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“No, I’m not. Hope’s gorgeous. I’ve got cute, which I can boost up to hot with time and tools. But thanks. So, what now?” She sat on the arm of a chair, studied him. “You go home before the snow gets too bad, and you do what you’re wired to do. You think about it. And I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” He crossed to her, bent down to brush his lips over hers. “If it was anyone but you, I’d stay. And that really didn’t sound right. I meant—”
“I know what you meant, lucky for you. Go home, Owen.”
He walked to the door, glanced back as he opened it. “See you.”
“See you.”
She sat, listening to his footsteps recede down the stairwell. Rising, she walked to the front window, stood, and watched the snow fall.
And thought, for a moment through the light drift of white, she saw a woman standing at the window of the inn, gazing out as she was.
Waiting? she wondered. Was that what she was doing now, too? She’d never been one for waiting, but for doing, for acting.
And yet . . . maybe she had been, on some level, all this time. Waiting for Owen. The idea struck her—sweet, annoying, baffling all at once.
What now? she mused again. It looked as if she had more to think about than she’d realized.
* * *
IT SNOWED THROUGH the night and into the morning. Owen kept busy most of the day plowing out his lane, his mother’s, his brothers’. He enjoyed the task—at least this early in the winter—the rumble of the jeep, the bump of the plow, the strategy needed to direct the snow into reasonable piles and banks.
While he worked on Ryder’s lane he spotted his brother muscling his snowblower to forge a path from the door. One out the front, Owen thought, to where Ryder parked his truck, another out the back so D.A. could meander out and do his business away from the house. Each of them did their respective jobs with barely a wave of acknowledgment until Owen pulled into the cleared space beside Ryder’s truck and turned off the jeep.
“That should do it.”
“Good enough,” Ryder agreed as he angled the snowblower under an overhang. “Want a beer?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Together they trudged around the side, into Ryder’s combination game room and home gym. They stomped off their boots, took them off on the tiled entranceway floor. Each of them peeled off layers of outerwear, hung them on pegs.
D.A. wandered over, leaned briefly on Owen’s leg, then stared at Ryder. “Yeah, your way’s all clear.” Ryder opened the door. “That dog’ll roll in the snow, run in the snow, eat the damn snow, but he won’t walk through it to shit. I don’t clear the path, he shits right by the door. Why is that?”
“Hence his name.”
“Yeah, hence. Except I’m the one out in the cold blowing snow.”
They walked upstairs into the kitchen, where Ryder pulled out two beers.
“How was the date?” Owen asked him.
“She’s a lawyer, right? Smart. I like smart. Got a killer body.” Ryder took a long pull of the beer. “She can even talk sports, which is a big check in the plus column. So I ask myself, why don’t I want to close this deal?”
“And the answer is?”
“The giggle. I figured it out last night. She giggles. A lot. I think it’s supposed to be adorable, but it’s fucking annoying.”
“The giggle’s a deal breaker?”
“It’s grating, man.” Ryder shoved at his hair, as he did whenever he was overdue for a trim. “Nails-on-the-blackboard grating. And I think, what if we’re heating up the sheets and she giggles?” He held up a finger, curved it down. “I know it, so why go there?”
“Earplugs?”
“Good thought, but I don’t think so. I’d feel her giggle, or wonder if she was about to giggle. It’s not worth it.”
“Strict, but fair.” At home, Owen dropped into a chair at Ryder’s black-topped kitchen table. “Got any food?”
“I got Hot Pockets.” He opened a cupboard. “I got taco chips and salsa.”
“Consider all that my fee for the plowing.”
“Done.” Ryder rooted through the freezer. “Chicken or steak?”
“Chicken.”
Once he’d stuck a few in the microwave, he tossed the chips on the table, dumped salsa in a bowl. He tore off some paper towels, pulled out some plates, and considered it done.
“You’re like the male Martha Stewart,” Owen commented.
“The kitchen is my temple.” Ryder went over to let the dog in, then dropped down across from Owen.
“I’m thinking about having sex with Avery.”
“What is it suddenly with the Montgomery-MacTavish connection?” Ry tossed D.A. a taco chip before digging one into the salsa.
“I’d rather not bring Mom and Willy B into this. I’m still scarred.”
Ryder took another pull on his beer. “What’s Avery think about having sex with you?”
“Unless she’s changed her mind since last night, she’s open to it.”
“Then why aren’t you having sex?”
“Because it’s Avery.”
After loading another chip with salsa, Ryder wagged it a little. “You want me to have sex with her first? Give her a test run?”
“That’s real generous of you, Ry,” Owen said dryly. “But I can handle it.”
“Just trying to help a brother out.” When the mic beeped, Ryder got up, tossed the Hot Pockets on the plates. “I say ride that train.”
“Why?”
“Other than the obvious reasons? Because it’s Avery. You’ve always had a little thing for her.”
“I have . . . so, maybe.”
“And she’s always had a little thing for you—otherwise she’d have jumped me years ago.” With a grin, Ryder bit into his Hot Pocket. “So get on board, find out if it’s a bigger thing. Where’s the downside?”
“What if it gets fucked up? What if it fucks us up?”
Ryder shook his head, gave D.A. the last quarter of his Hot Pocket, took another for himself. “It’s Avery, man. Maybe it’ll get fucked up. That happens more often than not. But it won’t fuck the two of you up.”
“Why not?”
“Because both of you are too smart for that, and like each other too much for that. Maybe it’ll bring on some bumps, but you’ll smooth them out. Meanwhile you’ll have sex with Red Hots.”
Owen scooped up some salsa. “She doesn’t giggle.”
“I rest my case.”
“I’m going to think about it.”
Ryder angled back, pulled open the fridge for two more beers. “Observe my shock.”
* * *
THINKING OR NOT, work had to be done. Throughout the next week, he ran trim, helped touch up paint, hung mirrors. He unboxed cartons, put together lamps, signed for deliveries, and climbed the flights of stairs at the inn more times than he cared to count.
His mother snagged him, pulled him into Elizabeth and Darcy.
“I found the perfect little painting over at Gifts. I want you to hang it in the bathroom.”
“But we’re not loading in the art until—”
“That’s different. I’ve got everything in here to finish this room. That mirror there.” She pointed to the narrow wall between the two porch doors. “Your grandmother’s crocheting there, and that sweet little painting right here.” She stepped into the bath, tapped the wall.
“Hope’s bringing up the amenities, the towels, the little bits and bobs we’ve picked out. We want to see how it all looks. We want to see one room complete.”
“The Penthouse—”
“Gets art, so it’s not really finished. I’ve got the art for this room right here. So we’ll have it finished—all the way.”
She turned to the bed with its lavender brocade head- and footboard. “You hang while I make up this bed.”
“We’ve still got three weeks before the opening party . . . ” he began, and got the glinty-eyed stare.
“Okay, okay.?
?
He dug out a hanger, his pencil—then went through the “lower, higher, to the right” routine he expected to deal with on every piece his mother wanted hung.
But he conceded she’d chosen well with the little painting as it struck him as charming and English, airy with its pastels.
Hope breezed in with a hamper loaded with towels, amenities, and the bits and bobs they’d settled on.
Now he had two women telling him higher or lower until he’d satisfied them with the placement. As he hammered, they fussed with linens.
He listened with half an ear to their talk of opening-party plans, of reservations already booked, of additional pieces they needed, wanted, had coming in.
“Justine, those are perfect.” Hope stepped out of the bathroom to admire the framed crocheted doilies.
“They are.” Justine stopped fussing with the linen shams to nod. “And she’d be pleased to have them here, and in J&R.”
