Renata had a different reaction.
“I know that chica. She came up here early on asking questions about our guests. Are you sure we can trust her?” Renata pulled out a rack of bread loaves, her silvering hair frizzing from the steamy oven.
“She was looking for her missing father, that’s all. Pretty sure she was upfront about that.”
“Yeah, still, now she’s back and now it’s something else. You know I’m not going anywhere, I got a job to do here. Just watch yourself, that’s all I’m gonna say.”
Renata was always a fierce protector of anything Rocky Peak-related, so Griffin didn’t argue with her.
He did notice that the phrase she used—watch yourself—was similar to the one Senator Walker had used.
Serena really knew how to get herself into hot water.
He also warned John Derrick, asking him to pass along the word to his crew of four workers. The contractor listened carefully, giving Griffin his full attention. He had a solid strength that gave Griffin some comfort. One more layer of backup—should it be needed.
“Sounds like a mess,” John said when Griffin had finished his explanation. “She has moxie, going up against a senator like that.”
“Moxie, that’s a good word for it.” He noticed that the contractor didn’t have his usual gung-ho spirit. “How’s it going with the job? I missed a couple days, but things are looking good.”
“Oh yeah, we’re cruising along just fine. It’s a good thing we’re working inside now. When it chills down it’s hard to get the guys motivated.”
“Right.” But there was something more, Griffin could tell. “And your son? Marley?”
Bingo. A quick look of distress came over John’s face, though he tried to hide it. “Not bad. Not bad.”
“The team is six and oh now, right?”
“Right. Marley gets stopped in the street sometimes, people congratulating him.”
Griffin smiled nostalgically. “I remember how good that used to feel. Now I get stopped so people can yell at me for retiring. I guess Marley gets to be town hero now.”
“I wish he’d quit that shit and focus on his classes.” John’s forceful tone took Griffin by surprise.
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“He comes back from practice and something’s not right. He won’t say what. Won’t say anything. He’s shut down, and my boy’s never been like that before. Won’t talk to either me or Sally.” He glanced at Griffin, forehead crinkling. “You want to give it a try? I told you he has your old jersey number.”
“Definitely, but do you think he’s going to trust some guy just because I had the same number?”
“You’re more than some guy,” John said simply. “You’re Griffin Rockwell.”
That night in bed, he told Serena the whole story of Coach Artie Nelson, then and now.
She was shocked that the man she’d served drinks to had such a dark side. “Do you think he’s being a jerk to Marley too?”
“I don’t know. But his father wants me to talk to him.”
“You’re going to, right?”
“Hell yes. I told the coach I’d be watching.” He grinned. “To quote John Derrick, I’m not just some guy, I’m Griffin Rockwell.”
“That’s right.” She ran her hand down his torso, lingering on each ridge of muscle, driving him crazy. “You’re not just some guy, you’re a stud who makes me come so hard my ears pop. You’re not just some guy, you’re the man I want to strip naked every time I see you walking through the lodge. You’re not just some guy, you’re…”
“I get it, I get it.” He hauled her on top of him, so her naked body straddled his, and licked his thumb—the better to tease her with. She sucked in a breath as he put his wet thumb to her clit and that was the end of that conversation.
The next day, John brought his son to the worksite. Griffin gave it his best shot, but Marley refused to say a word against the Eagles, any of the players, the coach, or anything related to football. The fact that the team was now seven-and-oh was the only thing he wanted to talk about, along with his own stats.
“Listen, Marley. When I played for Coach Nelson there were things I didn’t like. Things that crossed the line. But I can’t do much unless a current player speaks up. For all I know he’s changed.”
Marley stared at him sullenly, his initial excitement about meeting Griffin gone. “You’re crazy. Coach got us to seven-and-oh.”
“He couldn’t do that without you and the team,” Griffin pointed out.
“Whatever.”
Oh yes. Something was definitely wrong.
Before Serena got started on her portrait of Max, she took a few days to pitch in with the Thanksgiving preps. Once she immersed herself in the painting process, it was hard to think about anything else. Max didn’t mind waiting, since he thought the whole thing was a joke anyway.
She bundled up in her wool jacket and went into the woods with Nicole to cut pine boughs to decorate the table. Heavy gray clouds loomed overhead; everyone was placing bets on when the “first snowfall” would happen.
Apparently, the official first snowfall had to be at least a quarter inch of accumulated snow to qualify, and they hadn’t quite hit that mark yet.
As a “welcome to Rocky Peak” gift, Griffin had given Serena a hunting knife—the same kind she’d been eyeing in the sporting good store in town. She had it strapped to her hip, where it made her feel powerful and badass, even though at the moment she was only using it for table decor.
She slid it from its holder and sawed off a pine bough, sighing happily at how smoothly it cut.
Nicole laughed at her expression. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”
Serena kissed the smooth metal of the blade. “Come to Mama. Griffin gave this to me, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever gotten.”
“He gave you a knife?” Nicole laughed. “Now that’s the sign of a solid relationship.”
“Oh no. It’s not like that. Not a ‘relationship,’” Serena said quickly. “It’s strictly a ‘while we’re here, and while we’re both into it,’ kind of thing. You know Griffin. He’s the Rogue. Enough said.”
