Chapter 9
Lizzie
Waking up to find Van’s warm, strong body wrapped around mine on the couch was a bliss I never imagined I’d feel.
With his even breaths quiet in my ear, he pressed his lips lightly below it, like he had to be connected to me in some way, even in sleep.
I felt a wholeness I’d never dared to dream.
I had many amazing things in my life—affluence, influence, and so much good fortune—that wanting love, expecting and hoping to find it, felt selfish. Extravagant and excessive.
But with Van, it felt right. He was the home and family I’d been in search of since Mama died. He was comfort and strength and belief, all wrapped up in the most handsome package I’d ever seen.
Snuggling closer, fitting myself to his long frame and wrapping my leg over his hip, I whispered against his mouth as I kissed his lips, “Good morning.”
Waking instantly to the sound of my voice, he inhaled deeply, breathing me in, and kissed me back, then stretched every muscle in his body, one at a time from his toes to his shoulders. “Mornin’.”
“Can we go get my stuff today?”
He peeked one eye open and smiled at me, but didn’t answer.
I kissed his perfect lips again. I couldn’t get enough of him. “Can we?”
He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me against his body. He was hard, and in a low, sleepy voice, he said, “What was the question?”
I almost couldn’t remember what I wanted to say when he began grinding his erection against my belly. “M-my car? My stuff. I mean my phone.”
“I kinda like the idea of you stayin’ up here with me without a phone.” He moaned in my ear. “Without the world buggin’ us.”
I kind of liked that idea too. I could picture it. Oh the things we could get up to if we ignored the rest of the world.
He took another deep breath and leaned back to kiss me quickly. “It ain’t real life, though, huh?” The delicious grinding stopped, and he put some distance between our bodies.
“Guess not.”
“Okay, why don’t you stay here and relax. I need to run home, grab a shower and feed Pep. I’ll cut you down a tree on my way back.”
“Who’s Pep? And I thought I was going with you to get the tree.”
“You thought that. I didn’t think that.” He smirked and scooted off the couch. “Pep’s my horse.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you had a horse. And what? Don’t you want me to help?”
“Um…”
I swatted his bare ass before he pulled his jeans over it. “Van!”
“It’ll go a lot faster if I just go do it.”
Cocking an eyebrow, I said, “But it will be decidedly less fun.”
When he turned to look down at me, I slid the sheet he’d draped over us last night away from my chest and flashed him. He must’ve woken at some point to add more wood to our fire, because I heard it crackling, and even naked, I was toasty warm.
He groaned. “Yeah. That’s exactly why I should go by myself. You’ll distract me.” When he was fully redressed, he said, “I used to have more horses. Used to compete.”
“Rodeos?”
He nodded.
“Really? What event?”
“Tie-down ropin’.”
Imagining him racing across a rodeo arena on the back of a horse turned my insides to Jell-O and made me wet between my thighs. “That’s really hot. You know that, right?”
He rolled his eyes.
I laughed. “Seriously, though, that’s cool. I played a ton of rodeos. Back in the beginning.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
He eyed me as he sat in the armchair across from the couch and laced up his boots.
As he tucked his jeans in the boots so snow wouldn’t get to his socks, I sat up. “You really followed my career, didn’t you?”
He nodded again, and something flashed across his face.
“What?”
“Nothin’. It was cool to watch you from the outside. To see you take the world by storm.”
Yeah, well, it might’ve been cool to watch, but it hadn’t been all sunshine and warm breezes to live through. The loneliness swallowed me whole some days.
“What?” he asked.
Imitating him, I shrugged one shoulder and answered, “Nothin’,” with a hint of a pout on my lips.
He stood and relented. “Fine. Go get dressed. We’ll check on your car. I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to get to it today. It might be too dangerous, but I’ll make a call and get that figured out, and you can meet Pep and help me find that tree.”
“Eee! Yay!” I jumped up, and the sheet pooled at my feet. Fowl had claimed a permanent spot in front of the fireplace, but he yipped and jumped up too.
As I ran for the bathroom and Fowl followed, Van called after us, “Get a move on, Eli Winter. We ain’t got all day!”
* * *
“This is the most beautiful place on the planet,” I said, my breath coming out in cold discordant puffs of air as we made the trek from Van’s truck up the snow-covered lane to his cabin.
The last few minutes of the morning alpenglow washing over the Tetons took my breath away, the pink light warming me and melting away any chill I’d thought I felt.
It was one thing to see the phenomenon from down in the valley, but to be so far up, surrounded by those impossibly high, glowing peaks, felt spiritual.
