We hadn’t gone ten miles out of town on the treacherous highway, when the traffic came to a crawl, then a complete halt. After almost three hours, our turn to speak with the state trooper came.
Exhausted and accompanied by a pregnant gal who thought she needed to pee every thirty minutes and two boys taking turns asking “Are we there yet?” frustration by the two men up front was at a max.
“I’m sorry, sir. The highway is impassable about two miles up the mountain due to a collapsed snow bank. We’re turning everyone around.” He looked inside our van, and I’m certain, witnessed eager faces turn to frowns. “Where you headed?”
“About a mile north of the Cascades,” Ian answered.
The trooper shook his head. “About the best you can hope for is a room at the Lodge. Last report is they had a few rooms still open.” He radioed to someone and waited for an answer. “Take a right just past the third squad car. Tell them Carlos sent you.”
The butterflies in my stomach returned, and that sixth sense told me things were about to become fun in a bad way.
The Lodge wasn’t a five-star resort, more like a 1950s Bates Motel remake. Without an awning to pull under, Ian parked as close as he could and ran in amidst the blizzard conditions before quickly sticking his head out the door with a quick wave to come in. As fast as we could, we unloaded our bags to meet him inside, right in time to hear him swear at the man at the counter, “You’ve got to be effin’ kidding me,” in a tone that would make a fraidy-cat mouse freeze in the middle of a room.
Shawna and I stopped dead in our tracks while Jorge went to see what was happening—and prayerfully rein him in. Ty glanced at me from across the room, and I mouthed, “It’s okay.”
“He’s pissed,” Shawna surmised.
“That’s my mercurial man. I need to get him a shirt that says, ‘My mood swings quicker than Alex Rodriguez’.” We both giggled, perhaps a bit loud because he cut me a look over his shoulder, showcasing his lack of approval.
When he and Jorge finally returned to us in the tiny lobby, he gave me the great news. “The snow isn’t letting up until Monday, and they only have one room. Everything in town is sold out.”
Able to read him quite well at that moment, I knew his issue had nothing to do with the snow, but rather stress release and how creative he would have to be to get what he wanted.
“Well, I’m good at slumber parties. We’ve just got to make the best of it,” I said and slapped him on the arm. His sigh was more like a loud, bear-like grumble, but I knew inside he was a big softie, just impatient.
The room was tiny, but at least it had two full-sized beds, and they brought up sleeping bags for the boys along with a mini-refrigerator and some food. Nothing like traveling adversities to help you get to know someone, and I was grateful Ian was the only one short on patience because if he had company with an attitude, there would’ve been way too much strength in numbers.
Like it or not, the sleeping arrangements left me with the decision to either sleep on the floor in the bathroom or snuggle with Ian, not something I was excited to do in front of Ty.
“I don’t want him to think things,” I whispered in between pauses from brushing my teeth.
“He doesn’t. He’s six,” he smarted.
“Seven in two weeks.” My tone was sassy.
Ian looked over at the bathtub, and I followed his eyes with interest. “Good thing you’re short.” He swatted my rear with a laugh before exiting.
Do they make silent vibrators?
With my face washed, I quickly got over myself and rounded the corner out the bathroom ready to dive into his waiting arms on the bed.
To my surprise, what would’ve been my side was occupied by Oliver lying there propped on his dad watching something on YouTube.
“Hey Oliver, you want to move down here with Ty?” Catching Ian’s smile, I wiggled my brows.
“Nope. I’m staying with my dad.” Eye contact wasn’t even offered.
Exercising a bit of patience, I sat on the sleeping bag with Ty and joined him in a game of Connect Four on his iPad that turned into repeated attempts to win, all while waiting patiently for Oliver to move.
The exact moment I fell asleep I couldn’t recall, but when I woke and raised to peek at the clock, it was four in the morning. My body ached like I’d been run over by a truck, and nausea circled around inside me like Cirque du Soleil actors. There was Oliver, resting peacefully in the spot he’d claimed next to his dad, where I should’ve been had I not been so stubborn.
