But here I am now, standing in a low-lit room in front of Kennedy. The woman who oozes surety as she leans against the door frame, her whole body relaxed, her head to the side as her bright eyes rake over me, her jaw clenched a little as her eyes begin to darken. I know what desire looks like in another woman, and it's growing in her now.
That hits me squarely in the heart. And, if I'm being honest, in other various lady places.
Outside, the snow starts to flurry, big fluffy flakes spiraling in the wind as they hit the glass of the room's walls, thudding gently against it like small insects. Inside, it's warm and cozy. Too warm, actually, as I tug at my sweater's neck, trying to make it strangle me a little less. I wet my dry lips, pressing my damp palms to my thighs.
I really like that Kennedy is staring at me like that. But it's also desperately unnerving. It's been such a long time, and I didn't come here with that in mind, so I didn't exactly bring my A-game, so to speak.
But to deny that I'm incredibly attracted to her would be a lie.
She said there's going to be no one here tonight. So...it's just her and me and snow falling outside and absolutely no place to be.
Dangerous things happen on nights like this.
Wonderful things.
If I let them happen. If I help them happen.
I take a deep breath, letting the adrenaline of all this possibility soar through me. I'm unnerved and nervous and utterly excited, and something is stirring inside of me. Something is waking up.
So before I can second-guess myself, before I can talk myself out of anything, I lift my head, lifting my chin in the process. I narrow my eyes a little, take another deep breath, feeling the warmth of the room pressing down on me as I wrap all of my courage around my spine, trying to remember how easy this used to be for me. I used to be fearless.
I want to be fearless again. If only for one more night.
“Kennedy,” I tell her, tasting the syllables of her name as they roll off my tongue. I shiver a little, stand straighter, bracing myself. “Do you want to go...for a walk?” I ask her then, trying to keep my voice as level and low as possible as I take a wild leap and hope I'm picking up all the right signals.
Kennedy's eyes actually widen at that. I guess it is a surprising question, considering the circumstances. And the storm that's just beginning outside. She looks past me at the billowing, blowing snow, blinking.
“Honestly?” she asks me, her head to the side. “You want to go for a walk in this? In the dark? On the mountain?” Her lips are curling up slowly into a disbelieving smile.
“Yes,” I tell her, rolling my shoulders back. “I mean,” I backpedal, trying to come up with some good reasons to go, “I used to come to the Rockies a lot when I was younger. For the hiking. I...I really love hiking in the snow.” And it's true. I do.
Adrenaline continues to pump through me as Kennedy raises a single brow, and I'm pretty sure she's impressed for half a heartbeat as she rocks back on her heels. “Well,” she says, hooking her thumbs in the waistband of her workout pants, revealing a little more of her muscled stomach. My heart skips another beat, and I try not to stare. Kennedy's mouth rounds up into a sultry smirk as she tilts her head to the right. “What kind of winter gear did you bring?” she asks me, glancing at my single suitcase with one brow raised.
“I brought a parka. Snow pants. It's enough to keep me warm for a short hike tonight,” I promise her.
“I trust you know how cold it can get out there,” she tells me, that one brow rising a little higher, her mouth flattening into a line as she watches me for a long moment. But then she shrugs, pushes off from the door frame. “I'd love to go for a hike...if that's what you really want,” she tells me then, her voice low as she glances at me through her long black lashes, causing my heartbeat to increase. “Meet me at the entrance in five minutes, and we'll go on that hike, Trish,” she tells me, her full lips curling up at the corners again and her eyes glittering with something I can't quite read. But that I like tremendously.
And, God, I really love it when she says my name with that smile, like we're sharing a secret.
“Okay,” I tell her breathlessly. She closes the door behind her, and then I'm all alone in this glass room. All alone with my thundering heartbeat and the realization that I just set something into motion. Something that I was crazy to start, but that I did anyway, consequences be damned.
