Burn on the Western Slope (Crimson Romance) (3 page)

“Great idea,” Reagan said, thinking it a good place to bury her anxiety. “Let me grab my purse.”

Outside, the darkness blanketed them in a shell of stars and ice like a magical snow globe. Snow crunched under her feet, making her lighter, more carefree. She slipped a few times, and she and Naomi huddled together in laughter. Despite the cold and slipperiness, the snow enchanted her. The mountains seemed to glow in the dark, surrounding her like angels watching her or big shoulders protecting her.

They walked two blocks to a bar bursting with activity and music low enough to have a decent conversation. A flat-screen TV hung above a fireplace. White lights were strung across the ceiling, and the walls promoted every beer company imaginable. Conversations fused into one, giving the room a low hum. Cozy and quaint, it buzzed with underlying energy.

She already felt better. The activity dulled her restlessness.

“Ladies, can I get you something to drink?”

Reagan turned and recognized the bartender as one of the men with her uncle in a couple of pictures. He must have recognized her too, because his steps faltered and his eyes briefly flickered.

“My specialty is hot buttered rum,” he said, regaining his composure.

“Bring it on,” Naomi said.

His brows arched, yet his gaze remained aloof. Reagan watched as he turned to make their drinks, wondering if the town catered to many outsiders.

“He’s cute,” Naomi said as they both removed their gloves and laid them on the bar.

“He’s in several pictures on the mantel.”

“Oh yummy.” Naomi smacked her hands together. “Now I have a picture for my fantasies.” When he returned with their drinks, she offered her widest, sexiest smile. “I’m Naomi.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Chayton.”

“I recognize you,” Reagan said, still studying him. His tan looked natural and his brown eyes held the depths of the earth. His dark hair brushed past his ears and down his forehead, curling at the ends. This guy knew her uncle, and she planned to discover all she could about him. “From a picture in my condo.”

“Your condo?”

“I mean, my uncle’s condo. You must’ve known him. Ray.”

His lips pursed as he toweled an already clean counter, but he didn’t look surprised. His long-sleeved chambray shirt, rolled to the elbows, revealed well-defined forearms. “Ray’s your uncle? Yeah, I knew him.”

“Well enough to ski with him.”

“Ray was a great guy and my friend and neighbor for years. We skied together all the time. I’m sorry about what happened.”

Reagan clenched her cup. Steam rose from the drink and she steadied her gaze on the ice cream, watching it melt. His words were stilted, but his flat and unemotional voice belied his jerky movements. She wondered if he knew he shouldn’t be expressing his sympathy to her.

“I should be telling you that,” Reagan said. “I never knew he existed. The day I learned about him was the day I found out he left me his condo.”

Chayton stopped toweling the bar, the slight tilt of head his only reply. His brooding brown eyes mesmerized her, drawing her into their depths. A sprinkling of freckles polished his cheeks and nose. Reagan wondered what this guy knew about her. What her uncle might have known about her.

Obviously more than she knew about Ray.

“Did he have a cat?” she asked out of the blue.

Someone yelled something beside her. Chayton acknowledged the customer and grabbed a glass from the shelf above him. He flipped the glass, poured a bit of alcohol, and squirted soda-like fizz from a fountain before resting a lime atop the rim. Sliding it across the counter, he hollered, “I’ll put it on your tab.”

Slick. This guy over-exaggerated sexy. Tall, dark, and handsome edged by indescribable intensity. Reagan glanced at Naomi, whose dumbfounded expression announced she was also impressed.

Leaning forward on the counter, Chayton set his elbows on the bar and entwined his fingers together. “Yeah, he had a cat,” he answered, his voice rough and difficult to sketch.

“What happened to it?” Reagan asked. She liked cats but hadn’t had one since junior high.

“He’s with me,” Chayton growled. “I’ve grown quite attached to him.”

“Oh.” Reagan held up her hands. “I didn’t want … I didn’t mean I’d take the cat. I just thought … ”

Chayton nodded. “Good. I’d like to keep him.”

“Yes. Please.” Reagan felt like a jerk. An embarrassed jerk. Who could blame Chayton for his caution? As far as he was concerned, she was a long-lost family member only here for her uncle’s money. Someone who hadn’t bothered to be around when it really mattered.