Unable to shake my sickness, I crawled to the bathroom. Trying to be quiet and toss my cookies at the same time proved impossible. It wasn’t but a few minutes before Shawna came to see about me.
“What did you eat?” she asked with a whisper.
“Half of a ham sandwich and I think it was bad.”
She moistened a washcloth and handed it to me before going back to bed. I spent the next couple of hours on the floor in the bathroom until the heaves stopped.
“Mommy,” Ty pulled on my arm. “Why are you in here?” His faced was shadowed with a frown.
I brushed his curly hair away from his face. “My tummy was upset last night, but it’s better now. Is it still snowing?”
With the conversation switched, he seemed happy with my answer and was all smiles. “Yes, but Mr. Ian said we could go outside and play in the snow just as soon as everyone is awake.” He was beaming from ear to ear before dashing back into the room. Kids are so easy to sidetrack. When I sat up, Ian came in to pee.
“You hung over?” he teased while closing the door.
Shaking my head, I said, “Food poisoning, I think. Hit in the wee hours of the morning.”
“Shit, this trip just keeps getting better and better,” he grumbled, while feeling my cheeks and head. “No fever. Could be the altitude.” His voice roared inside my head.
I touched his arm. “Shhh. Don’t wake everyone up.”
“Honey, everyone is already awake. The boys made certain of that, too excited to be quiet.”
I laid on the bed beside Shawna while Jorge and Ian got the kids ready to go outside. The next time I woke up, everyone had returned to the room because it was lunch. I was feeling better, but I definitely didn’t feel like eating with everyone else. After a shower which Ian tried hard to join, I felt a wee bit closer to human.
“They’re opening the highway. Think you feel up to a road trip?” Ian asked, packing his bags for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
No, I really don’t. But I sucked it up and put on my biggest smile. “Yep, ready.”
He smoothed my hair before kissing my forehead. “Liar, I can see the weakness in your eyes. We can wait if you need to. It’s a curvy road to the top.” He waited for my answer.
“I’m good.” Little did he know I had two trash bags stashed in my handbag just in case.
Ian, my ever protector.
After a couple of hours in a slow crawl up the mountain, we finally made it to our final destination. The large home was exquisite and had every amenity, including a spa out on the deck that Ian guaranteed to heal whatever ailed me. The boys had the run of the place inside and out and found plenty to do in the game room with pool, Ping-Pong, video games, and air hockey to keep them occupied. Jeff, the owner of the property and Ian’s friend from school, sent a text that a chef was coming with groceries for the week and would be preparing a special meal for us as his treat.
We’d missed a whole day of skiing, but sitting in the hot tub after the boys went to bed made everything worthwhile. The night air was chilly, but the warm water felt soothing. Shawna looked funny bundled up in Jorge’s ski clothes with just her feet in the water, but she insisted she was having a great time.
“I need a selfie to show my pedicure lady.” She giggled.
“What is it with you girls and all these selfies?” Jorge chuckled.
“I don’t know, but ever since Chelsie got me hooked up, I love getting private mes
sages,” Ian said with a fake cough.
“I bet you do, sweetheart.” I stuck my feet out of the water. Gross. “My toes are horrible. Maybe we could go into town Thursday night and get a pedi,” I suggested to Shawna.
Her glance toward Ian was too quick and very noticeable.
“Something wrong?” I questioned her, before looking back at Ian.
“Uh, no. They offered to watch the boys while we had a night out. With…hmm…the weather not clearing until the end of the week, I thought maybe Thursday was our best shot.”
Thinking I knew Ian well, his knee-jerk reactions left me unsure what he was up too. He never stuttered, and we’d planned the itinerary together. Then it dawned on me that the dude was working hard at getting lucky, even if it meant car sex somewhere in a parking garage or something.
Anything to get us away for a few hot moments…but I had news for him. The night was still young, and I wanted a quickie before going to my own room.
