Cold Feet

by Samantha A. Cole

  A loud snore had her eyes flying open and pushing up into a seated position. Uuuggghhhh. Bad move. The room spun before becoming focused again. She swallowed the urge to throw up. How much had she had to drink? From the looks of it—a lot. The bottle of whiskey that’d been unopened until last night only had about a shot or two left in it.

  Beside her, Buck was asleep, sitting up. She’d been using his denim-covered thigh as a pillow. He’d stayed all night, making sure she’d felt safe during the blackout. His head was tilted back, and his feet were on the floor. His breathing was even, with the occasional snore coming from his open mouth.

  Her heart squeezed. While she was grateful he’d helped comfort her and stave off a panic attack, she couldn’t let that influence her. Last night, during a few spirited games of backgammon, and with the assistance of a large amount of whiskey, she’d felt the twinges of her teenage crush bubbling to the surface. Several times, her mind had gone back to the kiss they’d once shared and how good it’d been. How intoxicating. How wonderful. With the alcohol flowing through her blood stream, she’d been able to imagine a replay of that special moment over and over again, without the shitty ending. Instead, her mind had conjured up a new ending, one where she and Buck had winded up naked in bed and thoroughly sated. But now, hungover, she remembered why she’d kept her distance from him all those years—he’d hurt her and could do it again.

  Taking a slow glance around the room, Regina realized the power had come back on—probably just after sunrise, since all the lights were now on and they hadn’t woken her up in the middle of the night. The cable box flashed, indicating she needed to reset it so the correct time would show. Her cell was on the coffee table, amid candles that were still flickering, the whiskey bottle, two empty tumblers, and the remnants of their impromptu dinner last night. Only three crackers, five slices of cheese, some chips, and a scoop or two of salsa remained.

  Leaning forward, Regina blew out the candles and grabbed her phone, bringing it to life. The device’s clock read 9:23 a.m. Hmm.

  “Shit!” She jumped up, regretting it immediately as the room rotated as if she were on a Tilt-a-Whirl.

  A hand grabbed her waist, steadying her. “Easy, squirt.”

  Buck’s voice was raspy from sleep, and she glanced down to see he didn’t appear to be as hungover as she was. How his amber eyes were fully alert when he’d been passed out only a moment before was beyond her, and she didn’t have time to contemplate it. Sidestepping around the coffee table, she headed for the stairs as quickly as her rebelling stomach and the thundering in her brain would allow. “I have to hurry and shower—I have to be at the sanctuary in a half hour. Shit. I hate being late.”

  She stopped on the fourth step and ducked down so she could see him through the spindles of the banister. “Thank you for last night. I would’ve been freaking out until the power came on or until the sun rose.”

  Buck gave her a small smile. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

  Friends. Right. They were nothing more than friends and had been far less than that for the past seven years. As mad and as humiliated as she’d felt about him, she really had missed his friendship. Maybe they could gain back the relationship they’d had before they’d gone and ruined it all in the blink of an eye. It took a lot of energy to hate someone and avoid them all the time, especially when they lived in the same small town. “Right . . . but, um . . . I just wanted you to know I appreciate you checking on me and staying.”

  “You’re welcome.” Pointing to the ceiling, he added, “Go shower and get ready. I’ll clean up down here and let myself out.”

  After hesitating a moment, she nodded. “Thanks.”

  “They’re adorable,” Regina and Hogan watched an eighty-pound Bonnie play-wrestle with her hundred-pound sibling, Clyde, inside a large enclosure. “I’ve never seen bears this closeup before.”

  She’d sent Hogan a text as she’d been leaving her house, letting him know she was on her way. Somehow, she’d only been seven minutes late arriving at the sanctuary. As he’d promised, Buck had cleaned up the living room and kitchen before leaving her house. He’d put the old food in the garbage and the bowls and glasses in the dishwasher. Regina would run it when she got back home. He’d also left out a Gatorade, two slices of buttered toast, and a bottle of Tylenol for her. It didn’t surprise her that he’d easily found things around the house—Justin, Ryan, and Buck each had keys to the others’ homes and spent enough time in each to know where almost everything was. With his hangover remedies, the last of her headache and upset stomach had been slowly dissipating. Hopefully, her alcohol-induced condition wasn’t evident to her new client.

  “Would you like to get closer?” Hogan asked. “I’ve been training them since I rescued them when they were only about six weeks old. Since I knew they weren’t going to be able to be released back into the wild, I’ve been imprinting myself on them—I play and interact with them for hours, every day, and they know I make the rules. I’ll have them lie down and Clyde will let you pet him if I tell him to.”

  Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “Yup. I’ve actually been approached by a casting director for some movie they want Clyde to be in. We’re still in negotiations because I want to be certain he’ll be safe during the filming.”

  “Wow. Um, yeah, I’d love to get closer, if you think it’s okay.”

  He smiled and gestured to a door in the heavy fence. “Come on. He loves belly rubs.”