We're going to take a snowy walk through the woods...I mean, that's pretty damn romantic...if I've been reading her signals right. I want this. I want this very much. And if she wants this too, then...possibly...it could actually happen.
Oh, my God. This could actually happen. Her. Me. Together. Just like the old days. I take a deep breath, pressing my hand to my heart and feeling my heartbeat thrum beneath my fingers. But I can't think about it too much. That's my problem. I think about everything too much, and then the actions I make aren't natural. They're calculated. And I never used to calculate anything. I used to just follow my heart, take the leap and plunge and hope like there was no tomorrow.
And it always ended up working out for me. I have to remember that. Every time I took the leap, things worked out. Maybe not exactly as I would have planned them, but what in life does? No matter what, every time I found enough courage to try something extraordinary, something magical would happen.
I have to remember that.
There aren't any curtains in the room, but—thankfully—there's an on suite bathroom that is not built entirely of glass. I'm able to close the bathroom door and have complete privacy as I struggle out of my travel clothes and into my long johns, pulling my turtle-neck over my head and over the long johns as the heat blasts into the small room. I'm already sweating as I pull on my parka, not zipping it up, pulling on my snow pants as I pant, chugging water from my bottle. I pause in the mirror after tugging my hat down over my ridiculously messy hair. Kitted out like this, I look a little bit like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I tug at the incredibly puffy sleeves of my parka and make a face at myself in the mirror. Actually, I look like I'm about to embark on an arctic expedition, but that's not that far from the truth.
I make my way out of the bedroom, and I actually manage to make my way back to the reception area without taking a wrong turn. I pause a little way down the corridor just before hitting the common area because my palms are sweating inside of my gloves, not entirely because I'm overheated indoors under all this gear. My palms get a bit sweatier, because Kennedy's in the reception area, standing in the entryway, waiting for me.
She's braided her hair in two enormous red braids that hang down her back, with a thin, knitted hat over her ears. She's wearing thin winter gear in varying shades of blue and is leaning easily on the front desk with her elbows, her right leg cocked beneath her as she pages through something on the electronic tablet.
I haven't made a sound. I know I haven't. But whether it's from instinct or because she felt me watching her, Kennedy straightens just then and glances down the corridor at me. She smiles when she sees me, her full lips parting to reveal dazzling white teeth. Kennedy stands straight, looping her blue scarf one more time over her shoulders as she inclines her head.
“Hey, you,” she tells me, lifting her chin, her eyes sparkling. “Are you ready for an easy walk in our balmy weather?” she asks me, chuckling a little at her joke.
“Yeah,” I tell her breathlessly, waddling down the rest of the hallway in my snow pants, suddenly feeling incredibly overdressed. And, God, do I feel unsexy. Cold weather gear has gotten a bit better and markedly less like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in recent years, I'm noting, as I gaze at Kennedy's body in the thin material of her jacket and pants.
Huh. The closer I get, the more I realize that what she's wearing isn't exactly a jacket and snow pants.
It's more like a fleece pullover and jeans. The dim light overhead is hard to see by, but it's obvious...she's not dressed for a hike on the mountains in winter.
“Um...are you g
oing to go get dressed?” I ask her, gesturing with my gloved hand at her clothes. “I can wait here, if you like—”
“Oh, no, I'm all set,” she tells me, pushing off from the front desk and licking her lips as she narrows her eyes and glances back at me. “Are you all ready? You think you'll be warm enough?”
“Says the woman in the jeans and pullover,” I quip back, then realize that I just joked with this woman like I've known her for a lot longer than a handful of moments. But it came naturally, that bit of joking, and I liked it.
It seems that she did, too, because she laughs now, a rich, warm sound that I like very much, feeling the sound of her laughter roll over me and warm me even more. But this warming I like. Kennedy chuckles, throwing her head back, her red braids sliding over her shoulders like her hair is made of satin. I'd like to test that, actually, feel that hair sliding over my own skin...but I try to push that from my mind as Kennedy shakes her head.
