Snowy Mountain Nights

by Lindsay Evans

  “Garrison, are you still there?”

  It took him a few seconds to realize Anthea was trying to get his attention. He mentally shook himself.

  “My apologies, Anthea. I’m right here.”

  He finished going over the particulars of the Reichman divorce, yet another rich client who didn’t want to financially support his offspring, then went back to his seat. He could hear the muted strains of the woman and her friends’ conversation from where he sat. And he wasn’t the only man glancing in their direction. Annoyed with himself for his uncharacteristic fascination, Garrison opened a folder for a case still in arbitration, but couldn’t concentrate on a single word.

  The woman’s eyes haunted him. They were black and intense, her gaze as regal and unflinching as a queen’s. He drew a swift breath of surprise as he abruptly recalled who she was and how he knew her.

  Reyna. Reyna Barbieri.

  He’d handled her divorce from her actor husband nearly five years ago. From the look on her face, she had undoubtedly known who he was on sight. And she hadn’t been happy to see him.

  Garrison remembered the first time he saw her. Ian Barbieri, a client of his whose ship had come in the form of a syndicated crime drama, was a few years into the TV show when he filed for divorce. Every fall, his face was on billboards all over New York City, advertising the new season of his show.

  With his star burning bright through the network TV sky, Barbieri had breezed into Garrison’s office wanting a quick and surgical separation from his wife of nearly nine years. Garrison hadn’t been surprised. Although Ian Barbieri was a relatively small fish in the show business pond in New York, the rumor had been going around for months—with pictures included—that he was cheating on his high school sweetheart. He left her to keep the home fires burning while he had sex with nearly every wannabe starlet and groupie in the city. What had surprised Garrison was that Barbieri’s wife hadn’t hired a lawyer of her own. Neither had she objected to any of the terms of the divorce that her ex proposed.

  Garrison drafted the documents with the stipulations Barbieri wanted and arranged a meeting with the wife thinking that, since the divorce was uncontested, it would be an easy and quick process. Barbieri wanted to keep just about everything he’d made and acquired since the marriage, leaving his wife with nothing but her wedding ring. She hadn’t protested.

  Then Reyna Barbieri walked into the conference room. Given Barbieri’s movie-star looks, Garrison had been prepared for a similar creature, perfectly coiffed and artificial, the New York version of Hollywood. But Reyna had that wholesome loveliness that came from a life lived apart from show business. The air in his lungs stuttered at her natural, long-legged beauty. And the misery in her face.

  Her shoulders were slumped. The floral summer dress and light sweater were too insubstantial for the fall weather and too big for her body. The wounded and defenseless look of her made him want to protect her. Garrison wanted to pull her into his arms and shelter her from everything that he knew was to come.

  His heart thumped viciously at the unusual wave of feeling. He sat in his chair staring at Reyna as if she were the only person in the room. Garrison was surprised that everyone else hadn’t stared at him for his blatantly fatuous and unprofessional behavior.

  He realized then that despite her husband’s flagrant cheating, she had not wanted to end the marriage. And that her husband had hurt her in ways she had never expected and would probably never recover from. Garrison remembered pulling out a chair for Reyna. He also remembered her flinching from him. Her reaction had hurt, twisted him with guilt even though he knew he’d done nothing wrong. At least not technically.

  In hindsight, Garrison should have insisted that Barbieri provide for her, even though she had pressed for nothing on her own behalf and seemed to be waiting on the man she’d spent nearly half her life with to treat her fairly. Garrison’s inaction, and Reyna’s sadness, had haunted him ever since.

  But the Reyna who had confronted him outside the bathroom was not the same sad woman he’d met five years before. Not at all. This Reyna Barbieri was stunning for a completely different reason.

  She wore her confidence like a royal cloak. And her snapping black eyes had challenged him the moment she realized who he was. Her shoulder-length curls were tight and thick, inviting him to sink his hands into them and pull her closer. And her body. Christ Almighty…

  The long and tight sweater hugged a figure that came straight from his dreams, a slender but curvaceous body he could easily imagine taking into his arms and making love to all night. Because of her, he was powerfully aware of every masculine part of him, aware that he wanted to be intimately joined to every feminine part of her.

