“She’s got four more days after next weekend. Says she plans to make good use of her time. Every man I’ve talked to so far sure is anxious to find out if she picks him.”
“So you think she’s going to bid on four guys?”
“She could bid on up to eight. Girl’s got to eat lunch and dinner. Hell, make it twelve. She could throw cocktails in between lunch and dinner.”
“There’s no way she’ll bid on twelve men. Do we even have that many signed up in the competition?”
“We’ve got thirty-eight at last count, two more just signed up yesterday. She could handle a third of that, no problem. Expense account,” Myrtle added in a knowing voice.
“She is not bidding on twelve men.”
“Theoretically, she could. It’s not like she’s assured of winning each and every one.”
An unnatural spear of annoyance twisted and turned at this decidedly unsavory development. He reminded himself Sloan had a job to do. That was all.
So why was he suddenly fighting the insistent need to pound on a few of his friends and neighbors?
“Well, isn’t that sweet?” Myrtle’s voice pierced through his imagined fistfight with Denny.
“What’s so sweet?”
“It looks like Bear and Tommy Sanger just started a snowball fight on the Square.”
“With who?”
“With the girls. Oh, I do think I’m going to pull up my chair. Love is in the air; can’t you feel it?”
“Like hell it is.”
Without a second thought for his actions, Walker snatched his coat, hat and scarf off the rack near the door, shoving into the sleeves as he stomped across Main Street.
It would be a long time later before he remembered Myrtle’s knowing voice as she hollered at him on the way out. “It’s about damn time.”
Icy snow dripped down her neck when Sloan ducked to dodge a second snowball from Tommy. He might have gotten her squarely with the first one, but she’d be damned if he got her again.
Unmarked snow crunched under her feet as she ran toward where Grier and Avery hid behind a bench to prepare their attack. The cold air pierced her lungs, the pure freshness like a drug to her senses as she wiped at the dripping snow with her mitten.
No black snow piled up in gutters as it melted, she marveled. Nope, not a bit. The Alaskan snow was pristine and as bright white as a wedding dress.
“Here. You’re due.” Grier plopped a huge snowball into her hands, packed as tight as a softball.
Sloan judged the distance from where they hid behind the bench to how many feet she’d have to throw the snowball to hit the guys and decided she’d have to expose herself to attack to get the type of hit she wanted.
Eyeing the distance and lining up her shot, Sloan allowed Avery to toss a few to distract them before making her move.
The moment Tommy was occupied dodging Avery’s attack, she raced in Bear’s direction as a diversion tactic, then swerved at the last minute.
“Take that!”
She barely had time to pump her fist in victory as the snowball hit him square on the head before Bear’s booming voice rang out, followed by a heavy thud of snow. It grazed her shoulder before veering off to ground.
“Ooooh,” she taunted at the man who had to be twice her size. “I’ve seen four-year-olds in Central Park with better aim than you.”
He lunged forward with a deep belly laugh that made her think he must play the town’s Santa and he almost caught her around the ankles before she dodged away. “No pitching skills and no tackling skills, either. Poor baby.”
“Sloan!”
Avery motioned for her to head back to base before Bear could pick himself up. His laughter still echoed across the snow-covered lawn and Sloan couldn’t contain her own. “This is fun!”
“It sure beats that black, scummy snow we get in New York.”
“To be fair,” Sloan added philosophically as she bent down to hard-pack another snowball, “it does start out white.”
“True. It just doesn’t stay that way. But up here . . .” Grier put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the landscape. “Wow. It’s just amazing.”
Sloan stopped what she was doing and wrapped an arm around Grier’s waist, her gaze fixed on the town that spread out before them. “It’s really incredible. I’m glad you asked me to come here.”
“I’m so glad you came.”
They were about to hug when a loud shout pulled them back.
“Oh shit,” Grier muttered as she dropped her arm. “Reinforcements.”
Three men walked up to Bear and Tommy. She recognized Skate and it looked like a guy she’d met the first night and another she recognized from breakfast with the bachelors. “We can take them.”
Sloan had begun to pack another snowball when a low voice caught her attention. “If you think that, you’ve never had a snowball fight in Alaska.”
She straightened and came face-to-face with Walker. She hadn’t seen him since the airport and wasn’t the least surprised when ribbons of desire wrapped themselves around her rib cage, making her gasp for a full breath.
Damn, but how did he manage to look like a magazine ad with a woolen cap pulled down over his head? There was nothing sexy about woolen caps.