“All right, you got me. Fair enough. The cold doesn't bother me,” she tells me with an elegant shrug. “But let's get going before the snow starts coming down even thicker, yeah?” she tells me, jerking a thumb toward the front door.
“Okay, but you're really just wearing that? All joking aside, you're going to freeze your socks off,” I mutter as we make our way toward the front door. Kennedy opens that door, holding it open for me as I pass through the veil of heat into the frigid tundra that is the great outdoors.
“It's actually warm out today. You know. For the time of year that it is,” Kennedy tells me with a little wink.
I blink at her, feeling my eyeballs beginning to freeze.
That's...really not true.
As much as I felt overdressed inside, in a matter of seconds I feel vastly, vastly underdressed to be out here. The wind pierces me through, even pummeling the cold through the thick layers of my parka and underclothes. The wind is violent, driving snow slant-wise into my face and the tiny bit of exposed skin between the cuffs of my gloves and the cuffs of my jacket. I tug my jacket sleeves down a little more and tremble inside of my layers.
Cold used to not bother me at all. But then I didn't leave Florida for a couple of years. And that changes you, constantly going from warm to really warm and never having to deal with the cold. Yeah, there were occasional nights where the temperature got down to a “freezing” forty degrees in West Palm Beach, but those were very, very rare occurrences (that were then talked about among my clients for months afterward). It just doesn't get that cold in Florida, and I lost whatever made me capable of dealing with very cold temperatures because I never left my state.
I shiver inside of my parka, glancing sidelong at Kennedy, who is standing exactly as she was inside, shoulders back, chin lifted, confidant. She doesn't look like she even feels the cold, which is just crazy. She shoves her hands into her fleece's pockets and shoots me a warm smile, her head to the side a little as she flicks her gaze towards the woods. “So, do you want a short trail or a long trail?” she asks me, not even raising her voice over the whistling winds that begin to pummel us. “Did you have dinner before you made it up the mountain?” she asks.
“The short trail sounds nice,” I tell her, my chattering teeth making the words sound a little staccato. “And no, I didn't have dinner.”
Kennedy nods. “One of our instructors is our cook. She's very top notch—you'll love her food—but, unfortunately, she's also up the mountain with the other instructors preparing for the retreat tomorrow. So it's just my cooking you'll have to contend with for tonight, I'm afraid. I'm not very good, but I can microwave a mean dinner,” she tells me. And then she winks with a little chuckle, turning as she sets off down what I assume to be a trail. But it's only an arbitrary path in the thick snow that she's making, her long legs making her stride easily through the snow like it's not even there. I have no choice but to follow her.
As we walk toward the trees, we're eventually swallowed up by their tall bulk and immense shadows, stepping from the clearing around the retreat center into the woods. The minute we're beneath the trees, the snow and wind becomes a little lessened, and I can actually see in front of me again without narrowing my eyes against the relentless, driven snow. I relax a little, now that the cold is gentled a bit, and I watch Kennedy striding ahead of me.
She moves with such surety and grace. I've walked in knee-high snow before. I know it's tough slogging out ahead of me, but she's plowing through it like it's nothing to her. She's still just in her fleece and jeans, by the way, one light hat on her head, her long, red braids hanging down behind her. The snow on the ground makes everything pretty light out, and I can see easily on this night walk. I watch her legs as she plows through the snow, the muscles in her thighs flexing easily. I watch her shoulders that she curves forward, focused wholly on her task, her head bent, her face in profile as we round a bend in the trail.
My heart skips a beat again, and I take a deep, cold breath.
Kennedy looks so natural out here, I realize. Like she's part of the woods herself. I'm a little surprised by that thought, but watching her move gracefully between the trees, moving through the snow like she's striding on a sidewalk downtown, I'm struck by how true it is. She completely looks like she belongs out here. Weird.
