She took less than five minutes, which he appreciated. She didn’t speak much to him, which once upon a time he would have appreciated even more, but things were different now. He didn’t know how exactly, or why, only that they were, and that he missed listening to her talk.
Halfway out to Gold Cove, he slowed. “It’s three miles straight out,” he told the group. “First one there gets the championship title and a framed picture of the group.”
They all took off. Katie, too, but he snagged the back of her coat and pulled her to his side.
She planted her poles and looked at him warily. “What?”
“I thought we could-”
“Here?” She eyed the trees speculatively. “What if one of them comes back?”
“Not that.” But he eyed the trees, too, suddenly liking her idea a whole lot better than what he’d planned on doing. There was a nice thick group of trees just ahead, he could have her in there, wrapped around him like a pretzel in like thirty seconds-
“Oh, if not that, then what? I could have had that championship title.”
“Yes, you could have. For holding back. I know, Katie.”
“Know what?”
“About the bridge collapse.”
“Yes, because I told you.”
“I know the details. How your car was flung out from between the two cement blocks like a piece of toast. How you hung upside down off that cliff for an hour after they got the flames out before they could get to you.”
Staring at him wide-eyed, she tried to take a step back, but the skis tripped her up. He slipped an arm around her waist while hitting the release on her skis with his pole so that she was released from the bindings.
Freed, she staggered away from him. “The details don’t matter. Not to me.”
“Then why are you still dreaming about them?”
The truth of that flickered across her face. “Fine. I didn’t tell you because this is a temp job, and I’m a temp, and-”
“Bullshit. That’s all such bullshit. You didn’t tell me because despite the fact that I’m supposed to trust you, you don’t have to trust me.”
“No,” she whispered, “that’s not it.”
“Then what? What is it? You’re the only one in the whole world who’s ever been in a life-altering situation and wondered what to do with themselves now?”
Her face closed up, and even while the apology was already forming on his tongue, she shook her head and pointed at him. “You, Cameron Wilder, you can go to hell.” She stomped back into her bindings and skied off, leaving him staring after her.
One consolation in this whole mess: She’d learned to ski like a damn pro.
That night Cam was slumped on his couch staring at the game while thinking about Katie. Katie smiling at him and making him smile back. Katie laughing with her whole face, that contagious laugh that made him let out a helpless one of his own.
Katie accepting him for who he was, and making him want to be the best man he could be.
When the knock came at his door, he figured it was Stone. Hoping like hell he’d pick a fight so Cam could cut loose of this tension, he got up and pulled open the door.
Not Stone.
It was Katie, with one of those smiles he’d just been daydreaming about, though it was a nervous one.
“You busy?” she asked
“Nope, I’m just watching a game. You know, before I go to hell.”
“Yeah.” She grimaced. “About that whole going to hell thing. Can I come in?”
“Sure.” He backed up so she could pass by him, and he all but buried his nose in her hair, that’s how desperate he was for the scent of her. She didn’t disappoint, smelling like some complicated, deliciously sexy mix of flowers and woman. “If you plan on yelling at me some more,” he said, “maybe you could wait until the commercial. The Patriots are down but at the ten-yard line.”
“I once accused you of being an ass and you apologized for it.” She turned to face him. “Today, I was the ass. Yesterday too. You didn’t mention it in so many words, but I’m still going to say I’m sorry.”
He looked into her eyes and wanted…wanted to hold her, touch her, be with her.
That terrifying.
That simple.
“You asked me earlier why I didn’t trust you,” she said softly. “The truth is, I didn’t trust
Well, he knew what
“Yes.”
It couldn’t be that easy. Could it? “Look, I’ve been wrong, a lot, so I want to be clear. We’re talking about…
“Well, it is a documented stress reliever.”
There, he thought. There was the light coming into her gaze, the one he’d missed. “My very favorite stress reliever,” he said. “And as a bonus, it scratches all itches, solves the universe’s problems, and-”
And Nick walked right into the cabin as if he owned it. He headed past Cam and Katie and straight for the refrigerator, helping himself to a beer.
“Nick?” Cam gestured with his chin toward Katie. “A little busy here.”
“No problem, I can wait.” He plopped down on the couch, sprawled his legs out, head back, eyes closed. “Take your time.”
Cam opened his mouth to say “Get the hell out,” but then he caught a good look at Nick’s face and the utter misery on it. Hell. He turned to Katie, who shook her head worriedly. With a squeeze of his hand, she let herself out.
Double hell.
Oblivious, Nick took a pull on his beer. “She’s fucking with my head.”
“Annie?”
“The UPS guy asked her out and I think she’s going to go. She’s waiting for me to sign the damn papers.”
Cam sighed and went for his own beer, but Nick had taken the last one. Perfect.
“You Wilders are crazy. All of you.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Cam sat on the coffee table facing Nick and nudged his knee with his own. “Look, you have two choices here, just two, and you know what they are.”
Nick set the beer down and nodded. “Actually, there’s only one. One choice.” He stood up and headed for the door.
“So that’s it?” Cam asked Nick’s back. “You chase the girl out of here and don’t even stay?”
Nick opened the front door. “You have two choices, Cam, and you know what they are.”
Yeah, hell if he wasn’t right. Cam followed Nick out, then turned in the opposite direction, heading in the falling darkness to Katie’s cabin. He knocked on her door and then stood there waiting, his blood pounding, his body on high alert.
“Who’s there?”
“The scratcher of your itch,” he said.
She opened the door a crack and stuck her nose out. “Was that supposed to be romantic?”
“Okay, how about this. I came bearing all the answers to the universe’s problems.”
She lifted a shoulder, distinctly unimpressed.
Huh. This wasn’t going quite as planned. He decided to try her favorite thing-words. “Okay, here’s the thing. I’ve never been much of a romantic. Honestly, I’ve never had to be.”
“Because women always throw themselves at you.”
Well, yeah. In the past, that was definitely true, not that he was stupid enough to say so. “Does it count that there’s no one,
She opened the door a few more inches, standing there all whiskey-eyed, her lips shiny with lip gloss that smelled like…watermelon.
