“All right.” Gabe takes off his hat, keeping his poles firmly stationed across his lap, and scratches his head. “James is friendly. Really kind. But he’s also …”
Melissa can fill in the blanks. “Let me guess? Slutty? On the make? Into one night pickups?” She frowns. She knew it, but it sucks coming from his best friend.
Gabe grabs her arm. “That’s how people used to describe me, you know.”
“Used to?”
“As in the past,” Gabe says. Melissa feels his hand on her even through the down jacket, thinking how last year she would have given anything to be alone with Gabe, cloistered on a ski lift, with him touching her. She looks at him. He is gorgeous still, and being with him in this context—without liking him—without feeling vulnerable—makes him even more appealing. He sighs before speaking. “Just for the record, James is taken. It’s not that he’s a ski slut—far from it. I’m only recently revising my ways—but James … he’s … He just happens to have found someone he likes already.”
This news hits Melissa hard. Hooking up, having James be the prototypical guy on the move, chasing after anything in tight pants—that’s fine. But having him like someone? Really be into her? No wonder they were talking about Charlie yesterday. She’s the perfect girlfriend, probably—all beautiful and sunny, with kindness that’s apparent with her nannying job. And that’s how JMB met Celia Sinclair, too, Melissa thinks. Her chest feels empty now and all she can muster is one word. “Oh.”
The chairlift sways in the wind, causing Gabe to grip Melissa’s arm tighter. “You okay?”
“From the wind or the news?” She looks at him, wondering if they could turn out to be friends. Wouldn’t that be something to write home about. Not that she was committing anything to paper anymore except recipes.
“Both.” Gabe looks in back, at the chairlift behind and then around. “The weather’s picking up.”
“I don’t need to know who James likes—I’m not …”
“You don’t know her, anyway. I don’t think. It’s a foreign name. Unusual.” Gabe shrugs. “The guy’s private—to an extreme. He won’t even let me meet her.”
Melissa laughs, glad that maybe she and Gabe will be friendly after all. She thinks for a second how cool it was of him not to spill the past to James, when he could have so easily. “Maybe James is afraid if you meet her—this amazing woman he likes—that you’ll sweep her off her feet.”
Gabe cracks up, keeping hold of the chairlift and his poles. “Yeah, that’s right. Watch out, Mr. Benton-Marks—Gabe Schroeder’s in town, lookin’ for the ladies.”
“I forgot …,” Melissa laughs and then stops herself.
“You forgot what?”
“Nothing.” Melissa studies her jacket zipper, then looks down at the mountain. “God, we’re really far up.” She swallows. “I just forgot how funny you are, that’s all.” She remembers that last year she was taken in by Gabe’s looks, but now he cracks her up—cracks everyone up—without that annoying habit some guys have of being a clown or having everything be about them. “You’re just naturally humorous.”
“Well, thanks for appreciating me, I guess,” Gabe says. He sees a cloud of snow swirl around them and hunkers back into the chair.
Melissa nods. The wind whips against her cheeks, stinging her skin. “Are you sure we’re okay up here? We’re not going to be buried under twelve feet of snow?”
The lift creaks, moving them closer to the top of the mountain. “I don’t know. They had only three rings of the bell, which isn’t a true danger, so that means we’re …”
As he says this, the weather warning bell sounds again. One. Two. “Three,” Melissa says aloud, the worry building inside her.
“Four,” Gabe says. “Shit—it was warm yesterday, too.”
“Meaning?” Melissa gets nervous.
“Meaning—nothing. Let’s just avoid avalanches, accidents—that sort of thing. Sometimes big changes in temps can signal storms, or if too much melts, it makes the packed snow unsteady.” Melissa responds to this with just a worried look. He smiles and pats her back, then lifts the bar as they approach the mound. “Here we go.”
Melissa follows Gabe, squinting through the snow that’s now falling fast, sweeping through the area with a fierce wind.
A ski trooper stops them. “You two going down or heading to the Cliff House?”
“What do you mean?” Melissa asks. “We’re just doing one quick run, that’s all.”