“Well, I don’t know Griffin as well as you do, obviously, but that’s not the impression I get. He’s a charmer, for sure. He can hardly help it, with those good looks of his. What I see is girls pursuing him and him just wanting to live his life.”
That sounded like a pretty accurate description to Serena. “That’s why we started hanging out. He was my bodyguard and I was his girl shield.” That seemed so long ago. She and Griffin had come so far since then—and so fast. But that didn’t mean it was going to last. “That’s really as far as it goes, Nicole.”
The other woman shrugged, an amused sparkle in her clear blue eyes. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s your business, yours and Griffin’s.”
“Okay, but just so you know, we’re not a match made in heaven the way you and Kai are.” She heard the wistful note in her own voice. Kai and Nicole seemed blazingly happy together. They both lit up when they were around each other.
“Kai and I were sworn enemies at first, so don’t write anything off.”
“Sworn enemies? That sounds like a recipe for trouble.”
Nicole winked. “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.”
The contrast between her sweet, heart-shaped face and her obviously naughty implication made Serena laugh. “Okay then. Say no more.”
“I think we have enough pine boughs.”
“Really?” Serena looked regretfully at her knife. She wasn’t ready to put it away yet. “Is there anything else that needs cutting or sawing or slicing?”
“Will it work for making pie dough shapes?”
“Let’s find out. I need something to impress Renata with. That woman is hard to win over.”
“She’s protective, that’s all.” They headed back toward the lodge, both carrying an armload of pine boughs. “Stick around and she’ll love you.”
&
nbsp; And that, right there, was the problem. Sticking around wasn’t really on the agenda, no matter how much she liked the lodge. And Griffin. And every moment she spent in Griffin’s arms.
Finally it was time for her first session with Max. Right off the bat, things got off to a rocky start. He insisted on sitting in his favorite leather chair in the solarium, with the mountain range stretched out behind him. That meant that she had to squint right into the sun.
“Let me angle the chair that way,” she suggested, throwing up a hand to block the sun.
“Nope. This is the best view.”
“Not for me. I can’t even see you.” She took off her glasses, which she used for distance more than anything, and shaded her eyes against the glare.
“I can see you.” He peered in at her. “You. I know you.”
“Of course you do. I’m Serena Riggs, I’ve been staying here for a few days now—”
He waved her off. “Shh. No. Your eyes. Very familiar.”
Her eyes? Basic brown, not much special about them. Thick eyelashes, but that wasn’t anything a man would notice. Unless…
“Did you meet someone else with eyes like mine?” She held her breath. Another clue? First Max had recognized the name Riggs, now maybe her eyes.
“How would I know?” He grumbled, sitting back. “People come and go. Annoying as hell, people are.”
“Can’t disagree with you there,” she murmured.
“What was that?”
Griffin strolled in just then. Serena blinked at him. Her sketchbook was open on her lap, but so far she hadn’t made a single stroke with the pencil gripped in her fist. “Griff, do you happen to have any sunglasses?”
Catching onto the situation immediately, he frowned at his father. “Why are you sitting there, Dad? You look like a human lightbulb from this angle.”
“Gotta get Bald Peak in the painting. It’s named after my grandfather.”
Serena let out a snort. “Bald Peak is named after your grandfather?”
“He was bald as a cabbage and proud of it.” He thumped his cane and angled his head for a three-quarter profile. “How’s this look?”
“Blinding.” The sun was right behind his lion’s mane of white hair.
“I have an idea. Hang on.” Griffin disappeared for a second, while she shaded her eyes and watched Max try to strike the perfect “patriarch” pose.
“You’re a natural, Mr. Rockwell. That pose will work great.”
“Call me Max, missy. Mad Max if you’re feeling lucky.”
She smiled. “I’m not sure I’ll ever feel that lucky.”
“You got a mouth on you, don’t you? That’s good. I like that. What did you say your last name was again? Riggs? Damn, that rings a bell.”
But she didn’t find out which bell he meant, because Griffin came back just then with a pair of—of all things—ski goggles. “Try these.”
“I can’t sketch in ski goggles.”
“Why not?”
“See, son? This is a waste of time. Just take a damn photo and be done with it. I got better things to do than sit around here.”
“You do, Dad? Like what?”
Max subsided, grumbling. “Like keeping you kids from pissing away your legacy, that’s what. Your generation, nothing but problems. Walking away from a championship career, that’s just the start.”
“And…here we go.” The edge in Griffin’s voice made her want to jump to his defense. She put on the ski goggles and found that they cut the glare just enough so she could see what she was doing.
Putting pencil to paper, she made her first line—Max’s neck, from the stubborn tilt of his chin and the broad bush of his beard, down to his burly, stooped shoulder. Just like that, he came to life on her page, and she could see all the other details just waiting to be filled in.
Max was still muttering to himself, or maybe to Griffin. “All of you kids, you do things your own way. I look back and I don’t know what happened. I come up for air and boom, Kai’s gone. Next thing I know, you’re off racing and you don’t even live here anymore. Look up later and there goes—”
“Isabelle,” said Griffin.
