Trouble was, she was starving and in need of a bathroom.
Given that the lobby still thronged with graduates, India decided to fill both needs elsewhere. She hefted her overnight bag to the triplets’room, then charted a course through the human sea for the hotel’s revolving brass door.
She’d almost reached freedom when a funny thing happened. She sidestepped two rowdy boys, only to be stunned by a guy. Not just any guy, but the kind of chiseled, fully grown moviestar perfection she’d bought in poster form as a teen, then used to decorate her bedroom. He seemed equally determined to barrel right through the throng. Only, not to the nearest exit—but to her!
Still at a polite distance, he said, “If you’ve ever been hurt by a member of the opposite sex, then I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“For what?”
He grinned, then hauled off and kissed her.
Kissed her!
Wonderfully, wickedly kissed her till she was weak-kneed and dizzy and rethinking her earlier plan to cancel her birthday. How could she, when this bad-boy stranger with spiky dark hair, a hint of stubble and a rock-hard, six-foot body encased in faded jeans and a black Burton Snowboard T-shirt had just bestowed on her a dizzying gift.
“Sorry,” the guy said over a recently set up string quartet and still more chattering graduates. “Emergency.”
Hands to flaming cheeks, willing her pulse to slow, India stammered, “E-emergency kissing?”
“Hey, what can I say?” Stepping closer to avoid being trampled by three blue-haired women wearing oversize Class of ’43 buttons on their lapels, he graced her with a white-toothed grin as sinfully sexy as his kiss. “You’re hot, and that woman over there?” He pointed across the crowd. “The tall brunette on the hulk’s arm? She’s not. Hot, that is.”
“She looks pretty to me.” The woman wearing a ’96 badge that matched the kissing bandit’s had inky hair and a porcelain complexion that gave her an exotic appearance. Her black linen pantsuit fit like a dream and her matching purse and shoes looked as though they’d cost more than a month of India’s salary. The muscled Nordic guy with her also wore black, but as a man’s suit. “He’s not bad, either—assuming you go for Neanderthal.”
“Bite your tongue. The guy’s a germ.”
“Steal your girl?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“So then far from you kissing me because of love at first sight, you just wanted her to see you having a great time with a younger woman?”
“Damn.” He reddened, ducked his head. “Here I don’t even know your name, and already you see right through me.”
She smiled and thrust out her hand. “India Foster, full-time event planner, part-time love doctor.”
The ruggedly handsome stranger fit his palm to hers, shocking her with tingly awareness. Was it normal for her to crave another kiss after knowing the guy barely two minutes? “Graydon Johnson, snowboard coach and person very much in need of your services.”
India couldn’t help but laugh at his antics, although the pain lurking just beneath the surface of his slow, sexy grin was palpable.
“Class of 2004, huh?” He nodded at the big button the overzealous organizer had pinned on her chest. “You are a young thing.”
“Actually—”
“Graydon.”
That brunette who’d been pretty from across the room? Up close and personal—as in Graydon’s face—she was ravishing.
“I’d hoped to bump into you. Did Jake take his allergy medicine to camp?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. You know how I worry.” Hulk in tow, she sashayed off with a polished squeal to greet a fellow brunette.
“Grrr…” Graydon shook his head, eyeing his ex. “That woman couldn’t melt ice cubes on her—”
“Graydon!” A trio of grinning women in red-, silver-and-black cheerleader uniforms, wearing ’94 buttons, bounced and jiggled their way over. India had doubts whether the seams of the decade-old uniform of the freckle-faced redhead would hold. After a round of hugs and small talk, during which India gleaned that the man who’d kissed her wasn’t merely a coach but a recently retired professional snowboarder who now managed both pros and future Olympians, she was starting to feel very much out of her league.
Having been born on the wrong side of the tracks to a flower-child mother who’d vanished with the wind one day when India was four and her sister two, India had never felt part of the school establishment. While other kids had had moms and dads who’d volunteered, India’s dad had sometimes had a job and most of the time was a drunk.
