Keep On Loving You

Okay, maybe he was a little ticked that she was ticked. It wasn’t as if it had been intentional.

Lie.

But he hadn’t intended it to happen, that was true. The opportunity had just presented itself as she moved her lips toward him, coming in for a cheek-swipe. Instead of offering up the side of his face, he’d cheated just a little and provided his mouth instead.

Sue him.

He hadn’t even tried any tongue.

But still, the kiss had been electric. Zing. Hiss. Wowza.

Mac had panicked, jerking away and staring at him through accusatory eyes. That won’t happen again, she’d said.

He’d responded with a shrug and left as he’d promised, happy enough that it had happened once. Not that he’d explained any of that. But why wouldn’t he be pleased that the old black magic had set off a spark? It only went to prove that his memory had not overelaborated all the sputter and steam that had been kissing Mac.

The flames and the burn that had been bedding Mac.

Best not to think about that now, though. He applied himself instead to helpings of an excellent lasagna, green salad and garlic bread. As the meal wound down, he tuned into the talk around the table. Then he had to turn to the woman on his right, Angelica, Brett’s wife.

“What cabins?” he asked in an undertone.

“Do you know about the mountain, the fire?”

He nodded. The Walkers owned a tract of land, the last from what their ancestors had purchased when they’d first arrived to log the mountains 150 years before. A small ski resort had been situated there, run by the family, which had burned to the ground when they were kids. “They’re rebuilding?”

“Can’t,” Angelica reported. “Their dad sold off the top of the mountain—”

“To a man who refuses to speak with us,” her husband said from the other side of the table. He must have caught the drift of Zan’s conversation with Angelica. “Victor Fremont.”

“No spitting,” Ryan put in, holding up a hand.

While no actual saliva was involved, the siblings turned their heads to the side and pretended to spit on the rug at their feet. Four shoes rubbed there and then four fingers made crosses over their respective hearts.

“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 thinking 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.”

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