On Thin Ice Page 7

  He nodded. “Yeah, you’d better. How’s it going?”

  “We meet with the lawyers the day after Thanksgiving.”

  “That’s next week.”

  “I know that.” She slapped him on the arm. “And I’m pretty sure Esther will run out the door too.” Her stomach did an uncomfortable jump. “Oh, I’m going to own this bakery in a week. Well, a third of it.”

  Christopher smoothed his hand over her hair. “You’ll be the owner. You’re going to be doing all the work. You’ll do great. You’ve never failed at anything.”

  That gave her a very uncomfortable feeling as if she’d swallowed a roll of bread dough and it had landed in her stomach. He had no idea how she’d failed.

  “I have to go design a dinosaur. I’ll see you on Saturday then.”

  “I’ll come out and pick you up around three.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Oh, I’m already ready.” He gave her a wink, climbed up into the truck. “Hey, Wil,” he called after her as she turned to go back into the bakery carrying the duffle bag. “I’m glad you came home.”

  Malory watched him drive away. How could she have let it go so far? Who was she kidding? She couldn’t help herself. She’d always had a soft spot in her heart for Christopher, and nothing had changed.

  Esther had gone home and Malory wandered the empty bakery.

  She took out a piece of paper and began to sketch out her thoughts for the front of the store. On the side, she started a list of items she’d like to bring in. The display case was nice, but she’d had nicer in California. When profits warranted it, she’d get a better case and she’d begin to carry more pastries.

  Esther’s business, she’d come to find, was more breads, muffins, and specialty items that were ordered or delivered. Malory’s visions were much broader. She wanted to be a part of the community around her. She wanted people to gather to eat what she made. And maybe that would mean adding some deli specialties to the list. She wanted to be more than a bakery where you picked up your breads and muffins, she wanted to have a place where you could sit and enjoy the company of others.

  Her bakery in Santa Barbara hadn’t been too far from the college campus. She’d had a nice little following of students who would meet to study. In the mornings, there was the small group of mothers who would meet when the kids were in preschool. They would just have woman time. That’s what she wanted again. A place where people could come together, much like Maggie’s, but on a smaller scale.

  She flipped over the paper she’d made her list on and began to design the dinosaur she’d be creating the next morning. How many dinosaurs had she cut out of sheet cakes in her life, she wondered. Cake decorating wasn’t a skill she’d been born with. However, she’d perfected it. Oh, she couldn’t do some of the things she’d seen on TV, but a dinosaur wasn’t out of reach.

  If she cut it just right, she might have just enough cake to make a little something to take with her for her night with Christopher. Something special that they could share with each other, off each other.

  Her body heat rose. She wiped her hands on her pants and sucked in a breath. She was going to spend the night with Christopher Douglas. It wasn’t just sneaking around and having sex. This was a grown-up-relationship kind of thing and it was scaring the heck out of her.

  Christopher whistled as he pulled up to his mother's house. He'd thought that moving back home was admitting defeat, but in fact, it had turned out pretty well.

  He swung open the front door and he heard his mother moving around in the kitchen. Thanksgiving was a week away, but as he stepped over storage boxes full of holiday decor, he knew his mother, like most of the residence of Aspen Creek, was ready for Christmas.

  He'd already seen the city workers out hanging wreaths from the light poles. Thanksgiving night they would light the Christmas tree in the center of the lake. The memory of watching the lighting as a child filled him with a comfortable warmth. There were carolers, food vendors, fireworks, and the arrival of Santa.

  Oh, the arrival of Santa was always his favorite part. It had taken him and Wil the better part of four years, when they were young, to realize that Harvey was in fact Aspen Creek's Santa Claus on that particular evening. She'd been too afraid to sit on his lap anyway, and wasn't it funny how Santa always knew just what mischief he'd been in.

  Christopher listened to his mother's rendition of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” before he cleared his throat to announce himself.

  "You’re setting up already?"

  "Already? I'm already behind." She skirted around him with the manger that would go on the coffee table, atop the white glitter fabric. "Samantha said she already had her lights hung and had been designing wreaths for the last month. Esther said her tree is up. But you know she don't have a real one and all."

  Christopher laughed. His mother said that like it was a crime to have an artificial tree.

  She moved past him again and pulled the figurines out of another box. "How about you and Wil go pick me out a tree on Saturday? It'll be like old times."

  "And do you want a tree like the ones we used to pick you out?"

  "Heck no. No Charlie Brown Christmas around here. I want big and full."

  "Well, it'll have to wait until Monday. I'm picking Wil up on Saturday and taking her to Denver for the weekend."

  Maggie stopped unwrapping the baby Jesus she had pulled from the box and stared at him.

  "I can't help but be a bit surprised. Just yesterday she told me she hated you. "

  He laughed. "Today she seems okay with me."

  Maggie finished unwrapping baby Jesus from his protective paper and set him on the table.

  "Don't go breaking her heart."

  She hadn't even turned toward him when she said it. He felt the weight of fifteen years of guilt settle in his gut. Even his own mother held his adolescent mistakes against him. "I love her, Mom. I'm not going to hurt her."

