“Mark.”
He still didn’t look at her. “It looks like it was plowed about ten minutes ago. This whole development pays for it privately. We’d never get near the house otherwise.” He pulled the car just in front of the support posts of a deck wrapping around the second floor. The windows were dark, the sharply slanted roof blanketed with white powder.
“We’ll have to shovel the steps,” he continued, “our punishment for getting here first.”
Smiling, Rose dipped her head to nuzzle Luna, the smallest dog, who’d climbed into her lap next to Zeus. She trembled with cold, even with the heat turned up.
She’d have to pry more out of Mark once they were inside. “Will the house be warm? We need to get the dogs out of the cold.”
“Hope so.” He killed the engine, then looked at her and the dog and turned it back on, the heat blasting out of the vents. “Stay here. I’ll kick a path up the stairs, make sure the furnace is on before you go in.”
“I’m fine, it’s just the little guys,” she said.
“Of course. A tough New Yorker like yourself can handle a little weather.”
“Exactly.”
He stared at her for a moment before getting out. Slipping his hands into gloves, he climbed over a snowdrift in front of the bottom stairs, kicked away some ice, and made his way slowly up to the door.
“Our evasive hero,” Rose whispered in Luna’s oversized, pointy ear.
A minute later he was back outside wielding a broom. He brushed the handrail, then the steps, his movements powerful, graceful, and assured.
“Funny how he’s so different when he’s alone,” she told Luna.
No, not just alone. With her.
She remembered the day they’d met, how he thought she was a lesbian. And then the way he tripped over himself whenever Blair was around. For the first time, Rose wondered if she should be flattered, not jealous, that he found her so comfortable to be with.
But, she admitted to herself, she
was
jealous. What if he was pursuing her because she seemed easy? Not promiscuous—though she’d been that—but convenient? Practical? Not the love of his life, not a great passion, but… good enough. Comfortable. Like a well-padded sofa. The kind of girl you’d settle for when you were ready to settle down.
Luna yelped and she realized she’d squeezed her. “Sorry, girl. Your daddy’s cleared the way, so let’s get you inside.”
Maybe she was wrong to want more passion, more need, just
more
, than that.
But why should she be the only one to suffer?
She pulled on the only gloves she had, rainbow-striped acrylic with pink fake-fur trim at the wrist, and gingerly stepped out into the snow.
Her foot sank down. And down and down and down. By the time she stopped moving the snow had swallowed her leg all the way up to her right thigh.
One hand still on the door handle, she struggled back up into the truck, short of breath, half of her body caked with white, dry powder.
Mark had been able to walk right over to the stairs. Was she that much heavier than he was?
He pulled open the driver’s side door. “Come out over here. There’s a drop-off on that side. Sorry I didn’t warn you.”
Relieved, she crawled over the center console. “I was feeling very heavy just then.”
He got a silly grin on his face. “Like gold.”
The dogs wiggled their way over to the steering wheel but stayed in the truck, big eyes on the big, cold, white outdoors. Trying to ignore how Mark took hold of her arm, she put her left foot out, then her right. “Thank God I didn’t sink to the center of the earth again.”
He looked down at her right pant leg. “Those boots are made for city walking.”
“Yeah, well, they’re all I’ve got.”
“I’m not complaining. They’re sexy.”
She looked up into his face.
“I’m not going to apologize,” he said. “That’s not a come-on, it’s a fact.”
Ducking her head to hide her flushing cheeks—honestly, they were turning snow into steam—she scooped Luna up into her arms and went up the stairs, ducking her into her jacket to shield her from the wind.
He reached out and touched her back. “Careful, it’s icy. I’ll get the salt out here in a minute, after the dogs are in.”
Luna seemed to know where she was. As soon as Rose crossed the threshold, the dog wriggled out of her jacket onto the floor and immediately trotted down the wood-paneled hall, bottom wagging happily.
Mark came up behind her with the other two dogs. “You stay here. I’ll get the stuff.”
The dogs’ toenails clicked on the floor as they trotted after their friend.
“That’s not fair, I can help.”
“Let me feel manly,” he said. “So seldom do I get to enjoy the sensation.”