“How long have you lived in Colorado?” I find myself asking her. Once the words come out of my mouth, I'm mentally kicking myself. Smooth, Trish. Real smooth. I could have started with “do you come here often,” and it'd be less obvious.
Kennedy glances back at me over her shoulder and pauses in her wading through the snow. “I've lived here my whole life,” she tells me with a graceful shrug. “These mountains are in my blood,” she tells me, casting back a gentle smile. “What about you? Where do you live?”
“Florida,” I tell her with a little chuckle.
She frowns a little, shaking her head. “Oh, good God, you must be so cold...are you all right out here?”
“No, no, I'm fine,” I totally lie. “I mean, I used to come to the Rockies all the time when I was younger,” I say, shrugging. “You know,” I tell her, gulping down the freezing air. I glance up at the trees, at the lightly falling snow. “I actually thought I was going to live here once,” I find myself telling her.
“Wow, really?” she asks me. She takes her hands out of her pockets and tucks a stray curl of red behind her ear before she continues deeper into the woods. “So what happened?” She glances back at me over her shoulder with a small grimace. “What made you change your mind?”
My walking slows for a moment. “Well,” I say, breathing out into the cold. My breath fogs in front of me like smoke. “I mean, a lot of things happened all at once, but the two most important really did me in...” I take another deep breath, feeling my pulse begin to pound a little faster. “See,” I mutter, the words coming out faster now, “I broke up with the woman I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. And then my father passed away right after that.” God, it's still hard to say that. It's still so damn hard. I close my eyes for a moment, curl my hands into my fists. When I open my eyes, I'm a little calmer, a little more subdued. “It was just a brutal time for me,” I tell her quietly. “So I stopped wanting it. I started focusing on my studies instead.”
After a long moment of silence in which Kennedy doesn't give any sort of reply, we continue to slog through the snow. I clear my throat then, feeling my cheeks flush. “Sorry,” I say with a little cough, embarrassment rolling over me in waves. “I'm sorry, that was kind of heavy, and—”
“No,” Kennedy tells me, glancing over her shoulder at me and shaking her head. She pushes her hands deeper into her pockets, bending her head toward the ground, her breath curling out into the air around her face. “No, I'm sorry. I was just thinking about my parents. I lost them both together, so I completely understand.” Her words are soft and heavy, like the big flakes of snow that settle gently to the ground. “I was trying to think of something comforting to say,” she tells me, her voice going deeper. Quieter.
She breathes out, turns toward me, her eyes dark. “But there's never really anything comforting you can say to that. Not truly. But I am very sorry, Trish.”
“Wow. Both of your parents...God, I'm so sorry.” I shake my head, wrapping my arms around me. I'm still for a moment before I say: “I'm...I'm really lucky—and I know I'm lucky—that I still have my mother,” I say quietly. “Kennedy, I'm really sorry.”
Kennedy takes a deep breath, her eyes lightening as she flicks a gaze to me and then away. “Honestly, yoga is what helped me deal with it,” she says then, lifting her chin and glancing up at the trees that tower all around us, at the gently falling snow that spirals down between the trunks, falling between us soundlessly.
I look at her in surprise. “Really?” I ask her, unable to help myself. “I mean, isn't yoga just an exercise?”
Kennedy glances back at me then, her eyes hooded and her face set in a very soft smile. “Yes. Yoga's definitely an exercise, and an awesome one at that. But it's so much more.” She shrugs, leaning toward me. We're close enough now that when we both breathe out together, the ghosts of our breath merge in the darkening air. “When you're in the middle of a difficult yoga pose,” she tells me, her voice low and warm, her eyes glittering in the dark, “when you're asking your body to stretch and loosen up, when you're in that moment where it's just you and your breath and your body...you're right here.” She reaches up slowly, her long fingers reaching across the space between us...and she presses her hand against my heart.
Wolf Pack Page 11
