Just This Once, Contemporary Romance (Last Frontier Lodge #3) (24 page)
Read Just This Once, Contemporary Romance (Last Frontier Lodge #3) Online
Authors: J.H. Croix
***
Cam watched Ginger Sanders run off, her brown hair swinging about her shoulders. He glanced back at Gage. “Well, I guess she was in a hurry.”
Gage looked puzzled, but he shrugged. “Guess so. Ginger’s a good friend. You’ll see her around a lot. Aside from the fact she’s Marley’s best friend, she’s probably our best source of local advertising around.”
Cam was only just now getting a handle on himself. When Ginger had come skidding to a stop at his feet, he’d looked down into the most beautiful pair of blue eyes he’d ever seen—a bright, almost translucent shade of blue. Those eyes paired with her glossy brown hair and fair skin, and she simply took his breath away. She had an understated quality to her beauty. There she sat, covered in snow, and he could hardly stop looking at her.
He shook his head, forcing his attention back to the moment. He’d best get used to seeing Ginger because it sounded like he’d be seeing a lot of her. If there was one thing he couldn’t manage right now, it was anything to do with romance and women. He looked back at Gage.
“Well, no wonder you’re so busy. Most lodges like this don’t have so many locals. Not only is the hotel booked, but the slopes are twice as busy with the local skiers. If Ginger’s responsible for your local advertising, she’s damn good at it.”
Gage threw his head back with a laugh. “I’ll have to tell her you said that.” He sobered and looked up the slope Cam had just skied down. “Did you find the trail leading off to the side up there?”
“Yup. It’s behind the small cabin up there, right?”
Gage nodded. “That’ll take you through the trees and onto the trails for backcountry skiing. So far, I’ve got about twenty miles of groomed trails, but I’d like to double that. The trees are thin enough, so we don’t need to do much cutting. We should be able to work around the natural lay of the land. Take a look and let me know what you think.”
“That was my plan. I’ll head up there now as soon as I switch out my skis.”
At that, he and Gage pushed off on their skis simultaneously. He followed Gage up onto the back deck of the lodge. While Gage went inside, Cam quickly swapped his downhill skis for his more versatile telemark skis and headed back out. Telemark skis were designed for variation. They could handle downhill and cross-country and had enough flex to tolerate rougher trails if needed. As he rode up the lift, he realized the lodge could charge for the view from the lift ride alone. Diamond Creek, Alaska lay on the shores of Kachemak Bay with mountains rising tall behind it and on the far side of the bay. The ski lift offered an elevated view. The pristine waters of the bay sparkled under the early afternoon sunlight. The spruce forest scattered over the mountains was lush and deep green, a contrast against the snow.
Cam pushed off the ski lift when it reached it stop and skied onto the start of an interconnected map of backcountry trails. As he skied through the quiet forest, he breathed in the crisp mountain air. The air here held the subtlest hint of ocean. In all his years of skiing, he’d always skied in landlocked areas, so it was a new experience to be high in the mountains and see and smell the ocean. His mind was quietest when he skied, which was what brought him here to this remote corner of the world.
Skiing had been the center of his world for most of his life. He’d been born and raised high in the mountains of Utah and skied throughout childhood, chasing his older brother, Harry. Two years older than Cam, Harry had been Cam’s idol. They’d skied together and competed, taking turns winning. Their rivalry had been mostly good-natured, though Harry took competition more seriously than Cam. One night, after Cam unexpectedly won a race, Harry had been quiet on the drive home. When Cam asked him what was wrong, Harry glanced over right as a truck came around the corner on the icy road. In a split second, the car clipped the corner of the truck and skidded, colliding with the guardrail and bouncing over. Harry hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt and was thrown from the car. He died on impact.
Cam, on the other hand, had worn his seat belt. He’d sustained some nasty bruises, a jagged cut on his cheek, and a fractured arm. Since the day he walked out of the hospital, he could hardly breathe for the grief at times. He’d tried to make a go of it in Utah, but it was filled with one too many painful memories. He couldn’t stop skiing because it was the only thing that brought him a modicum of peace, so he’d been drifting from ski lodge to ski lodge, following the jobs. When he’d seen the ad for Last Frontier Lodge, he figured it was perfect. It was one of the few ski lodges he and Harry had never visited. They likely would have had it been open during their heyday, but it had been shuttered for almost two decades until Gage reopened it last winter.
Cam stopped along the trail at an overlook. A small valley opened up beside the trail with a stream winding through it. It was frozen in the deep of winter, but the sun struck sparks off the ice. A pair of moose stood on the far side of the field, lazily nibbling on a cluster of trees. He lifted his eyes up beyond the field. The bay spread out before him in the distance with another mountain range rising tall on the other side. If he didn’t know there was a ski lodge nearby and a town at the feet of these mountains, he could convince himself he was in the middle of nowhere. He took a gulp of the bracing air and tried to push the pain of Harry’s death out of his mind.
As he skied back toward the lodge later, Ginger sashayed through his thoughts. He couldn’t say why, but he couldn’t forget her eyes, so bright and with a flicker of vulnerability that called to him.
***
A few hours later, Cam walked downstairs through the hall toward the lodge restaurant after a shower. He was good and tired from skiing almost all day and starving as a result. As he walked, he was staring at the floor, idly following the pattern of the carpet, when he collided with someone. He looked up, straight into Ginger’s eyes. She wasn’t wearing ski clothes that obscured her figure anymore. Oh no. She wore a pair of pants that hugged her full hips and swirled around her ankles, and a blouse that was fitted at the top and with a scoop neck. The curves of her full breasts rose above her blouse. As his eyes made their way up, he could see her pulse fluttering in her neck.
Oh damn. Damn.
He literally had to force his eyes up, only to have them land on her lips, which were plump and full. Her bright blue eyes held a sharp gleam. She had an edge to her he hadn’t noticed before.
“Well hello, Cam. Fancy meeting you here. Are you heading in for dinner?”
Cam found himself nodding though he couldn’t seem to speak. “How about you join me and Marley? I figure since you’re here for a while, we might as well be friends.”
Coming Soon!
Falling Fast
(A Last Frontier Lodge Novel)
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***
Diamond Creek Alaska Novels
Last Frontier Lodge Novels
Christmas on the Last Frontier
Catamount Lion Shifters
Acknowledgements
Gracious thanks to my editor, Laura Kingsley, for making sure I put my characters through their paces. Becca and Aidan had to earn their happily-ever-after! Clarise Tan at CT Cover Creations keeps working her magic for my covers. My husband continues to cheer me on and patiently waits while I spend most of my spare time writing away. Most importantly: my readers who keep asking whose story is next!
Author Biography
Bestselling author J. H. Croix lives in a small town in the historical farmlands of Maine with her husband and two spoiled dogs. Croix writes sexy contemporary romance and steamy paranormal shifter romance with strong independent women and rugged alpha men who aren't afraid to show some emotion. Her love for quirky small-towns and the characters that inhabit them shines through in her writing. Take a walk on the wild side of romance with her bestselling novels!