Keep On Loving you (8 page)

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.”

Tilda crossed her arms over her body, hugging herself as if she were cold. “And your dad?”

“Loves my mom and will do anything that makes her happy.” It was his turn to shrug. “They still have a place in Palm Springs so snow doesn't get in the way of his golf game, though.” Ash didn't know why the hell they were discussing his family, but then he remembered what the stranger on the street had said. “Tilda...”

She glanced up at him, glanced away.

“I didn't realize you'd lost your mom right before we met. I'm really sorry about that.”

“You had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, no, of course not. But I...” This was going all wrong. Frustrated, he shoved his hand through his hair. “I'm usually much smoother than this.”

“I'll bet,” she said, the two words laced with cynicism.

Ash closed his eyes. What an ass he must seem in her eyes. Out-of-towner who'd tried to impress her by ordering fancy bottles of champagne and sweeping her into a luxury hotel room, only to pass out like a teenager after downing a couple of wine coolers.

“I snored, didn't I?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Drooled?”

Her lips twitched.

If his heart could give a fist pump, it would. “That night... I'd come off five days of cramming for finals followed by a graduation ceremony that had me broiling in the sun for seventeen hours or so. I wasn't at my best.”

“Is that right?”

He nodded, trying to look pitiful. “Then we came up to the mountains to find my parents' new house had sprung a major plumbing leak, so we had to take hotel rooms in the village. I was so wired I couldn't sleep, so then I took a walk and...”

“Found Mr. Frank's.”

“...found you.” He lowered his voice. “And you know what I thought when I saw you?”

She shook her head, her green eyes big and trained on his face. “Don't, Ash—”

“I saw you with that paper crown on your beautiful hair and I thought, ‘I've got to get to know this girl.'” He leaned close. “You want to hear my darkest secret?”

“No.”

Another thing he'd been taught by his dad was not to give up easily. So he didn't let those two letters deter him. “I've never felt that way about anyone before, Tilda. With anyone.”

Her eyes widened and her face colored more. “I...I don't know what to say.”

“Tell me what you thought about me.”

She swallowed. “You don't want to know that.”

“Sure I do.” He smiled. “Let me help you get started. When I held out my hand and said, ‘My name is Ash Robbins,' you thought...”

“This is a really bad idea.”

Okay, tough nut to crack. “Tilda...”

“I'm being truthful. I knew it wasn't a good idea but I...I went ahead and invited you to sit at our table and asked you to dance and then I left with you.”

He winced. “You consider it a mistake?” God, that hurt.

Her expression softened. “No, I... It wasn't about you, Ash.” She caught one of his hands with hers.

He didn't hesitate to wrap his fingers around hers and the current of buzzing heat that shot up his arm was welcome. Fucking wonderful.

She was staring at their joined hands, her color high, her expression anxious. Impulse urged him to pull her close, to put his mouth to hers, to end this confusion and awkwardness by communication of the carnal kind.

Be with me. Be mine.

He'd say it with kisses. Caresses. With their bodies aligned and their hearts beating against each other.

But he listened to a saner voice. Go slow. Strategize.

Don't scare her off.

So he called her name, in a soft but insistent tone. “Tilda.”

Her head came up and she met his gaze. God, another thrill.

Ash cleared his throat. “Tilda, go out with me.”

Her lashes dropped, her hand slid free of his. “No,” she said, and then she scooted around him and was gone.

Again.

Maybe for always.

CHAPTER SIX

Z
AN
WAS
LATE
. Mac checked her phone for the dozenth time, confirming that he was fifteen minutes past their designated meeting hour of 11:00 a.m. and that he'd neither called nor texted. “I've waited long enough,” she muttered and moved her hand to the ignition just as a car pulled behind hers in the driveway of the Elliott mansion.

Poppy jumped out of the fancy SUV she was driving these days and let herself into the passenger side of the company sedan that was Mac's ride that morning. “Why are you sitting here?” she asked.

Mac's gaze took in her little sister, dressed in dark jeans, an oversize yellow sweater that met her knees and a pair of warm suede boots. A knitted stocking cap in goldenrod was pulled over her honey hair. “You look like a ray of sunshine.” It made her smile.

Poppy returned the assessing glance. “Ball cap, check. One of Brett's old flannel shirts, check. Denim that's about to split at the knees. You look like you're on your way to the county dump.”

Mac's smile died. “Gee, thanks.”

“Well, why are you dressing like that?”

“I'm only meeting Zan,” she said, gesturing toward the house. “Or I
was
meeting Zan, but he's stood me up apparently.”

Poppy pressed her lips together, causing Mac to narrow her gaze. “What's that expression mean?”

“I only think it's high-larious that you were shooting eye daggers at him over dinner and the next minute you agreed to do a job for him.”

“High-larious,” Mac muttered. “It was that lasagna you made. The carbs made my brain muzzy.” The fact was, she'd been goaded into agreeing when he accused her of being afraid. Pride sometimes sucked.