The trooper shakes his head, the fluorescent ski cap highly visible even through the snow. “Nothing’s quick in weather like this. You better hurry down or bunk in.” He nods to the Cliff House.
Gabe looks at Melissa. “Up to you,” he says.
Melissa’s voice is high-pitched with concern. “I have to cook for everyone—dinner’s due and I haven’t …”
The trooper steps up. “Look, Miss, we’re preparing for a serious storm here. The food’ll have to wait. Go down immediately, or stay and weather it out up here.”
Melissa looks at Gabe. “I’m an intermediate skier.”
“You’ll be okay,” he says, looking at her tenderly. Then he looks at the trail, the heavy sheath of snow.
“I haven’t skied in a year,” she says. Then, to push the point, she adds, “Just in case you’ve forgotten—the last time I skied was … I skied that day—the day …”
“The day I ruined everything,” Gabe says and skis a few yards away.
Melissa straps her poles on to follow, but the trooper stops her. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” She shrugs and makes a face. “It’s only starting now—the run’s a full twenty minutes—in good weather. By the time you reach midsection, visibility will be almost nil.”
Panic jolts though Melissa’s body, and she skis fast over to Gabe. “Gabe! Wait!” He turns to her. “We should stay. I can’t … I don’t think I’m going …”
He sidesteps over to her. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Melissa.” He stares at her, with the same eyes that captivated her last season; the same mouth that she wished wanted hers. “People will cover for you down there. You’re right—we should stay.”
She wonders if this is a hardship for him, if he hates the thought of having to spend more time with the girl who liked him before. Or if maybe he’s immune to all that now. Melissa looks through the wild wind and snow to the Ledge House. She wouldn’t be able to cook dinner, to make dessert—the chocolate mousse pooling in the fridge—and she wouldn’t be able to meet James at the ice pond. Not that he’s interested in me, Melissa thinks. With my normal name and unforeign self. But still.
“Should we go?” Gabe asks. He points to the Cliff House, a log cabin structure that served as the first ski lodge when Les Trois opened decades ago. “We better get in there and claim some space—if it crowds up, at least we’ll have a bed.”
Melissa blushes, despite the cold and her nerves. “A bed?”
“Didn’t I say I’ve changed my ways? What—you think I’m on the make up here? In a storm? Give me a slice of credit cake, won’t you?” Gabe shakes his head and yells through the whistling wind. “A place to sleep, I mean.” He chuckles to himself and asks her again, “What’re you thinking? That I’d try to make the most of a snowstorm?”
“NO. NO—I swear, I wasn’t thinking that….” Melissa manages a smile even though the worry of the storm and its fallout has her tense. “Well, maybe I was a little. Maybe it’s not such a stretch to envision you having a romantic interlude with some storm-trapped vixen.”
“I’m not into vixen,” Gabe says. “At least, you don’t have to worry about me running off with anyone tonight.”
“Oh, well, now I’m relieved,” Melissa says, enjoying the banter. “Hey! You just gave me an idea.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You said slice of credit….” Melissa thinks, the wind howling past them. “It sparked something.” She pictures baking, wishing she could be the official host of the party, but knows she’ll hav
e at least the joy of making the food and setting the tone. “I think I know what I’m going to do for my theme party.”
“Do tell.”
“I’ll tell you inside—when we’re sure we’re safe. And when I’ve thought about it more.”
Gabe gives Melissa one of his signature grins that shines through her cold exterior. Make the most of the snowstorm, she repeats in her mind. Would Gabe want to …? She shakes the thought away. Burn me once, shame on me … burn me twice … well, I guess we’ll have to see, she thinks, and they ski toward the Cliff House, their shelter, their safe haven for the night.
16
When you chop enough onions, crying is inevitable.
