by Nicole Helm
“Yeah, so I’m learning.” Brandon let out a long-suffering sigh, and Will had to admit for a newlywed the guy looked tired. And not for the right reasons. “But I do have some control over this.”
Will looked back out at the quickly darkening mountain forest in front of him. “You outvoted me,” he repeated, because, well, because it had hurt. Even if that hurt was his own damn fault for not explaining things to Sam and Brandon. But who would want to relive ancient history? He certainly didn’t.
“I thought whatever happened between you two . . . Look, I thought if you got over your initial reluctance you’d be fine, but she starts tomorrow. She’s been around for a few weeks, and you are decidedly not fine. I would love to include Tori in Mile High, but you rank, brother. So, if you need her gone, I’ll do the dirty work.”
Because Brandon never hesitated to stand up and do the work. Will might not always agree with what the work should be, but he’d always, always admired his brother for a whole myriad of things. That being one of them. Not that he’d ever told Brandon.
It would be wrong to take him up on this. Not because he thought Tori belonged here. By his way of thinking, she’d made it very clear she didn’t. That she’d desert all of them if things didn’t go her way.
Something tightened in his gut. A familiar old something he’d spent a lot of years ignoring. Refusing to identify.
“Lilly’s having twins.”
That jerked Will out of any past feelings. “Twins.”
Brandon raked his fingers through his hair. “Yes, twins. She had some bleeding, so we went in and . . . Anyway, found two in there. Then they started going on about all the risks and terrible things that could happen and I . . . I can’t control any of that. Even if I could wrap her up in Bubble Wrap and tie her to a bed, she wouldn’t let me. So, I . . . I need you one hundred percent, because God knows I’m not going to be for the next six plus months.”
Will’s chest tightened, at a million things. Concern for his brother, for his sister-in-law, for his future nieces or nephews. An odd, blanketing grief that he’d never had a chance to have that kind of worry, because Courtney had ended their chance before . . .
“I need to know you’re present. I need to know you won’t snipe at Sam and Hayley. That you won’t dump on Tori. That—”
“I’ll handle it.”
“I need—”
Will stood, forcing every last swirling emotion inside of him down and away. He clapped Brandon on the shoulders and gave him a little shake. “I’ve got it. You can trust me. I’ve been off a little, I get it, but consider it fixed. I’ve got your back.”
Brandon let out a sigh of relief, and Will realized Brandon wasn’t just exhausted, he was sick with worry.
“Mom had us just fine. Lilly’s made of sterner stuff. She’ll be a freaking Wonder Woman.”
“Do you not recall Mom’s dramatic renderings of you being in the NICU for months?”
Will managed a smile, a real one, for the first time in weeks, he thought. “And look at me now.”
Brandon was quiet for a while, too long, studying Will with that all-too-assessing hazel gaze.
“And Tori?”
Will tried not to tense, but he probably failed. “I was caught off guard, and I’ll admit I’ve been wallowing in it. But . . . I can put all that in the past.” For Brandon, he’d do anything.
“You sure?”
“Positive. Go home to Lilly. Do whatever you need to do. You can count on me. You can trust me with Mile High.”
Brandon let out another sigh, something shuddering that had his shoulders slumping. Will wasn’t sure he remembered ever seeing his brother quite like this. There’d been a grimness to him when he’d figured out Dad had been cutting corners at Evans Mining Company, an exhausted certainty when Dad had died and Brandon had had to clean that all up.
Brandon had been shoulders-back determination since he’d gotten it in his head that Mile High Adventures could save Gracely from its near ghost town status. He’d been humorously felled by Lilly Preston earlier this spring.
But Will had never seen him wilt under all the pressure.
This was why you didn’t go falling in love and shit. All it did was make your life harder, scarier, and far more full of hurts.
“Thanks,” Brandon said, giving him a little back thump, which was about as close to a hug as they ever got.
Will watched Brandon go, back to the family he was building. Will stood on the porch of Mile High Adventures, which was his future. He’d do whatever it took to make sure it kept succeeding.
Even if that meant forgetting everything that had ever happened with Tori Appleby. One way or another.
Chapter Two
Renting the house had been easy enough. The leasers had been happy to offer the place to someone who might be interested in buying sometime in the future. Tori was glad to have a place to call home. A place to really start building her new life.
Again.
Luckily, the house was moderately furnished, which meant that aside from some kitchen appliances, she was good to go even with her meager belongings.
Last night she’d settled in and Cora had brought over a bottle of wine and some brownies. Tori had been surprised to find herself enjoying the woman’s company before Cora had had to go home and check on her son.
Today though, Tori was starting her first official day at Mile High Adventures. She’d have to get to know the area better before she led any excursions, but it would only take a few weeks to get that training down. She already knew all the ins and outs of climbing and camping and kayaking.
Of course, instead of sleeping in to be bright eyed and ready to go, she was up at the crack of dawn. She hadn’t slept well at all because she’d been plagued by the knowledge that things with Will had been antagonistic at best and she had to . . .
Well, they had to stop sniping at each other or glaring at each other or, worst of all, pretending the other was evil incarnate. They had to face the problem between them. Figure out how they were going to move past it.
