Frosted (8 page)

Morning light streamed into the room through the bank of windows to the left of the couch, made all the brighter from the snow and ice off which it bounced and sparkled. As Grace’s eyes fluttered open, she remembered where she was, and sighed in contentment. Snuggled up against Tray, her back to his front, his arm held her securely against his body under the blankets and her head rested on his arm.

They’d kissed and touched long into the night, holding each other, trading stories about their kids, sharing little tidbits about their lives and giggling like teenagers. After the debacle with her ankle, they hadn’t tried to make love again, though Grace knew, if she wasn’t injured and they’d had more time, it would have been inevitable.

Time.

And therein lay the problem.

As morning light flooded the little room, Grace realized that they’d run out of time. They had no plans to see one another again once they left the cozy comfort of the cabin and headed back down to the resort. They’d made no promises. They had no plans to be together. They’d spent one passionate night in each other’s arms, but Grace was still planning to leave for Manhattan tomorrow morning, and Tray’s life, home, work, and family were all here at Deer Mountain.

She twisted in his arms, turning to look at him. She’d taken off his shirt last night as he clutched her to his body, kissing her until she was dizzy and breathless and her ankle didn’t hurt anymore. His chest was bare against the thin camisole she’d been wearing under her sweater and turtleneck, and his jeaned legs were entwined with her bare ones.

“Morning, Red,” he whispered without opening his eyes.

“How’d you know I was awake?”

“I can feel your breath on my lips,” he said softly.

Her face softened as the rest of her body clenched with longing, and suddenly she didn’t want to leave the little warming hut. Not ever. For just a moment she wanted to pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. She didn’t want to go back to her lonely life in Manhattan—her children, her friends, her fortune, her charities, her penthouse apartment, her needlepoint group.

Who do you want to be, Grace?

Answering that question would be confusing and difficult. If she decided that the new version of herself didn’t like her old life, it would require change and compromise. It would mean leaving the comfort zone of her life as Mrs. Harold Edwin Luff III and having the courage to venture forth to find out if there was another version of life waiting for her. A life based on…what exactly? A one-night (almost) stand? A pair of pretty blue eyes? She hadn’t been invited to stay, nor had she invited him to come to her. Either option would be insanity after knowing each other for a single day. And Mrs. Harold Edwin Luff III was not crazy, she was sensible. She’d always been sensible.

Who do you want to be?

Her heart thumped painfully as fear coursed through her veins, making her feel skittish and way too self-aware for her own comfort. That fear made her back away from the edge of change, made her retreat to what she knew, to what was unexceptional, but comforting.

You’re Mrs. Harold Edwin Luff III,
she thought,
just as you’ve always been. Regardless of the Grace you’ve been for the last twenty-four hours, you are Mrs. Harold Edwin Luff III in real life. That’s what you know. That’s who you are.

“Good morning,” she answered crisply.

He opened a blue eye and peeked at her before closing it again. “Yes, it is.”

“It’s stopped snowing,” she said, edging away from him just a little. “I expect we’ll leave for the resort soon?”

He tightened his arm around her and drew her closer, nestling his nose in the warm curve of her neck. His voice was scratchy and tender. “No rush.”

She clenched her eyes and her jaw, willing herself not to be weak. Tracy Bradshaw simply wasn’t enough for her to change her whole life. There wasn’t a future with this man, and more precious minutes spent together would only make it harder to leave him.

“We should get going.”

His eyes opened and he leaned back, searching her face, suspicion tightening the easiness of his gaze. “Right away?”

“I’m a guest. And you’re the ski shop manager. This has been fun, but…”

“Oh.” He exhaled heavily, like he’d been sucker punched and the air had been knocked out of him unexpectedly. The warm breath caressed her neck and she forced her face to remain impassive as his hand eased from her hip, sliding away. “Wow. I, uh…I thought…”

She felt like weeping, but was careful not to let it show. “This was…fun.”

“Fun. Sure,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his hands over his face, which seemed to harden right before her. “But now it’s over. Is that right?”

His words felt like a slap, and somewhere inside she knew she deserved it. Somewhere inside she knew she was taking the easy way out…turning her back on the possibility of extraordinary and unknown in exchange for comfortable and familiar.

“Right,” she said so softly, she almost couldn’t hear her own voice.

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the couch and leaned down to pick up his T-shirt off the floor. He pulled it over his head and his flannel shirt soon followed. As he stood up and buttoned it, he looked down at her with a cool expression.

“Well, I guess I’ll go dig out the snowmobile so I can get you back down the mountain to the resort. Faster the better, huh, Mrs. Holden?”

“The faster the better,” she murmured, swallowing the lump in her throat. From the beginning he’d only called her Grace. She didn’t even know he knew her last name.

Her eyes flooded with tears and she looked down so he wouldn’t see. She wondered if he’d call Bonnie tonight and tell her about the sad-sack widow he got trapped with—how she was angular and awkward, and had clumsily twisted her ankle and trapped him into babysitting. Grace had absolutely, positively no right to the jealousy and anger she felt, but the ugly fantasy made her voice frosty and imperious.

“Hand me my jeans, please.”

He took two steps and grabbed them off the rack in front of the fireplace, then leaned down for her turtleneck and thick, wool sweater, holding them out to her with cold, almost glittering, eyes. “Yes, ma’am. Anything else, ma’am?”

“No,” she answered.

“Then I’ll hop to it,” he said sharply, his voice cracking like a whip when it had been so warm and drowsy just moments before. “Staff at The White Deer Inn aims to please, Mrs. Holden, ma’am.”