Relieved when Naomi took over the conversation, she listened halfheartedly as her cousin asked Chayton about the town, the skiing, the mountain peaks, and the weather. Her mind swam with questions, things she wanted to know about Ray, not the town.

“I don’t even know what happened to him,” Reagan interrupted.

Naomi and Chayton stopped talking and looked at her oddly. “What?” Naomi asked.

“To Ray. I don’t know what happened to Ray.”

Chayton steadied his gaze on her, but the narrowing of his eyes and the clenching of his jaw told her he still mourned his friend. She regretted interrupting. This guy didn’t know her and as far as she knew, had no reason to like her. As Ray’s neighbor and friend, he might even resent her.

“He was killed in an ice-climbing accident.”

Chapter Two

Garret scratched the cue ball and cursed. Stepping away, he handed the table over to Andy.

He’d received Chayton’s text that Reagan was at Air Dog, but she was gone by the time he arrived. He played a game of pool and drank a couple bottles of Guinness. He couldn’t sleep anyway.

Guilt hounded him on a daily basis, but most times he was able to stifle it with activity. After losing his partner the way he did, he might not return to work. He suspected that’s why Buchanan gave him this assignment.

Ray had been a good friend. He’d left his niece everything, and only now did she decide to come down and see the place. Where was she at Christmas? On his birthday? At his funeral? He couldn’t say much. He hadn’t been at Ray’s funeral either, but his job was his excuse — as it was for everything else he’d missed in his lifetime.

Andy steadied his pool cue, pocketed a solid, and whooped. He’d grown up with Garret and Chayton and, like Chayton, had stayed in Tanyon. The longer Garret stayed, the more he understood why.

The town sat at the base of the mountain thirty miles off the interstate between Whitefish and Kalispell, the two closest cities. One ski lift toted skiers up the mountain, and that’s how the locals liked it. The larger resort towns with fancy accommodations attracted most visitors, and the locals preferred that, too. They didn’t want the stress of big city lights and crime.

As Andy took another turn, Chayton approached and stole Garret’s cue stick. “She’s more beautiful in person than the pictures. Her friend is hot, too.”

“Friend?”

“Yeah, another girl was with her.”

Great, who was this other girl? Another bedmate of Javier Mass?

“Her friend was trying to cover a bruise on her cheek with makeup.”

He knew Javier Mass liked to beat up women. Maybe the girls were hiding from him. If that was the case, they were in danger. Nobody hid from Javier Mass for long.

“Your turn,” Andy interrupted.

“I’ll take his turn,” Chayton said. “He’s not playing so well tonight.”

Garret groaned and shrugged his shoulders, approaching the bar for another Guinness. One more beer wouldn’t hurt.

He stood by the bar and watched his younger brother pocket three stripes, finally handing the table over to Andy after missing the fourth. Garret and Chayton had made it a game to challenge each other throughout their lives, but now it seemed Chayton triumphed. Probably because Garret’s job was his life, robbing him of fun or entertainment. He had a lot to make up for, but he’d pushed himself over the past three weeks to fit in everything he could. Sometimes he wondered if he did it for fun or punishment.

Garret returned to the table and stood beside his brother, but didn’t make a move.

Chayton snorted. “You too old to play the game?”

Using the taunt to fuel him, Garret wrested the pool stick from Chayton’s grip and eyed the table. The cue ball rested in the middle of the table, but all striped balls — the three left — were frozen against the short rail, along with two other solids. Taking a moment to focus and bridge his stick, he called his pocket and struck the cue ball. It flew across the table and pocketed not one but two of his object balls, leaving the other to slide against the rail and hang.

“Hah,” he said, feeling quite proud of himself.

“That’s great, Gar,” Chayton drawled as he popped him on the back.

Straightening, Garret narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Don’t forget who taught you this game.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

As a few of the regulars approached, one of them said, “I’m betting on Gar.”

“No. Andy has more practice,” someone else said.

“Did you see him carving the mountains the other day?”

“His brother just played half his game.”

Sneering at the gibes, Garret took his time leveling his stick. One more object ball and the eight for him and two object balls and the eight for Andy. The competitive side of him wouldn’t make this easy on his opponent.

