Four Nights to Forever (17 page)

Cassie had to ask
something
. She needed to know if Doug was telling the truth, which was stupid because she couldn’t call up his kids to verify anything he told her. But as he stepped closer to her and the intensity of his eyes glued her to the floor, she knew he wasn’t lying.

“What are their favorite colors?”

“Mia loves red because when she visits Daddy at work, the lodge where the daycare is has a fireplace, and that fire is the only thing she likes about Daddy’s job besides Daddy. Tyler likes black. I argued that it was depressing and he told me it was the color of trains, so I shut up.”

One more step forward and they were nose to nose. His erection pressed the cold, damp towel against her skin.

“Mia has to like something besides fire and Lime Rickeys,” she said, stumbling on, desperate to find something to pause their relationship. Her emotions had hit her like an avalanche, and she needed to tamp down the urge to hold him and never let go. His kids could do that.

“She likes
My Little Pony
and macaroni and cheese.”

The hand that had been resting on her shoulder crawled up to her neck, guiding her to tilt her head and open herself up to him. Butterfly kisses danced up the column of her neck. Teeth gently bit the lobe of her ear. Doug. This was all Doug. She grasped about in her mind but could find no real barriers. She relaxed into his hands, her body loose and easy, and the ends of the towel slipped from her fingers millimeter by millimeter.

“Is there anything else you would like to know?” he asked, his hips pushing against her.

She worried her lower lip. She could continue to fight a losing battle with her towel—and with him—or she could let go.

She let go. A low growl came from deep in the back of his throat as the towel pooled at her feet. His cotton T-shirt was soft against her skin and warm from his body. She fumbled with the button on his jeans, desperate for him to be inside her. To scream out his name and pretend this was nothing more than sex.

His hands didn’t move from where they rested at her waist and her neck, not providing her with any help. But the kisses he pressed on her skin sent tingles down to her toes. Only when she had managed to undo his pants did he move, and then he was quick about it. He stepped out of his pants, darted off across the room for a condom, and returned before she could recover her equilibrium.

Doug spun her around until she was lying across the arms of the chair, her ass in the air. The wrapper of the condom ripped, and with only a grunt of warning, he was inside her. He slid deeper into her wetness easily when she lifted up on her toes. He gripped her so hard that her hip bones dug into his palms, directing the rhythm of their movement, leaving her to gasp and hunt for balance.

Their coupling was quick, their bodies slapping against each other, her breasts bouncing and rubbing against the chair below her. Cassie came quickly and with an intensity that made her eyes water. Blood rushed from her head.
Yoga fairies
, she thought. If she’d been teaching a yoga class, she would have warned everyone about seeing yoga fairies. If she’d been more careful, she’d have warned herself not to fall for a man who could make her scream his name in only five minutes but was willing to take thirty, and who drove his kids an hour to—She didn’t even know what the Golden Spike Monument was.

Doug pulled out of her, and there was some rustling before he helped her up back to standing, which she needed. She leaned against him, naked and unsteady. He hadn’t taken off his T-shirt, which was still soft against her damp skin. He took all her weight against his torso, smoothing his hands up and down her body.

“I should make dinner,” she said.

“
We
should make dinner, but maybe we can lie down for a little bit first.” There was a hopeful question in his voice.

But Cassie needed something to do to distract her from the intensity of her body and her emotions. “The rice will get cold.”

“So we’ll stick in the microwave and it will be a little crunchy. I like more sauce than necessary on my stir-fry anyway.”

He picked up her towel and gave it to her. It was cold and wet still, but at least it offered some protection from his distracting presence. Problem was, when she wrapped the towel around her, the thought of moving all her stuff to an apartment somewhere in Salt Lake City was on the inside rather than the outside of the scanty barrier. And it was still a crazy thought. No amount of amazing sex would change that. Right?

He hadn’t put any more clothes on before walking to the bed, so she had a great view of his firm butt and muscular legs. Part of her wished he were
only
attractive and not funny and kind, as well. She wanted to tell herself that she didn’t like him, that the only reason she was even considering the move was because really good sex didn’t show up on one’s doorstep every day. And if she moved to Salt Lake City, Doug could show up on her doorstep every day, and she’d have both the sex and the man who inspired her to look into the abyss and go for it.

The thought made her pause, reconsidering the wall she was putting up between them. Without letting herself think too hard, she dropped her towel and climbed under the covers beside him. If she was going to think crazy thoughts, she’d rather do it while wrapped up in his arms.

*

After a short nap, Cassie woke to find Doug still sleeping. He was young, sure, but he looked even younger when he was sleeping. She couldn’t believe he had two kids. And he’d talked about them with such deep emotion and love. He was only thirty-two, a man with more than half his life ahead of him, including the possibility of more kids if he wanted them. And she couldn’t give him any.

The feeling of loss and emptiness that had accompanied her life-changing miscarriage had dimmed, but she could still feel its bite. She put a hand on his arm. He didn’t even stir.

What would he say if she asked him if he wanted more kids? If he said he didn’t, would she even believe him? He was only thirty-two, with
years
left to change his mind. She tightened her grip on his arm, but he still didn’t move.

