The Mighty Quinns: Eli (15 page)

“This would have made such a great YouTube video,” he said. “It would have gone viral.”

This time, she only made it halfway up before falling. Eli decided to give in and help her to her feet. At this rate, they'd never get out into the woods. But when he took her hand, she gave it a yank and he fell down into the snow beside her.

Lucy took a handful of snow and rubbed it in his face, then lay back and stared up into the sky, her breath clouding in front of her face. “Have you ever seen a sky so blue?” she asked. “It's the most beautiful thing.”

“I'm looking at something more beautiful,” he murmured.

Eli leaned over and kissed her snow-chilled lips. He couldn't imagine that there could be another woman in the world who would make him any happier. He'd never believed all the sappy stories about love and romance and how meeting the right person could change your life. But it had happened to him.

From the moment he'd first met Lucy, there'd been an undeniable connection, as if they'd known each other much longer than a few minutes. From that point on, all he'd wanted was for Lucy to recognize that connection.

There were times, like this, when it seemed as if they were madly in love. And yet, the mood could shift in a heartbeat, leaving Eli to question whether it was all in his imagination. He'd come to the point where he needed to know how Lucy felt about him.

“Stay here with me,” he said.

“I can walk in these things,” she said. “I swear. It'll just take a little more practice.”

“No,” Eli said. “I mean stay here, on the mountain, with me. When it comes time to leave. Stay.”

She gave him an odd look. “I—I don't understand.”

He smoothed his hand over her cheek. “We're good here together, Luce. And I'd like to see where this goes, no matter what happens with the project.”

“But you don't live here,” she said.

“I could. Over the past few months, I've realized what this place means to me. How good life can be when you can focus on the small things...the real things. And having you here makes it so much better.”

She pushed up on her elbows, her gaze fixed on his, as if she was trying to read some unspoken truth in his eyes. Should he tell her that he loved her? Would that make a difference? Was it even true?

“How would it work?” she asked.

“I have the money,” he said. “A million dollars can last a lifetime if we live off the grid. And think about it. The two of us together could really make a life here work. Every day could be an adventure.”

“Is—is this a proposal?”

“Yeah. I mean—” Eli stopped, the real meaning of her words suddenly sinking in. She meant a marriage proposal. “Would you like it to be a proposal?”

“No!” she said, sitting up and shaking her head. “We barely know each other. And I've never even thought about getting married.”

“Never?”

“No. Not beyond the fact that I'm sure I'd be horrible at it. I couldn't spend my life trying to make someone else happy while I grow more and more unhappy.”

“Right,” he said. “I completely understand.” Eli found himself scrambling to salvage something from his offer. “Just think about it. If you don't have any plans after you're done here, I mean. I'm considering staying and—”

Lucy scrambled to her feet. “If you're going to stay, maybe you could keep Riley.”

“You're giving me your dog?”

“No, no. He's not my dog. He's a production dog. They adopted him from a shelter so I'd have someone to talk to when I wasn't talking to myself. I can't have a dog in my regular life any more than I could have a husband. I don't have a home and I don't have anywhere to keep him. Please say you'll adopt him. I couldn't live with myself if they sent him back to the shelter.”

“Sure,” Eli said. “Yeah, I can keep him.”

“Good.” She forced a smile. “We should go.” With that, she turned and started toward the meadow at a quick pace. To his surprise, she moved with a newfound ease, placing each step carefully in front of the other.

“That went well,” he murmured.

Riley sat at his side, his body covered with snow, his liquid brown eyes gazing up at Eli.

“I wanted a woman and I ended up with dog. How did that happen?”

He crawled to his feet and brushed the snow off his pants and jacket. Perhaps he hadn't made himself clear to Lucy. Maybe he ought to tell her how he felt about her. “I love you,” he murmured. “I love you.”

It wasn't that hard to say. But how was he supposed to be sure he really meant it? Maybe no one was ever sure. Maybe everyone took a chance and if it worked out, then all the better. Lucy was the only woman he'd ever even considered inviting into his life, so that had to mean something, right?

