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He held my gaze briefly, his nose lingering on my cheeks and nose. “Alright, Indy. I’ll catch you later then.”
With that, he turned and walked away toward his camper. I did my best not to watch him walk the entire way there.
And then I spent the next twenty minutes doing my best to continue adding some photos to my camera. I had expected my interaction with Griffin was going to end where it had today, but I was wrong.
It seemed that no sooner had he walked away toward his camper, and I gotten back to taking pictures, he returned.
“Hey, I don’t want to bother you, but I thought you might want to borrow this,” Griffin declared.
I glanced down at what he was holding out to me and reached for it. “What is it?” I asked.
He took what looked like exceptionally soft and warm material from my hand and said, “I promise it’s clean.” A moment later, he pulled it down over my head until it came to a stop around my neck. After pulling my hair out from underneath it, he took the top edge of it and lifted it over my mouth, nose, and cheeks. “That should keep you a bit warmer.”
Wow.
Wow, he was incredible.
The fear I felt inside wanted me to rip it over my head and throw it back at him, but the small part of my heart that hadn’t been hardened could do nothing but melt at the sweet gesture.
I didn’t know why he cared about me being cold, but I appreciated his concern.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
He grinned at me. “You’re welcome. Enjoy taking your photos. I’m going to go get a couple more hours of riding in.”
I offered a nod in return. “Okay.”
“Catch you later, Indy.”
Before I had the chance to respond, Griffin took off. I stood there, staring, unable to ignore how the warmth I now felt on my face was doing something to heat up my heart.
All I could think was just how much of a disaster this was going to be.
SEVEN
Griffin
After closing the door behind me, I gave myself a moment to just allow the warmth to seep in.
I’d spent the entire day out riding on the mountain. In fact, I wound up taking a backpack with me that had enough water and food so I could spend the whole day out without needing to return to the camper at lunchtime.
It was just after four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lifts would be closing at four-thirty. Since I’d put in a full day and was starting to feel it in my body, I’d decided to call it quits.
I’d already loaded my board into the back of the camper and taken off my snowboarding boots back there, swapping them out for my sneakers instead. Now that I had stepped just inside the door to the camper, I kicked off the sneakers, set them off to the side, and planned out the rest of my evening.
First up, I was going to strip out of the rest of my gear and hop in the shower to warm up a bit. Afterward, I was going to head into the lodge. Granted, that might have seemed counterproductive to getting warmed up now, but being out in the cold all day, regardless of how good my gear was, definitely took its toll on me.
And while going into the lodge wasn’t something I needed to do, it was certainly something I wanted to do. As much as I loved having the camper and didn’t mind spending time in it on my own, I didn’t want to basically be living in it the entire time.
So, if I went into the lodge, I’d be able to have a change of scenery, which was going to be nice.
I let out a laugh as I thought about that, because I knew it wasn’t about needing a change of scenery at all. The truth was, I was hoping to see Indy.
I hadn’t seen her since I offered her the neck warmer yesterday afternoon. With the access road to the mountain still closed, I knew she hadn’t been able to leave. And since I didn’t want her thinking I was just following her everywhere she went, I decided to not even give myself the opportunity to run into her today.
But I realized that was only going to last so long. I thought about her quite a few times since I walked away from her yesterday, and I really wanted to see her again. She seemed to be in far better spirits yesterday afternoon than she had been in the morning. My hope was that whatever had been weighing her down was no longer doing it, and perhaps she’d be willing to spend some time talking tonight. It’s not like there was much else to do, unless she was interested in heading over to the bar or one of the two restaurants, which were within walking distance of the lodge.
With my mind made up and a plan in place, I started pulling off my gear. I’d gotten my jacket, bibs, and the shirt of my base layer off and was left in just my wool snowboarding socks and base layer pants when a knock came at my door.
