Page 12 of You, Me, & Après-Ski
Nolan shook his head. “Cressida plans to park herself in the restaurant to ‘see where we have room for improvements on our wine list,’ but I hope she takes this winter to enjoy herself. She deserves a rest.” Something I couldn’t interpret lit his gaze for a moment, then passed.
“Oh,” I said. My throat tightened and I swallowed. I’d expected his fiancée to be a buffer on some of our excursions.Looks like I’m on my own. Great.
I hitched the gear bag that was almost as big as me over my shoulder—but its weight disappeared as Nolan took it from my grasp.
“Lead the way,” he said.
“Ah, thanks.”A gentleman. Who knew?
Heading outside, I made a beeline to the resort’s van and hopped in the driver’s seat, moving the seat controls as high as they would go and balling up my jacket to use as a cushion. With how low the seat was, whoever had last driven the land yacht must have been as big as the van. Finally situated, I put the keys in the ignition.
Glancing to the passenger seat, I saw Nolan lifting a brow at me.
“What?” I asked as I shifted the van into gear.
“We can get you a booster seat. I think I saw one in the restaurant.”
I wanted to be offended, but a booster seat would actually be great. “What Ireallyneed is a good old-fashioned stack of phone books to sit on, but Barney nearly had a heart attack the last time he saw me driving around like that. The phone books tend to slide around, and it’s a bit precarious,” I admitted.
Nolan made a show of fastening his seatbelt, and I bit back the urge to stick out my tongue.What is it about this man that has me leaping entirely out of my mind?I didn’t hate it though. Not in the least. For so long, I’d clung to doing the level-headed thing because I knew the consequences of letting my guard down or slipping up for even one second. One second, one wrong decision could change everything. But after just one second in Nolan’s presence and…well, he had me dipping into that playful side of myself that had been absent long before the accident that had erased any fun-seeking bone in my body.
I’d forgotten how much I missed that part of me.
But those thoughts were way too intimate to be having around my engaged boss, so ever the responsible one, I focused on my task. If I wasgoing to be Nolan’s tour guide, I was going to be an A-plus tour guide, dammit. Doing things halfway wasn’t my style.
As we trundled past snow-covered pines and frozen ponds, light flurries sprinkled from the polar sky. The roads hadn’t been plowed yet, but luckily the van had four-wheel drive so we wouldn’t get stuck.
“We’re going snowshoeing,” I said to break the silence. “There’s a trail I like to take people on for their first time while they’re getting used to walking around with essentially tennis rackets strapped to their feet. My dad would take me and my brothers on it often, so it’s one of my favorites. It’s about ten minutes up the road toward the western side of the property.”
At my words, Nolan’s mouth thinned into a grimace and his hands tightened on his knees.
I pretended not to notice, keeping my eyes glued to the road. “Does that sound okay?”
His answer came out between gritted teeth. “Sure. You’re the expert.”
Maybe he’s still mad about the phone call with his father.An icy silence fell over the remainder of the drive. What felt like an eternity later, I parked in a small lot by the trail, then hopped out to get the gear. Nolan loomed beside me, a silent, brooding presence.
“You can sit down. There’s no need to lurk,” I joked. With a slight glint in his eye, Nolan sat on the tailgate and I dropped a pair of snowshoes at his feet. “Strap these to your boots and make sure they’re tight.”
He eyed the myriad of buckles and straps dubiously, so I knelt in front of him to assist. As I fastened the straps, I felt his eyes burrowing into the top of my head, but I refused to look up. Seeing those ice-chip eyes staring down at me, bright with authority…I’d melt right there in the snowy parking lot.
After I finished, I strapped up my own snowshoes with shaking hands.Mierda, he made me feel a weird mix of nervous, sassy, and something else I didn’t want to acknowledge.God, this is so inappropriate. Shut. It. Down.
We made it to the trailhead, Nolan marching beside me in a stony silence as the falling snow blanketed the forest in a serene hush. As we trudged along the nearly invisible trail, Nolan took each step with confidence. With his longer legs, he was a bit ahead of me. Normally, I relished the silence. It was peaceful, and I didn’t have to worry about embarrassing myself by saying something silly. But something about Nolan’s stoic presence had me wanting to get him talking, to see what emotions were boiling beneath his fiercely calm facade. The man was a brick wall, a formidable fortress. If the tabloids were to be believed, (yes, okay, I’d caved and done a little reading up on him since our disastrous first encounter) he didn’t have any close friends, he was estranged from his brothers, and before his fiancée, he was a one-night stand kind of guy.
When his powerful legs forged a direct course through the fluffy snow toward another grouping of trees, I blinked back into awareness. “You’ve done this before,” I said.
He grunted. “Snowshoeing is just a more difficult form of walking, but it’s not that hard.”
“No, I mean, you know where you’re going.”
A muscle fluttered in his jaw. “My mother enjoyed hiking this trail.” His tone was a door slamming shut and I didn’t ask any further questions. I knew the late Tamara Keller had passed away when Nolan was a boy, but I didn’t know the details and he didn’t seem inclined to share.
I tried for a different topic. “So, Cressida Sharpe,” I said. “She’s a great match for you.” I cringed, cursing myself.Why would I think his love life is a safe topic ofdiscussion?
Glancing down at me, he raised an eyebrow. “Yes, she is.” But his words held no warmth, like he was reading from a teleprompter.Leave it alone and change the freaking subject, Val.
But my mouth had other ideas. “When’s the wedding?”