She was here for the long haul. She wasn’t backing out of this because Will was uncomfortable. Especially if Sam and Brandon were both happy to have her.
She’d ferreted out from Hayley and Cora the fact that Lilly and Brandon were currently living in the cabin that had once been shared by Will and Brandon, and that most nights that meant Will slept at the Mile High offices in the bed Tori had seen the day she’d asked Brandon if he wanted her at his wedding.
So, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, Tori was going to head to Mile High headquarters far earlier than her shift required and confront Will about how they were going to work together.
It scared the hell out of her.
Over seven years of separation had obviously changed them both, and it wasn’t like she was going to have a conversation with him and they could magically go back to being best friends. It wasn’t like he was going to flash a smile and she would grow back all those old romantic feelings she’d had for him. They were dead and gone.
So fear and anxiety and nervousness were stupid. But no matter how often she repeated that thought to herself as she drove to Mile High, the nerves jumped in her stomach until she felt downright sick.
She shook her head as she drove. She’d let emotion and fear drive her to this place, and that was the woman she didn’t want to be anymore. The one who led with emotion, and always, always suffered the consequences.
She would approach Will, and they would have to discuss finding some way to exist around each other. Reasonable. Calm.
She parked her car in the parking lot and took a deep breath, trying to calm and center herself. This was fine. More than fine. She was being a responsible and mature adult, and if Will couldn’t be the same, that wasn’t her fault.
But her steps up to the beautiful cabin that acted as headquarters were decidedly slow. She was very nearly dawdling.
The cabin was beautiful—picture perfect
both in its exterior and how it was set into the mountains. The gray snowcapped slate framed the dark woods of the cabin and was the perfect neutral to make the green roof and trim of the cabin pop.
She could stand here forever and look at this beautiful sight and be perfectly happy.
Coward.
No, she wasn’t going to be that. She forced herself up the porch and ignored the shaking in her arm as she lifted her hand to knock on the door.
She could do this. She could handle this. Will was going to understand.
Wasn’t that what you thought seven years ago?
She steeled herself against that stab of pain, pushed it away. This was something else entirely.
She knocked and she waited. She knocked again, and she waited again. The longer she waited, the more irritation started mingling with nerves and fear and pain.
He couldn’t know that it was her. There weren’t any windows or peepholes that would reveal her, that she could see. It was a little early, so maybe he was still asleep. Even though Will had always been an early riser. But things changed. People changed. She had changed.
She lifted her hand again, this time to really pound on the door, but it swung open and because she was shocked by the sudden movement, she couldn’t quite stop the forward motion of her arm. Her fist landed right in the center of Will’s chest.
His very, very bare chest. Hot. Hard. Shirtless chest.
For a second they both stared at her hand lodged against his skin. Just . . . sitting there. Her fist to his bare, muscled chest. She could feel the crisp hair beneath the edge of her palm, and the warm heat of Will Evans’s sleep-rumpled body against her own skin.
It was like a weird dream from all those years ago, except it wasn’t then and it wasn’t a dream. She was real-life touching Will’s naked chest. Naked chest.
It was only once her gaze rose to his that she finally got her brain to engage enough to pull her hand away. She cradled it with her other hand, trying to work her way through the unsteady, edgy way her body responded.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice all sleep gravelly.
It wasn’t fair that heat pooled in her belly, a sharp, erotic pang. But more than that, an undeniable tug of loss that echoed across the years. The way her heart used to skitter when he’d smile at her, or she’d dream that just once when he bent to whisper some stupid joke in her ear, his lips would linger somewhere, anywhere.
She swallowed at the overwhelming swamp of memories and current physical responses.
“I came to talk to you.” She was very impressed with herself. Her voice sounded almost normal. Maybe a little hushed, but not like you are too hot to breathe panting.
Sure, it had been seven years since she’d had to pretend like Will didn’t affect her, but she’d spent the six years prior to that perfecting her I do not find you attractive, Will Evans demeanor.
He took a deep breath, all the tension in him loosening before he smiled. Actually smiled. “Make yourself at home. Be right back. I’m going to put a shirt on.”
She could only blink at him as he walked away. After a week of nasty comments and nastier looks, Will . . . smiled at her. She didn’t know what to make of that.
Gingerly Tori walked into the beautiful main room of Mile High Adventures headquarters. It was everything they had discussed in college. They’d wanted the headquarters to look like a cabin, like a home. So that the people who understood the beauty of the mountains and what it could offer would come here and it would feel like that mountain getaway. It would be perfect and cozy, and customers would want to come back to find that feeling over and over again.
Apparently, the boys had used her idea of putting prints on the walls of quotes about the mountains. It nearly brought tears to her eyes, this dream come to life. It ached that she hadn’t been here to choose the sayings or to have a choice in the rugs or the couches. It hurt in a way it hadn’t up until this very moment, that she hadn’t built this with them as she was supposed to have done.
“Is it what you pictured?”
She had to compose herself. She had to find a way to not cry in front of him. She couldn’t allow him to see how hurt she was. Tori’d had to be strong her whole life, and this was no different.