Smiling, she wiped some snow off her shoulder. “Oh, all right. You can be manly.”
His eyes were hot on hers. “Thanks.”
“Mark…”
“Don’t say anything. I know.” He turned. “I’ll get the rest of the stuff. You can pick out whatever room you want. That’s part of the tradition, first come first serve.” He stepped outside, shutting the door hard behind him.
All right, so he didn’t look at her as though she were a comfortable sofa. Those sharp, hungry, smoldering eyes were not those of a man who wanted to lie down, roll over, and take a nap.
Breathing unsteadily, she bent over and unzipped her boots, knocking away the snow as best she could. She hung up her jacket on a one of the brass hooks sticking out of a snowshoe bolted to the paneled wall.
If only they’d come up here together earlier, just the two of them, before—
No. She couldn’t think like that. Two people couldn’t live in a bubble; they had to fit in the world together, too. She was no hermit. Couldn’t be.
There was a long hallway that stretched straight ahead, doors on either side, the walls decorated with vintage ski resort posters, more antique snowshoes, a pair of thin wood skis hung in an X. The floors, walls, and ceiling were honey-colored wood, glossy and warm. Colorful Native American and Mexican area rugs dotted the floor.
Very nice. Maybe she could live
here
.
The door opened behind her, bringing Mark hauling their luggage and a blast of cold air.
“You come up to this place every year?” she asked.
He piled the bags up near the door, stomped his feet on the rug, nodded. “Have you picked a room yet?”
“Any recommendations?”
“The left one on the end is a good choice. It usually goes first.”
“I’ll go check it out.” She tiptoed over the clumps of snow to her bag, lifted it over her shoulder, her eyes on his face. He turned, disappeared into a closet.
All of the bedrooms were similarly decorated: lots of wood, colorful quilts, fluffy down comforters, wool blankets—floor-to-ceiling mountain chic.
Even the last bedroom on the left. She went in, dropping her bag and looking around. It was nice, but she didn’t see why he would suggest it. The decor was the same and it seemed a little smaller than the others, perhaps because the four-poster, king-sized bed took up most of the floor space.
He’d followed her, stood in the doorway, watching her with a serious look she couldn’t read.
“It’s fine,” she said, sitting on the bed, bouncing a little. It was firm, high off the ground, didn’t creak at all. Her grandparents had a bed like it, joked they’d have it forever because it was heavier than the house itself and couldn’t be moved.
He continued to stare.
“What?” she asked.
He walked across the room until he was standing a few feet from the bed. His eyes darkened as he gazed down at her. “You should know this,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll do everything and anything to join you in that bed before you go back home.”
His words snaked down her spine like kisses. She wished she hadn’t sat down, that she could meet him eye-to-eye. Then again, it was good she wasn’t standing; she suddenly felt weak all over. “Consider me warned.”
He tilted his head, letting his gaze rake over her, then left without another word.
She counted to ten before letting herself fall onto her back, her heart pounding. The ceiling was decorated with more antique snowshoes, one modified with a light bulb.
His voice surprised her from the doorway. “By the way, my family refers to this as ‘Mark’s room,’” he said. A tight grin crept over his face. “But I’m happy to share.”
And then he was gone again.
Chapter 26
AFTER MARK PUT AWAY THE groceries in the kitchen, he poured himself a beer and got busy making lasagna. They’d have a big holiday dinner on Christmas, but people tonight would be arriving in waves, needing to eat. While he gathered the ingredients, he thought about Rose downstairs in his bedroom. And smiled.
Because of the deep winter snows every year, the house was designed with the bedrooms on the ground level and the kitchen, deck, great room—and second entrance—on the top floor. There were thousands of similar cabins all around the lake, but this one was special. When Mark was in eighth grade, his father had taken him up here, just the two of them, not to pressure him to win chess matches or become an Olympian like his brother, but just to hang out. It was the only time Mark could remember the two of them being together without a competition and some prize dangling at the end of it.
He filled a pot with water for the pasta, let the bittersweet memories wash over him. His father had been domineering, unyielding, competitive, tough, and often a bully, especially to Mark, but during those few days in February years ago, he’d just been a dad.
