Frosted (3 page)

“So, I’m Tracy Bradshaw, called Tray. And you are…?”

Pip.
No.

Kate.
No.

“Grace.”

“Grace,” he whispered reverently. He tilted his neck back and looked up at her face, his blue eyes filled with wonder as he searched her eyes. “Like Grace Kelley. That’s the prettiest name I ever heard. You know? I don’t think I’ve ever met a Grace in real-life before.”

“Now you have,” she answered, and without giving them permission, her lips tilted up into a smile.

His smile widened as his warm hand clamped around her socked ankle and guided her foot into the first ski boot. “Now I have.”

Tray had offered to send Roger with her, but Grace had declined the services of a tour guide, feeling an intense need to unscramble her head by taking deep gulps of fresh, mountain air and talking herself out an unsuitable attraction that had rocked her fifty-six year old body like a bolt of lightning.

“I’d offer to take you myself,” Tray had said, his face pursing with regret, “but I have a meeting with the resort manager in an hour. I can assure you that no one knows the trails like Roger, here.”

“I’ll be fine,” Grace had insisted, her heart leaping a little from his words.

“I hope so.” He’d grimaced a little, opening the door of the rental shop and looking up at the sky. “I don’t like the way it’s looking, Grace. Too much cloud cover.”

Grace had taken her phone out of her parka pocket and checked the weather. “It says it’s going to clear up by noon.”

His eyes had darted to the phone. “Do me a favor and put my number in there? If anything happens…anything—you get stuck, you get tired, you name it—you call me and I’ll come get you or send Roger, okay?”

She’d stared back at him, boiling down his entire message to:
I want to give you my phone number.
When she didn’t answer, he’d tugged the phone from her hands and programmed his number in himself, then handed it back to her, still warm from his hands. She’d clasped it against her chest, rather than dropping it back into her pocket. “Okay.”

He scanned her body slowly, then, from the pom-pommed black angora hat on her head to her black parka and leather gloves, to her blue jeans, stuffed into cross country boots. “You look real good, Grace. Ready to go, I guess.”

She squelched the slight whimper that threatened to break free from the back of her throat and grabbed the skis and poles Roger was holding out for her.

“I’m off, then!” she’d chirped, turning her back to them and quickly exiting the shop.

And now here she was…a couple of miles from the rec center, all alone, trying to make sense of what had just happened between her and Tracy Bradshaw. She planted her sticks and slid forward, again and again, a sheen of sweat covering her brow.

While part of her was desperate to believe that Mr. Bradshaw had been flirting with her, a louder, more sensible part of Grace insisted that his job was to work with wealthy resort guests, and he was expected to be amenable and charming to
all
of them. Right? Right.

Plant pole, slide. Plant pole, slide.

It wasn’t his fault that he was an exceptionally good-looking man—the sort of man who made a sensible woman’s mind wander. A little short, maybe, but his body was a tight package of muscle, obviously no stranger to hard work and lots of exercise. His eyes were utterly captivating and when he smiled, those laugh lines testified to decades of good humor.

Though she’d checked out his ring finger covertly several times, there wasn’t a ring, indentation or a tan line, and she wondered about Roger’s mother. Surely there had been a Mrs. Bradshaw at some point? But not for some time, Grace guessed. It had taken her over a year to part with her own wedding ring, and another to lose the tan line and indentation. If he’d ever worn one, she guessed it was at least two or three years ago.

And a man like that almost certainly has a girlfriend
, she told herself, suddenly thrusting her poles a little too deep into the snow and having to yank them back out. He fairly reeked of virility—a man like that wasn’t spending his nights alone. Oh, no. He’d have some local woman in his bed…a masseuse who worked in the hotel spa perhaps, or the concierge at the reception desk. Grace had noticed an attractive woman about her age when she checked in—it was completely possible she was Mr. Bradshaw’s paramour.

Her eyes narrowed and she compensated for her envy of this charmed concierge by increasing her pace. Plant, slide, plant, slide, plant slide.

“It’s none…of your business…with whom…Mr. Bradshaw…spends his time,” she panted.