  "Don't you go throwing those words around so freely. Love is serious."

  "I'm serious, Mom.” He reached for her arm and gently turned her toward him. "It's always been about Wil. Don't you see this as a big sign? I’m back. She’s back. I'm Harvey's partner and you're hers. It's as if it was supposed to be this way."

  "But you're talking about messing with a woman's heart that is on the mend."

  "I'm not going to hurt her.” He raked his fingers through his hair and let out a steady breath. "Tell me about this husband of hers."

  She didn't answer him right away. She fidgeted with a few more pieces of the nativity then turned to him. "If you're looking for dirt, I don't have any. Alan was a decent man."

  "If he was so decent, why are they divorced?"

  "Just because a man is decent doesn't mean he's interesting enough to want to always be around. They were always content. But I don't think contentment was what Wil wanted to settle for. She needed more."

  Maggie adjusted the figurines on the white sparkly fabric and then stepped back and looked at her work.

  "Listen, she hasn't said a word to me. The last time I was out there to visit, Alan wasn't around much. I could tell things were strained, but she didn't say as much. When she's ready to talk, she will."

  Christopher contemplated what his mother was telling him. "Do you think he had an affair?"

  "Now don't you go jumping to conclusions. I don't know what happened. Maybe you'd better ask her yourself."

  That was exactly what he would do.

  "I have to get back. I'll see you in the morning." He kissed his mother good-bye and headed back to the rink.

  He was worried about Wil. Had her marriage suffered because of an affair? It ate at him, and by the time he parked at the rink, he realized why. He'd been the first man to jeopardize her heart by riding off into the dark night with another woman. How could he have been so dumb? It was no wonder she would rather have punched him than to have kissed him when he’d all but attacked her the first time he'd seen her at the rink.


  CHAPTER SIX

  Malory sat down behind the desk in the bakery’s tiny little office and let out a loud sigh. It was the first time she’d sat down in two days.

  She closed her eyes for a brief moment and let it all sink in.

  The dinosaur cake had been a hit. The phone rang off the hook all day with pie and bread orders pouring in for Thanksgiving. The hospital needed four hundred cookies by Wednesday for a luncheon they would be having for their employees and patients. And already she’d been to Maggie’s twice to deliver rolls since people were pouring into town for Thanksgiving.

  Malory let out a little laugh. It was only going to grow more hectic in the small town as Christmas neared.

  Aspen Creek was close enough to Grand Junction to draw crowds during the holiday season. It would all begin with the lighting of the Christmas tree in the lake, followed by fireworks and the Thanksgiving ball. People drove miles for the festivities.

  She’d missed the Thanksgiving ball. It was the one time of year she’d ever dressed like a girl and gotten all gussied up to dance with her father.

  He’d taught her to dance in the living room. It wasn’t much different from ice dancing, but he seemed to enjoy teaching her. There had been Mr. Miller, who had first owned Maggie’s restaurant, who’d dance with her, and the pastor of the Methodist church would always ask for a dance as well. The older she got the younger her partners became. No longer did she purposely dance on their feet.

  By the time she reached junior high school there was a line of young men waiting to dance with her. The only rule at that point had been that she had to dance with Christopher Douglas between each of her other dances.

  They’d had a pact. If, between each dance, they danced together, it would give them the chance to ditch someone they didn’t like. Christopher’s line was usually twice as long as her own. He’d missed a few of their “in between” dances as she recalled, but she’d never held it against him.

  Once they hit high school, the rules were different. Her sophomore year Christopher rebelled and refused to go to the dance. She watched the door all night hoping he’d sneak in, but he didn’t. During her junior year, they began to have eyes for each other and suddenly it was by choice that they shared very few dances with others. Thanksgiving Ball their senior year had been the culmination of years of puppy love exploding into a full-blown love that would leave her dreaming of Christopher Douglas for the rest of her life.

  Malory opened her eyes and let out a breath. It seemed like a million years ago that they danced every dance as though no other person was there. They sat on the lake’s outer bank and watched the tree light up, and fireworks exploded above them as they dove into long, passionate kisses in the backseat of her red Jeep.

  Alone in the office, she felt heat rise in her cheeks. Would the passion they’d shared back then be the same fifteen years later?

  Her mouth went dry. She realized she’d only ever been with Christopher and Alan. Christopher would have been with . . .well, she didn’t want to think of the number of women he’d been with, but what if she didn’t compare?

  She picked up a pencil to make notes on orders, and her hands shook from nerves.

  She was crazy to have accepted his invitation for the weekend and to think that Christopher Douglas would want to be exclusively with her after so much time had passed. How could she have made such a rash decision in just a few days after some overdue, passionate kisses?

  Malory broke the pencil in two.

  It was time to go home and run a hot shower. She’d cook dinner for her and her father and she’d get a good night’s sleep. Maybe in the morning she’d have a mind about her. After a few hours of baking, she’d either be ready to take Brown Palace Hotel by storm or she’d get in the little red Jeep and drive back to California.

