Baby It's Cold Outside (32 page)

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Authors: Addison Fox

BOOK: Baby It's Cold Outside
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“Or fear,” Avery added. Her voice held no judgment, only an honest assessment of the situation. “You could just be afraid of what there might be between the two of you.”
Whatever humor had existed between the three of them was gone and instead, Sloan was struck by the simple truth of Avery’s statement.
Fear.
It had a powerful ability to weaken, delude and muddle a situation.
“Maybe you’re right,” Grier said softly as she looked down into her coffee.
Sloan couldn’t hold back the question from the very deepest part of her conscience.
Was she afraid?
No way.
In fact, her relationship with Walker was quite the opposite. It was empowering, even. She was a grown woman, making a choice that made her happy.
“Or maybe it’s a matter of perspective. I know I, for one,” Sloan added, picking up her fork again and digging into her pancakes, “have been so focused on what something with Walker can’t be that I’ve forgotten to acknowledge what it can be.”
She ignored Grier and Avery’s silence, instead taking comfort in her new epiphany as she took another forkful of pancakes. She didn’t have to know where things with Walker were going. And she also didn’t have to spend the next three days worrying about going home.
What they’d shared meant something to both of them. She knew that. Maybe she didn’t need to worry about any of it being anything more than that.
Maybe she should just enjoy what it
was
.
Sloan had almost convinced herself when a soft, barely audible gasp reached her ears, pulling her attention away from breakfast.
A deep, masculine voice that was a mix of Scotch and sin rumbled across the length of the dining room. “I heard there was some breakfast to be found in here.”
Sloan recognized him instantly.
The six-foot-four-inch athletic frame with shoulders the width of a small car. The shock of black hair that curled at base of his neck. The vivid green eyes every female in New York dreamed about.
Roman Forsyth.
Even if she hadn’t known who he was, the rapidly draining color from Avery’s face would have given her all the clues she needed.
“Help yourself.” Avery waved a careless hand toward the buffet table.
Before any of them could say anything else, Avery stood and grabbed her coffee mug. “I’d better be getting back to the kitchen. The guests will be arriving any minute and I need to get a few more things ready.”
Sloan allowed Avery her polite lie—and the breathing room she needed—and shot her a small, encouraging smile. As her friend walked across the dining room toward the swinging door of the kitchen, she didn’t miss the way Avery gave Roman a wide berth.
She also didn’t miss Roman’s sidestep away from the coffee urn, effectively placing himself in her way. Although she couldn’t hear what was said from across the room, she’d have had to be blind to miss the tension as the two of them came within close range of each other.
“That can’t be good,” Grier whispered.
“It doesn’t appear so. She looks like a cat who’s just been thrown in a tub, her back’s so stiff.”
Grier kept her voice low as she reached for her mug again. “I think I just figured out how Avery knows so much about the fear of falling for someone.”
“I suspect you’re right.”
 
Walker stood with Mick and Roman on the far edge of the town square. The last-minute preparations for the day’s events were nearly complete and the three of them had been put to work setting up the winner’s area.
“It’s damn good to see you.” Mick slapped Roman on the back. “It’s been a long time, buddy.”
“Yeah.” Roman rubbed his gloved hands together. “It’s been a busy year.”
Walker was as glad as Mick to see their friend, but he couldn’t forget his conversation with Avery after the snowball fight.
Roman had abandoned them. All of them, but Avery in particular. To top it all off, the NHL star had missed a lot since his last visit to Indigo.
“I can’t believe the grandmothers are still doing this thing.” Roman’s gaze ranged over the buzz of activity across the middle of town.
From where they stood, Walker could see Jack and Bear setting up the skeet-shooting area. The street in front of the diner had tables set up for the sandwich and beer runs. And his favorite—the mini-Iditarod—was in progress at the opposite corner of the square, with Chooch and Hooch’s dogs scampering around in the snow as their owners worked on setting up their mini sleds for the event.
“Not only are they doing it,” Mick added, “but they’ve got a record number of entrants this year.”
“Wow.” Roman shook his head. “It’s hard to believe.”
The three of them worked in silence as they finished setting up the three-tiered winner’s platform. The grandmothers awarded gold, silver, and bronze, just as they did in the Olympics.
Roman sat back on his heels after finishing up his section. “Do the winners still get served at dinner?”
“Oh yes,” Mick nodded as he stood up from where he’d finished hammering the last nail in his side of the platform. “First-, second- and third-place winners all get their dinner served by their favorite bachelor before the auction starts.”
“Mick’s served five years running now,” Walker couldn’t help pointing out. “Even though he refuses to enter the actual auction.”
“A perennial favorite, then.”
Mick tossed off a muttered, “Shut up, assholes,” before bending to pick up his tools.
“So what you’re really telling me is that not much has changed around here.”
Walker wasn’t sure why Roman’s assessment chafed so much, but it did, lodging under his skin like a splinter. Glancing up from where he kneeled to finish up his last few nails, he couldn’t keep the edge from his voice. “I guess that all depends on your perspective.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said, it all depends on your perspective. And from mine, I’d say life in our town is full and exciting. Donny Sanderson’s boy went off to Harvard this past fall. And Theresa McBain got a publishing deal last spring with the book coming out in a few more months.”
Roman’s broad grin fell a few notches, but he pressed his point anyway. “Come on, Walker, you know what I mean. Nothing really changes. The same old things just keep on happening. Life plods along.”
The splinter began to throb and Walker found he wasn’t at all interested in Roman’s city attitude. “And it doesn’t in New York?”
“There’s always something going on in New York. You know that.”
“Really, Roman? Because your life hasn’t changed all that much in a decade and a half, has it? You’re still obsessed with a game nine months out of the year. When you’re not playing, you’re hanging out with hordes of women who could give a shit about you and only care about what you do for a living. And each year you trade in one luxury car for the next. Have I missed anything?”
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Breath steamed out of Roman’s mouth in heavy puffs and Walker didn’t miss Mick’s widened gaze from where he stood behind their friend.
Regaining his feet, Walker moved closer to Roman. He knew he was picking a fight, but he still couldn’t stop the words. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I just think you might want to stick around and pay attention to people for more than five minutes before you start passing judgment on your friends and neighbors.”
Before Roman could say anything else, Walker turned and left. With a quick holler over his shoulder, he pointed toward the diner. “I need to go lend a hand over there.”
 