DOVE SLINGS THE ROAST into the stove and finishes I the red currant sauce with a touch of lemon juice, letting the mixture bubble up and heat in a copper pot. In the dining room, Harley regales the earl and countess and their clan with stories of her trailer-park upbringing. Clearly, the upper echelons of society are enchanted or at least amused by her vastly different background. Dove can hear their laughter and energetic conversation, which is a good distraction to the undercurrent of worry about Melissa. Matron reported that Melissa, along with a group of other skiers whose names she didn’t mention, are hunkered down at the Cliff House for the night. With the storm raging outside, The Tops is cozy, though Harley and Dove keep checking to see if there’s any further word.
She’ll be back by morning, Dove reminds herself. And I’ll just tell her we covered for her—hopefully everything will be okay. Dove hears Max’s deep laugh from the next room and wonders what Harley said that was clever enough to register with him.
“It’s funny,” Harley says to Dove when she dashes into the small, hot kitchen, “but they like hearing me talk about my real past. Not some made-up version—but the way things really were for me.”
Dove nods as she stirs the sauce. “This is almost done. Think you can hold them off for three more minutes?”
“Sure.” Harley dips a finger into the roiling red sauce and winces with the sting of a burn. “Tasty, though.”
Dove shakes her head. “I told you not to touch my food while I cook—it’s a pet peeve.” She turns the gas off and arranges all the appetizer plates, then begins to ladle sauce onto each one. “You do a great job hosting, Harley. Really.” She looks at Harley, who now even dresses the part—black slim turtleneck, hair pulled back to the nape of her neck, and a long pencil-cut charcoal wool skirt she bought in town.
“It’s like—there’s a part of me that wanted so badly to leave Colorado and pageants and working on the Martingale Ranch and serving high-hat tequila….”
“You worked on a ranch?” Dove asks. “That sounds so cool.”
Harley shakes her head and grins. “It was, but probably it sounds more exciting to you because you’re …”
“I’m what, exactly?” Dove can’t let Harley finish, impatient to put the final touches on the dinner. She pours the sauce so that each plate has a thin perfect circle in its center while wondering what breakthrough observation Harley’s about to blurt out.
“You’re a princess,” Harley says and uses kitchen tongs to pluck at Dove’s white blond hair, which is twisted into a bun. “And you have the hair to prove it.”
Dove laughs a little, knowing Harley’s only joking—or at least partly. “You know what, though?” Dove looks around, taking in the kitchen’s scents and calm order. “I think if they could see me right now, my parents would be proud of me.” Dove’s eyes well up just a bit, though she doesn’t allow any actual tears to stumble down her cheeks.
“Harley!” the earl shouts from the dining room. “Come back—we’re in desperate need of your cheer!”
Harley puts the tongs down and watches as Dove begins to fry wedges of breaded Camembert cheese to go along with the sauce. “You’re good at this,” Harley says. “Why shouldn’t they be proud? Not that I’m one to talk. There’s nothing you can do to please my mother—except win Miss Rocky Mountain Teen or whatever. And probably that wouldn’t be good enough….” Harley looks down, wondering if her present is still in danger of being trod upon by her past.
“I am good at this,” Dove says. “Cooking. Cleaning … well, maybe a passing grade. But it’s not Oxford. It’s not the same as university.”
“Not everyone goes to college,” Harley says, pausing before going back to her hosting duties. “Whether it’s here or some other far-flung locale—or even back to the Martingale Ranch—or not. It’s kind of beers, boys, and saddles.”
Dove raises her eyebrows. “Not all bad …”
“Oh, so there’s a wild side to you, Miss Dove?” Harley clucks at her.
“More than you know,” Dove says. “Or maybe more than I know. Anyway, these need tending or they’ll burn.”
“I’ll help you serve—just call me in.” They stare at one another, both thinking the same thing. Without Melissa to act as their intermediary, they have to be civil. “She’ll be okay.”
“You sure?” Dove wrinkles her nose. “I just keep thinking of her freezing up there, and …”
“We’ll take care of everything here, that way all she has to do is make it through the night without getting frostbite—”
Dove gasps. “Oh, I didn’t even think about that. She’d want us to do the dinner really well.” She puts triangles of cheese into the oil where it begins to get crispy on the edges. “Here—this one’s done. Each person gets two wedges—wait till I finish another plate, then you can serve two at a time.”