“You guys did everything we talked about. It’s very impressive.” She didn’t turn to face him. She couldn’t quite yet. The tears in her eyes would be too visible.
She’d promised herself a long time ago she’d shed no more tears in front of Will Evans, and it was a promise she intended to keep.
* * *
There was an ache in Will’s chest that was so much worse than the anger he’d been using to hide it for the first few weeks of Tori’s arrival.
He had to figure out some new way to deal. Something aside from anger, and definitely something aside from this hurt. Memories that felt like they cracked open his chest were the kind of wallowing bullshit he couldn’t allow. Not when Brandon was counting on him.
“Well, we’ve put a lot of work into it,” he said, affecting his breeziest tone. “Brandon won’t be in today, but Sam and Hayley should be here later. Skeet usually gets in around eight. Lilly put some paperwork together for you to fill out to make the employment official. Insurance liability and that sort of thing. Knowing Lilly, she probably has a whole schedule for you too.”
Tori finally turned to face him, her pale eyebrows drawn together, confusion darkening her blue-green eyes. They’d always reminded him of the ocean, and it was so damn weird to be pushed back into that old reminder, these old feelings.
What did he do with a woman who’d been his best friend, then disappeared without a good-bye? All because he couldn’t give her what she wanted.
“Okay,” she said after a few seconds of silence. “I can handle a little paperwork, I suppose.”
He offered a bland smile. “I know you know how to do all the excursions, but we need to make sure you know the area well enough before you can lead one. Once you’ve got the area down, you’ll get scheduled. Between you, me, Sam, and Hayley we should be covered even with Brandon in and out.”
Her drawn-together eyebrows didn’t smooth out, the skeptical expression on her pixie face didn’t change. He’d always admired Tori’s composure. She’d never had to effect a sunny disposition, she’d just been a brick wall of whatever the hell she’d wanted to be. She’d been a tiny blond force of nature and nothing, nothing about that seemed to have changed.
Damn her.
So he kept yammering on about procedure, anything to ignore the fact they were suddenly being civil to one another. “I bet she’s even put together a few maps for you to help familiarize yourself. Stay put. I’ll go grab everything.”
She didn’t say a thing, but he didn’t exactly give her time to. With as much nonchalance as he could muster, he walked back to Lilly’s office and found the little folder with Tori’s name on it.
For a second, he could only look at her name. Tori Appleby. Something like a ghost that had haunted him for years. After having been one of the steadiest influences in his life for his early twenties.
He still couldn’t get over what she’d done to him. To them. Or what he’d done in return.
He couldn’t think about that. All of it had to be in the past. Brandon was counting on him, and he’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but he would not let his brother down.
He got the folder and walked back out to where Tori was still looking at everything in the office with too bright eyes. Regret so clear in their blue-green depths, awe in the slight curve to her wide mouth. Things he’d felt himself while building this place.
That she hadn’t been there, when she should have been.
“Here we go,” he offered, irritated when his voice came out a little rusty. “As I predicted, Lilly has everything you could possibly need in here. Including maps.”
Tori took a deep breath, and he could feel her gaze on him though he didn’t lift his eyes to meet it.
&
nbsp; “So, you’re really just going to act like the past few weeks didn’t happen?”
He stilled, though he’d give himself some credit for not freezing completely. He gathered all his acting skills and put them to use. Because anything he felt had to be put on the shelf right now. That was where he preferred deep, complicated feelings anyway.
“I’ll admit your reappearance took me a little off guard.” Understatement of the year. “A lot of things have been going on around here. Brandon got married. Sam is dating my half sister I only just found out about. It’s been a strange summer. Things are settling down though, so . . .” So what? He didn’t have a clue.
“What about me?”
He looked at her then, but realized it was a mistake. Such a mistake, because she looked like she looked in his memories. Exactly the same. Not a fraction of her looked any different. She was still a tiny thing, all muscle and mouth, that thick blond braid ever present down her back. Eyes like the ocean, deep and unfathomable and full of secrets he never wanted to know.
Exactly the same, as though seven years of separation made no difference, and that same confusion and anger and fucking fear she’d incited the last time he’d seen her back then still swirled in his gut.
But he was older. Wiser. He knew how to lock that shit away these days. “You’re here. You were always supposed to be here.”
“So, we’re going to pretend like it didn’t happen?”
“I think that’s the best course of action. Don’t you?”
Not an ounce of the confusion etched into her face changed. “Actually, that’s why I’m here so early. I thought we should . . . well, clear the air before we had to work together.” But she still stared at him as though he were some mythical creature whose existence she didn’t understand.
He looked away, made a grand gesture with his hand still holding the folder. “Consider the air cleared.”
He could tell she wanted to push further. If he had to guess, she wanted to push into what had happened between them all those years ago. He didn’t have the wherewithal for that. Not today. Hopefully not ever.
“Well, I’ll get you a pen and you can fill out the paperwork.” He thrust the folder toward her, not wanting to be any closer to her than he had to be. Not out of childishness or pettiness, but out of survival. Staying as far out of her orbit as he could would be damn survival.