Falling Fast, Contemporary Romance (Last Frontier Lodge Novels Book 4)

by J. H. Croix

  Cam’s palm stroked in slow passes along her spine, sending tingles spiraling through her entire body. Her breathing gradually slowed, though her body felt alight from the desire pounding through her. The cold finally permeated her, and she shivered. He lifted his head. “We should get inside. It’s freezing out here.” His eyes locked onto hers, banked heat simmering in their amber depths.

  She managed a nod, realizing she couldn’t just stand out here all night in Cam’s arms, although that was precisely what she’d have liked to do. Rational thought managed to nudge her though. At any moment, the slew of locals arriving for dinner at the lodge would start showing up. It was pure luck no one had driven by them yet. She took a breath. “Okay. Let me drive my car the rest of the way into the parking lot. Do you want to ride with me?”

  It wasn’t much of a distance, but she wasn’t ready to let go of this tenuous and electric connection with him. At his nod, she got into her car and he walked around and climbed in the passenger side. In silence, she drove the short distance to the lodge parking lot. Moments later when they stood in front of the lodge entrance, Ginger looked up at Cam and her breath caught in her throat. He was so damn handsome. His amber hair was gold-tipped in the soft light under the entrance. His eyes coasted over her, and it was as if he touched her everywhere he looked. Heat slid through her again, and her pulse skittered wildly. She thought she should say something, but she didn’t know what.

  He saved her when he cleared his throat and spoke. “I, uh, didn’t mean to let things get out of hand like that.”

  His words unintentionally struck at the doubts she’d carried deep in her heart for the last few years. Vulnerability and uncertainty lashed at her. She shook her head, somehow dredging up the brash side of herself. “Let’s just call it one hell of a kiss. Okay?”

  His mouth hooked up on one side and he nodded.

  Chapter 5

  Cam maneuvered his skis along a rough trail, carefully dodging a branch that had fallen across the trail. The sun was high in the sky. The snow glittered where it melted under the heat of the sun. He was leading Gage through the backcountry trails he’d marked thus far. He came to a stop beside a rough bridge he’d built to cross over a narrow stream. Gage skied to his side.

  “You’ve made it farther than I guessed. You’ve added probably twenty more miles to what we already had,” Gage said with a grin.

  Cam tugged his gloves off and unzipped the top of his jacket. He’d worked up a sweat on the way out. Cool air sifted through the opening in his jacket. He glanced to the stream and back to Gage. “It wasn’t too hard. Like you said, we didn’t need to do much clearing. There are some rough areas though. I figure we settle on the layout for the trails and get everything marked, and then we can deal with getting rocks, roots and debris out of the way. After that, we use the tracksetter and we can open the course up for skiers.”

  “I’ve already said it, but I’ll say it again. I’m damn glad I hired you. Until I got back up here year before last, I’d never cross-country skied in my life. All I’d ever done was downhill skiing and snowboarding. I didn’t have a clue about what we needed to do for trails. Don knows the slopes and lifts backwards and forwards, but this part wasn’t his gig either. Thanks to you, we’ll be able to add this course for customers and locals. I keep going back and forth if I should charge for locals for this. There’s a series of trails on the other side of town, but they’re funded by the town park fund.”

  “You could charge a season fee like you do for the slopes,” Cam suggested.

  Gage idly twirled his ski pole and nodded. “Makes the most sense. So how much further do you think we should go with the trails?”

  “Well, first you have to consider how much land you have for trails. Beyond that, you need to consider how accessible the area is if you need to get up here. Between what you had before and what I’ve roughed out, we’ve got about forty miles of trail now. That’s more than enough. I followed your lead and made sure to loop the trails into each other, so you can access all of them within fifteen minutes by snowmobile if you need to. If you’re asking my opinion…”

  Gage interjected. “I definitely am.”

  “I’d stick with what we have now. Much more and it’s a lot more maintenance and then you have to worry about accessibility.”