That she’d worked her way through college was one of India’s proudest achievements. It had taken six years, but she’d done it. And now, bright and early Monday morning, she’d begin a new phase of her life as the Sliver Palace conference and event coordinator. With her hotel-management degree and promising future, India knew in her head she had nothing to feel inferior about. The past was gone.
She raised her chin, fighting the knot in her throat, forcing a smile. Whether her sister cared to join her or not, damn it, she was officially launching a new life, and old ghosts weren’t welcome.
“Good Lord,” Graydon said, words warm in her left ear once the cheerleaders had giggled their way to someone new. “I’ve gotta get out of here. How about I buy you a drink?”
“I, um, don’t. Drink, that is.”
“O-okay. Do you eat?”
Laughing, India replied, “That is a skill at which I’m most adept.”
“Excellent,” he said with a broad smile. “It appears we have something in common—besides, of course, having graduated from the same high school and kissing.”
“Yes, well—”
“Graydon!” A twenty-something, long-haired guy with glasses and a neon-pink T-shirt wandered up to shake Graydon’s hand. Four more men in equally obnoxious clothes followed.
India had been about to explain how she wasn’t a fellow Silver Cliff graduate, when she found herself yet again cut off at the proverbial pass. Still hungry and now needing a ladies’ room in the worst way, she waved at her new friend, then said, “Looks like you’re busy. I’m going to go.”
Cutting off one of the guys, he asked, “Will you be at this afternoon’s picnic or tonight’s fireworks?”
“Depends,” she said, truly unsure if she’d have the time or energy. “If I do make it, maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Their gazes locked, and then, as abruptly as he’d entered her life, Graydon Johnson was gone.
Chapter Two
What had he been thinking?
Strolling along Boulder Avenue, surrounded by historic brick storefronts bedecked in red, white and blue bunting and American flags, Graydon Johnson tuned out the ramblings of his old pals Chuck, Ted and Phillip who’d talked him into attending the reunion, to instead focus on her. India Foster. Or, more specifically, why in the hell he had regressed to pulling such a juvenile stunt.
If he’d had his way, she’d be here with him, giving him a chance to apologize again. Part of the reason he’d returned to Silver Cliff was to prove to not just the world but himself that he’d changed. But that kiss had been a move straight out of his past. He’d been temporarily insane, needing to show Tiff he’d moved on. Apparently, he hadn’t moved as far as he’d hoped in the right direction.
So why had he kissed a complete stranger?
Pride. To prove to his ex-wife that even though she didn’t find him desirable, other women did.
Um, question, his conscience interjected. How do you know India wanted you, when you didn’t give her a choice?
Jaw hardened, Graydon vowed to put the incident behind him. The long weekend was about making a fresh start, claiming second chances. Sure, he might bump into India Foster here and there, but it wouldn’t mean anything. She’d no doubt already forgotten the whole incident. The way he needed to.
In the two years since retiring as a professional snowboarder and finalizing his and Ti
ffany’s divorce, then singlehandedly raising their son, Graydon was proud to have finally become a man. Trouble was, no one outside the circle of folks he worked with daily seemed to take his newfound maturity seriously. It was as if everyone he’d known back in high school and on the pro circuit had frozen him in time.
“This okay?” Phillip asked, stopping in front of one of Graydon’s favorite haunts. Big Air was the kind of bar he used to hang out in after competitions. Smoky. Rowdy. Underground indie rock pulsing so fast it changed the pace of his heart. On a Thursday afternoon, the place wasn’t quite so wild, yet all it took was a glance to know that going inside led down a potentially dangerous road.
“What’s wrong?” Chuck asked, holding open the door. Metallica blared over the jukebox, bringing on an instant headache.
“Sorry, guys,” Graydon said, hand clamped around Chuck’s shoulder, “but I just thought of something I have to do.”
“What’s more important than hanging with us?” Phillip complained.
Calling my son.
