by Holley Trent
They had things to talk about.
Or she did.
Or him and Bruce.
Someone, any of them. They needed to figure things out before Raleigh slipped out of reach.
He tugged at the knot of his cashmere scarf and looked from her to Bruce and back. Try as she might, there was nothing to glean from his expression, except the typical haughtiness that always lived there. She’d come to learn that was just Raleigh, though. The arrogance was an intricate veneer he painted on to keep people from getting in, but it wasn’t going to stop her. She’d broken through it once. She knew all the secrets and he couldn’t take them back.
“I didn’t see any reason to stay,” he said. “I’ve seen what I need to.”
“I don’t think you have,” she whispered.
“Well!” Lisa said in a voice dripping with annoyance. “Looks like this storm is going to take a squat on top of us for the better part of two days. Sorry, Bruce, I’m fresh out of sweatpants for you to borrow.”
Bruce didn’t appear to be listening. He was looking at Raleigh, who was looking at Lisa.
It wasn’t an I-hate-you look, or even a this-is-weird look, but a longing one. An awed one.
Everley understood. She felt the same way.
“I’m going to go check on the horses,” Lisa said.
He’d heard that, apparently. He got to his feet and found his boots near the fireplace. “Put me to work, love.”
“We’ll try to get through it as quickly as possible. I hate snow.”
Bruce went with her, but not before tossing a querying gaze over his shoulder that Everley could only meet with worry.
She didn’t know what she was doing or what he must have been thinking. She knew what she wanted, though, which was a rare feeling for her.
She wasn’t going to run it away or tamp it down. She was going to ride the wave and see where it took her.
Maybe it wouldn’t crash.
* * *
“Do you hear that?” Lisa asked.
She and Bruce were halfway back to the lodge with snow shovels leaned on their shoulders. His heart had been thrashing in his ears so bombastically from worry that he hadn’t heard what she was referencing. He stopped and took a breath. Ev was going to be exactly where he’d left her, but with Raleigh there with her, her opinion of Bruce might change for the worse. He needed to get in there and do damage control.
He heard what Lisa must have been referencing then—the wet, whirring sound of spinning tires atop packed snow. “Someone’s here?”
“Yeah, and that’s not Raleigh trying to get out.” She gestured toward the lodge’s window, through which they could clearly see Ev idling by the coffee table and Raleigh moving toward the door.
“Are you sure you weren’t due any guests?” Bruce asked.
“Sweetie, I wouldn’t forget if I had paying customers on the way. Trust me.”
A door slammed up front.
Bruce hurried to stow his shovel, and Lisa’s.
There came the hollow thud of a heavy-fisted knock against the thick front door.
Bruce caught a glimpse of Ev shooing Raleigh away and opening the door herself, just before he caught Lisa’s spit of “Shit,” and her tug of his arm with a “Get out of the window!” warning.
Memory caught up—prior images of the man who’d darkened the doorway.
He’d joked about Bruce’s novel in front of a full ballroom.
Bruce had played along then as a defense mechanism, and he regretted that he had. He didn’t have time to chase old regrets, though. Somehow, Ev’s father was there, and Lisa’s harried pacing by the woodpile was a major hint that she found some flaw in the visit.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“I’m going in. I’m not going to just leave her in there.”
“You can’t go in there, Bruce. It’s bad enough that Raleigh’s in there because he works for Athena.”
“And?”
“And I hope Raleigh’s a damn good liar on the fly because whatever the truth is, it’s none of Shannon’s business.”
“And what truth are you referencing?”
“Whatever the truth is about you two dudes and my friend.”
“Ev’s my girl.”
“Super. And what about him?”
Bruce gritted his teeth. He’d thought he liked Lisa. He wasn’t certain anymore. “What about him?”
“Whose boy is he? Because it seems to me like he belongs to someone.”
Bruce must have been as obvious as a lit-up lighthouse. Maybe it was apparent to everyone that he was hung up on Raleigh and shouldn’t have been.
Maybe it’d been obvious to Ev, too, and that was why she’d asked him what she had. She didn’t think Bruce could want her, but that wasn’t true. He wanted her more than anything, loved her more than anything, but that didn’t make the ache in his chest go away when Raleigh was in a room. That didn’t make the yearning stop or the desire to put the man in a “Saving for Later” compartment in his brain, because of course he’d need Raleigh again. He’d want him again, even if he already had more than his fair share of companionship with Ev, and there was no damn way to make sense of why that was.
Lisa leaned toward the window and immediately grimaced.
That lit a fire under Bruce. He wasn’t going to stand out in the cold in too-short pants waiting for disaster to sort itself out. He had the back door open and his stare laser-focused on Ev’s stricken expression.
He was heading toward her, heedless of the fact Raleigh had drawn her in close to him and was holding her about the waist.
Heedless of the fact that Shannon was yelling and that Lisa had called out some kind of greeting.
Whatever she’d said silenced Shannon and made him turn to her.