  The hot shower hadn’t calmed her. She’d barely touched the dinner she’d made for her and her father. Now she stood hovering over her dresser drawer trying to decide which pair of panties to put in the stupid little duffle bag she had to pack in.

  The thought of going away wasn’t appealing anymore. What was to happen when some raging hockey fan diverted Christopher’s attention from her and she was stranded in Denver?

  The horror when she’d have to call her father to drive to Denver to pick her up and all she’d have to show for the weekend was the pink lacey panties she’d packed.

  Malory shoved the drawer closed.

  It would just make more sense to cancel the whole weekend.

  An hour later Malory sat on the front porch of her father’s house, bundled in her coat, waiting for Christopher. He pulled into the driveway at precisely three o’clock.

  “I didn’t expect you to be anxiously awaiting me.” Grinning, he climbed out of his truck. “Ready to get going?”

  Malory shook her head. If he was going to be an ass, it would much easier to kick him to the curb.

  “Actually I was just waiting for you so I could tell you I’m not going.”

  Christopher stopped at the bottom step to the porch. He tilted his head to look over the rim of his sunglasses. “You what?”

  “You heard me.” Malory stood and shoved her frozen hands into the pockets of her coat. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  She watched his demeanor shift from playful to angry as the lines around his eyes creased and his lips pursed. He cocked his head to the side and his shoulders pushed back. She’d seen that enough times to know to plant her feet and prepare for a fight, and she was going to stand her ground.

  Christopher lifted his glasses to the top of his head, pushing back the hair that so beautifully framed his face. “What’s up your butt, Wil?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “One minute you’re going to kick my ass and the next you’re jumping me like you’re going to rip off my clothes. Now here you stand, in your fancy white coat, telling me the weekend I planned is off?”

  “I’m telling you I think this is a bad idea.”

  “I heard that.”

  “Then why don’t you go. It’ll make things easier.”

  “Why don’t I just throw you in the back of my truck and take the long way down the hill.”

  Malory bit down on her cheek. He’d do just that, she knew.

  “I didn’t come home looking for a relationship.”

  “No, you came home to hide from a broken one.”

  Malory’s fists came out of her pockets and she lunged toward him, but he was much faster. He caught her fists before they hit his chest. He took hold of them and pulled her to him, kissing her hard on the mouth as she jerked against him.

  “Now, why don’t you shut up and let’s go.”

  She pushed back from him and put her frozen hands back into her pockets. “I’m not going with you.”

  “Like heck you won’t.” Christopher stepped past her and pulled open the front door to the house.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to pack that bag I gave you.”

  Malory followed him back to her bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” She watched as he snatched the small bag he’d given her off the bed, pulled open dresser drawers, and manhandled her clothing.

  “I’m taking you on a weekend getaway down the hill. It’s not that far, Wil. If you have to escape, you’re close enough to home. It’s not like I’m leaving you in New York City.” He shoved a pair of panties into the bag, one blue bra, and a ratty T-shirt from her hamper. “Let’s go.”

  “Do you think you can order me around?”

  “I think I can give you what you’ve always wanted. And I don’t mean just a weekend in bed with me.” His voice was loud and sharp as he stopped abusing her wardrobe and dropped the bag on the bed. “I’m talking for life, Wil.”

  The air whooshed out of her lungs as he stormed past her and out to the truck. She heard the door slam and the engine start, but he wasn’t driving away. He was waiting.

  Malory felt the stinging of tea
rs. Why did he have to consume her? Why had he always?

  She fought the quiver of her lip and batted away the tears before they fell.

  Fine. He deserved a chance. He seemed still to want to be with her and, well, couldn’t she use a nice weekend away? The past year of her life had severely sucked and the company of a man she’d always cherished sounded like a nice thing.

  If she told Christopher she wasn’t going to sleep with him, he’d accept that. He might pout, but he’d accept it. That was, of course, if that’s what she decided.

  Malory quickly repacked another bag and headed outside.

  As she closed the door, she realized she’d left her seductive dessert in the freezer at the bakery. Under the circumstances, she didn’t see any reason to go after it.

  Christopher sat in his truck and listened to the heater hum.

  One thing about Wil, she didn’t change.

  She’d been brought up by a man of few words, but she’d always had plenty.

  Couldn’t she see what was going on? They’d both come home. He’d given up his dreams of being pushed into the walls by maniacs who seemed to hate him just for the sport. He’d given up concussions, stitches, swollen ankles, broken fingers, and months of traveling so that he could return home and teach those who wanted to play the game—without the paycheck ego—how to excel at the sport he loved.

  He watched her walk out of the house and closed the door behind her. She carried with her a small overnight bag and not the small duffel bag he’d given her.

  She’d let her hair down. It was a cascade of brown silk, under the white cap that she’d pulled over it, that fell over her shoulders and shaded her face. Dark glasses shielded her eyes as she walked toward the truck with her head down.

  Malory pulled open the door, threw her bag behind the seat, and quietly climbed in.