Mark had known then what kind of man he wanted to be. The kind of man his father had been on that trip—loving, patient,
nice
—not the one he’d lived with at home.
But that man didn’t win over the ladies. Acting like his father, like he’d just done downstairs, apparently did. Rose had given him a look he could get used to, a potent combination of desire and respect.
Lust washed over him. If the macho posturing didn’t do the job, he’d fall back on being a sensitive provider. With the bedroom skills only an obsessive engineer with access to unlimited porn could hone to perfection.
A commotion downstairs told him others were arriving. In a couple of minutes Rose, Blair, and John appeared, all three of them looking around the vaulted family room with appreciation.
“We just got here ourselves,” Rose was saying. “I haven’t even been up here yet.”
“Nice,” John said.
Blair was silent, her eyes downcast.
John threw an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t you think so?”
She nodded, smiled tightly.
“We took the room with the snowshoes on the walls,” John said. “Is that okay?”
“They all have snowshoes on the walls.” Rose squeezed Blair’s arm. “Did you notice?”
Blair let out a loud, breathy sigh, kept her eyes on the floor.
Mark frowned, hoping Blair didn’t overdo it. She was biting her lip as though trying not to cry, when he knew she was actually fighting the giggles. The entire scheme to get Rose up here had been her idea—though John had jumped at the chance to participate.
“Getting her hitched would finally get my mother off my ass,” he’d said the night before, when Mark had gone over to ask for help.
“You’re just saying that. You want her to be happy,” Blair said.
“Why would I want that?” he asked. “She hates my guts.”
“Because you’re secretly a wonderful man?” Blair asked.
John looked at Mark. “Can you believe this woman? Nobody’s ever accused me of being wonderful in my entire life. I’m cruel and selfish, just like my mom raised me.” He bent down and kissed Blair on the neck. “Don’t you forget it.”
While John nuzzled her, Blair smiled at Mark. “She’s been rescuing me for years. Now it’s my turn. I totally know how to get her up there.”
And she’d been right; Rose had come. Now she was watching Blair with worry in her eyes, glancing at John, who, with a straight face, nodded sadly.
For God’s sake. Mark stabbed the mozzarella with a paring knife. Rose was going to be furious when she figured out what they were doing.
And Mark would get the blame.
“You might rather sleep in the loft up here,” Mark said, opening a jar of tomato sauce. The less Rose saw of Blair, the less likely she’d spot the ruse. He pointed at the staircase that rose up behind the entertainment console. “It’s small, but cozy.”
Blair wandered away from the group, looking up at the narrow hideaway. It was only about eight by twelve feet, just enough for a full daybed, lots of pillows, and a reading lamp.
Blair turned to Mark. “Nobody else wants it?”
“Take it. It’s all yours.”
“The bed’s right under the skylights,” John said. “You won’t be able to sleep in.”
Blair gave him a pointed look. “You keep telling me I sleep too much.
Remember
?”
John bit his lip, flushed. He, too, was on the verge of smiling. “If that’s what you want, honey, I’ll move your stuff up there for you.”
Glancing at Rose, Blair sighed, turned it into a yawn, covered her mouth. “I think I’ll lie down for a little while,” she said in a listless voice, “if that’s okay. Don’t bother to wake me.”
“How about we hang out a little? Have a drink? Tea? Talk?” Rose asked.
Blair sighed again. “No, I’m just not up for it.”
Mark thought she if she kept this up, Rose would catch on before dinner. “Actually, could you wait, Blair? I haven’t put the sheets on that bed yet.” He held her gaze. “Come sit at the counter, I’ll get you a drink.”
Blair got his hint and came over.
John walked into the kitchen, biting back a grin. “Bit over the top, isn’t she?” he muttered in Mark’s ear.
They were having way too much fun with this. As if Mark’s life wasn’t on the line. “There’s beer in the fridge,” he said, pounding the garlic with the flat edge of the knife.
John chose a bottle of Lagunitas, took the opener Mark handed him. “You want anything, Rose?”
“She likes martinis,” Mark said.
“That’s right.” John grinned at her. “How could I forget?”
The blush that bloomed on Rose’s face made Mark white-knuckle the garlic press.
“A beer is fine,” she said.