I Want to Hold Your Hand (43 page)

He couldn’t wait to tell her the good news.

An hour later, he pulled up to the lake house that was one of his favorite places in the world. Made of timber and beam and glass and stone, the house sat on the shores of Lake Champlain, right outside of Burlington. His parents had gotten a sweet deal on it about ten years ago when it was sold at auction after the previous owner defaulted on the mortgage. The Abbotts had enjoyed many a good time there in the ensuing years.

In fact, his older sister Hannah would marry her fiancé, Nolan, at the lake house later in a few weeks.

The house was stuffy and hot from being closed up, so he walked straight through the massive living room to open the sliding door to let in the breeze coming from the lake. He never tired of that view of the lake with the mountains in the distance. Late on this Friday afternoon, a handful of jet- and water-skiers were enjoying the warm sunshine and the all-too-short Vermont summer.

Relieved to be out of the truck after the long ride, Elmer and Sarah ran straight down to the private stretch of beach, where they frolicked in the water.

Colton smiled with pleasure and relief at being here, at having pulled off another escape from Butler and the Abbott family clutches, and at knowing he had four full days to spend at his favorite place with the woman who was quickly becoming his favorite person.

 • • • 

Three hours later, Colton had been to the grocery and liquor stores to stock up on necessary supplies, and he was beginning to worry.

While he waited, he made dinner—pasta with grilled vegetables, salad and bread, which was now keeping warm on the stove while he paced from one end of the big house to the other, filled with nervous energy.

When he got tired of pacing, he flopped onto the big sectional sofa that faced the two-story stone fireplace.

Sarah came over to give him a lick, which he rewarded with a pat to her soft blonde head.

“Thanks, girl. I know she’ll be here soon, and you and your brother are going to love her.” If anyone knew how often he talked to his dogs, he’d be committed. But they were his only companions on the mountain, and he kept up a running dialogue with them during the long days and nights he spent completely alone with them.

For most of his adult life, he’d lived by himself on that mountain, happily content with his no-frills lifestyle. He was the only person he knew who lived without running water, electricity, TV, an Internet connection or any of the modern conveniences most people took for granted.

He’d lived that way since he was seventeen, fresh out of high school and anxious to take over the sugaring facility that had been in their family since his grandparents—the original Sarah and Elmer—had bought the place as newlyweds. His mother had hated the idea of him living up there alone when he was so young, but his dad had encouraged her to let him be, and he’d been there ever since.

Rather than pine for what he didn’t have, Colton had preferred to focus on what he did have—a beautiful home in the midst of the majestic Green Mountains, two dogs whose devotion to him was boundless, a job he loved and was good at, a family he adored close enough to see at least once a week and a life that made sense to him.

Until lately.

For the first time in the eleven years he’d spent on the mountains, what he
didn’t
have had begun to bother him. For one thing, he wished he had a phone so he could talk to her every day. For another, a computer with an Internet connection would come in handy as he navigated a long-distance relationship.

He was twenty-six years old and forced to use his parents’ phone to call her because he didn’t own one of his own. That was one thing he planned to do something about soon. His mountain was one of the few places around Butler that had reliable cell service, thanks to its clear proximity to the cell towers near St. Johnsbury.

But the rest of it, the electricity, the running water, the Internet connection . . . Those were things he needed to think about. He’d yet to bring her to his home on the mountain, mostly because he was afraid of what she might think of it. She was used to the city, where she had everything she wanted or needed at her fingertips.

What did he have to offer someone who was accustomed to so much more when he didn’t even have electricity or running water? What modern woman would find his lifestyle attractive? And was he willing to change everything about who and what he was for a woman he’d known for only a couple of months?

Unfortunately, he had no good answers to any of these questions, and the more time he spent with her, the more muddled his thinking became on all of them.

And then there was the fact that she was happy in her life, settled in her work and home, living close to her own family and not at all interested in uprooting her existence. He knew this because she’d told him so. But knowing that hadn’t kept him from seeing her almost every weekend for the last six weeks. It hadn’t kept him from wanting more of her every time he had to leave her. It hadn’t kept him from lying awake at night and wondering what she was doing and if she missed him between visits the way he missed her.

What if she didn’t? What if she never gave him a thought from one weekend to the next? He had no way to know if she did or not because he didn’t talk to her very often between visits. That had to change, and getting a cell phone would be the first thing he did after this weekend.

Maybe by then he’d have a better idea of how she really felt about him and what’d been happening between them. He had this niggling fear that for her it was just a fun interlude with someone different from the guys she normally dated, while for him it became something more involved every time he was with her.

He was determined to get some answers this weekend, to figure out what this was and where it was going. Then the doorbell rang and every thought that wasn’t about her finally arriving fled from his brain as he sprinted for the door.

Yeah, he had it bad, and he had a feeling it was about to get a whole lot worse.