Chapter Six
Twenty minutes after Caprice told me she had to go, my phone buzzed with the road update I’d been waiting for.
The crews had finished the last shaded section below Upper Ridge. Packed snow was cleared, sand was down where it needed to be, and the route was ready for a final check before guest traffic reopened.
I read the update once more, although there wasn’t anything unclear about it.
Caprice’s Audi was going down the mountain today.
Eggs cooked on low heat behind me, and toast had just popped up.
I’d changed into canvas work pants, a thermal shirt, and my heavier work jacket so I could check the road and dig out her SUV after breakfast. Caprice was in the bedroom packing.
Every few minutes I heard a zipper, a drawer, or the soft thump of something being set inside her suitcase.
Bear had stationed himself in the hallway with his braided rope between his paws. Each time Caprice crossed the bedroom doorway, his head came up.
I understood the feeling.
Caprice came into the kitchen wearing a dark sweater, practical trousers, and the boots she’d arrived in. Her camel coat waited over the back of a chair.
She looked at my phone. “Was that the road?”
“The crew finished the shaded stretch. We’re eating first, then I’ll make one final pass and check your car. If everything matches their report, you’ll be safe to head out.”
Her gaze stayed on mine for a moment.
“That’s good news.”
“It is.”
I meant it.
I wanted more time with her, but wanting it didn’t make her job less real or the road less safe.
Caprice came around the island and wrapped both arms around my waist.
“You’re making it very difficult to be upset with you.”
I held her against me. “I can live with that.”
She stayed tucked against me long enough that I had to reach past her and turn the burner down before breakfast suffered for it.
Caprice glanced toward the stove. “Please tell me I didn’t just destroy the eggs.”
“You distracted the cook. The eggs are fine.”
“That’s reassuring. I’ve already caused enough kitchen incidents for one vacation.”
“You made pasta from scratch.”
“With direct supervision. And I added pepper to the sauce.”
“You tasted it, knew what it needed, and fixed it.”
Caprice eased back far enough to look up at me. “Are you trying to send me home with an inflated opinion of my culinary abilities?”
“I’m trying to keep you from describing yourself like you survived a kitchen disaster when you actually cooked dinner.”
Her expression changed in the small way I’d learned to watch for. She didn’t look away, but some of the teasing eased.
“Fine. I cooked dinner.”
“You did.”
“And I’m still hiring professionals for plumbing.”
“That’s probably wise.”
She laughed and kissed me once before moving toward the coffee. The laugh helped. So did watching her reach automatically for a second mug because she knew I wanted one.
I finished breakfast while she carried the coffee to the table. Fruit sat between the plates, and the simple meal felt more like something we might have eaten on any ordinary morning than a last breakfast before a three-hour drive and a production crisis.
That made it better and worse at the same time.
Caprice buttered a piece of toast and looked toward the windows. The storm had scrubbed the sky clear. Sunlight reflected off the snow hard enough to make the view brighter than it had any right to be, and the trees stood almost still after two days of wind and weather.
“So what exactly are you checking on the road?” she asked.
“The section they finished last. I want to see the shaded curve, make sure the treatment is holding, and drive the grade once before I tell you to take it.”
“You trust the crew, but you’re still checking because you’re the Property Manager responsible for the upper properties.”
“That’s why I’m checking their finished work instead of doing it over.”
Caprice stopped with her coffee halfway to her mouth.
I smiled. “What?”
“That was extremely pointed.”
“I was talking about the road.”
“You were absolutely talking about the road.”
“I usually am when I talk about roads.”
She took a drink, but the smile stayed at the edge of her mouth. “You know what I’ve discovered about you?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You’re dangerous because you almost never give advice. You just continue being reasonable until the other person has no choice but to notice.”
“I can work on being less reasonable if it would make leaving easier.”
“No, unfortunately, I like you this way.”
There was no joke after that.
Caprice ate another bite of toast while Bear got up from the hallway and came to sit beside her chair. He rested his head against her thigh without asking for food.
She rubbed slowly behind his ears.
“I’m going to miss this idiot.”
Bear leaned harder.
“He’s going to miss you too.”
Caprice glanced at me. “You can say that because you’re his person. I’m not accepting any suggestion that he has developed an informed position on my departure.”