  A few minutes later, Regina’s heart was pounding in her chest as she knelt next to the male black bear, rubbing the thick, coarse fur covering his belly. She was in total awe of being close enough to a wild animal to touch it and not have it want to eat her. Clyde’s powerful paws and claws were huge and foretold how much bigger the bear would grow when he reached full adulthood. After feeding them some blueberries, with a promise of more to come if they were good, Hogan had gotten both bears to lay on their backs, side by side, while he squatted between their heads.

  “This is incredible. I’ve only seen bears from a distance and was always told to give them a wide berth.”

  “Any other bear, I’d say that’s definitely the best thing to do. But these two have been living with me since I rescued them.” He jutted his chin toward the one-floor ranch he called home on the other side of the dirt driveway she’d parked on. “Talk about a handful. They got into everything. When they started flipping over the kitchen table just for fun, I knew it was time to move them out here. They sleep in the shelter over there at night and play out here during the day when I can’t be with them. I spend at least ten hours a day with them, making sure they come to rely on me for everything. When the weather was warmer, I’d swim with them in a pool we just took down a few weeks ago. We set up a fence around the new enclosure, so they can hang out with me while I’m in there working with the two guys helping me build it. If the bears were older than they are now, I wouldn’t trust them with people who had to turn their backs on them, but, for now, they’re still too young and small to do any damage aside from the occasional nip when they think they’re being ignored.”

  Regina glanced around. “This place is amazing. You said you’d gotten donations from people to get it up and running, right?”

  “Yeah. Some of it was my savings, but that was never going to last for long, so I started making phone calls and connections. I did a video interview a few months ago for the local paper, and it went viral after they posted it on their website. They’d suggested I start an online fundraiser before the story went live because animal lovers would probably want to donate whatever they could, and they were right. We raised over thirty-thousand dollars in under a week just through that campaign. But then I was contacted by a few philanthropists, including Largo Ridge’s own Sadie Kemp, who donated much larger sums.”

  “Mrs. Kemp is my friend Zia’s grandmother. She loves a good cause.”

  He chuckled. “That she does. But she’d only make the donation if
I agreed to let her meet Bonnie and Clyde and take a picture with them. That’d been a no-brainer. The bears were a bit smaller then, and she was thrilled about the photo op. She’s a sweet lady and stops in to check on things once every few weeks, making sure we have everything we need for the animals.”

  “How many more animals do you have?”

  “Bonnie and Clyde are the only two permanent ones staying with us at the moment, but there’s a peregrine falcon and a fox currently going through rehabilitation for injuries and three fawns and two raccoons that are orphans. All of them will be released back into the wild when we’re certain they can survive.”

  Clyde suddenly sneezed, his big body jerking, and Regina yelped and yanked her hands away from his belly before realizing she wasn’t in any danger. Laughing, she reached out and gave him a few more scratches. “Well, as much as I’d love to stay out here and play with you two all day, I think your daddy and I have some business to attend to.”

  “Yes, we do.” He stood and held out a hand. When she took it, he helped her to her feet. Clyde and Bonnie both rolled over and got up on all four paws. Sticking their faces into the two buckets filled with blueberries, they began to scarf them down.

  Regina watched in amazement for a moment, then let Hogan lead her out of the enclosure, across the yard, and into his house.

  In the middle of spackling the drywall in the dining room, Buck was surprised to get a text from Regina.

  Gi: Thanks again for last night and also for cleaning up and leaving the hangover stuff out.

  Buck: No problem. How was your meeting with Hogan?

  Gi: It was good. Thanks for hooking me up with him too.

  He sent her a thumbs-up emoji followed by an upside-down smiley face. There was a long pause, and he figured she was done with the chat, but, just as he was about to set the cell phone back down on a stool next to a bottle of water, it chimed again.

  Gi: Are you doing anything for dinner tonight?

  He was taken aback but was all for having dinner with her.

  Buck: What did you have in mind?

  Gi: Red Door?

  The Red Door Saloon was a pub popular with the locals as well as tourists. They had excellent food, and if you were from Largo Ridge, it was a sure bet you’d run into at least a few people you knew there on any given night. Whenever Buck had come home to visit between deployments, he’d always made sure he stopped into the saloon at least once or twice.

  Buck: Sounds good. Six okay?

  Gi: Yup. I’ll meet you there.

  Buck: See you then.

  Setting his phone down, he picked up the bottle of water and took a long drink. Dinner, sort of, with Regina two nights in a row? Yeah, that was pretty shocking. Last night, as soon as the transformer had blown, knocking out the power in the area, he’d worried about her, knowing how much she hated the dark. Not that he blamed her after the scare she’d had when she’d been a young kid. He’d raced over to the Vaughns’ place, and it was a good thing he had. She’d been on the verge of a complete meltdown, despite the candles she’d lit. After they’d broken out the marble backgammon set her father had taught them all to play on, she’d relaxed even more—although the shots of whiskey probably had more to do with that than Buck being there.

