Chapter 3
For all the crap I had given Tabby throughout the years for being perpetually late, I was going to eat crow.
I knew she was going to say something to me.
I was never late. Not ever. But there I was, pulling up almost forty minutes late.
The morning had started off wonky. I’d forgotten to set my alarm, so I slept in and was in such a hurry to get things cooking, I’d ruined a pot of pasta by overcooking it into mush, so I had to redo it; plus, the first batch of buttermilk biscuits had burned.
To a crisp. Literally.
Karma for being mean to my sister and being a Negative Nancy over all the changes for tonight, I guessed. The icing on the cake was the fact that being late meant there was no parking in front of Brewster’s cabin.
Or I guess it was Tabby’s cabin now, too.
Our shy, sweet friend had sent a text to us a little over an hour ago that Brew had asked her to move in, and she had said yes. After less than a month of dating, she was moving in. With a boy! If it weren’t for the way Brewster looked at her and took care of her, I would have been worried.
But I found myself surprisingly happy for her.
I parked my car and balanced the two heavy trays of food in my hands as I made my trek up to the cabin but stopped at the door.
The sounds inside made me want to smile, but it also clenched something in my heart.
It sounded like everyone was having a good time.
I could make out Rosie and Ember’s voices and Tabby’s laugh.
Maybe with everything changing, they don’t need me anymore?
The hand I had raised, about to knock on the door, dropped as I held the two trays closer to my chest.
Will this new chapter be like when they left for college all over again?
This new chapter in our lives that Rosie had kicked off at the start of the season.
She kept saying how our twenties were flying past us, our thirties knocking on the door, and how she felt like she hadn’t done much.
Her. Rosie, who had traveled the world. Literally.
If she felt like that, I wondered what she thought about my life.
How I lived. I hadn’t even left Moonlit Pines to go to college like Ember and Tabby.
I’d stayed behind.
I never regretted it. I loved our small mountain town.
I’d worked a million different jobs trying to figure out what I liked and didn’t until I landed at the ski resort.
And then, when it had been bought the last time and the brothers who owned it started to revitalize it and bring it back to life, I had found my place there as their new event coordinator.
I loved my job, but it wasn’t like I had any kind of crazy ambition to go do that in, say, Paris one day.
Are our twenties flying by us?
I didn’t feel old by any means. Maybe sometimes, I looked at people in town who I’d gone to school with and see how they had found their person and started whole families already. Am I behind in the whole game of life thing?
Connie’s suggestions about dating popped into my head. Me, date?
Maybe it was seeing Brew with Tabby so happy together, working and meshing their lives so easily, that made me wonder what that would be like. Having someone at your side who had your back no matter what. To be held and loved and seen.
Jesus, I was getting sappy. I shook my head. I was not that girl. I’d never been the boy crazy one.
Someone cleared their throat behind me, and I jumped, almost tripping over my own feet. Thankfully, big warm hands steadied me and pulled me closer to a warm muscular body. My eyes rose and rose and then widened when I looked at the most beautiful brown eyes I’d ever seen.
Even under just moonlight overhead and a small streetlight glowing behind us, I knew those dark eyes were beautiful. Like soft, melted, luxurious pools of chocolate. I blinked and took in the rest of the man who was holding me to him.
He was beautiful.
Handsome in a way that should have been illegal. With brown hair, longer on top and slightly overgrown on the sides, almost like it was time for him to get a cut, and a soft, dark beard that made him look even more masculine.
Wow, I thought to myself. I had no idea who he was, which was weird considering I’d lived my entire twenty-eight years in Moonlit. I had always thought I knew everyone. Maybe not by name, but at least their face.
This man, though? I had never seen him in my life.
I would know if I had. My body weirdly agreed with me, too.
He looked like he could have easily walked off the cover of a magazine or romance novel.
And when he smiled at me, the lines at the corners of his beautiful eyes crinkled, making something inside of me go as warm and mushy as the overcooked pasta I’d had to toss earlier.
“Can I give you a hand?” he asked, his voice deep and rich as his eyes dipped down to the trays in my hands.
But I couldn’t answer.
My throat was suddenly bone dry, and I wasn’t sure I knew how to speak. I was speechless. That had never happened to me in my life.
“Please? I insist.” His smile was warm and genuine as he reached over and took the trays into his own hold easily.
