herself as if she were cold. “And your dad?”

  “Loves my mom and will do anything that makes her happy.” It was his turn to shrug. “They still have a place in Palm Springs so snow doesn’t get in the way of his golf game, though.” Ash didn’t know why the hell they were discussing his family, but then he remembered what the stranger on the street had said. “Tilda...”

  She glanced up at him, glanced away.

  “I didn’t realize you’d lost your mom right before we met. I’m really sorry about that.”

  “You had nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, no, of course not. But I...” This was going all wrong. Frustrated, he shoved his hand through his hair. “I’m usually much smoother than this.”

  “I’ll bet,” she said, the two words laced with cynicism.

  Ash closed his eyes. What an ass he must seem in her eyes. Out-of-towner who’d tried to impress her by ordering fancy bottles of champagne and sweeping her into a luxury hotel room, only to pass out like a teenager after downing a couple of wine coolers.

  “I snored, didn’t I?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Drooled?”

  Her lips twitched.

  If his heart could give a fist pump, it would. “That night... I’d come off five days of cramming for finals followed by a graduation ceremony that had me broiling in the sun for seventeen hours or so. I wasn’t at my best.”

  “Is that right?”

  He nodded, trying to look pitiful. “Then we came up to the mountains to find my parents’ new house had sprung a major plumbing leak, so we had to take hotel rooms in the village. I was so wired I couldn’t sleep, so then I took a walk and...”

  “Found Mr. Frank’s.”

  “...found you.” He lo
wered his voice. “And you know what I thought when I saw you?”

  She shook her head, her green eyes big and trained on his face. “Don’t, Ash—”

  “I saw you with that paper crown on your beautiful hair and I thought, ‘I’ve got to get to know this girl.’” He leaned close. “You want to hear my darkest secret?”

  “No.”

  Another thing he’d been taught by his dad was not to give up easily. So he didn’t let those two letters deter him. “I’ve never felt that way about anyone before, Tilda. With anyone.”

  Her eyes widened and her face colored more. “I...I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell me what you thought about me.”

  She swallowed. “You don’t want to know that.”

  “Sure I do.” He smiled. “Let me help you get started. When I held out my hand and said, ‘My name is Ash Robbins,’ you thought...”

  “This is a really bad idea.”

  Okay, tough nut to crack. “Tilda...”

  “I’m being truthful. I knew it wasn’t a good idea but I...I went ahead and invited you to sit at our table and asked you to dance and then I left with you.”

  He winced. “You consider it a mistake?” God, that hurt.

  Her expression softened. “No, I... It wasn’t about you, Ash.” She caught one of his hands with hers.

  He didn’t hesitate to wrap his fingers around hers and the current of buzzing heat that shot up his arm was welcome. Fucking wonderful.

  She was staring at their joined hands, her color high, her expression anxious. Impulse urged him to pull her close, to put his mouth to hers, to end this confusion and awkwardness by communication of the carnal kind.

  Be with me. Be mine.

  He’d say it with kisses. Caresses. With their bodies aligned and their hearts beating against each other.

  But he listened to a saner voice. Go slow. Strategize.

  Don’t scare her off.

  So he called her name, in a soft but insistent tone. “Tilda.”

  Her head came up and she met his gaze. God, another thrill.

  Ash cleared his throat. “Tilda, go out with me.”