Chapter 6 #2
“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 of discussion?
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?”
The corner of his lips twitched. Whether with amusement or agitation, I wasn’t sure. Maybe both. “We haven’t set a date yet.”
Frankie had said they’d been engaged for over a year, and his dodgy response had me wondering if she might be right about them being on the rocks. Finally, out of the chaos in my brain, a different topic elbowed its way to the forefront. “Why did you fire me?”
He cut a glance at me as we headed across an open field. “I didn’t fire you.”
“Yes, you did. You basically told me my services were no longer required. That’s a very formal way of giving me the boot.”
He ground his teeth together and was silent for so long, I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
Finally, he said, “I intended to spend the season working and would not have had time for our wonderful excursions. So I didn’t want to waste your time.
But plans changed.” As he bit off the end of his sentence, his footsteps became more like stomps.
Then the spotlight of realization shone on me. “You don’t hate having a tour guide—you hate it here.”
As he spun toward me, a hard frown slashed down his face. “What?”
I gulped, my previous confidence shattering in the face of his dark mood.
But before I lost my nerve, I asked, “Is it because of the snow? A lot of people don’t like snow.
Or the cold. And the resort is too far from town to go there every day, tiny slopes compared to Big Sky, not very luxurious accommodations—” Aaaaaand I was rambling.
“It’s not because of that.” That was all he said for the remainder of the trek.
An hour later, we finished back where we started, and Nolan’s stormy mood had not abated.
I tossed the equipment in the back of the van—I’d deal with the mess later—and all but peeled out of the parking lot.
Snow had started falling again as evening approached, and I drove as fast as conditions would allow.
When I parked at the lodge, relief flooded through me. I moved to get out, but Nolan caught my wrist and handed me a glossy black business card.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“My personal cell number. So we can better coordinate. I have a hectic work schedule, so I might need to rearrange some of our outings on short notice.”
“Oh.” I stared at the card, feeling queasy because I’d been sure he was about to fire me again. “Of course. Looks like a credit card,” I added, and he almost smiled before he got out.
“Nolan!” Cressida said, waving from the lodge’s front steps and swathed in a puffy, floor-length gray coat. Her blonde locks were curled to perfection, unlike my tangled waves.
Nolan smiled at her, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Be right there,” he said. He turned back to me, and I rearranged my face into something that hopefully looked professional. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“It’s a date,” I said, and wanted to punch myself in the face immediately. Could I not stop putting my foot in my mouth?
Amusement glinted in his eyes as he walked away, and I sagged into my seat.
First outing, survived. Only a million more to go.
Dios ayúdame.