Up to Snow Good - Kelly Collins Page 0,23

heat of the sun, the song of a bird, the fullness of my heart.”

“Who wrote that?”

His heart swelled with love and pride. “I did. I was sixteen and in love with a pretty girl named Lauren.”

Chapter Eighteen

Lauren

She sighed and leaned back. She wanted to enjoy the moment—a simple meal with Max an old friend. She’d spent years fantasizing about this turn of events, and twice as many years erasing those dreams from her mind. Against every likelihood, hope of a happy future was possible. She couldn’t afford to be as miserable as she had felt these past days. And when she looked into those big, brown eyes, she saw beyond the tears and despair.

“You flatter me.”

“I wrote books of poetry describing your smile. The way your skin felt under my fingertips. The way the world didn’t exist when I was with you.”

What he probably meant was when he was in her because she felt the same way. People often talk about their golden years being later in life, but hers happened as a teen with Max.

Nothing in her life since him had ever been easy. The lodge worked her parents to death. It had been at the center of a maelstrom that tore two families apart, but it had brought others together.

The complications and implications of their dinner together would be widespread and far-reaching, they were mending fences and rebuilding bridges once burned. He patched the holes in her heart, one kind word at a time.

“Do you wish we could go back?” His fingers brushed over her hand, sending sparks straight to her core.

She couldn’t resist the attraction she’d always felt for him and told herself it was a trick of nostalgia or the pangs of loss from her recent tragedy.

“Yes, and no. Really, when does young love ever work out? The years we had apart have helped us become solid human beings. We have experiences separate from one another that have molded us into the people we are today. I don’t think I’d trade that in to go back.”

She stared at his eyes—eyes that called to her from across the table as if they were reaching into her soul and pulling her close.

Don’t be so silly. He’s just being a friend, and I’m lucky enough to have that.

The main thing was to save the lodge, and if Max wanted to help her, then she’d have to focus on that and only that. The rest would have to take care of itself.

“What about you?”

He leaned back, forcing his hand to drop from hers. “I’d like to go back and redo a lot of things like talk to my father before he became the angry and bitter man he is. Also, I would have told my younger self to hold you tighter and never let you go.”

It was all sweet words, but subconsciously, she still worried about the possibility that he wasn’t on the up and up, and if that was the case, she didn’t stand a chance.

He was so casual and loose, and she searched for the lie lurking behind the charm but couldn’t see it. If sincere, he was a godsend, and she would not turn that away.

Another person flashed in the back of her mind—Sam.

Could both Max and Sam have her best interests at heart? They could, but did they?

She and Max had the weight of a family feud behind them, and his father was up to Lord knows what, but wasn’t it odd that Sam had come to her with the notion of a romance when things were so desperate with the lodge? Could he have other ideas like taking over the lodge and tossing her aside?

“What are you thinking about?” Max asked.

“Just thinking about life.”

There was only one person she could trust absolutely, and it was Ruthie. There wasn’t a dishonest bone in her body. She said it like she saw it.

“Shall we go?” he asked. He paid their bill and took her home. At the front door, he brushed his lips against hers in a soft kiss. It felt like he’d ravaged her entire body.

“Have a good night, Lauren,” he said and made his way to his room, which was at the opposite side of the lodge from hers. She’d done that for self-preservation because she’d never be able to sleep knowing he was in a room next to her own.

Once she was back inside, she found Ruthie in the kitchen at the small corner table where she enjoyed her nightly tea.

Ruthie gave her several