She was here for some exercise and to enjoy the bounty of nature, and anyway, she’d be gone the day after tomorrow. The upshot of the situation, she tried to convince herself, was that meeting Mr. Bradshaw had proven that Grace wasn’t too old to feel the sharp pang of desire, but her renewed spirits were short-lived as her mind settled on a troubling thought. Her throat tightened a little when she thought about her fifty-six year old body. She had always been fit, which meant she wasn’t in bad shape for her age, but almost six decades of wear and tear had left stretch marks, wrinkles, sun spots and the odd varicose vein. The only man who’d ever looked upon her small breasts and soft belly had been Harold, and truth be told, there hadn’t been a lot of looking—mostly just fumbles in the dark, under the covers, without much looking at all.

Grace bit her lip as she wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to
be
with Mr. Bradshaw—to be clasped against his muscular body, to feel the heat of his skin pressing into hers.
He
would look at her. He would insist. She felt it in her bones. He’d want to
see
everything. Her breathing hitched and her cheeks flamed. She certainly wasn’t ready for anything like that. Was she? No, she wasn’t. Absolutely not. Absolutely, positively not.

A drop of sweat plunked from her forehead to her lip and she paused her skis, licking the saltiness away with her tongue, and looking ahead. So consumed with her thoughts, she wasn’t completely sure where she was now, but at some point she’d left the marked trail. Looking to her right, she saw the mountain she’d stared at this morning from her hotel window, and to her left was a vast, snow-covered field. Or lake. She couldn’t be sure, but it was flat and covered in snow.

Buzz buzz. Buzz buzz.

The phone in her pocket was buzzing and her heart hammered, wondering if it was Mr. Bradshaw checking up on her. She pulled off a glove with her teeth and grabbed the phone from her pocket, her breath catching to see the name “The White Deer Inn” pop up in the Caller ID box.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly.

“Ah! Mrs. Holden?”

Her face fell when she heard a woman’s perky voice on the other side of the line, and for a moment she was perplexed. Was this woman looking for Grace’s deceased mother? It took her a moment to remember that she’d given her maiden name when she checked-in at the hotel.

“Hello, there. Is this Mrs. Holden?”

“Yes. Yes, this is Grace Holden.”

“This is Marissa Meyers, the coordinator for the Silver Wings weekend.”

Grace grimaced. “Mm-hm. Yes.”

“We missed you at breakfast and I noted you also missed the scavenger hunt this morning.”

Grace was silent. She was fifty-six years old. She was worth almost twenty million dollars. She’d raised four children and buried a husband. She refused to answer to a resort activity coordinator, or account for her time to anyone.

Miss Meyers continued sheepishly. “Well, I, um, I wanted to be sure everything was okay.”

“Yes,” answered Grace. “I decided to do a little skiing this morning.”

“Oh. Oh, well that’s…wonderful. I wish I’d known. I could have paired you up with one of our bachelors.”

Grace wrinkled her nose.

“Mrs. Holden?”

“You needn’t worry about me, dear.”

“Oh, I know. I just want you to—”

“I’m perfectly fine, Miss Meyers,” she said, adding a little steel to her voice.

“Of course.” Miss Meyers paused and Grace could tell she was mustering her courage for another line of attack. “Will you be back for lunch?”

Grace looked up at the clouds that had still not cleared into blue sky. She didn’t know how much longer it would be wise to stay out here in the cold, quiet wilderness of Deer Mountain. Still, she wasn’t anxious to join the planned activities either. “I have no idea.”

“But surely you’ll be back for dinner?”

“If I am, Miss Meyers, it’ll be—”

Miss Meyes interrupted her in a rush. “It’s just that a Stewart Whitman saw your name badge, and he asked me if you were actually Grace Luff. I checked your credit card receipt and realized you were. Mr. Whitman is quite anxious to see you, to spend time with you…and I just—well, I hoped I could arrange a dinner reservation for the two of you!”

Grace took a deep breath.

Stewart Whitman on the prowl.

Oh, dear.

How awkward.