His face like granite, he shrugged into his parka and let the door to the warming hut slam shut loudly behind him.

Grace’s eyes burned and her ankle throbbed as she pulled on her dry, stiff jeans. Her turtleneck and sweater were similarly cold, and she shivered as the chilly fabric pressed against her warm skin. Warm from him.

She’d hurt him.

She’d essentially called him the help and thanked him for “a good time,” because whatever was between them terrified her this morning. It was too big to figure out…it was messy and complicated, too new and too unpredictable to take a chance on. How do you mesh the lives of a society widow and a ski shop manager who spend one night together? You don’t. Not organically. Not without scary risks and unfamiliar choices, impetuous decisions and the possibility of deep regrets. Not without the censure of her peers and the disapproval of her children.

So, she’d taken the easy way out by alienating him, by humiliating him, by rejecting him, by hurting him so much that he’d hate her and stay away.

“Coward,” she hissed, swiping at her eyes.

She swung her legs gingerly over the side of the couch and re-wrapped her ankle, then pulled on her cold, dry socks, one by one. Finally dressed, she stood up, leaning on the couch with her left foot dangling, and hopped over to her ski boots, which Tray had left against the flagstone of the fireplace. Making her stilted way back to the couch, she sat down and carefully pulled them on, wincing as her swollen ankle squeezed itself into the stiff boot.

You had a hand and played it
… she thought miserably, thinking about his face as he held out her clothes—the hurt, the confusion, the anger.

She couldn’t ignore the quiet whisper of her heart that insisted:

…and lost.

***

Several hours later, she lounged on the couch in her hotel suite, her leg professionally bandaged and resting atop two down-filled pillows, looking out at the same lake she’d stared at yesterday morning before leaving for the rec renter to rent skis.

Before her entire life had changed.

More tears welled in her eyes as she remembered Tray’s farewell.

He had picked her up off the couch in the warming hut without a word and deposited her on the back of the snowmobile. Holding onto him as they zigzagged down the hill for thirty minutes was both awkward and heartbreaking as Grace recognized that it would be the last time she was ever so close to him again.

When they arrived at the rec center, she’d quickly dropped her hands, and Tray had carried her into the ski shop without a word before phoning the reception desk and advising that Grace should have an EMT take a look at her ankle.

As they waited in the early morning silence of the empty shop, Grace considered changing her mind and blurting out:

I’m just scared! I’ve been Mrs. Harold Edwin Luff III for so long, I don’t know how to be someone different!

But she didn’t. With her chin up and her eyes focused on the door, she said nothing, and was surprised when Tray finally came around the rental desk to stand before her with his hands on his hips. His face was hard, but hurt, his eyes direct but full of disappointment as he addressed her.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes and I don’t expect we’ll see each other again.”

“I guess not,” said Grace quietly. “Thank you for all you—”

He had interrupted her by holding up his palm like a stop sign. “I asked you last night – Who do you want to be? And I wish to God you’d taken a look at yourself and answered right then and there, because that woman? The woman from last night? She was incredible. I’m positive I met the
real
you last night, and I’m certain she was the woman who fell asleep in my arms.

She was someone I wanted to know, someone I would’ve tried to hold on to for as long as she would’ve let me. I would’ve rearranged my life for her a little or a lot. I would have travelled down to New York to see her, and asked her to come back and see me here. I don’t know how it all would’ve ended up, but I wouldn’t have just let her walk away, because I’m not a man who watches someone he wants turn her back and walk away without a fight.

This morning? I don’t even know who you are this morning.”

He shook his head, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth as he stared at her, his face full of longing and frustration. Finally, when she didn’t respond, he rubbed his hand over his mouth and asked her quietly, “Who do you want to be, Grace? The girl you were? The widow you are? Or the woman I had the privilege to meet up on that mountain? Until you figure that out and commit to it, you’ll just keep painting yourself and those around you with a broad brush because it’s easier. But you’ll miss out. I can promise you that.”

She stared at him with her lips parted and felt a hot tear roll down her cheek.

He took off his glove and reached forward, swiping the tear away with his thumb.

“I’m sorry,” she had whispered, her voice breaking.

“Take care of yourself, Mrs. Holden,” he said softly before dropping his hand and turning away.

A moment later the EMT had arrived to check her foot and transport her back to the main lodge, and she hadn’t seen or spoken to Tray again.

She had, however, heard from Stewart, almost immediately after she’d settled herself on the couch.

When the phone rang, her heart had leapt, hoping that Tray was calling to check on her, to ask if he could see her, to tell her to stay.

“Hello?” she’d answered breathlessly.

“There’s the little patient,” said Stewart. “Back from your adventures?”

“Hello, Stew.”

“Are you alright, Grace?”

“Of course,” she said. “Just a twisted ankle.”

“But you had to stay up on the mountain last night? Thank God one of the hotel employees managed to find you in the snow.”

“Yes. He was very kind.”

“He? Hmm.”

“Stew, I’m truly exhausted. Was there something you…?”

“Yes! Yes, of course. You rest. May I order some dinner to be delivered to your room this evening? Six maybe? And swing by to keep you company?”

“Oh, Stew, I—”

“Grace, I—I could make you
feel
,” he started impetuously. “I could! I could be more, more—”

“Stewart!”

Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment from Stewart’s words and meaning, and reminded her of their short conversation last night when she’d held Tray’s eyes, which had burned for her. It made her heart clench to remember.

“Just give me a chance,” he begged her. “Please.”

“I…I just don’t—”

“Dinner, Grace. Just dinner.”