“Okay.” Harley stands there, impressed with Dove’s efficiency. “Melissa would want the dinner to go off without a hitch—which it seems we’ll pull off….” She pauses. “And I think she’d also like it if we didn’t sit up all night worrying about her.”
Dove nods, but doesn’t comment on that last part. “Serve the countess first, of course.” Harley nods. “If I’m telling you things you already know, just ignore me.” Harley nods again. “And I set the table with the sterling cheese forks—they look odd, with a flat edge. But that’s what’s best for melting cheese. If the cheese were firm, you would use the—”
“Wow—you know your shit,” Harley says. She takes the second plate and begins to transfer them from the kitchen to the dining room where they are met with ooohs and ahhhs.
“I take it they like what they see?” Dove asks when Harley bounds back into the kitchen.
“I said they’re fried cheese,” Harley says.
Dove’s smile fades, her shoulders slump. “No—who the hell wants fried cheese as a starter at a fancy dinner party?” Dove finishes arranging the wedges so that each plate is identical and helps Harley serve the final four.
“These are hand-rolled Camembert done in a panko crumb served with a red currant citrus puree.” Dove holds her two plates out, going to Diggs and Luke to serve them, but Harley gets there first, leaving Dove to hand one to some random friend of Luke’s and the last to Max.
She places the plate directly in front of him, turning the cheese so the points face away, proper etiquette. Max turns it back to face him. She turns it away and then he turns it back until she lets out a small but audible humph. Under the table she flicks his arm and then smiles at everyone else. “Enjoy!”
Back in the kitchen, she turns the roast, readies the plates and vegetables, checks on the chocolate mousse Melissa had started to prepare, and wonders what the real cook is up to, if she’ll be happy the dinner’s going well, or feel as though Dove’s stepped over the line, trying to be a better chef. I just hope she’s okay, she thinks, setting all the dirty utensils and pans into the right side of the sink, which she’s filled with hot soapy water. The bubbles come up to her elbows and for a second, she drifts away, imagining floating in the water—warm waters—with William. She eyes the clock. He’s due to call in two hours—they’ve never missed a day since being apart—well, except that once when he was in transit from here to the island of Nevis in the West Indies, where the boat is docked. Las
t night he told her he had an important announcement—a special conversation to have—and Dove can tick down the minutes now until she hears from him. Starters, main course, sorbet, dessert, coffee, and my phone call.
Then quickly Max is beside her, his arm plunged into the warm water next to hers, their skin touching underneath the froth. Dove’s instinct is to pull away, but something holds her there until Max speaks. “Thought I’d help by clearing.”
“Don’t bother,” Dove says. Then she knows she sounds rude. “I mean, thanks for the help, but I’ve got it all under control.”
She looks up at Max. He looks down at her, his body still close to hers. “Do you?”
Dove stands there in the wake of Max’s intensity, her insides swirling. She washes the bubbles from her skin and turns her attention back to the roast, taking it out of the oven to rest before slicing it so that the meat will stay juicy.
“Hey.” Harley clears the plates and checks on Dove’s timing. She notes Max’s proximity to Dove and wedges herself in between them, feeling territorial about her fellow chalet girl and her guests. “I have a story that should take about five minutes—think me, a greased hog, and my high school drama teacher chasing it with a broom.”
Dove smiles, gritting her teeth as she tries to ignore Harley’s hip pressing into Max. “You’re an original, Harley.”
“She is,” Max says, his eyes boring into Dove’s. He wipes his hands on a towel and then leaves.
“Thanks—listen….” Harley watches Max exit and puts the plates into the soapy water and then on her way out, tugs at Dove’s hair again. “Two thoughts.”
“Tell me,” Dove says, glazing the baby carrots with a port-wine reduction sauce. “I’m all ears. They’re the one part of my body that’s not overheated from the oven, sore, or busy.”
Harley laughs. “One—you come out with me tonight. Not now—but later—”
Balancing Acts Page 14