The contrast from the dark trees, red and pink rock, to the blinding-white snow stunned me.
“Yeah,” he said, like it was old news to him. “The light gets bent. It reflects off particles in the air or somethin’. Turns everything pink.”
“You’re so lucky to live up here. I can’t imagine it’s cheap.”
“My ancestors homesteaded the property in their day, and they passed it down generation to generation. I inherited it when my parents and my brother passed. We’re just outside Bridger-Teton National Forest. They were lucky they picked this spot so they didn’t get swallowed up by government land.”
I noticed a small barn to the side of the cabin. “Is that where Pep lives?” I asked, nodding in that direction.
Van followed my line of sight. “Yeah. He’s probably pissed at me for making him wait so long for his breakfast. His water might be frozen over too. Let’s hurry up inside, make our phone calls, and we can feed him.”
“How does he not freeze in there?”
As he took the first step onto his front porch, he turned and held out his hand, waiting for me to catch up. “Blankets made specifically for this kind of weather and an infrared heater.”
I took his hand, he opened his front door and held it for me, and when I stepped over the threshold, I was rendered immobile with awe. Every available wall space had been filled with photographs.
There were landscapes and pictures of all kinds of animals.
Van used a signature color scheme and style, a kind of grainy effect, saturated with muted blues and browns.
The colors felt authentically western, and his photos brought to mind all the summers spent in the mountains with my family.
It was easy to see which photos were ones he’d taken and which had been captured by other artists.
The image hung over his fireplace was one he’d taken of a mama and moose calf looking at each other. It was precious and intimate.
“That’s my favorite,” he said when he noticed me staring at the framed picture.
“It’s breathtaking.”
“Thanks,” he said bashfully, his cheeks reddening even more than they had been from the cold. “When I left the rodeo, I took my art a little more seriously. Kinda didn’t have a choice.”
“Why’d you leave?”
He didn’t answer. I felt him close up, but as he searched through a mess of small boxes and papers on a desk on the far side of the room, I waited.
“Van?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said absently. “It was just time. Here it is.” He turned and handed me a big, bulky phone. “I already dialed your granddad’s number.”
“Thanks,” I said, noting the faraway sound to his voice. The phone had already begun ringing, and then I heard Grandpa’s voice at the other end of the line. I put the phone to my ear, still watching Van. He smiled, but it felt hollow. “Hi, Grandpa. How’s Costa Rica?”
“Oh, Lizzie. It’s a relief to hear your voice. Are you okay? I was hoping to hear from you last night.”
“Sorry. I kind of crashed my car.”
“Elizabeth! Are you—”
“No,” I reassured him, “it’s okay. I’m okay. I didn’t exactly crash it. More like I nudged it off a cliff. The road up here was pure ice, but Van, I mean, Evan helped me. All my stuff is in a heaping pile at the bottom of a mountain, but I’m okay.”
Grandpa let out a sigh of relief, and I could hear Grammy crowding him, demanding to know what happened.
“She’s okay,” he told her. “Thank God. We saw the weather report for the next few days. You sure picked the wrong day to drive up there, but it looks like it’s letting up.
Will you stay up there? Give the crews time to plow and treat the roads? ”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to stay through Christmas if that’s okay with you?”
“Of course, sweetheart. I wish you would come spend the holidays with us, but I understand why you can’t.”
“Grandpa, I wasn’t invited to Jason’s house. You know that.”
Grandpa mumbled something under his breath, and then I heard Grammy swatting at him. “William Whitley, don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain. It’s almost Christmas!”
“Yes, dear,” he said, and he sighed again. “You’re welcome anywhere Grandma and I are. Don’t you listen to my son.”
I chuckled, loving that old man more than anyone in the world. “Thanks, Grandpa. But still, I can’t travel right now. No, I’m fine here. Don’t worry about me. Evan’s even going to get me a Christmas tree.”
“That’s sounds like a fine idea. A real tree for you this year.
It broke my heart when you told me you had a plastic one in Los Angeles.
Oh, that reminds me, there are a couple boxes of old lights and decorations in the back bedroom closet.
You might pull those out. They probably aren’t very stylish, but they’ll brighten up the cabin for you. ”
“Thank you. Merry Christmas, Grandpa. Give Grammy a kiss for me, okay? I’ll be fine. I promise, and I will never drive in the snow again. Believe me when I tell you that!”
“Doc and Mrs. Whitley doin’ okay?” Van asked when I hung up the satellite phone and handed the clunky thing back to him.