Walker still couldn’t shake the anger an hour later as he filled up on breakfast at the diner. It was extraquiet with so many out on the square or over at the hotel prepping for the event and it suited his mood.
Roman’s words had crawled under his skin and the more he thought about the careless insult, the more he wondered what had happened to his friend.
“Mind if I join you?”
Speak of the devil. “No.”
Roman took a seat in the opposite booth and smiled up at their waitress. After ordering steak and eggs, he began dumping creamer into the coffee their waitress had left behind.
Walker continued eating his breakfast, not overly inclined to make conversation.
“I saw Avery this morning.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I got in late last night and headed down to breakfast this morning to find her with those two women everyone’s talking about. The New Yorkers.”
“Sloan and Grier.”
“Yep.”
“So if you ate breakfast, what are you doing sitting here ordering another one?”
“I only ended up having coffee.”
“Why?”
Walker glanced up when Roman didn’t say anything, but it didn’t take a decades-old friendship to recognize the anguish stamped on his friend’s face. Deep lines crossed his forehead and his mouth was set in a grim slash.
“Roman?”
“She walked out of the room like I was the last person on earth she wanted to see.”
Walker debated briefly before settling on the truth. “Well, that’s basically because you are.”
“It was a long time ago, Walker.”
“The way you treat her makes it seem like it happened yesterday.”
“I’ve been gone for thirteen years.”
“Yeah. And you’re still as guilty as the day you walked out of this town.”
“It’s not guilt.”
Their waitress laid down Roman’s breakfast, then refilled both of their coffee cups before heading off to welcome a few late stragglers for breakfast.
“So what is it?”
“It’s—” Roman broke off as he sawed into his steak. “It’s not guilt.”
“Okay.”
“Damn it, Walker.”
“What do you want from me? You lay into Mick and me this morning, insulting everyone around here, and now you’re lying to yourself about your own actions. I’m done making excuses for you.”
“You make excuses for me? What the hell for?”
“Sure I make excuses. And so does Mick and so do your mother and grandmother. Everyone makes excuses for the great Roman Forsyth, hockey god and local legend.”
“I had a chance to live my dream.”
“And no one begrudged you that.”
Roman slammed his napkin down on the table. “Then what the fuck is this all about?”
“It’s about the way you did it, Roman. Face it—you ran away. And the expensive gifts just look like a payoff.”
Roman’s hand tightened on his mug, but the anger didn’t make it to his voice. “I didn’t run away. And the gifts are just that. Gifts.”
“Look. I’m not the one you need to take this up with. Not really.”
“I’m not taking it up with Avery.”
“Then don’t expect her to pull out the red carpet when you come to town. You can’t have it both ways. Why can’t you just leave her alone?”
“I don’t know.
Damn it
, I really don’t know.”
As they both ate their breakfast, his own advice rumbled through his mind on a loop.
You can’t have it both ways.
If he was honest with himself . . . wasn’t that what he was looking for with Sloan? Nice and easy, with no strings attached, yet he had no fucking idea how he was going to let her go in a few days.
“She’s really gotten to you?”
Walker glanced up from his eggs. “What?”
“Sloan.” Before he could say anything, Roman added, “My mother is the fount of all things gossip-related; you know that.”
“You just got here last night.”
“She chewed my ear off until one this morning.”
“We’ve been seeing each other.” Walker shrugged in an effort to come off casual, even as the words lay flat on his tongue.
“She’s a beautiful woman. I met her once before, you know.”
An itch settled between his shoulder blades, but Walker ignored it. “Really?”
“Yep. She interviewed me a few years ago for an article on the Metros. She’s awfully easy on the eyes.”
The itch he’d managed to tamp down spread into a raging fire under his skin. “She is.”
“She’s got the kind of body that could make a man forget himself.”
More embers flared to life, fanned by Roman’s words, but he fought not to let it show. “She’s as smart as she is beautiful.”
“She sure is. She’s the whole package. I do remember her.”
Walker reached for his coffee and dragged it to his lips, the liquid shaking all the way to his mouth.
“Looks like I just got my answer.”
He glanced up into that devil-may-care green gaze he’d known since he was in grade school. “What answer?”

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