I don’t want to go home—it’s too close to Grey and all of my complicated feelings about him, even if he’s not there right now—so instead, I take Jitter to a local park. I strap on the snowshoes and leg gaiters that I keep in my trunk this time of year, and my puppers and I head out into the wilderness, following my favorite trail.
I’m not a hundred yards from the parking lot, though, before I hear a noise behind me that will always make me turn around.
It’s the distinctive urp! of someone slipping on the path.
“Are you okay?” comes out of my mouth before I fully process what I’m seeing.
Grey is picking himself up out of a snowbank beside the snow-packed trail.
Jitter lunges with a happy bark, his back end wagging ferociously, and he almost pulls me over despite the extra traction provided by my snowshoes. “Slow, Jitter.”
He listens as well as a mountain lion chasing an elk would to the same command.
“I meant to do that,” Grey says as he makes it all the way to his feet.
He slips on the packed-snow path but catches himself this time.
I squeeze my eyes shut and count to five.
When I open them again, he’s still standing there.
Watching me.
Shit shit shit.
Does he know I called his grandmother and he’s pretending like he doesn’t? Did he tell Zen to lie?
Is he here so that he can shove me off a cliff and pretend it was an accident?
He doesn’t really strike me as the type, but then, I never thought I’d be the type to call a man’s grandmother to tattle on him for buying my family’s café either.
Not that that was my only purpose in calling.
But it was a major part.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Wow. Is that your suspicious face?”
It’s the smirk that does me in.
How he pulls off a self-deprecating smirk that also says I like your suspicious face is beyond me, but I get a little warm glow in my chest all because of that smirk. “This is my concerned face. A beach bum who’s constantly wrapped in seventeen layers to stay warm, who has dizzy spells, and who isn’t wearing spikes on a snow trail is always concern for us locals.”
“A beach bum? You keep calling me that.”
“You’ve lived on the California coast for the past eight years. Ergo, beach bum. Do you need help back to your car?”
He smiles.
Full-on smiles with his whole, entire face.
Just like he did in Hawaii. I gesture to his whole head, encompassing every part of the grin. “Put that away. I’m playing dirty and I am now immune.”
He ignores me. “You ever seen a beach bum this pasty?” He points to the very small area of his face where I can actually see his skin. It’s basically just his upper cheeks and his nose.
The rest of him is covered in beard, hat, scarf, coat, gloves, jeans, and boots.
He looks like a J.Crew catalog model.
But taller.
And no, I don’t know how tall J.Crew models usually are. I just know this man is toweringly tall, with massive hands and feet and other parts that I am actively not thinking about.
“Maybe you have an excellent skin care routine,” I say.
“No, you’re confusing me with Zen again.”
Other than both of them being taller than me, that’s not possible, and I almost give in and laugh.
But only almost.
I do not have the emotional bandwidth for attraction to this man when I know he’s going to hate me very, very soon.
I don’t know if I even have the emotional bandwidth to be his friend.
Jitter finally succeeds in pulling me all the way next to his new favorite person, where he pushes his body against Grey firmly enough that Grey slips again.
“You need to go home,” I tell him.
“Wanted some fresh air.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“How often have you been to this trail?”
“Haven’t. Yet. Why I’m here now.”
“So you followed me.”
“I saw you pulling over here and wanted to do a good deed and make sure you weren’t wading into a property war between Mr. Avocado and Mrs. Marshmallow Fluff.”
He’s doing it again.
He’s being Duke, and it’s both my favorite thing ever and also what puts me on guard. I sigh softly and shove my hair back out of my face as the wind rustles it. “I can’t find anything else on Chandler and I am now playing dirty. Go away.”
“Can a guy not simply want to go hiking on treacherous ice and snow with a captivating woman?”
“No.” Because I don’t trust myself to not throw myself at him and confess what I’ve done, which will ruin the entire impact. “Jitter. C’mon, boy. We’re going for a hike, and Grey’s going to learn the hard way that tourists are a mountain lion’s favorite snack.”
Jitter harrumphs at me, then lies down on the path right at Grey’s feet.
Grey shrugs. “Hate to tell you, but if Jitter wants me, there’s nothing I can do to stop him.”
He knows.
He absolutely knows I called his grandmother, and he is going to torture me with pretending he doesn’t until I cave and tell him that Ms. Hot Mess on the Beach called his grandmother.
I stare at him.
He stares back like he knows this is the start of a staring contest, and he knows I’ll win, but he also won’t make it easy on me.
And he doesn’t.
My eyes are burning and freezing at the same time before he breaks, though he doesn’t so much break as he speaks while also holding me captive with his bright blue eyes. “May I please join you so as to not offend your dog?”
“You hate the cold,” I remind him.
“Says who?”
“Says my powers of observation.”
He shrugs, palms up and everything. “You’re not wrong. But your dog wants me to come, so I have to suck it up. I don’t make the rules. Jitter does.”
I pull in a massive breath through my nose, then blow it out slowly, feeling myself giving in to what I want when I know just how dangerous it is.
And I’m not talking about him walking on this path in those boots, which he truly cannot do.
Too much ice.
And his jeans will get soaked, and I’ll have to carry him back when he passes out from the cold.
“Is stress the only reason you get lightheaded?” I ask.
“That’s what my doctor suspects at this point.”
“Are you drinking enough water?”
“Have you met Zen? Tall, slender, blond hair, pain in the ass? My self-appointed personal assistant who would leap in front of a speeding train to stop it if they thought it might veer offtrack and possibly scuff one of my fingernails wrong? You think they’ll let me get away with not drinking enough water?”
“We’re going to dig into that later.”
“That’ll be a fun conversation.”
He’s back.
The man I met in Hawaii is fully back, without me inviting him back this time, and every cell in my body is reacting to the flirtation.
This feels almost the same as if Emma would forgive me.
Like everything is right in the world with one of my best friends.
I shouldn’t feel that way, but I can’t help it. I like him.
“Are you more in danger at high elevations?” I ask.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“So what’s not fine?”
He pauses.
Jitter whines and tries to roll over Grey’s feet, making him take another half step back and nearly tumble again. “Stress,” he finally says. “Standing up too fast. Not eating enough. Not hydrating enough.”
“Porcupines and powdered cheese?”
He actually laughs.
I am in so much trouble.
“Is it permanent?” I ask.
“This is trail conversation.”
“Have you ever been on a snowy trail?”
“I’m a beach bum, remember?”
Yep.
I’m doing it.
I’m giving in to the charm he’s laying down, and I’ll regret it, but this?
This is fun.
I want fun. I miss fun.
And orgasms.
Which are not on the table here.
“Stay. Both of you. And do not move. Don’t even shift your weight. Understand?” I shove Jitter’s leash at him without waiting for an answer, then march back to my SUV in my snowshoes.
Lucky and Decker both regularly join me on hikes, and they both regularly forget their own snowshoes, so I keep spare spikes in my car. No extra gaiters to keep Grey’s jeans dry, but I have a backup set of hiking poles, so I grab those and a spare water bottle and return to the trailhead.
“Put these on,” I order the man.
He lifts his brows, then looks at me as he takes the strap-on cleats that’ll give him traction on the trail. “On…?”
“Your feet.”
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my feet are a little larger than yours.”