  Ignoring his work, Garrison stroked his lower lip and watched the seat where Reyna had sat down. A strong pulse of desire drummed deep in his belly, a guaranteed distraction for the rest of the train ride.

  Chapter 3

  By the time she got back to her seat, Reyna’s heart was beating way too fast, as if she’d just finished a marathon. Her cheeks felt flushed, and she was fighting the urge to look back over her shoulder at Garrison. What was wrong with her?

  “You all right, girl?” Louisa, the most perceptive of all her friends, asked as she sat down.

  The women had taken out a deck of cards, and Bridget was dealing.

  “Yeah. I’m good.” She forced a smile and cleared her throat. “What did I miss?”

  Louisa gave her a concerned glance but didn’t press it. “We’re playing blackjack. The winner gets a massage at the resort.”

  “I could definitely use one of those.” She lifted her tight shoulders with a sigh of anticipation. “Prepare to lose your shirts, ladies!” Reyna pushed her encounter with her ex’s lawyer to the back of her mind and focused on the card game.

  An hour later, the train arrived at their stop. Although she hated that she was paying attention, Reyna noticed Garrison getting off the train with her and her friends, immediately walking toward the taxi stand. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief and clambered from the train. Garrison wasn’t going to the resort with them. She didn’t have to worry about seeing him again.

  Outside the climate-controlled train, the day was crisp and cold. The sun had cleared away the snowy clouds, covering the white-and-green landscape in warm gold. Reyna breathed a lungful of crisp mountain air. It felt good to be at Halcyon again.

  “He’s cute!” Bridget looked over her shoulder at Reyna as she followed Louisa and Marceline into the black SUV that the resort had sent for them.

  Reyna gave her rolling duffel bag to the driver and claimed a seat by the window. “Who?”

  Louisa made a disbelieving sound. “The guy you’ve been staring at for the past five minutes.”

  Reyna blushed and turned her attention to the window as the Range Rover powered through the snow and up the hill toward the ski resort. Bridget and Louisa laughed while Marceline gave her a reassuring smile.

  “He is a cutie,” her friend said. “There’s nothing wrong with looking.”

  Reyna clenched her back teeth but didn’t say anything.

  It was a gorgeous morning in the Adirondack Mountains. With the windows up, the heater on and the driver playing a lively Beyoncé song, the women were comfortably isolated from the outside chill. Reyna sighed and relaxed into the heated seats, ignoring Bridget and Louisa’s chatter. The SUV growled up the path toward Halcyon Ski and Mountain Resort, a sprawling circle of cabins on a hilltop that overlooked majestic mountains and wintry fields of white.

  In Halcyon, the air was crisp and sharp, a welcome change from what Reyna experienced every day in the city. With the company of her girls, being there always made her feel refreshed, even if she was in one of her bad moods.

  The resort was one of the lesser-patronized places of the “it” crowd that Bridget and Louisa knew. It was beautiful, exclusive and scenic, with just about every amenity available. And it was a place people came to for the privacy as mu
ch as they did for the skiing.

  Halcyon was the one truly big splurge Reyna allowed herself every year. The resort had become the place for her to get away from all the things worrying her in the city. Her career at the tattoo parlor where she’d worked since her divorce, the MFA degree in Graphic Design she’d gotten during her marriage but never used, the decision of what graphic arts jobs to apply for, if she did take the plunge.

  Working at the tattoo parlor was fun, but every day she felt more and more like the only girl in a college fraternity. The boys who worked there—although over twenty-five—were all about picking up women, going to bars and getting more ink on their bodies. She’d outgrown the place a long time ago but was nervous about making the necessary change.

  “God! This place gets more and more beautiful every year.” Louisa sighed as they drove past a grove of naked trees. Their barks were a dark brown against the white landscape, branches covered in snow and stretched out above them like lace.

  Reyna agreed with a silent nod, staring out her own window.

  “Hopefully there’ll be hotter guys up here this year,” Bridget said as she freshened up her bright lipstick with the help of her compact. “Last year was a bust.” She pressed her lips together then snapped the compact shut.