Reagan’s image, which had been hovering at the edge of his mind throughout the night, flashed through his head. Cursing, he straightened and wiped his sleeve across his brow.

He hadn’t even met her yet and already she was disrupting his life. She was beautiful, and a perfect distraction for his frame of mind. Did she have any idea the danger she was involved in? Could he woo her into talking and giving up the entire Mass Mafioso? If so, would he risk her life?

Ah hell, they could all be in danger, but right now he had to trust his own instincts.

“You okay, bro?” Chayton teased as he bumped him on the shoulder.

This was the Chayton he knew, the one that emerged when he wasn’t dwelling on his losses. In coming back to Montana, Garret not only hoped to heal himself but also to heal his relationship with his brother.

He swilled his beer and returned to the table. In another swift move, he tackled his last ball, but it took two more shots to pocket the eight. Thankfully, he was faster than Andy.

He blew on the tip of his talc-covered pool stick, mocking a smoking gun in an old western shootout. “That, my friends, is how a real man plays.” His arms flew open and he swaggered backward, exaggerating his theatrics. He peered across the small crowd, playing to the group that gathered. He knew most of them. Had grown up with most of them. The ones he didn’t know knew the ones he did. “If you need lessons, well, I’m not available tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Andy jeered. He held a beer in one hand; the other held his cue as if ready for another go.

“I’ll take lessons,” Whitey hollered, teasing. So named because of the pale blond hair he’d been born with, and since he was nearly born on the slopes and would probably die on the slopes. “Lessons on how you slay your tricks and make everyone else look bad until you land on your face and humiliate yourself.”

Garret threw back his head and laughed. So he was a little rusty in things. Whitey wouldn’t let him forget the tumble he’d taken on the mountains the first week he was home. They’d been snowboarding, taking bets as usual, and Garret had seriously lost his when he’d missed his landing after performing a three-sixty and falling face first.

It felt good to be home. He found solace in the arms of the mountains. The guys had no idea the baggage he carried. They wouldn’t treat him differently if they knew. Once, he’d share that baggage and beer around a campfire with friends. They would listen, laugh, then get drunk. Now he kept those burdens to himself.

Most days, he felt normal. Lord knew he did everything he could to appear normal. Only when he dwelled on the turmoil in his mind did he feel isolated, and he brought that on himself.

Garret drained his beer, slammed the bottle on an empty table, and handed his cue stick to Chayton. Slapping Andy on the back, he said, “Now this old man is taking his ass to bed.”

• • •

Reagan’s gut clenched as she thought of Ray, but she didn’t have words to mourn him as she walked back to the condo with Naomi.

Naomi went right to unpacking. Reagan sat alone on the bed in her room and stared at her tattered suitcase.

She hoped to learn more about Ray. Her mother hadn’t told her anything and had grown hateful when she couldn’t convince Reagan to stay in Florida. Her disdain only made Reagan more eager to make this trip and discover how their relationship went wrong.

Determined to stay as long as necessary, she scooted to the floor and unzipped her suitcase, lifting a shirt in an attempt to unpack. Limbs heavy and weak, she dropped the shirt. Pulling out a sock, the same heaviness overwhelmed her. She watched the sock fall into the suitcase amid other clothes, safe and cushioned among friends.

She hadn’t felt safe and cushioned in a long time, if ever. She’d wasted the last few years of her life clinging to an anchor that swayed with the slightest flurry, never able to fit in anywhere, even the graphic design career she’d put her whole life into. But besides losing a coveted promotion and living with a dirty cheating slimeball, her life had been tame and boring.

In another attempt to unpack and make herself at home, she flung a sweater across the room, away from the safety net of the luggage. It landed a few feet away and she reached over and grabbed it, returning it to the case.

She wanted to be here. She did. But she couldn’t unpack. Not yet.

If she unpacked, she might actually settle, and she never wanted to settle again.

She’d brought one bag, stuffing sweaters and shirts and pants into it just as her life was stuffed into the nooks and crannies of emotional baggage. One bag versus Naomi’s five. She didn’t want a lot of clothes to tie her down and if she stayed longer, she could shop for more. With the money Ray had given her, she wanted to shop for more.