He tucked the camera in his day pack and then adjusted the strap of his rifle on his shoulder. Life with Lucy Parker would never be boring, that much was certain.

“Come on, Riley.”

He followed her tracks in the snow, his eyes fixed on her slender figure. Somewhere along the way, he'd missed the memo about how to carry on a romance with a beautiful and smart and sexy woman. He understood the seduction part but he had no idea how to get past that to the happily-ever-after ending.

This is what came from growing up with two women who didn't need men in their lives and one man overburdened by the torch he carried. Was that how Eli would end up? Like his grandfather—spending his life mourning the woman he could never have?

* * *

L
UCY
STARED
AT
her old video camera sitting in the middle of the room. Eli had mounted it on a tripod and left her with instructions to work on a cooking segment for Thanksgiving, which was just a few weeks away. She'd been flipping through Trudie's journals, looking for hints about how the other woman had celebrated the holidays. But instead, Lucy had gotten distracted, reading bits and pieces about Trudie's love affair with Buck Garrison.

The thoughts Trudie had expressed in her journal were so honest and so intimate that Lucy had to wonder if the older woman had ever expected anyone to read her journals. And yet, according to Eli, that was the type of woman she'd been. Unafraid of her feelings and passionate about the life she'd chosen to lead.

The more Lucy read about Trudie's life, the more she understood her. Trudie had been a complex human being, filled with contradictions and frailties that weren't always evident to the casual observer.

Lucy crawled out of the rocking chair and walked to the old dresser near the bed. There was just one journal left and she was afraid to open it. She suspected it chronicled the last days of Trudie's life, when she'd known that she was dying. Lucy wasn't sure she could handle saying goodbye to a woman that she'd come to admire more than anyone she'd ever met.

Trudie Montgomery had lived her life on her own terms, had been a woman who'd never cared what society expected of her. And yet, she'd had her secret insecurities and her unspoken doubts, just like Lucy. But if Lucy was searching for answers to her own questions, she hadn't found them in the journals.

“Maybe we're all just a little screwed up,” she said, placing the journal back on the shelf. She picked up a framed photo, an old black-and-white snapshot that rested among the items on Trudie's dresser. She'd looked at it before and admired the joy that seemed to radiate from the image.

The woman in the photo was Trudie and she couldn't have been any older than Lucy was now at the time it was taken. She was sitting on the lap of a handsome man, dark-haired with a striking profile. They'd been caught in an embrace and their expressions said everything that words couldn't.

She studied the male and then realized that it had to be Buck. There was something about the smile that reminded her of Eli, in those moments when his mind was set on seduction.

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Would she have a photo like this when she was old and alone? Would that photo be of Eli? Lucy pressed her fingertips to her lips and fought back a flood of tears. She didn't want to live her life and then realize that she had only one regret.

Lucy walked to the fireplace and held out her hands to the glowing embers. Eli had left yesterday, hiking back into town with their laptop computer. For some reason, the satellite linkup had stopped working. They hadn't been able to upload any video footage for at least a week.

And now she was alone again, the way she'd been in those first months on the mountain.

In truth, she was happy for the solitude. Living with Eli could be a bit exhausting. And they'd been working so hard on the project that she was grateful for a few days away from the video camera. “Thanksgiving can wait,” she murmured.

She tossed another log on the fire, then walked to the woodstove to make herself a cup of tea. Suddenly Riley, who'd been sleeping near the fire, leaped up from his spot and ran to the door, barking loudly.

Startled, she dropped the teakettle back onto the burner and hurried to the door. Eli had said he'd be gone for at least three or four days, planning to stay in town while his grandfather had knee surgery. But he must have come back early. Lucy couldn't help but feel a bit of relief. Lucy threw open the door, ready to greet him with a kiss, and Riley ran out. But the dog didn't greet Eli. Instead, a slight figure dressed in cold weather gear stood at the bottom of the steps.