“That cheesecake Chef Sorin made was nothing short of amazing. I think you need to use your connections and get us the recipe, Ian, so Jorge can make it for the bistro,” Shawna suggested.
“Babe, we’ve talked about this. Chelsie doesn’t want to mix business with her friends.” Jorge rubbed Shawna’s arm before pulling her into a deep kiss as if we weren’t even there.
Cough, cough. “Hey, guys, that’s not entirely true. I’ve changed my mind about that. In fact, I want you to be a part of it. It’s a chance for you to have your dream right along with me fulfilling my mother’s.”
Ian stared at me, his face expressionless. I couldn’t get a read, and before I had the chance, he got up out of the spa and went inside without a word.
“Did I say something wrong?” Jorge asked with sincerity.
Unable to understand exactly what had happened, I took ownership anyway. “No, I’ll talk to him.”
Following Ian’s wet footprints, I found him in the kitchen, opening two beers. “What just happened out there?”
“You have to ask, Chelsie? You share things with them that you don’t share with me.” His voice escalated. “You make me out to be some kind of afterthought. I want to be your— Never mind. Do whatever you want. It’s your store, you’re bistro. You call the shots. It’s your relationship. I just fit into it somehow, some way. I’ll figure it out as we go.”
He tried to brush me off and scoot past me, but I grabbed his arm. “Don’t do this. Don’t start out our trip on a bad note. I was going to talk to you about the bistro, but everything with this trip happened so quickly we didn’t have any time.”
In a face off while holding two opened beers out in front of his rigid frame, he scorched my chilled body with his words. “I give you nothing but time, Chelsie. What do you give me in return?”
He walked away from me with the darkest look on his face, leaving a hole the size of Dallas in my heart.
Oh God, was this it? Our dark moment before the fallout?
I took a minute to reel my emotions in, and by the time I returned to the spa, Jorge and Shawna were drying off to turn in for the night. Shawna’s trite expression triggered my concern that something had been shared between the three of them.
“Are you staying in for a while?” I asked Ian.
No answer.
“Ian?” The sexy beast was king of pouting. He was faced outwards toward the mountains and failed to acknowledge me after both my attempts to speak to him. Shawna and Jorge both hurried to get away before the impending firestorm.
Walking around to the other side of the spa, I forced him to look at me. We were alone. I was freezing in my wet bathing suit wrapped in a damp towel, wondering if my world was about to fall apart.
I cocked my head to the side and waited for him to make eye contact. The whole time, I felt as though I was dealing with a six year old, instead of a well-educated grown man. “Why are you ignoring me?”
“Because I want you to know what it feels like to be a side note. I want you to worry about what we have and if it’s worth holding on to and maybe even grasping for something more.” He stood up and stepped out of the spa, grabbing his already damp towel. “Goodnight, Chelsie.”
The temps of blizzardy Colorado had nothing on Ian Briggs when he was pissed.
Chapter Nine
The coolness of the sheets were actually warm in comparison to the sting of Ian’s bitter cold attitude. Only a few hundred feet separated us, yet I felt completely alone and victim to my own imagination.
Was he breaking up with me?
The clock read two-twenty in the wee hours of the morning, but it seemed as though more like a hundred sleepless hours had passed, not just one since I’d witnessed his jealous reaction. Without any real conscious understanding of what made Ian so mad, I threw on my robe and tiptoed past Jorge and Shawna’s room to the other master guest room where Ian slept. Attempting to turn the handle, I smiled when it wasn’t locked.
Operation make-up sex was well underway.
The room was completely dark, except for the dimly illuminated alarm clock, which shadowed the bed and gave me direction to his resting form. With my hands out in front of me, I slowly paced my footing as to avoid stubbing a toe on the bed frame.
“Something wrong?” His soft voice reigned in the dark.
I stilled. He wasn’t asleep either.
“Yes.” My voice was a shaky whisper.