  A woman who always did whatever she wanted, Bridget was more than willing to have a fling at the resort and never look back after the weekend. Reyna could never do that. Sleeping with a man at the place that had become her sanctuary from drama just seemed like a very, very bad idea.

  “I hear that Ahmed Clark might be up here this year.” Marceline shared the information with the slightest of smiles.

  At one time or another, the women had all drooled over the rising basketball star. Unlike his teammates, who they all thought were freakishly tall or had too many tattoos, Ahmed was just perfect. He was six and a half feet tall, wore a wide and frequent grin while on the basketball court and regularly gave money and time to charity. His body wasn’t half-bad, either.

  Bridget chuckled. “I guess I know who I’ll be hooking up with this weekend.” She pouted her freshly reddened lips and winked.

  “If rumors are reliable.” Louisa raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “If he’s up at Halcyon, that man will be under me before the weekend is through,” Bridget said.

  Reyna laughed and shook her head at her friend. If only Bridget was that relentless about figuring out her life, she wouldn’t still be living at her parents’ place and steadily burning through her trust fund.

  “Honey, why do you have to make this weekend about sex?” Marceline looked as if she was only partially joking. “It’s supposed to be about us, remember? You and your girls.”

  “Yes, but you girls like to sleep, and I don’t. I have to fill the time somehow.” Bridget gave Marceline a saucy wink then started fiddling with her phone.

  They arrived at the resort a few minutes later. The lodge where they would check in, eat, drink and socialize was a big and beautiful old-fashioned log cabin straight out of a mountain woman’s dream. The two-story lodge contained a restaurant upstairs and the shop and front desk downstairs. The restaurant’s wide glass windows overlooked a dizzying view of the mountains.

  Far back and behind the lodge, although they couldn’t be seen from the main path, sat over two dozen log cabins, each with two to four bedrooms, a fireplace, wireless internet and a kitchen in case anyone was intrepid enough to cook.

  After Reyna and her friends checked in at the front desk, another driver chauffeured them in a covered golf cart down the snowy path to their cabin. They tumbled into the heated cabin, stretching and groaning from the long morning of sitting on the train and then in the SUV. The driver dropped their bags, complete with ski equipment, by the front door before quietly leaving with his tip.

  “This isn’t our usual cabin.” Bridget looked around, hands on her hips.

  “You’re just now noticing that?” Louisa grabbed her bag and walked toward one of the bedrooms.

  “It’s fine, Bridg.” Reyna patted her friend’s shoulder and headed for the other bedroom. “There aren’t any bad cabins up here anyway.”

  The frown didn’t leave Bridget’s face when she followed Reyna into the room. But she quickly forgot her dissatisfaction when Louisa appeared in their doorway wearing a teal ski suit, complete with furred hat and boots. Very black Russian sex kitten.

  Louisa posed in the middle of the bedroom. “Who’s ready to go check out the place?”

  “That’s not fair!” Bridget said, eyeing Louisa’s clinging and questionably warm outfit. “I want to be sexy, too.”

  Reyna groaned. “Then change already. There’s a glass of hot apple cider waiting out there for me.”

  After Bridget got sexed up to her satisfaction, the four women made their way to the lodge. As their booted feet crunched through the snow, Bridget teased Marceline out of her funk while Reyna and Louisa walked behind them.

  “So who was that guy you were checking out on the train?” Louisa asked.

  She kept her voice low, but at a conversational level so the other women wouldn’t think she was trying to hide anything from them.

  Reyna shrugged. Lying about Garrison Richards’s identity would be a waste of time. Louisa was smart and had a husband named Google. If those resources failed, her brother worked high up in the FBI and could get her any information she wanted. Sometimes she was a little scary.

  “He’s someone I knew years ago,” Reyna finally said. “From the divorce.”

  “Ah.” Louisa grinned, her eyes sparkling as if she’d just found out a secret. “That explains why you didn’t look exactly glad to see him.” She squeezed Reyna’s waist. “But you couldn’t look away from him, either. I don’t blame you. He’s a sexy beast.” She growled playfully.