*
“SURE YOU DON’T WANT me to stick around and help with that?” Still full from the delicious lunch she’d downed in a tucked-away Chinese place, India gestured at the mountain of paperwork threatening to avalanche from Emily Richards’s, her new boss’s, desk.
“Nah,” Emily said with a breezy laugh—one of about a gazillion factors leading India to take the job. Not only did the position as event coordinator pay well, but it would be fun and involve working with great people like Emily. Best of all, it would be a huge first step in fulfilling her most cherished dream of finally finding a home. Not just a place to live, but a real home.
The one dark cloud had been Lyndsay’s abrupt exit. But that was okay. Just as India needed roots, Lyndsay had always needed to fly. If unable to share physical closeness, she and her sister would have to settle for a less tangible, though equally fulfilling, spiritual relationship.
“Really,” Emily said, backlit by the golden setting sun and a spectacular alpine view. “It’s your birthday. I’m sorry your initial apartment search was a bust, but I’ll ask around here and see what we can turn up. In the meantime, go on ahead to the fireworks with your new roommates. I’ll soon be fetching my kids and hubby, then heading that way.”
“Sure?”
Again laughing, this time adding a wink, Emily said, “Girl, seeing as how you’re not even supposed to start till Monday, you’re gonna have to curb this enthusiasm. Otherwise the general manager will be giving you my job!”
*
“BET TWENTY BUCKS you can’t jump off the roof of that picnic pavilion, then do a full rotation before landing feetfirst in the trash can.” The worst part about Phillip’s nutty dare was the sincerity accompanying his go-for-it expression.
“Listen,” Graydon said from his perch on top of a concrete picnic table at Canyon Lake State Park, “we’re pushing thirty. What about that fact do you not get?”
“What I do get,” Phillip said, shaking his head, then pitching an empty beer can onto a patch of grass, “is that you’ve lost it, man. We all thought that once you wrenched free of Tiffany’s evil clutches, you’d be back. But—”
“Look.” Graydon pushed to his feet, nodding at not just Phillip but Chuck and Ted. “Unlike you bozos, I’ve got responsibilities. As for Tiff’s leaving, I had no choice in the matter. Her splitting was a wake-up call. We’re not getting any younger. Do you seriously want to still be hanging out with our boards, doling out dares, when we’re, like, fifty?”
“Hell yeah,” Phillip said. “Either that or dead.”
For that asinine comment, Graydon gave the guy’s shoulder a slug.
“Ouch. What was that for?”
“Being a tool. Grow up, man.”
“Yeah, sure,” Phillip complained. “I’ll grow up when you wise up and drop this reformed act. Everybody knows you’re a wild child, Gray. Are you trying to act all upright and respectable for Tiff? You know, trying to get her back? Well, news flash. You’ve got the eye of the tiger in you, and just because you declare that beast tamed doesn’t make it so. You’re only twenty-eight. For you to be retired is bogus. A waste of God-given talent.”
Graydon snorted, then knelt to pick up his so-called friend’s litter. “Catch you later. I’m off to find adult conversation.”
“Off to find an early grave!” Phillip shouted.
Graydon fought the urge to flip him a backhanded bird.
*
“SO THEN WHAT?” India asked the triplets and their classmates in regards to their outrageous tale of having duped some poor day skier up from Colorado Springs into dating three of them on the same night.
“What do you think?” Carly said, a twinkle in her eye. “He fell madly in love with me, and I still see him occasionally.”
“No, you don’t.” Carly’s sister Callie frowned. “I saw him just last week.”
“Get out,” their third sister, Cammie, said. “I’ve got a date with him next week.”
Grinning, shaking her head along with the rest of the crowd, India said, “Looks to me, ladies, like this guy had the last laugh.” Pushing to her feet from the boulder she’d perched on, India aimed for the log-cabin bathrooms about a hundred yards down a pine-needle-strewn trail.