“Hello!” she said, brushing the hood off her head.

“Annalise! What are you doing here? Is everything all right? Is Eli okay?”

“Oh, he's perfectly fine,” she said, kicking off her snowshoes. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” she said. “It's your cabin.”

“Actually, it's Eli's. His grandmother left it to him in her will. I never quite understood my mother's fascination with this place.”

Lucy shut the door behind her. “Can I make you a cup of tea? I have some blackberry scones I made earlier.”

“I
am
famished. It's a good hike in the snow and cold. Not very challenging, but a nice bit of exercise.”

“Why did you come?”

“I thought you and I might have a nice chat while the boys are occupied,” she said.

“You hiked four hours in the middle of winter for a chat?”

“Darling, I've climbed Everest twice. The hike here is practically a...well, a walk in the park. And it only takes me three hours.”

Lucy pulled out one of the chairs from the table. Annalise slipped out of her pack and set it against the wall near the door, then took off her jacket and hung it up.

“How is Buck?”

“Oh, ornery as ever. But the surgery went well and he's recovering nicely.”

Lucy couldn't help but wonder what Eli's mother had come to say. Annalise Montgomery didn't seem the type to hike three hours in the cold just to chat about her father and the weather.

Lucy placed a scone in front of the older woman and then brought out a plate of butter. “We usually don't have butter, but Eli brought some back after his last trip into town. He prefers real butter on his popcorn. It's one of our few indulgences.”

“It sounds like you two get along quite well,” Annalise said.

Lucy grabbed a clean mug from the shelf above the sink and dropped a tea bag into it, then added hot water from the teakettle. “We have honey but only powdered milk.”

“Honey is fine,” Annalise said.

Lucy prepared her own tea, then took a spot across the table from Eli's mother. In any other circumstance, she'd be peppering Trudie's daughter with questions. But Lucy sensed that the other woman had come here for a specific reason.

As if Annalise could read her mind, she straightened and set her mug down. “Why don't we get right down to business,” she said.

“Business?”

“My son. It's quite clear to me that he's fallen in love with you. But Eli isn't the kind of man who expresses his feelings with any great regularity. He's my son and even I don't have a clue how his mind works. He's never really had a girlfriend, at least not one who's lasted more than a month. Only now, he seems to be quite taken with you.”

“We're just friends,” she insisted. “Ask him and he'll tell you.”

“Of course he won't. I'm his mother. He never confides in me. But I know you are much more than friends. I love my son and I don't want to see him hurt. So, what are your intentions?”

“My intentions? I have no intentions regarding your son.”

Annalise observed her shrewdly. “None? Why not? He's a wonderful catch. He's smart and kind and he knows how to treat a woman.”

“I completely agree. I'm the one who isn't a good catch,” Lucy admitted. “I'd be a horrible partner for anybody. I can't make him happy, I'd make him miserable.”

Annalise took a slow sip of her tea as she seemed to consider her next move. “I don't believe you.”

Suddenly, the conversation had turned upside down. “I'm afraid that doesn't make it untrue. In all honesty, I wish I was able to fall in love because he'd probably be exactly the kind of guy I'd want.”

“May I be blunt?” Annalise asked.

Lucy forced a smile. “I thought you were being blunt.”

“Well, here's more of it, then. Don't be so enchanted with your own neuroses that you turn yourself into some terribly romantic Brontë heroine. You might miss out on something very, very special. My mother loved my father for her entire life, yet she couldn't bring herself to admit that she needed him. I made the mistake of falling madly in love with a married man and I never got over him. There's nothing standing in your way, Lucy, except what's bouncing around in your head.”

“Maybe that's true,” Lucy said. “It probably is. But it doesn't change anything.”

Annalise slowly stood. “It does if you let it.” She glanced around, then checked her watch. “I have about fifteen minutes before I need to leave. Why don't you show me this cabin you built? It looked rather impressive on the hike up.”