Grace and Harold had known Candace and Stewart Whitman for the better part of thirty years. Same country club in the Hamptons. Same church in the city. They attended many of the same charity events and had even vacationed together once or twice—once to Ireland for some golf, and once to Monaco for some sun. When Candace died last year, Grace had spent the day of her funeral organizing Stew’s refrigerator with casseroles, and helping him receive his guests. He was a dear, old friend, and she’d been glad to lend a hand.

And—with Adelaide and Shannon’s misguided assistance, no doubt—Stew had certainly been in touch this year. He’d called one time to offer his help with the hospital wing and another time to see if he could escort her to the annual Met gala. Grace had thought the calls awkward and rushed to get off the phone, anxious not to appear too indifferent, but even more careful not to appear too interested.

There was no way she could
refuse
dinner with such an old friend, but she feared that he’d been coached by the girls to make an overture toward Grace this weekend. She sighed loudly, rolling her eyes at such an unwelcome scenario. While Stewart would be an eminently
appropriate
choice of husband for Grace, she felt nothing but friendship for the tall, elegant widower several years her senior. She simply wasn’t interested.

Mr. Bradshaw’s eyes flitted quickly through her mind and her stomach fluttered unexpectedly. The difference in the way she felt thinking of the two men was so vast and so visceral, it surprised her, but it was in no way ambiguous.

“Of course,” said Grace evenly. “Stewart is a very dear, old friend. I’m happy to keep him company if you can’t find a more
available
companion for him.”

“Available?” asked Miss Meyers.

“Stewart and I are just
friends
,” she said meaningfully, “as I mentioned.”

“Oh, well,” Miss Meyers answered enthusiastically, undeterred by Grace’s discreet warning. “Friends is an excellent place to start, isn’t it? Eight? In the Sycamore Room?”

Grace sighed. She hoped that Stewart would somehow sense her feelings and refrain from making an old friendship more awkward. Unlikely. Subtlety had never been his strong suit.

“Fine,” said Grace, unenthusiastically.

“I’ll take care of everything! Have a lovely ski!”

Grace took a deep breath and grumbled, letting her phone plop back into her pocket, and tugging her glove back onto her hand. No matter what their meddling brood of children thought, Stewart and Grace weren’t a match.

She’d started the day believing that a “future someone” didn’t exist at all, and she wasn’t much more encouraged now. However, one vital, fundamental change in Grace’s worldview since this morning, was that if there ever was a “future someone,” she wouldn’t settle for comfort. She’d settle for nothing less than passion, like Hepburn and…Tracy.

Tracy.

There was no one to see, so when her lips trembled before sliding into a smile, she didn’t bite her lip or cast her eyes down. She let them widen and part, until her gleaming teeth were bared and her cheeks ached from grinning.

“I won’t settle again,” she whispered fiercely, feeling the sanctity of the words, the certainty of them, the blessed relief of the promise she was making to herself. As Addy had observed, Grace still had thirty or forty years left, and she would rather live them alone than live in passionless companionship.

“Sorry, Stew,” she said softly, turning around to start retracing her tracks back to the rec center. “But dinner will
just
be dinner, I’m afraid.”

As she maneuvered back around, she noticed it: the first heavy flakes falling to the ground around her. Plop! One landed on her shoulder. Another on her hat. It was snowing. And it was starting strong.

Snow?
She grimaced, sliding her skis into her tracks and swooshing forward. She hadn’t seen snow in the weather forecast at all.  Planting her pole with a new sense of urgency, she set off at a steady pace. She estimated that she’d skied for over an hour when she’d gotten the phone call from Miss Meyers. It would take
at least
an hour to get back to the Recreation Center, even if she could maintain this speed, which she couldn’t, because she was already starting to feel tired.

As the snow whipped into her face, coming down harder, she wished she’d worn a scarf, but the day had seemed mild this morning, she thought she’d be fine with a coat, hat and gloves. After fifteen minutes of hard skiing, she leaned against a tree, breathless and starting to feel genuinely worried. She could still make out her tracks for now, but just barely, and she wasn’t even back to the main trail yet. At the rate the snow was falling, she feared the tracks would be covered soon.