The night was crisp and clear. With the temperature in the low fifties, her scarlet-and-gray Ohio State hoodie was a welcome, if not fashion-forward, touch to her outfit of faded jeans, sneakers and the Rocky Mountain High T-shirt she’d picked up at the Dillon outlet mall in her previous day’s travels.
Soaring pines and Douglas firs scented the air, invigorating her steps. Laughing children twirled sparklers. A ragtime band played patriotic favorites. Red, white and blue bunting, streamers and flags completed the park’s holiday perfection, validating her decision to make this idyllic place home.
India had finished in the bathroom—an increasingly familiar hangout—and was on her way back to her new friends, when she stopped to tie her left shoe.
Bam!
One second she’d been crouching; the next she’d toppled onto her side on a pillow of pine needles, more shocked than hurt.
“India,” Graydon said, kneeling alongside her. He brushed needles from her shoulders and combed them from her hair. His touch was so tender, so unexpected and warm and oddly familiar in this lakeside forest park thick with strangers, that she couldn’t help but grin. “I’m so sorry. You all right?”
“Geez, Graydon,” she teased. “If you wanted to see me again, you could’ve just asked.”
“I know.” He helped her back onto her feet. “But I’ve never been one to take the easy route. Again, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, lingering in his arms probably longer than necessary but not caring. It was her birthday, and he was a gorgeous hunk of man. Kind, gentle and sweet. Tomorrow she had a hundred things to do—finding an apartment, unloading her car, grocery shopping, starting utilities. Just thinking about it was exhausting. Here, now, all she wanted was more fun.
“Seriously, do you need a doctor?”
“Graydon—” she shook her head, clinging to his muscular forearms “—I’m fine. The pine needles broke my fall—which wasn’t far to begin with.”
“Okay, well…” They stood there for a few seconds, the world—rather, his world—bustling around them. Would she attend her own ten-year high-school reunion? Probably not. What was the point? It wasn’t as if anyone would even remember her name. She’d changed schools so many times that she’d learned to be invisible. Moving among the other kids like a ghost; attending classes and making good grades, but never truly belonging, as Graydon clearly did, judging by the friendly nods he received from the guys and the adoring stares from the passing women. All of which reminded her no matter how much she was enjoying the moment, good things eventually came to an end.
Graydon, unlike her ex, Zack, definitely fell under the heading good!
“See that bench over there?” He pointed to a h
and-hewn log seat for two alongside the glassy lake.
“Uh-huh.”
“See those sticky-faced kids making a beeline for it?”
“Uh-huh…”
Lacing his fingers with hers, he gave her a tug. “Let’s beat ’em.”
Laughing, she ran for all she was worth to keep up with Graydon’s long-legged stride, and they did beat the children. The two boys and four girls didn’t seem too broken up about it, though. They settled at the foot of a stubby dock that allowed for plenty of opportunity to dunk everything from rocks to twigs to pinecones into the still water.
“You’re pretty fast,” Graydon said, not the least winded.
“You’re supersonic,” India complained, resting her elbows on her knees, fighting for oxygen in the thin mountain air. “You must still live around here to be used to the altitude.”
“Nah. I’m now based in Lake Placid. My folks moved there last year to be closer to Jake, so aside from when I’m touring with the team, I stick to one to three thousand feet.”
“Not to be nosy, but who’s Jake?”
“Sorry. He’s my seven-year-old son.” Ever the proud pop, Graydon whipped out his wallet and the plastic-sheathed photos he kept on hand. “Here he is at his first half-pipe competition, and this is one of him just before last summer’s Skate Fest. He backed out at the last minute. I told him to not let it get him down. You know, some days you just aren’t ready. He’s a great kid. Means the world to me—as opposed to…”
“The woman you were trying to wow earlier with your kissing prowess?”
“Ouch.” He winced. “Guess I had that coming. Yes, she would be Tiffany, my ex-wife.”
“So then you have custody?”
“Yep.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what happened? Between you and your wife.”
“Short version—one day I got back from a competition circuit to find her waiting at the front door, bags packed. She said she was tired of me never being home, of her always being alone with Jake.”
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