Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Zac
Zac had an uneventful day off. After a quick trail run to Colchuck Lake, he’d showered and went over to Jon’s house to help Todd with more of the reno. But once they were done for the day, he was too keyed up to head home.
He parked his van at the end of Front Street and made for The Rooftop for a beer, secretly hoping he’d run into Tabitha.
He was still buzzing from their bouldering outing and anxious for another run-in with his ex.
No doubt, the chemistry was still there, even after sixteen years.
What would be the harm in reigniting a short-term flame—as long as they both viewed it as such?
He could practically feel the soft skin of her mile-long legs that were so flexible there was hardly any resistance in her thighs as he pushed them open.
What would be so wrong with a little rendezvous?
Besides crossing the line with Tabitha. Or hurting her feelings. Maybe even enough to compel her to write a scathing six-page review for her magazine that screws with Jon and Lucy’s livelihood and then they boot him out of their lives so that he is friendless and jobless.
He paused near the bottom of the steps.
Ok, maybe there was a lot that could go wrong with reigniting an old flame. That flame in particular.
A different venue would be a better choice. Minimize the risk of running into the leggy redhead.
He rerouted and headed for Der Hoffenhaus, a sweet little outdoor beer garden that usually had live music every night of the week. He could grab a pint and perhaps a pretzel and duck out without imploding his world. Very mature. Very professional.
At the entrance counter, he ordered a Belgian wit and a jalapeno pretzel then took the frothy mug into the beer garden to sit and wait for his food.
He found an open picnic table in the far corner and hunkered down to listen to the gentle folk band playing.
One of the servers delivered his pretzel, and he devoured it in record time.
He probably should have stuck around and helped Todd chip away at the Mexican leftovers.
Even with the crew’s help, there was more than half left.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” The familiar snark made Zac nearly choke on his beer. Frankie grinned cheekily down at him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Same thing you are.” She held up her mug and a paper plate piled high with totchos.
“No, I mean, here. Instead of The Rooftop.”
“Just because you never go anywhere else doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t either,” she teased. “Come join us. There’s plenty of room and plenty of food. I want to hear how your week is going.” Before Zac could ask who she was with, Frankie was off, weaving through the crowd of bistro tables.
Even though he wanted a moment of peace and solitude, the offer was still appealing. And if he didn’t join her, she’d think there was something wrong, and he didn’t want anyone trying to pry into his private life to ask a lot of questions. So he rose, beer in hand and trailed after his friend.
And stopped dead when he saw the perky red ponytail.
Tabitha sat at one of the bistro tables with a little fire pit in the middle, her back to him.
Totally unaware of his approach. In a light green tank top, her sun-kissed shoulders were exposed.
While a touch pink with burn, there wasn’t a single freckle, only a cluster of three little moles making up the three points of an equilateral triangle on her scapula.
He remembered tracing that constellation with his fingers—and tongue—on countless occasions.
Her trim waist cut in and curved out to a swell of generous hips.
Curves she didn’t have all those years ago.
Her little shirt ended before the top of her shorts began, exposing a new—at least to him—tattoo above one cheek.
He’d give anything, every earthly possession he had, to see what design she’d chosen.
She listened politely to whatever blondie was saying with hand-flailing animation. His tabby cat was always so polite.
Please, Zac. Please don’t stop.
“I found us another friend.” Frankie’s chipper words pulled Zac from his inconvenient memories, and the moment Tabitha turned around and spotted him, he remembered his place. Her glowing smile fell, quickly replaced with a stiff, closed mouth grin.
“Zac,” a deep voice rumbled.
Ugh, of course this guy was there.
“Professor Benji. It’s been a while,” Zac crooned to Frankie’s boyfriend and former grad school professor.
Zac’s use of the moniker was sure to get under the other man’s skin, which was his goal, until Frankie planted an elbow in his ribs.
Zac turned to her and gave an apologetic look.
Because while he didn’t love her chronically uptight and stoic boy toy, Zac owed the guy some low-key groveling.
At the wedding, he hadn’t just disrespected the entire Miller clan, but also the man that the youngest Miller had been shacking up with. “Sorry. Hi, Benjamin.”
Benjamin did that thing where he tilts his head down and peers over his glasses, a real professor looking down on his student kind of move.
And if the guy’s lips could be pursed any tighter, they’d probably fuse shut.
The two men stared at each other until Frankie settled her hand on her guy’s leg and squeezed or pinched or something, because he flinched a little and attempted a smile-adjacent expression.
“It’s . . . good to see you?” Benjamin said with a shrug.
“I dunno man. Sure. Why not?” Zac said, letting him off the hook and grabbing the last stool at the table. He glanced at the other two women and nodded. “Blondie. Tabby cat. How was your day?”
“Fine. You?” Tabitha asked, sitting ramrod straight on her stool, giving nothing away besides how awkward she must have felt.
“Good. Good,” Zac returned with a similar level of discomfort.
The group sat quietly, looking at each other. The only movement was Lark slowly reaching for a tater tot from the fresh batch Frankie had returned with.