Raleigh leaned into Bruce’s gaze and gave his head a terse warning shake. The crease in his brow deepened as he pressed a finger to his lips.
Ev’s cheeks were red as rosebuds and eyes a bit wet, but even she mouthed “Wait. Please.”
Only because she’d asked, he would.
“Damn. I knew Everley had to turn up somewhere,” Shannon bellowed. “I should have checked here first.”
Lisa’s smile was big and undoubtedly disingenuous. “I had no idea you kept up with my whereabouts. I’m flattered.”
“I get the alumni magazine.”
The grin fell off. “That so?”
“It is.” He turned and glowered at Everley.
She’d dried her eyes, but the hurt was still there and Raleigh was in the way. Stroking her arm. Standing far too close.
“What’s wrong with your phone? Had my assistant call ten times or more but there’s something wrong with it. Your mother is worried sick.”
Bruce would have spoken, had he been the one on the receiving end of Shannon’s furious stare. His nerves would have tumbled out of his mouth and further ensnared him in the other man’s anger. She was silent and still, barely blinking as she returned the look.
Her eyes may have been glassy, but she was fierce, his Ev.
He hated that she had to be.
And he hated he couldn’t take the brunt on her behalf.
“I want to know what the hell is going on here,” Shannon shouted and Bruce’s whole body stiffened into its familiar fight-or-flight stance.
He knew damned well he wasn’t running anywhere—not without Ev.
Fight it is, then.
Shannon clipped Bruce in his gaze as he spun back around, and as though he’d finally realized who Bruce was, he turned back and jabbed a finger in his direction. “The hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in the city promoting your book.”
“Fuck the book.” Full of impatience and irritation, Bruce snarled, “I’m getting my gi—”
“My first high-prof
ile client!” Lisa interjected in a high-pitched, syrupy voice that could have made his nuts shrivel.
He was so stunned by her interference that when she looped an arm around his and guided him within a collegial distance of Shannon, he didn’t stop her.
“Bruce is doing me a tremendous favor,” she said cheerily. “He’s going to do a bit of word-of-mouth advertising and help get the right kind of clientele in here for me.”
“Did you know Everley was here?”
The question was directed at Bruce.
That time, Raleigh intervened with, “Evidently, you have nothing to be concerned about. Everley is fine.”
Bruce’s indignation flared at being talked over yet again and this time by people he’d thought cared for him. But it flopped.
It was different.
They weren’t trying to silence him. They were trying to protect all of them and silence Shannon. Bruce simply wasn’t used to that sort of teamwork. He was, apparently, in a team. The idea made him smile, but only briefly because Shannon had turned his ill temper back to Everley.
“Who says she’s fine? Doesn’t look it.”
“Says me?” Everley quipped in a shaky voice. “Perhaps you and Connor can head back into the city before you get stuck out here. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the weather, but it’s going to get worse. You...you don’t need to be here.”
“You’re slumming.”
“Excuse the hell out of me?” Lisa snapped.
“Stop,” Raleigh said in an authoritative tone that actually made Shannon back up a bit. “Just stop. You don’t want to believe her. I get it. You can’t understand why she would choose to do anything beyond what you prescribed for her, but perhaps you should have listened. And perhaps now, you should consider that the clues were there all along but no one listened. She was unhappy. Would you truly demand that she remain that way?”
“You’re walking on a knife’s edge right now, McKean,” Shannon said, stabbing a finger in Raleigh’s direction. “You helped her with this? Why are you here?”
“I thought it would be very obvious by now that we’re in love.”
Shannon may not have caught the brief widening of Ev’s eyes before Raleigh hid her against his chest, but Bruce certainly did. And in that moment, he wasn’t certain which of them he envied more.
He was even more confused as to what that meant.
“You’re...what?” the man bellowed.
“I’d chase her to the ends of the earth,” Raleigh said in a tone nearly as syrupy as the one Lisa had earlier utilized. Even Bruce almost bought it. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re dating my daughter?”
“I am.”
“Since when?”
“If you’re asking if I thought I could sleep my way up the Athena food chain, I take full offense. And obviously, that is no longer an issue. I’m there because I choose to be.”
“And... I’m not for the same reason,” Ev said, finding her voice again.
Good for you, love.
She squared her shoulders and faced her father, and Bruce couldn’t have been prouder of her than he was at that moment. “You really should go, Daddy. Seriously. Get the hell out of here before the plows stop running and whatever road you took in becomes a parking lot. The fact you got here at all is a miracle.”
“Are you going to be at work on Monday?”
Ev pointed to herself. “Me?”
“Yes, you. I invested a lot in you, little girl. You’re not going to embarrass me. You got to be grateful for the opportunities you’ve been given, and you haven’t been. Not once, have you?”
Bruce whistled low and made everyone in the room turn toward him.
His mistake, but he wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t there. If there was a chance he could take some of the heat off Ev, he was going to try. They were a team. He could pull his weight. “Here I was, thinking my family reunions were awkward. When I was in London recently, my father offered me my choice of small islands if I’d do an advance retraction of some things I said in the tour documentary. Unfortunately for him, I’m not as mercenary as all that.”