  Reyna paused, surprised that Louisa didn’t throw around any of her usual adjectives for people she found appealing: hot, handsome, fine. Maybe because Garrison was none of those things. He was too stern, too cold, to be anything but sexy. And a beast. She swallowed thickly at the thought.

  While in that conference room with him five years ago, she hadn’t paid any attention to his looks. He had been all shark, cool and efficient. Presenting her with the facts of her impending divorce after drafting the awful document that allowed her ex-husband to toss her out on the streets with nothing. Admittedly, she had been young and foolish, naively relying on Ian to do the right thing.

  Reyna sighed. “Yes. He is sexy. If you like that sort of thing.”

  “That sort of thing? Girl…” Louisa chuckled. “What man-loving woman with a working libido wouldn’t be into that sort of thing?” She fanned her face and grinned.

  Reyna had to silently agree. Garrison’s understated dress only emphasized the belly-quivering masculinity of him. The subtle swagger in his walk, the way he appeared to see clearly everything around him. Those small details made her wonder wicked things. Like what kind of focus he would have in bed. Would he please his woman first and take his own pleasure at the end of a long and sweat-dripped night? How would it feel when his…? She cleared her painfully dry throat.

  The fur on Louisa’s hooded jacket fluttered around her face as she laughed. “You don’t fool me one little bit, honey.”

  At the lodge, they found their usual table near the window and beneath one of the heater vents. Unwilling to wait for table service, Bridget went to get them a round of hot apple cider. Reyna stretched her legs under the table next to Marceline’s, more than ready for the relaxing weekend.

  The lodge’s restaurant, which could comfortably hold at least fifty people, was already a quarter full on that Friday morning. Conversation wound through the airy space, mixing with laughter and the clink of cups and saucers. The guests were a mix of couples, singles and groups all gathered at their tables to enjoy the morning and the beginning of the weekend.

  “Here you go, ladies.” Bridget came back to the table with a silver kettle and four matching cups on a
tray. “The first round is on me.”

  A collective sigh of appreciation went around the table. At first, Reyna thought it was for the apple cider, then she noticed that none of the women were paying any attention to the drink. Instead, their gazes were fastened on something over her shoulder. Ahmed Clark, Reyna guessed without looking. But she was wrong. Instead of the basketball player, it was Garrison Richards who had walked through the door.

  She drew a breath of surprise. What was he doing here? She thought he had… Reyna shook her head. It didn’t matter. All she knew was that her friends were acting like hormonal teenagers.

  She wanted to slap them all. But while pouring a glass of cider for herself, she snuck a look at Garrison from under her lashes. Yes, he was sexy. There was no denying that. There was also no denying that she should stay away from him. It took a ridiculously long time for her friends to stop staring at him like vultures at the sight of new carrion.

  Louisa poured drinks for the rest of the women and slid Reyna a private, provoking glance. “He’s a nice specimen,” she said to Marceline. “Maybe that’s just what you need to get over your broken heart this weekend.”

  “I’m pretty sure Reyna has dibs on him already.” Marceline’s voice seemed tinged with regret.

  “Hmm,” Bridget chimed in. “He is a cutie! Isn’t that the guy from the train?”

  “Most definitely.” Louisa grinned. “And I don’t see a ring.”

  She was the most perceptive of them all, but was also the most cruel, using her insight to play games that most people were not ready for. Louisa gave Reyna another annoying look, but Reyna didn’t bite. She only shrugged and tasted her cider. It was perfect, the heated cinnamon, sugar and apples coating her tongue with delicious flavor. Just the perfect thing on such a cool and spectacularly beautiful day.

  Reyna kept her eyes on the cider and not on the man her friends refused to stop staring at.

  “You know that a ring doesn’t mean much these days,” Bridget said, picking up from Louisa’s earlier comment. “Some married men travel without theirs just to pick up some stranger before going back home to the wife.” Bridget nodded in Garrison’s direction, although he was far from the only man in the lodge. Reyna was willing to bet, though, that he was the most…appealing. With the gray heads, men who were obviously with their lovers and the immature-looking boys, Garrison was unfortunately the hottest thing in the room.