“Like I said, Isabelle.”
“No, Isabelle. She’s here. She just drove up in that old beater of hers from high school.”
Griffin bolted out of the room, heading for the front entrance. Max craned his neck to see out the window. “Yup, that’s my girl out there, though you’d never know it. Looks nothing like the Rockwell side. She’s all Amanda, through and through. Well, would you look at that?”
“What now?” Serena laid down her pencil, even though it felt like setting down a magic wand that didn’t want to leave her hand. Energy sang through it, the pure joy of sketching, which she hadn’t done since San Francisco.
“It’s snowing. Snowing hard. This’ll stick, if I know my snow. And I do.”
She closed her sketchbook and pushed the ski goggles onto the top of her head. “Want me to go outside, Max? So you can greet your daughter?”
“Nope. I want to go outside so I can feel the snow.”
Ornery man. She helped him up from his chair and handed him his cane.
“Let’s go, Mad Max.”
“Mad Max … So you’re feeling lucky, are you?”
“Absolutely. This is the day I picked in the first snowfall pool. I just won five hundred dollars.”
Cackling with delight, he slapped her hand in a high five, and they made their way out into the snow.
When they got outside, they found Griffin with his sister locked in an airborne hug, her feet off the ground. He set her down, and she swayed for a moment, as if he’d hugged the breath right out of her. Snow danced around them in swirls that were quickly picking up speed.
Serena felt snowflakes on her cheeks, on her lips, on her hair. It was the most extraordinary feeling, like a blessing from the sky.
Despite what Max had said, Serena recognized Isabelle instantly as a Rockwell. They all had some variation of green eyes, but hers were a true, vivid, rainforest green. Her face was tanned from her stint in the Sudan, and her mahogany hair held coppery streaks from the sun. Serena instantly wanted to paint her, to see if she could capture that special quality of aliveness that radiated from her.
Isabelle spotted them, her face lighting up at the sight of her father. “Dad!” She hurried toward them, and pressed her cheek to Max’s. “It’s snowing! And I’m home! And you must be Nicole.”
Before Serena could correct her, she was being wrapped in a wholehearted hug. “I wouldn’t let just anyone snap up my brother, but I can tell you’re absolutely meant to be a Rockwell. Welcome to the family.”
She drew back, biting her lip in amusement. “Sorry, wrong woman. I’m Serena. I’m…uh—”
Max saved her. “She’s painting my portrait.”
“Oh. What a great idea.” Isabelle squinted at her hair. “In my old ski goggles?”
Serena’s hand flew to the goggles still sitting on top of her head. “Right.” She laughed. “These are yours? Sorry, it was very bright in there and—”
This time Griffin came to her rescue. “And I snagged your goggles for her.” He draped his arm around Serena’s shoulders. “Just in time, too. Just look at this snow. This is the real thing, ladies and gentleman. Welcome to winter at Rocky Peak.”
They all tilted their faces up to the ever-thicker flurry of flakes. A smile spread across Serena’s face, and she couldn’t remember when she’d felt happier than right this minute. She leaned against Griffin’s chest, knowing that he was a huge part of the reason, and not sure just what to do with that fact.
When she looked back down, she found Isabelle gazing curiously at her, a light in her dancing green eyes. “I stand by my previous statement,” she murmured. Previous statement…Serena rewound the past few minutes, landing on ‘meant to be a Rockwell.’
Wait…what?
Before she could respond, Isabelle skipped around to take Max’s arm. “Let�
�s go inside so I can grill you about your heart. Don’t worry, Dad, it won’t hurt a bit.”
“Just my pride,” he grumbled.
As soon as they were gone, Griffin drew Serena into a deep embrace that seemed to encompass every piece of her. “So … you wanna build a snowman?”
She laughed. “We might need a little more accumulation first.”
“I’m patient. I can’t wait to see what kind of art you make out of snow. We used to have snowman competitions here every winter. Maybe we should bring that back, just so you can put us all to shame.”
“Oh, it is on! I will whip every single Rockwell’s ass at snowman building. How does it work? Is there a time limit? Categories? Judges? Trophies?”
“All of the above.” He was laughing at her enthusiasm. “But you’re going to have competition. Gracie has the artsy touch and Isabelle can’t stand to lose.”
“I’m sorry to tell her that she’ll have to get used to it. That trophy is mine.” She lifted herself on tiptoe so she could bite his chin ever so lightly. Griffin was just so edible, every bit of him.
His arms tightened around her. “So how does it feel?”
“How does what feel? Being held in your arms in the snow? Spectacular.”
He laughed, his chest rumbling against hers. “No, how does it feel to be making art again instead of slinging drinks?”
She tilted backwards against the circle of his arms. “It feels…like a miracle.”
These days, she had to confess, a lot of things felt that way.
23
With the new snow on the ground, Griffin dragged himself out of Serena’s bed the next morning to help Isabelle set tracks for the ski trails. They glided across the first layer of new snow, through glittering clouds of snow crystals suspended in the air.
They skied for a time in comfortable silence as they got into the familiar groove of slide, slide.
The Rogue Page 16
