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You want to help make them come true.
Over seafood, champagne, and fireworks, she makes the job of feeling okay about holding on to the Shinglepuss property even harder.
“So, your dad was sick a lot when you were a kid?” I ask, reading between the lines of her story about summers in the Maine woods.
“Yeah, but he’s fine now,” she hurries to add. “And my parents never told me he was fighting cancer, so I got off pretty easy, stress wise.” She shrugs, that awkward shrug I’m starting to love.
It’s the shrug that means her usually unflappable charm is slipping, and the most vulnerable, personal parts of Kayley are shining through.
I could love those parts.
I think a part of me already does.
“But yeah…there was an energy those summers,” she continues. “Like we were trying to squeeze all the love and fun in as fast as we could. The whole world outside our vacation bubble faded away and we were our happiest, silliest, best selves.” She lets out a soft laugh. “And that’s when I fell in love with vacation. For a while in high school, I had this plan to travel the world, working on different vineyards in different countries, so I could always be on vacation. But then I did an internship at my friend’s family’s winery the summer before junior year. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly that I didn’t have the physical strength to carry a fifty-pound basket of grapes to the collection truck all day every day. And I was the slowest picker in the crew by a lot. A lot a lot. It was a pathetic showing. The foreman canned me the first day.”
“Were you crushed?” I ask.
She laughs. “No. I wassograteful to be fired so I could get a job inside in the air conditioning. Redhead skin doesn’t fare well out in the sun all day, either. I probably would have had skin cancer by the time I was thirty, like my dad, if I’d stayed in an outdoor job. No amount of sunscreen would have been enough. And I’ve still had the chance to travel, though I don’t do it as much as I thought I would. I’m too focused on building Aspen Heights.”
“Because it’s your baby,” I say, repeating her words from earlier.
She rolls her eyes and takes another sip of champagne. “I know that sounds silly—only a baby is a baby—but it’s important to me. It’s not just a piece of property. It’s an expression of my heart and creativity.”
“When you’re here, you feel like a god,” I say. “But in the good, creating a beautiful world way, not the creepy, turning people into salt pillars kind of way.”
Her eyes sparkle into mine, a new respect there. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“I feel the same way when I’m renovating an old ski resort, bringing it into the twenty-first century and creating fun experiences all over the mountain for my guests.”
“Like hot chocolate and beer huts on the longer downhill runs,” she supplies.
“Absolutely,” I say. “The more cool surprises like that, the better.”
“I want to build one of those,” she says, casting a wistful glance toward the Shinglepuss mountain before forcing a smile. “But we’re not talking about that. So, now it’s your turn to tell me something embarrassing about your childhood.”
“Your story wasn’t embarrassing,” I say. “It was beautiful. Thanks for sharing it with me.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, holding my gaze for a long beat before she clears her throat and reaches for the last chilled lobster claw. “I’m sorry. I have to eat this. You let it sit there too long and now it’s mine.”
I smile. “Fair. I’ll take the last of the asparagus and tell you the story of the time Luke caught me feeding a rat in the laundry room in our New York City apartment because I thought it was a puppy.”
She laughs. “How? No offense, but a puppy and a rat don’t have much in common.”
“In my defense, I was two and didn’t realize rats could get that big, so I assumed it had to be a puppy. Luckily, it didn’t bite my finger off.”
She exhales, pressing a hand to her chest. “Thank goodness. I’m very fond of your fingers.”
“My fingers are very fond of you,” I reply, hooking said fingers behind her knee beneath the table and giving a gentle squeeze.
And even that relatively benign touch is charged, electric, because Kay truly is a special event. At least, she is for me.
* * *
By the next morning, after another night of incredible sex and whispering beneath the covers late into the night, I’m ready to place a call to Chase to back out of the deal.
But just as I’m about to sneak away for a moment of privacy, Kayley emerges from the bathroom in nothing but that killer blue bikini. She suggests breakfast in the hot tub, and I’m dazzled all over again.
We spend the morning drinking coffee and talking while we watch her guests tearing down the sledding hill below, the conversation continuing to flow as easily as everything else has between us.