“Thanks,” I squeaked, completely mesmerized by the man next to me, who was suddenly holding the two trays of food I’d brought and two bags. Of wine? I tried to remember who Tabby said was bringing what, but when I looked back up and our eyes connected, I couldn’t think.
All I could do was stare at him.
He was so beautiful. Masculinity personified.
Tanned skin from the sun or his background, I wasn’t sure. “I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself,” he spoke, breaking the weirdly exhilarating yet comfortable silence that had fallen between us.
“I’m Mark Cosecha.”
“Harvest,” I weirdly translated, and his lips twitched.
“Yeah. That’s what it means in Spanish,” he agreed. I swallowed. What are the odds of that? “And you are?”
“Oh!” My eyes widened. “I’m Abby.” I extended my hand, and he took it despite holding a bag of wine and my food trays.
His hand was big and warm and strong with a few callouses at the palm.
Callouses I wanted to feel all over my body.
What? Where had that come from? There was something familiar about his touch, too.
“Abby,” he repeated. I smiled up at him with a nod, feeling like I was about to drown in his gaze and not having one problem with it.
“Abby,” he said again. I liked him saying my name.
Just the sound of it in that deep manly tone made me feel like melted butter on the insides.
All liquid heat. “Pretty name,” he murmured, his tone velvety smooth against the chilly autumn night.
“Thanks… Mark,” I whispered. Something in his gaze flared to life.
I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but despite just having met, we started to sway closer to one another.
I felt like I knew him somehow. Suddenly, we were close enough that our arms brushed against one another.
The cool breeze was the only thing that saved me from sweating as I studied him, and he did the same to me.
Not in a way that made me feel self-conscious, though.
No. I wanted to lean into him. Maybe go up on my tip toes and rest the palm of my hand on the middle of his chest before leaning in and letting our lips meet.
As if reading my mind, he moved, and my hand rose.
My heart started to pick up speed as I stared into his beautiful eyes.
Was I about to kiss a complete stranger?
“You’re late!” Tabby laughed as she swung the door open, and both my gentlemanly stranger and I froze before we did something we might have regretted.
I wouldn’t have, though, I thought to myself. I knew it like I knew the sun would rise the next day. I tried not to make it obvious I was disappointed she’d opened the door when she did.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I cleared my throat. Her soft brown eyes bounced between me and the man next to me with gentle curiosity before she smiled and her eyes connected with my sexy stranger. My sexy stranger? I couldn’t think about him like that. He wasn’t mine.
“Hey, boss.”
“Boss?” My eyes bounced from Tabby to Mark.
Shit. Mark Cosecha was the new principal at the elementary school.
The one Tabby wasn’t certain would stick around, since he’d moved here from a big city. Los Angeles? Seattle? Did it matter? I had been so wrapped up in his charming presence, I hadn’t even wondered how he knew my friends that he would be joining us.
“You brought more than wine.” She grinned, her eyes suspicious as she glanced at the two of us. Shit. Guilt started to grow inside me. Had I just been about to kiss my best friend’s boss? Is there a rule about that?
“I was just helping Abby out.”
“A gentleman,” I whispered, glancing at him, knowing very well that Tab’s eyes were probably about to pop out of her head.
“Well, let me help you out.”
“Oh yeah, me too,” I hurried to say. Tabby took a bag of wine and walked into the chaos of the busy living room.
“Let me help.” When I reached for the other bag, our fingers brushed against one another.
His touch was electric. Searing hot. It called to me in a way I’d never felt before.
Not once. Not ever. I was, after all, probably the last twenty-eight-year-old virgin not just on our mountain but in the world.
“Sorry, umm…” Nerves got the best of me, and I could have sworn he sensed that. His free hand touched mine.
“Breathe, Abby.” He winked. “I’ll follow you.” He jutted his chin towards the door.
“Right,” I whispered and moved past him. I had no idea how, but I could have sworn I felt his gaze on me.
Those deep, dark, bottomless eyes were checking out my every step; I felt in in my veins.
Something that with anyone else would have made me feel self-conscious, to the point I would have glared at them.
What with my curves and butt I swore made my pants at least one size bigger than they needed to be, there was a lot happening back there. But with Mark Cosecha watching me?
I didn’t mind.
And maybe, just maybe, I even swished my hips a little than I normally would have.