“And neither am I,” Ev said, “though no one’s ever offered me an island.” To her father, she said, “Just listen to me, Daddy. I’m done. I should have been out years ago and given someone with passion a shot at the job. Athena’s authors deserve to have teams filled with people who are not only enthusiastic about the products they put out, but also about their place in the company. It’s done. I’m done, and I’ll appreciate you keeping your unkind sentiments to yourself about what I’m choosing to do now. I’m going to be happy. It doesn’t matter to me anymore if my idea of happy looks right to you. It’s right for me. I love you, Daddy, but if you can’t accept my choice, then perhaps this should be the last conversation we have for a while.”
Shannon stared. Nostrils flaring, lips tight and pale, skin going blotchy.
And then he sniffed, tugged his coat lapels tight together, and gave Lisa an “As you were” nod.
She didn’t nod back.
There wasn’t a sound anywhere in the lodge except for the crackling of wood in the fireplace until long after whatever vehicle Shannon had arrived in had trudged back to the road and the sound of the motor abated.
Lisa shut and locked the front door and put her back against it.
Ev stood, staring at nothing in particular and wringing her hands.
“It feels bad,” Raleigh said softly, smoothing back her hair. “It feels like shit when you have to do it, but when they don’t see you as adults, they’re always stunned when you make a stand.”
“I hate to admit that he’s right.” With Shannon gone, Bruce could pull Ev against him and hold her until her shaking stopped.
He felt better that he could help. He felt better that she molded against him, hiding her face in his borrowed shirt and gripping the waistband of his pants for dear life.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Will you let me help you feel better?”
He would feel better, too. Wanted.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please do. For as long as you want.”
“That might be for a very long time.”
“Perfect. That’s perfect.”
He truly believed that until Raleigh walked away, jangling his keys and heading back to his lonesome bungalow.
She watched him leave and Bruce was annoyed until he’d realized he was going to do the exact same thing.
“Whose boy is he?” Lisa had asked.
Raleigh wasn’t anyone’s.
And somehow, that seemed wrong.
It seemed wrong that he was the most honest one of them all. The one who fixed things. The magician who could speak a few words and make pressure disappear.
Someone should have him. If not Bruce or Ev, then...
“I love you to death, Bruce, but...there’s something we need to sort out.”
All too often, Bruce experienced the surge of elation and then the crash moments later when the totality of a statement settled into his brain. Ev had given him the words he’d desperately needed to hear—“I love you”—only to snatch him back down with “but.”
Some caveat. Some “but.”
He swallowed thickly and closed his eyes. Too many sensations to process all at once. “What is it?”
“Come.” She took his hand in hers and led him past Lisa and out toward the bungalows. “It’s not what, but who.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Raleigh had just taken off his soggy-hemmed pants and draped them over the radiator when the door rattled.
God, what now?
If there were an inventor nearby looking for test subject volunteers to try out a new teleportation device, he would have been first to throw his hand up. Although he wasn’t foolish enough to foll
ow Shannon out on those icy roads, Raleigh wanted off that property, and away from the continual letdowns. Bruce was there, taunting with his mere proximity, wanting to talk, wanting to create, wanting attention for it. Getting Raleigh out of his own head and making him freewheel in a chasm of ideas and energy, but he wasn’t for him. It was too late. And Everley was there, as tender and demanding of comfort as ever, and he wanted to provide it. But there was someone better at that—more natural at that—and she’d figured that out.
She’d made her choice.
They’d be happy, her and Bruce. They knew how to visit each other’s wavelengths for a while, and all that mattered was that they wanted to keep trying to.
Good for them.
He couldn’t bring himself to hating, either. He didn’t know how to anymore.
“What?” he shouted at the door.
“Can we come in? It’s so cold out here.”
“Everley?” he murmured.
Elation surged. There she was—coming to him—but there went annoyance, too.
“We” she’d said, and he didn’t think her entourage was Lisa.
He yanked the tragically cold pants off the heater. If he was going to get tortured, he was going to endure it fully dressed.
He’d barely gotten his fly fastened and the door unlocked before it crashed open, letting in the bitter cold and his last two lovers.
Everything he wanted in one small place.
Everley stomped snow off her boots and turned up the heat. “You left so fast. I had things I wanted to say. This morning has jarred me in unexpected ways.”
Bruce was giving Raleigh an inscrutable stare, but there was an obvious tinge of annoyance about it. Or inconvenience, perhaps.
Rolling his eyes, Raleigh plopped on the bed.
Of course Bruce was inconvenienced. He probably wanted to be rolling around in a warm bed with Everley watching snow fall instead of doing what he was.
Raleigh wasn’t actually sure what that was, but he hoped it was quick.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Everley said. “We have some things in common that I didn’t know about before, and I just want to get a reality check about what’s possible and what’s just ridiculous.”