Why didn’t I go home after leaving Todd and the rest of the crew?
“Hey, stranger.”
Zac startled as Maggi popped up beside him and walked her fingers across his shoulders. He stiffened, shrugging off her touch and turning to face his short-lived date from Sunday. “Hello, Maggi.”
“I’m surprised I didn’t hear from you after you left in such a hurry the other night.”
“Right. I’ve been pretty busy this week,” he said, inadvertently glancing over her shoulder at Tabitha, who watched the interaction with thinly veiled dismay.
She followed his gaze and hummed. “Oh, right. The ex-flame. Hi, I’m Maggi.”
“Tabitha,” she said with a forced smile.
Maggi turned back to Zac. “I thought I’d come over and remind you that it’s my last night in Leavenworth, so if you weren’t doing anything . . .”
“I need a new beer,” Tabitha said quietly to Lark and then slid off her stool to make for the bar.
“Sorry, Maggi, I don’t think it’s going to work out. Excuse me.” Zac dismounted his stool as well, attempting to ease around Maggi without making contact, and fell in step with Tabitha. “Let me get that drink for you.”
She didn’t stop after he offered and so he followed, to insist. But she didn’t stop at the bar either and picked up the pace to exit the beer garden.
“Tabitha. Wait.”
He pushed past a cluster of customers, muttering clipped apologies, and continued his pursuit.
She kept walking, and boy, those legs made her quick.
She turned down a tiny alley toward the end of town and stopped where a parked delivery truck created a dead end.
She growled at her lack of escape route and turned back to Zac, who waited at the start of the alley.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, finding her voice for the first time since Zac had joined the group at the beer garden.
“I came for a beer and snack.”
“No, I mean here?” She flailed her arms around her.
“It’s a nice alley,” Zac half-teased; he couldn’t resist messing with her a little. Old habits.
“Zac.” She slammed her hands on her hips and speared him with a look meant to kill. “You should be inside with your new friend.”
“Maggi? Are you jealous that she approached me?”
“No. I was still reeling from you showing up out of the blue.”
He inched closer, slowly. She flinched, and he held up his hands to calm her feral movements. “I didn’t have a clue you’d be here. And Frankie invited me over. I should have said no, but she’d turned away before I could. But then you stormed off and—”
“And what? You thought you needed to follow me? Typically, people storm off because they want to get away.”
“Sure, I get that. Been there.” Zac took another step forward and kept his words low and calm.
“You were who I wanted to get away from.”
“Again,” he said with a soft chuckle, now only a few feet away, “I get that. But I don’t understand why exactly. It’s been so many years since we last had history. And we’ve been getting along fine this week. You only have one more day of climbing with me, so why are you feeling so skittish now?”
“Because I don’t like how you make me feel,” she huffed, crossing her arms even tighter against her chest.
“Tabitha. I—” He struggled to find the words.
Because the last thing he wanted was to make her feel uncomfortable or bad in any way.
He freaked out a little when she fell off that boulder yesterday, but really any of the other guides would have assessed her for injuries.
His assessment might have been extra thorough, but still.
“I’m not trying to make this week hard on you. I swear.”
“But you are.” She bit out, clenching her fists so hard he worried she’d cut her palms with her short fingernails.
“Then I’ll leave.”
“That’s the other problem,” she said softly, chest heaving with unsteady breath.
“What is?”
“I don’t want you to.” She released a frustrated moan and began pacing in the narrow alley. “Look. It took a long time to forget about you and even when I did, you’ve always been the guy I compare other men to. I rarely date, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s because of you.”
Zac moved closer, now only inches away, and stopped her pacing with a hand on each shoulder.
Her messaging was so confusing. Was she saying she wanted him to stay away?
Or that she wanted him? She said he was a big deal in her life, but she’d been so prickly the last few days, like she couldn’t bear to breathe the same air as him. “Tabby cat. Tell me what you want.”
Her wild eyes, bluer than the late summer sky, pleaded with him as they connected with his. She was so close, he could smell the coconut shampoo and sunscreen. One whiff told him it was the same exact brands she used all those years ago. The recollection made his knees weak.
“I know what I want, but I shouldn’t.”
“Because . . .?”
“Because,” she paused whatever she was about to blurt out, and replaced it with something else. “It would be messy, Zac. A hookup or whatever would be unprofessional, and I am here for work.”
Zac settled a hand on the brick wall behind her. When had he walked her back against it? She was a whisper away from him. Trapped between him and the building, she made no attempt to move. Why not? He had to know.
“Can I ask you a question?” He breathed in her coconut scent as she nodded. “Do you want me? Professionalism or whatever be damned. Do you think about me touching you? Does it turn you on?”
His lips hovered over hers, upturned to him, ready to be captured with a kiss. The vein in her neck pumped madly against her skin. He’d shifted so that his knee was between her legs, and it didn’t escape his notice that she shifted to allow the fit. He groaned as she pressed slightly against him.
“You’re killing me, Tabitha.”
“Good,” she murmured, eyes flaring, and flicked her tongue out to swipe his lower lip.