“Still—”

“Anyway, I'm reneging. He's not here now, and I don't have time to reschedule.” Noting her sister was about to make another comment, she took control of the conversation. “What about you? Why are you on this side of the lake?”

“Cabin business.”

At Mac's arched eyebrow, Poppy continued. “I have a friend who's going to show me some ins and outs of website design.”

“I thought London and Shay put together a prototype for you that some techie at Ryan's production company was going to polish.”

“I decided to do it myself. I've got the time.”

“With a wedding coming up? And a kindergartener, not to mention a fiancé and an overfriendly dog?”

“I'm not at the front desk of the lodge anymore. There's a free hour here and there.”

Poppy's work for several years had been at a lakeside inn, which she brought up time and again when anyone questioned the success of the cabin venture given the Walkers' lack of experience in the hospitality industry.
Anyone
, of course, coming down to only Mac these days.

She sighed. “Are you ever—”

“Never,” Poppy said cheerfully, “if you're wondering if I'll ever give up on making something of that land. It's our legacy, and we're so close, Mac!”

Close to investing their hearts into something that could very well fail.

“You know, you used to be a lot more fun.” Poppy poked her in the shoulder. “When did you turn so gloomy?”

It began the day my childhood dreams drove down the hill.
Though Zan had talked about leaving the mountains forever, as a girl she'd never imagined that day would come, especially not once they were together as a couple. For a while she'd wondered if she would have gone with him if he'd asked...but since he hadn't, she'd never nailed down an answer to the question.

“I have a practical nature,” Mac said now. “And that practical nature thinks it's time I boot you out of my car so I can get on with my day.”

My Zan-less day, just like so many before it.

Hadn't she known not to count on him? Experience predicted it.

“Too late,” Poppy said, glancing over her shoulder. “Here comes your appointment now.”

Which meant Mac could only gnash her teeth as her sister exited her car and Zan pulled up alongside. Poppy gave him a wave before motoring off, and when he approached Mac's door, she only cranked her window down a few inches.

“You're late,” she told him.

“What?” He looked distracted. His big hands clutched a zippered leather portfolio.

“I tried calling you. If you had picked up, I could have explained then that you lost me. I can't stay.”

After a long moment, he blinked. “We arranged to meet.” He seemed to be reminding himself of that fact.

“At your insistence.” He also appeared impervious to her glare and a little niggle of worry tickled her neck. “Are you all right?”

Without answering, he began wandering to the front entry.

Mac jumped out of her car to follow him into the foyer. “Zan? Are you feeling sick again?”

He shut the door behind them both and headed for the thermostat. “It's a little cold in here.”

“This house is big.”

“Yeah.” Dropping his head back, he appeared to inspect the soaring walls of the entry that rose an impressive three stories. “There's so much of it. So much of everything.”

Instead of the jeans she'd expected to see him wear, this morning he was in dark charcoal wool slacks, a blue dress shirt without a tie and a gray sports jacket. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her threadbare jeans, painfully aware of the ragged state of her clothing. Obviously she'd done her very best to demonstrate how little he meant to her.

Embarrassed, she glanced over her shoulder to the door. “I really should go.”

He looked at her now. “I...” His hand forked through his hair. “Maybe you should stay.”

Her instincts started chattering at her now.
Get out. Go away. Something not good is up.

But her stupid feet wouldn't move. Instead, she stared at him, remembering another helpless moment.

When his lips had touched hers in her office.

Her muscles had seized then, her whole body transfixed by the familiar taste of him, the delicious sensation of his mouth once more on hers. Years of longing plus even more of loneliness coupled with the knowledge of how good they had once been together had struck her dumb.

No
had fled from her vocabulary.
Stop
had gone on hiatus.

Tears had burned hot behind her eyes. But Mac Walker didn't cry, and she'd jerked free of the spell.

Then found her voice.
That won't happen again!

But the truth was, she'd wanted it to happen once more, right that moment. Right this moment. Blame it on the Ghost of Love Gone By.

Or her own fickle foolishness.

“Let me make us some coffee,” Zan said now and started for the kitchen.

And yes, her fool-status was confirmed, because once again she followed him.

Upon reaching his destination, he removed the jacket and hung it over one of the ladder-back bar stools drawn up to the granite island. While he folded back the cuffs of his shirt, Mac self-consciously pulled off her ball cap and tried fluffing out her hat hair.

“I, uh, have a house to clean this afternoon,” she said by way of excusing her attire. “I'm dressed for dirty work.”

He crossed to the pantry without glancing her way. “You look great,” he said in an absent voice. Then he stood at the mouth of the cavernous space kitted out with multiple shelves and bins, sparsely populated.

“Do you need help finding the coffee?” she asked, coming up behind him.

“Shit, yeah.” His fingers pushed through his hair again. “I need help.”

Unsure exactly what he meant, she brushed past him to enter the space, turning until she found the grounds that she knew Tilda had shopped for and delivered. “Here we are.”

She carried the bag to the maker on the countertop that seemed, to her, as long as the number of years they'd been apart. “It's a very big house,” she said, reiterating her earlier comment to break the weird silence.

