“Snowboarding?”
“My life.”
Stone let go of a heavy breath and what appeared to be his temper as well. “Jesus, Cam. It’s not gone. Your life is still good. You just have to find something else to do with it.”
“I have nothing else.”
“Then you are as stupid as you look.”
Cam let out a mirthless laugh. “Well, hell, just tell me how you really feel.” He kicked at the gear at his feet. “Fine. I’m stupid. This is stupid. It’s stupid to be here.”
“So you’re quitting. Everything. You’re just walking away. Well, what’s new.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You always walk. You can’t board for gold, so you walk. Your relationship hits a lull and you walk there too. Mentally. Physically. Whatever.”
“I never walked from you guys.”
When Stone just looked at him, Cam closed his eyes. “Not for long anyway.” He opened his eyes, meeting Stone’s steady gaze. “I tried, but I couldn’t. Look, I know you think I came back because I was bored, or done walking the planet, but that’s not it.” He gave Stone a shove. “I’m here because I missed your ugly mug.”
“Well, it is so much prettier than yours.” Stone sighed. “We good now?”
“Good enough.”
“Good enough.” Stone gave him a little shove back and then hunkered down to continue separating the gear again. “So since when do you have a problem with a pretty girl wanting to go climbing?”
“She’s a temp.”
“And you live your life like a temp. I repeat, what’s the problem?”
“Nothing.”
Stone took his gaze off the gear and eyed Cam. “Nothing has you two sniffing at each other like a pair of horn-dog teenagers?”
“Hey.” Cam paused. “Maybe it’s true, but hey.”
“You two have a certain chemistry going on.”
“It’s called irritation. We irritate each other.”
“Well, if that’s what you kids are calling it these days.”
“Fine. She doesn’t irritate me. I don’t know what she does exactly, though it feels something close to bashing my head against the wall repeatedly.”
“And you’re going to ignore that, too, like everything else?”
Cam shrugged. “That’s the plan.”
“That’s a really dumb plan, Cam.”
“No regrets.” It didn’t escape him that both he and Katie had been through hell, though they’d appeared to come out with opposing mottos. His was better. Easier.
Safer.
Over the next week, Katie did her best to buy into Cam’s whole no regrets thing, but the problem was this: She didn’t buy it.
Not that it mattered. He was gone a lot, during which time she learned a whole new meaning for the word winter. The nights were dark and mysterious, and yet oddly enough, not as terrifying for her as they’d been in Los Angeles.
She still had the nightmares, but they came more sporadically. Every other night instead of every single one.
She could get used to that.
The mornings were different from Los Angeles, too, in that the temperatures hovered right at zero, boggling her mind. Temps in the mid-70s seemed a far distant thing of her past. Nick showed her the trick of tucking her pants into her socks before walking from her cabin to the lodge, which while not at all fashionable, at least kept her feet from getting packed with snow on the walk. She’d asked him what other tricks there were to surviving the wild Sierras, and he’d told her it was a lot like the TV show Survivor-outwit, outlast, and outplay, only the opponent was Mother Nature.
She didn’t mind that.
But Mother Nature could be finicky. There was no predicting the weather accurately, or making definite plans. So when a storm came and dumped four feet overnight-four feet!-she was the only one surprised.
Sitting at her desk, she looked out the window at the endless conifers and pines, the valley lows, the mountain peaks, all covered in a soft, thick blanket of white.
Cam was out there clearing the front path. He wore snow gear that fit his long, lean frame, and he worked endlessly, with the wild mountains behind him and the snow all around him.
He belonged.
A nameless yearning built up within her, for that same sense of belonging.
He stopped working to pull off his cap and unzip his jacket, limping to the porch for his bottle of water, and she pressed her nose to the window for a better look, telling herself she was only worried about his leg, that it had nothing at all to do with needing to see more of that body-
“You looking for the UPS guy?” Annie came up the stairs and tossed the day’s mail onto Katie’s desk. “It’s too early.”
Katie whipped guiltily around, trying to hide the fact that it wasn’t the UPS guy she’d been drooling over, but Annie’s beloved nephew. “Gotcha. Too early.” When Annie left, she turned back to the window.
Cam was gone.
“You have a problem with the oven?”
Katie looked over her shoulder at Nick’s voice, but she was alone in her alcove.
“No,” Annie said. “Why?”
Katie looked around again. Why were her walls talking?
“Your muffins this morning needed less time in it,” Nick said.
“Yeah?” Annie responded coldly. “Well, my air needs less of you in it.”