  Gage nodded firmly. “Okay then. We’ll stop with what we have. We’ll come back up tomorrow with the snowmobile and get to work on dealing with the debris.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Cam pulled his gloves back on. “You headed back down now?”

  “Yeah. I promised Marley I wouldn’t be gone too long. She’s due any day now,” Gage replied with a proud smile.

  Cam was still amazed at how easily Marley was getting around. If it hadn’t been so obvious she was pregnant, Cam would never have guessed. She stayed busy and was around and about the lodge every day. She wasn’t skiing, but that seemed to be the only limit she’d given herself. “Well, you’d best get back down there then.”

  Gage turned on his skis and adjusted his hold on his ski poles. “Speaking of that, I guess we haven’t really talked about me taking some time off after she has the baby. I don’t really have a plan. I figure I’ll play it by ear. Since I work right here, I’ll be around no matter what.”

  “Well, you might as well take all the time you want. Don and I can take care of everything outside.”

  Gage grinned. “I know. Another reason I’m glad you’re here.” He lifted a ski pole and pushed off. “Meet me and Marley for dinner if you want,” he said with a wave as he skied away.

  Cam watched him go while he waited behind in the snowy forest. After the sound of Gage’s skis faded, the only sound was the breeze blowing through the trees. Cam took a slow breath of air, savoring the hint of spruce and the subtle scent of the ocean in the distance. He pushed off on his skis and set out on a small loop he’d marked the other day. The rhythmic sound of his skis swishing across the snow settled him. Skiing was both painful and soothing these days. Too much of his time had been spent skiing with Eric, which meant now he had to adjust to Eric’s absence. Years past, Eric would have been at his side on these trails. It was gradual, but the sharpness of the pain was dulling. He turned onto a long straight stretch and picked up his pace, pushing himself to go fast and hard over the snow. When he reached the end of the straight stretch, the trail dipped and curved down a hill. He flew over it, his skis flexing with his landing as he cut down the swerve and swirled to a stop at the bottom of the short hill. He’d pushed himself hard enough to savor the breath heaving in and out of his lungs. When he pushed himself physically, he forgot everything and only focused on the moment in time.

  He held still at the bottom of the hill and looked out over the small field beside him. Snow blanketed everything. An eagle screeched loudly and flew out of the trees. His eyes tracked the majestic bird as it angled sideways, its wings casting a wide shadow on the snow below. As it flew above the trees, he looked past it to the mountain peaks on the far side of the bay. So regal and immense, they stood quietly, their shadows cast across the water. With a last look, he pushed off his skis and headed back to the lodge.

  As he skied back, Ginger sauntered through his thoughts, which she’d been doing fairly frequently since their kiss last night. He had absolutely no idea what he’d been thinking. But once his lips touched hers, thought wasn’t an option. Somehow, he’d fumbled his way through dinner afterwards. She’d set him afire and sent his heart into a tailspin, unsettling him in a way he hadn’t expected. He was generally pretty quiet, so no one seemed to notice he had a hard time talking around her after that. She’d joined him with Gage and Marley for dinner. Don had spent a while with them, along with a few other friends and family. Cam had been at so many ski lodges, many of them were interchangeable. Last Frontier Lodge stood out for the sheer beauty of its location and its warm, friendly vibe. Gage and Marley had a standing dinner in the restaurant with any variety of family
and friends joining them on different evenings. They’d easily welcomed Cam into their circle and went out of their way to make sure he felt comfortable.

  He didn’t want to mess up his welcome by stumbling over whatever this thing was with him and Ginger. All he’d known last night was he wanted to kiss her so badly he could hardly see straight. He’d like to think he had more control over himself. He could barely remember the last time he even noticed a woman. Before Eric died, his life was traveling and skiing. They bounced from race to race and were leaders in backcountry skiing all over the world. He had flings here and there, but he was so focused on staying in peak condition, even those weren’t much of a part of his life. He hadn’t thought about it much, but he always figured he’d find someone when his life slowed down. His parents had a good marriage, and he hoped to have the same someday. Then, Eric died and his life skidded sideways. Romance, casual or otherwise, hadn’t even crossed his mind.