“Scared the hell out of me when I first moved in.”

Interesting
, she thought, glancing over at Zan, then proceeding to dump grounds into the filter. She'd never suspect he was scared of anything. “We've always thought it was haunted—and, uh, confession time. The other day when you were sick I let Poppy in to look around.” She slid him another look. “You mad?”

He shook his head. “Nah.”

“Why didn't you ever invite us over?” she ventured now, adult enough to broach the subject. “When we were kids, I mean. I don't think you were ashamed of us—”

“Hell, no!” He reached into a cupboard and brought down two mugs. “It was nothing like that.”

Mac pressed the on button, then turned toward him, her curiosity aroused. “What was it like, then? Brett was your best friend. I was your...”

“Teen lover?” He waggled his eyebrows and a small grin made him appear more relaxed.

She shot a finger at him. “Don't try to distract me. Did your grandfather disapprove of the Walkers or something?”

“He wasn't a snob,” Zan said.

“Sorry. I guess I don't know what to think.”

He busied himself filling the mugs. “The shame was on my side, I suppose.”

“Huh?”

“Your family was so...normal. Like a TV family—”

She snorted. “You know we had our share of soap opera drama, anyway, with my dad taking off and my mom getting pregnant with Shay by someone else before Dad returned and they patched it back together.”

“That's when I knew you all. When it was patched back together. And I didn't want you to see how...empty it was here, in this place. It needed more footsteps and more voices than an old man and a kid could create to make it a home. I was just sort of...warehoused here.”

Mac clutched the mug he handed to her. “Oh, Zan.” To her, he'd always seemed to be the person who had everything. Clothes, the toy of the day. Later, cars and money.

As she watched, he crossed to the windows overlooking the lake and stared through the glass at the expanse of wintry blue water and the surrounding peaks covered by pines and snow.

She joined him there. “I didn't know how it was for you. How you felt...”

“Solitary.” Then he turned slightly to brush her hair off her shoulders. “Except for when I was with you Walkers. Later, except for when I was with you, specifically.”

His eyes were a dangerous place to stare. When they were together years ago, they'd lie on the grass, or on a beach at a lake, or they'd stretch out on the rug in her family room and just gaze upon each other, their hands entwined.
How can one person make me so happy?
she'd think.
How can one person feel so right to me?

Now it was too easy to be sucked back to those feelings, that mixed sense of familiarity and fate.

But clearly, they had not been destined to be together as the naive and dreamy girl she'd been had once imagined.

Shaking her head, she redirected her attention out the window. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“Now I feel like an ass. I wasn't begging for your pity, Mac.”

“It's not pity.” Though there was a couple of inches between them, his body's heat seemed to seep into hers, the warmth melting her bones and finding the cold place deep, deep in her chest. The barren tundra that was the surface of her heart. “It's more like understanding.”

When she was a young girl and especially at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, he'd seemed so put-together to her. Confident. Fearless. Complete.

And now she saw that maybe he'd been driven away because he was searching for something he was lacking—and not because she wasn't enough, the anxiety that had nagged her when he'd first left.

Tucking her hands beneath her elbows, sadness trickled through her—and maybe the very smallest beginnings of forgiveness for the young man who'd broken her heart.

“You've become a mystery to me, Mac. I don't know what to make of this quiet, contemplative girl.”

“It's because I'm a woman now,” she said, glancing over at him. “All grown up, Zan, with ten years of my own experiences.”

He was shaking his head. “Is it wrong of me to miss that eager young thing?”

With a roll of her eyes, she grimaced. “You mean
worshipful
young thing.”

“I worshipped you right back.”

Yeah, because every guy left behind the girl to whom he gave his devotion. That thought only made her sad again. “Maybe we should leave the past alone.”

“I don't know if we can do that, Mac.”

She gave him a sharp look. The tension she'd felt when he'd arrived was back. “What are you talking about?”

“We're still all tangled up.” He sighed. “God, Mac. It's so effing messy.”

Mac frowned, her instincts once more on high alert. How she wished she'd driven away when he'd been five minutes late. But fifteen minutes in, Poppy had shown up, and she was the most stubborn Walker of them all. There was no way Mac could have kicked her out of her car, because her sister was unmovable when she wanted to be. Plus, doing anything that rained on the Poppy parade always made Mac feel like shit.

Her little sister was getting married in just weeks and deserved the world to be kittens and puppies. With a side order of cotton candy.

Yeah, Mac knew her sister had a spine of steel, but you just couldn't help wanting to make her world beautiful.

Steeling her own spine, she met Zan's gaze. “What's going on?”

Looking away from her, he cleared his throat. “I have some news. Uh, bad news.”

* * *

Z
AN
CURSED
HIMSELF
the moment he heard “bad news” come out of his mouth. But that damn thing had been flapping its lips without his permission since Mac had followed him into the house. Still reeling from the meeting he'd had with his grandfather's attorney, he'd had no rein on it.