She snapped her hand back to her side as if his skin were a million degrees. Her pillow had cooled by the time she laid her head on it again. She stared at the ceiling for several moments before she got control of her heart rate, then turned onto her side. Thinking about moving to Utah was definitely insane and rash, but the excitement and prospect of a new future was seductive and fun.

Reality was setting in again, though, and her reality was full of fear and anticipated pain. She didn’t know if she could handle any more hurt, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to find out.

‡

W
hen Doug woke up it was dark outside. Not even the lights from the Sno-Cats were peppering the mountainside. He rolled over and looked at the clock on the bedside table.

Nine o’clock, almost on the dot. His stomach growled. He had to eat something soon, before it got too late, and for the first time since he’d met her, Cassie wasn’t at the top of the menu.

“Cassie.” She was turned away from him, facing the wall, so he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Hmm?” She sounded sleepy but awake.

“I’m going to finish dinner, okay?”

She just grunted in response. He shrugged, hungry enough not to care if he messed up the food. When he got his clothes on and got in the kitchen, the rice was cold, just as she’d said it would be. All the vegetables Cassie had chopped were in nice piles and there was a bottle of stir-fry sauce he hadn’t noticed before on the counter. He added the veggies in stages, starting with the ones that would take the longest to cook, and he was mixing in the sauce when Cassie appeared in his peripheral vision.

“Good evening,” he said, as he stirred the vegetables and sauce together. “Dinner will be ready shortly.”

“Thanks for cooking,” she said with a yawn. “I needed that extra time in bed.”

“You looked like you wanted to sleep longer. And I was hungry,” he tacked on, the honesty an afterthought.

“Hmm,” she murmured, reaching for a glass and pouring herself some wine. “I did need the time.”

“How much food do you want?” he asked. He’d added a healthy pile of rice to one plate already and was holding a spoon full of rice over the other.

“That’s enough.” He knew she was talking about the food, but there was a harshness in her tone that felt like she was talking about something else.

As he handed over her plate, he examined her face. Her lips were wide, no hint of a frown, and her eyes were clear, but the openness he’d come to expect and admire had disappeared. He wasn’t sure he’d have even noticed if he hadn’t been looking. Even with the little bit of extra sleep, the muscles in her jaw were tight, and she had a crinkle between her eyes that he didn’t remember seeing before. Her smile was wan as she sat down next to him at the small table, and she didn’t even look at him as she ate.

Her silence pressed deep into Doug’s shoulders and made his neck hurt. In the time since the intense connection they’d shared only a couple of hours ago, she had closed herself off. For all the interaction he was getting from her, they might as well be strangers on a city bus. He pushed his half-empty plate away, the cheap crockery squeaking on the table. “Is something wrong?”

She put down her fork and, for the first time since they’d sat down, looked at him. “I don’t think I’m going to take my lesson tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back in Utah, so maybe I’ll see some sights. Do they let non-Mormons in the temple?”

“Is this about my kids?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“Don’t worry. I’m still paying for the full week of lessons.” He could tell by her face that she’d heard him and was ignoring him.

“You haven’t answered my question.” It wasn’t only his neck hurting now. He was clenching his teeth so hard that he was worried his top teeth might bust through his jaw.

“I just don’t think this relationship can go anywhere, and spending another day together will only make the good-bye harder.” Her tone was flat and unemotional, and he didn’t believe for a second that’s how she felt.

“Cassie, I care about you. More than I should for only knowing you four days. If my life were different, I would think about moving east, but even if I could teach skiing in Massachusetts or find another job like the one I’ve got lined up, I have two young kids here. I can’t move away from them.”

“I know. And I’d never ask you to.” She glanced down at her plate again, and when she looked back up, there were tears in her eyes. “But I’m too much of a coward to believe it will work.”

He met her eyes. “I believe.”

“I don’t think that’s enough.”

The pain expanded out of his neck and jaw to his heart and his gut. “You’re not the only one who is scared and surprised by this relationship, you know. I feel all these things for you, and as far as I know, I’m just your rebound ski instructor. And I still want to try, because I want to be more than that to you.”

Doug saw the flaw in his argument as soon as the words left his mouth. Cassie saw them, too. “All the more reason for me not to move here.”

It was like his dream of skiing professionally all over again. Wishes falling around him like snow, and just as temporary. He was a fool for throwing himself against the dream over and over and over until he was a bloodied mess.

“So what now?” he asked.

“I’m going down to the library on the third floor and getting a book to read. I think you should be gone when I get back.” Her voice was still so fucking flat, none of the laughter and twinkle he loved about her shone through. He wanted her to cry or scream or something. Something more than a couple of tears so he knew this week had meant as much to her as it had to him.

He stared at her, blinking and so full of hurt that he couldn’t talk for seconds that stretched into minutes. “Just like that?” he choked out.

“Don’t make this difficult,” she snapped, emotion finally breaking into her voice. It was as upsetting as he’d feared.

While he’d been making dinner, had she been lying in bed practicing this speech? Maybe she’d been lying there the entire time he’d been sleeping, rolling her mind over every movie breakup she’d ever seen so she would know what clichés to use to make this more dramatic and surreal than it needed to be.