With a quick click, the lamp light came on. “What’s wrong?” His tone changed to a definite flatness. No babe, honey, or beautiful nickname was offered. Somehow I’d manage to hurt him deeply, and he was letting me know in his own pissy way.
“Everything’s wrong, from travel nightmares to food poisoning to you being pissed at me.” I sat down on the edge of the bed to the right of his feet and faced him.
He didn’t reach for me, rather he sat up straighter in the bed with his arms crossed. “You’d know if I was pissed.”
His hateful tone chilled me short of frostbite.
My belly recoiled, as if I needed any more gut problems. I studied his eyes, hollowed and expressionless and perhaps also grimmer, by the light cast from the lamp.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I leaned against the wooden footboard. “Are you just wanting to fight?” I pushed my hair back from my eyes and stared him down for a moment. He must’ve been waiting me out for an apology. “I’m really sorry that you think you are a second thought to me. That’s entirely not true.”
Beaten down by his coldness, the tears were seconds away, but I swore to myself I would leave his bed before he got the glory of seeing them. One man from my past had already reduced me to nothing before he threw me away for someone else. Once I’d recovered from his dark, invisible abuse, I’d vowed to never be caught off guard again.
“I love you, Chelsie. I want us to be together, share things with each other first—to be a combined unit. Yet, each step in time, you keep me at arm’s length, and you never share or discuss things with me first. It’s as if I’m a second thought to you.” He paused a slight moment and ran his hands through that long, sexy hair I loved so much. “What am I to you?” His words were uttered with sadness that quickly wrecked me.
Air caught in my throat and tightened every muscle I used to breathe.
Was that his shallow attempt at a proposal? If so, it was a weak conjecture on my part, and I damn sure wasn’t going to ask for clarification.
We sat in silence as I pondered what he asked, and in short time, I came to the answer I hoped would be the right one for him because it was my heart breaking its silence.
“You are my boyfriend, my best friend, and a very good man who I’m thrilled to have in my life and many times feel I don’t deserve. You’re my lover who sees my weak moments and turns them into beautiful escapades that repair a piece of my dark, fractured soul one layer at a time. I trust you in ways I’ve never trusted anyone and given of myself and received beautifully in return. You complete my brokenness in ways I never knew possible, and I ca
n’t imagine my life without you in it.”
“Then be with me and stop keeping me at a distance.” His eyes searched mine, and his face tightened with pain.
Unable to wait any longer to feel his hands on me, I made the first move toward him with my attempt at a kitten crawl up his body, until my hips straddled the covers hiding his presumed nakedness from me. “I love you. I need you.” My kiss wasn’t met with any eager response from him.
He gripped both of my hands in his. “I want to be your everything and will accept nothing less. Making love with you is the most incredible emotional and physical experience I could ever convey. But, what I cherish most is holding you all night in my arms and inhaling your scent even before my eyes see the light of the morning. Will you,” he paused to touch my face, “move in with me?”
In typical Ian fashion, it didn’t end up being the question I thought he was leading up to.
Move in? As in live together? That was something I thought I would never do. Ian was solid in his conviction. I trusted him enough to believe in him and how much he loved me, heart and soul. I knew we’d reach this point in our relationship where his patience was no longer a virtue, not that it probably ever was.
I leaned away from him, but he propped his knees up to bolster my body in place. “I’m sorry. I can’t. If that is an ultimatum, then we have a bigger problem.”
He pulled me close to his chest. “Beauty, it’s no ultimatum. It’s just me telling you how much I love you, and I can’t wait until the day comes when you’ve been in my bed all night and shared all of your dreams with only me.”
Control or jealousy. He was laying his issue out on the table.
It would be up to me to decide which side of that fence he was on. He wanted all of me and everything I had to give first before Shawna, Jorge, and perhaps even Carson.
“Things haven’t changed with Oliver, and if anything, I think they may have drifted to the darker side. He’s been so clingy to you since we started this trip.”
Complicated on 5th Avenue: 5th Avenue Romance Series, Book Two Page 5