“I wasn’t going to claim informed thought. He knows your suitcase came out, he knows you’re moving around more than usual, and he knows the woman who throws his rope is paying attention to a bag instead of him.”
“That is acceptably dog-based.”
Bear nudged her hand.
Caprice gave him another scratch and went back to breakfast.
The packing sounds started again as soon as we finished.
I washed the plates while she returned to the bedroom. Usually, having work to do made things easier for me. A sticking latch, a backed-up drain, an icy path, a load of wood—those had answers. You figured out what the problem was, chose the right tool, and did the work.
There wasn’t anything wrong here.
That was the point.
Caprice had a job she loved waiting in Missoula.
I had a job and a home I loved on Fire Mountain.
The problem wasn’t that one of us had made a bad choice.
We had met in the middle of two good lives, and now we had to find out whether wanting each other was enough reason to do the harder part after the snow melted.
I dried the last plate and went to find my gloves.
Bear had beaten me to the bedroom.
He was lying across the canvas bag I’d loaned Caprice yesterday, with his front legs planted over the handles and his rope beside one paw.
Caprice stood over him with her hands on her hips.
“I have explained the checkout process twice.”
Bear looked up at her.
“I have also explained that sitting on my luggage will not alter resort policy.”
His tail thumped against the floor.
She noticed me in the doorway. “Would you please tell your associate that obstruction is not an effective retention strategy?”
“I could tell him, but I don’t think he’s going to care after everything you’ve rewarded him for.”
“That attitude is why management has problems.”
I crouched and rubbed Bear’s neck. “Come on. Let her finish.”
He stayed where he was.
Caprice folded her arms. “Interesting.”
“He usually listens, but you’ve rewarded him every time he trapped your feet, shoved a toy at you, or leaned seventy-five pounds of himself against your legs.”
“Apparently, I’ve corrupted him. In my defense, he was persuasive.”
“I know.”
Bear finally stood when I tapped the side of the bag and pointed toward the hall.
Caprice picked it up before he could reconsider.
“You had that authority the whole time, and you let me negotiate with a retriever.”
“I wanted to see how it went.”
“I’m revising my previous statement about liking you exactly as you are.”
I laughed and stepped closer. “You almost done?”
Her gaze moved around the bedroom.
The suitcase was closed. Her toiletry bag sat on top of it. My shrunken sweatpants and charcoal shirt were inside the canvas bag, folded among her things instead of returned to my house.
She noticed where I was looking.
“I’m keeping them. You gave them to me, so I just wanted the record clear.”
“The record is clear.”
Caprice stepped into me and slid her hands beneath the open sides of my work jacket.
The contact was warm through my thermal shirt.
“Go check your road before I decide there’s a legitimate property emergency requiring several more hours of personal attention.”
“That would be an abuse of the agreement.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t invented one.”
I bent and kissed her.
This one lasted longer than the kiss in the kitchen. Caprice’s fingers tightened against my sides, and I had to remind myself that if I let the kiss become what I wanted it to become, neither of us would be checking a road anytime soon.
When I lifted my head, she was still close enough that her breath touched my beard.
“That was not helpful,” she said.
“I wasn’t trying to help.”
“At least you’re honest.”
I kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’ll be back soon.”
Caprice’s hands slid away from my waist. “I’ll be here.”
I took the truck down from Upper Ridge.
The crew had done good work. Fresh snowbanks rose along the cleared road, and sand showed dark against the packed surface on the steeper sections. The shaded curve below the upper rentals had been scraped back until the tires found solid traction instead of loose buildup.
I drove the full route down to the maintained lower section without losing grip once.
One of the crew trucks was still widening a turnout farther below. I stopped long enough to confirm the lower resort road had already reopened, then turned around and drove back up the same way Caprice would be coming down.
The truck climbed cleanly.
There was no reason to keep her there.
By the time I reached the rental again, Caprice had moved every bag to the entry.
Her laptop, tablet, charger, headphones, notebook, and work bag were packed away.
The dining table where she had built a temporary production office on the first evening was empty except for the welcome folder and her key packet.
I noticed that before I noticed anything else.
The room looked less like hers already.
Caprice came out of the hallway with the bag containing the resort snow gear.
“How is it?”