  Until he laid eyes on Ginger. At first, he’d figured it was just an attraction and would fade. Yet, every time he saw her, the air snapped and crackled between them. Then, he’d gone and kissed her and all but lost his mind.

  ***

  Ginger waited while Charlie Harris sounded out his words. She worked with Charlie twice a week. As a speech therapist, she dealt with a wide range of challenges with children. Charlie struggled with phonation and pitch, so his words were often difficult to understand. Charlie was a joy to work with because he was diligent and he tried so hard. As many children with communication difficulties did, he’d initially been referred to her after a few meltdowns in his pre-school class. She’d quickly deduced he was getting frustrated because no one understood what he was trying to communicate. At younger ages, speech problems weren’t as obvious at first because children learned at different speeds. She was always pleased when a child landed with her early because her chances for progress were much greater.

  Charlie’s brown hair gleamed under the bright lights in her small classroom. His index finger moved to the last word on the list. After he successfully sounded it out, he looked up with an expectant smile.

  “Great job, Charlie!” she said with a quick clap of her hands. “You did so well, you don’t have to go through them again.”

  Charlie lifted his hand for a high five, a habit they’d developed during her time with him. “Am I all done today?”

  “All done!” She glanced at the clock. “You’ve got a few minutes before the bell. Want to play a game of Uno?”

  “Yeah!”

  Charlie stood up and raced over to the cabinet where she kept an assortment of games. He knew precisely where Uno was because it was his favorite game. He was back at the table in seconds. She waited while he carefully dealt the cards. One area where Charlie didn’t lack any skill was in pragmatic communication, or rather social communication. His words might not always be clear, but he was outgoing and friendly with just about anyone. He chattered on about his friends, his dog, and his favorite teacher.

  When the bell rang, he carefully stacked the cards and handed them to her. “I’ll see you next week, Ms. Sanders.”

  “You sure will. Bye, Charlie!” she called out when he reached the door.

  He waved and was gone in a flash. She stepped to the door and closed it. Elementary schools were pure cacophony when children were switching classes. She could hardly hear herself think, so she usually kept her door closed. She sat down at her desk with a sigh. She quickly checked her email and took care of her notes from the morning students. Only then did her mind wander to Cam.

  Her brain had taken a backseat to desire when she was standing beside him last night. She chuckled to herself. So often she had wished for an off switch for her mind to silence the internal chatter. She hadn’t meant for her brain to turn off altogether so she did something crazy like tell Cam she wanted to kiss him and then go and do it. What the hell were you thinking? Well, that’s the problem. You weren’t thinking. Maybe not, but that kiss was worth every second. “Oh my God,” she said aloud to herself. She flushed straight through just thinking about that kiss. It was the kiss to beat all kisses. She’d tried to convince herself last night, after the madness of the moment, that it would get Cam out of her system. But she knew damn well she was kidding herself. Every spare minute when she wasn’t focused on something, her mind and body went right to Cam. He was like a magnet. Her hope that he’d be a brief infatuation was fading. Though his presence in her orbit was still fairly new, she wasn’t dumb. She knew the attraction she felt for him was more than just passing.

  She put her face in her hands and groaned. Somehow, she needed to wrest control of herself again. She ran her hands through her hair and sat back in her chair. While her mind could run wild thinking about Cam, she was short on ideas about how to get a handle on herself.

  Later that afternoon, she resisted the urge to drive up to the lodge for dinner and drove home instead. She lived in a small house on a bluff by Kachemak Bay. The house was a simple cedar house. The downstairs was comprised of a living room with a kitchen to the side through an archway, and a small bathroom and laundry room to the other side. A wall of windows afforded a clear view of the rocky beach and bay. A dove gray soapstone woodstove sat in the center of the living room. A circular staircase led upstairs where there was one large bedroom suite with a bathroom and seating area by the windows. There were decks on both floors. She’d bought the home with what little money she walked away with after her divorce.