  He had to admit, it’d felt great hanging out with her again. They’d razzed each other during the multiple backgammon games they’d played, laughed, and just talked about stuff. Wisely, Buck had avoided subjects such as if she was dating again and why she’d called off her wedding at the last minute. Ryan had told him the latter had been because she’d realized she wasn’t in love with her fiancé, and Buck wondered why she’d agreed to marry the guy in the first place if that’d been the case. But the last thing he’d wanted to do during the hours they’d played and talked was hear about the man she’d almost married or that she was dating anyone now that she was “on the market” again, as a guy he knew would say. Buck actually hated that phrase—it made a woman sound like a side of beef.

  While Buck wasn’t going to do anything stupid with Regina, like kiss her again, he did want to get their friendship back on an even keel. He’d missed her. The problem with that was he really did want to kiss her again. If she’d made a pass at him last night, it would’ve been hard to refuse her. She’d been beautiful at nineteen, but at twenty-six she was fucking gorgeous. Her curves had filled out and her face had matured more. The woman was a knockout and it grated on him thinking of her dating any of the jackasses in Largo Ridge who were just looking to put another notch on their bedposts.

  Glancing at his watch, he got back to work. He had about four hours before he would need to hop into the shower in order to meet Regina on time. With Ryan out of town and Justin covering the resort for the weekend, Buck was on his own today. They’d split the resort into sections, with each of them being in charge of specific areas—Ryan had kept his position as head of maintenance, with his staff fixing whatever needed to be fixed or updated throughout the entire resort. Justin maintained the ski slopes and their lifts, the sledding hills, and the snowboarding half-pipe. While they didn’t have any black diamond hills for expert skiers, they did have beginner and intermediate slopes. There was a larger ski resort about twenty minutes away in the town of Bellewood, and LRSR had a shuttle bus to transport skiers who wanted the more challenging slopes back and forth. For those learning how to ski, LRSR also had two ski instructors on staff.

  In addition to being in charge of the outdoor ice-skating rink, Buck had taken over running the main hotel, along with Grace, which included both indoor and outdoor pools. There were several hot tubs on the rear patio, a game room that had tables for billiards, foosball, ping-pong, and poker, and a bookcase full of board games. A bar and restaurant were also available, as well as a small spa.

  The resort was a lot of work, but they had an excellent staff in place. With over fifty full-time employees and thirty part-timers, the place ran like a well-oiled machine. Next to the main hotel was a small cottage that housed their first-aid station manned from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. by two EMTs and backed up by local EMS during the ski season.

  In the winter, when the mountains were full of snow, which was usually from mid-November to the middle of April, depending on the temperatures, was when LRSR was the busiest. From what Grace had told them, they made three quarters of their revenue during that time. While they were normally completely booked on the weekends, they had a majority of the rooms filled during the week too. When the warmer weather rolled around during the spring, they’d switch over to summer activities, of which there were plenty to attract visitors.

  Not for the first time, Buck sent up a prayer of thanks to Matthew for entrusting his resort to them. It couldn’t have come at a better time for him, and his best friends had been just as grateful. While she wasn’t there often, Maxi helped out when she could. The men completely understood that her veterinarian practice took precedence and were okay with her being a relatively silent partner.

  As he moved to tape and spackle the next seam between the drywall sheets, his phone rang. Glancing down at it, he saw it was his mother calling. She’d moved to North Carolina to be near his sister, who was eight years his senior.

  Becky was an orthopedist, married to her high school sweetheart, Aaron Williams, and the mother of two adorable little girls, Mia and Hannah. Buck got down there as often as he could to visit with them, but, now with the resort, he probably wouldn’t get to see them again until at least March.

  He picked up the phone and connected the call. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey. Just calling to check on you. I haven’t talked to you all week.”

  He smiled and leaned against the wall. “Yeah, we’ve been pretty busy getting ready for the snow season. How are you doing?”

  He spent the next ten minutes talking his mother out of fixing him up with her friend’s niece, who’d just moved to Largo Ridge. Lately, Buck hadn’t had time to date, and even if he had, he’d be hard pressed to
find a woman he was attracted to as much as he was to Regina.

  Damn it.

  “You’re an idiot, Regina. An absolute idiot. And you’re also going insane because you’re talking out loud to yourself, calling yourself an idiot.” She had no idea what had made her ask Buck to dinner, but it was too late to take it back now—it was five after six, she was standing in the parking lot of the Red Door Saloon, and Buck’s pickup truck was parked a few spots down from her SUV.

  “This is not a date. It’s two old friends having dinner together and catching up. Nothing more.” So why did you spend an hour and a half trying to decide what to wear, blowing out your hair, and putting on more than just your usual eyeliner? And seriously, you’re wearing heels instead of boots or sneakers. Nope, you’re not interested in having him notice you as a woman. Two old friends? Get real, Gi.

  She really hated when her inner goddess went all sarcastic. Although, with the temperatures dropping drastically from earlier in the day, she really was regretting putting on her black, open-toe pumps instead of something warmer. Under her black wool peacoat, she was wearing a rust-colored sweater with three-quarter length sleeves and a deep V-neck. A lacy, ivory camisole hid some of the way-too-suggestive cleavage the sweater exposed. The hem of the knitted top landed just below her hips. Black jeggings completed the outfit.

  Are you just going to stand out here freezing your ass off or what?