  She walked inside and tossed her keys on the table by the door. After she hung up her jacket and kicked off her shoes in the small closet by the door, she made her way into the kitchen. At that moment, her pet rabbit, George, bounded down the stairs. George was a gray lop-eared rabbit she’d adopted after her divorce. She adored him. He was house trained like a cat and bounded about freely. He often spent time on the decks and in the yard in the summer, but he eschewed going outside in the winter even when she tried to encourage him. He leapt onto a chair by the table and nudged her hand.

  “Hey George. How was your day?” She sat down and set him on her lap. They sat that way for a few minutes while she petted him. When her stomach growled, she finally stood and stared into the refrigerator. In need of comfort food, she made a grilled cheese sandwich and ensconced herself on the couch with George to watch television. As she lay in bed later, Cam wove through her thoughts and she wondered just what the hell she’d gotten herself into. A part of her wished she’d seen him again today, so she could have tried to gauge how he felt. Yet, she was so muddled inside and so fraught with her own confusion and insecurity, she doubted she could accurately interpret anything when it came to Cam.

  Chapter 6

  “Scoot over,” Marley said, waving her hand at Garrett Hamilton. “Make room for Cam.”

  Garrett flashed a grin. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied as he slid across the seat in the booth.

  Garrett Hamilton was Gage’s brother and Delia’s husband. From what Cam understood, Garrett used to be a workaholic lawyer in Seattle. His life now was a far cry from that, but he seemed entirely content. As far as Cam could tell, he was head over heels in love with Delia. Garrett shared his brother’s dark hair paired with blue eyes. He turned his grin to Cam. “How’s it going, Cam?”

  “Pretty good. Keeping busy.”

  Garrett nodded. “Good thing you’re here. Any day now, Marley’ll have her baby, and Gage’ll need you to pick up his slack.” His eyes canted to Marley.

  Marley smiled and leaned back in the booth. “You know Gage won’t slack too much. He keeps saying he’s going to take time off, but I won’t be surprised if he manages only a week.”

  Garrett chuckled. “Probably.”

  Over the next little while, Cam enjoyed the banter with Marley, Gage and the rotating collection of family and friends who joined them for various amounts of time as dinner moved along. He found himself looking to the entrance over and over and realized he kept wondering if Ginger
would show up. She wasn’t here every evening, but was definitely here several times a week. He hadn’t seen her since the night they’d kissed. Though it had only been a few days, a small corner of his mind worried she was avoiding him. It stung a little to think she might be.

  “Where is Ginger anyway?” someone asked.

  Cam turned in the direction of the question and saw it was Delia who’d asked. Delia was a lovely counterpoint to Garrett. He was tall and dark with an edge to his features and personality. Her honey gold hair and warm blue eyes fit with her friendly and kind nature. She tended to mother just about anyone who crossed her path. Whenever she was near, Garrett’s energy softened. Cam had also discovered she was an absolutely amazing cook. She ran the lodge restaurant and was prone to keeping extras around for employees when she knew what they favored. He’d become practically addicted to her hard cider and took a swallow from his mug.

  Marley turned to Delia. “I’m not sure. She said she’d be by tonight, but it’s getting late.”

  Marley’s eyes coasted around the table and paused on him. He couldn’t read her expression, but she appeared to be considering something. As if on cue, he felt a prickle at the back of his neck and turned to glance over his shoulder toward the entrance. Ginger walked through. She wore a bright red down jacket. When she tossed the hood back, her dark hair fell in loose tousles around her shoulders. She wore black sweater leggings with fluffy white winter boots. As she strode across the room toward them, Cam couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, her hips swaying with each step. She unzipped her jacket and tugged it off on the way, revealing a dove gray sweater that hugged her curves. Just watching her sent anticipation surging through his body.

  Don had joined them a few minutes prior and had seated himself beside Cam in the booth, leaving Cam smack in the middle. When Ginger reached the table, Don stood up and gestured for her to sit in his place.