Yet he looked like a walking billboard for the health and vigor of the great outdoors.
“You’re taking our side? Won’t that make you a traitor to the cause?”
“Traitor?”
“You know.” An impish urge overtook her, and she stretched up to whisper in his ear. Even through the layers of padding between her coat and his, she could feel the warmth of his body. “You’re selling out against the Penis Squad over there.”
A loud bark of laughter greeted her. “I think the Penis Squad has more than enough dicks. Besides. I much prefer the view over here.”
“Walker. Would you shut that lawyerly mouth of yours and get your hands dirty. Honest to God,” Avery muttered as she smacked him on the back of the head. She thumped the wool cap he wore, then added to the insult by slamming a snowball in his hands. “Quit flirting and get to work.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
She heard the flood of insults that flew across the snow as the men booed and hissed, swore and antagonized. Walker’s smile only grew as he hollered back. “And who’s over here with three beautiful women?”
Five matched expressions—dropped mouths and wide eyes—greeted his logic before he launched two missiles at the center of the line.
“Direct hit. Yep”—Sloan patted him on the back—“we can use you.”
She allowed herself one lingering gaze as his dark eyes took possession of hers. Heat arced between the two of them like the aurora borealis she’d watched in online videos, so intense she was surprised the air didn’t turn a deep, vivid shade of red.
The urge to kiss him—to ignore the people who were rapidly filling the square and simply take what she wanted—nearly overtook her, but she resisted.
And instead slammed a snowball into his head.
Chapter Sixteen
T
he Great Snowball Fight of 2011 would go down as legend in Indigo. Walker glanced around the square, now filled to bursting with a good portion of the town’s population, and couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
He felt like a kid.
And he hadn’t felt like that in a long time.
A
very
long time.
The snow on the square was alternately hard-packed and pitted from an afternoon of attacks and retreats as snowball after snowball was constructed between gloved hands. The diner had set up a coffee and hot chocolate station and he saw his grandmother along with Mary and Julia, holding court in lawn chairs not too far from there.
His gaze caught on Sloan a little farther away, where she stood in deep conversation with Grier. A heavy wool cap with a bright, sewed-on patch that read TASTY’S BAIT AND TACKLE covered her head, which he could only assume was a loan from their intrepid proprietor of any and all ice-fishing needs.
Even with the less-than-stylish headgear, he couldn’t stop his groin from tightening as his gaze once again returned to Sloan. Impish mischief flooded his veins and a deep craving for hot chocolate suddenly gripped him and wouldn’t let go.
“Did we determine a final score?”
Walker turned as Avery came up next to him, her cheeks bright pink with exertion and a broad smile riding her face. “It may have to be a draw. No one’s giving up that last round.”
“No matter. We kicked ass.”
“That we did.”
He wrapped an arm around her heavily padded shoulders and reached up to tug her hat off. “Tasty get to you, too?”
“He made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
“When did that happen? I was playing on your side.”
“I think it was when you were nursing that cramp in your foot like a big baby.”
“It was an old basketball injury that got aggravated.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, smart-ass. So what did he give you in exchange for your modeling skills?”
“Free use of his very splendid ice fishing house for an entire Saturday.”
“No shit?” He couldn’t keep from being impressed. “I had no idea the old coot was so generous.”
“Clearly he knows a good place to advertise when he sees it.”
“That he does.”
“Besides, I’m not above being a shameless shill for commerce. I could see way better in this cap than trying to see around the rim of my hood.”
“Which would account for those late-game death bombs you nailed our opponents with.” Walker pulled her close in a side-armed hug. Years of friendship made the move as natural as breathing and he grinned when she laid her head against his shoulder.
“You doing okay, Ave?”
“I am. I really am.”
“You’ve changed.”
“I think I have. For the better, too.”
“You’re enjoying Sloan and Grier?”
“It’s nice to have friends without baggage, you know? They don’t know any of my history. Or any town bullshit. They’re just fun to hang out with.”
He gave her shoulder another squeeze before shifting slightly to look her in the eyes. He
did
know. “My offer still stands. If you want it.”
Avery’s eyes went round in her face. “Walker. I’m not taking your money.”
“It’s not taking any money. It’s accepting a loan that you can pay back at any time.”
“Where would I go?”
“Wherever you want to.”
She paused for a moment, whatever she was about to say getting caught somewhere between her brain and her mouth. Before he could jump in, she held up a hand. “Wait. Sorry, just wait.”
As her breath made steamy puffs in the air, he watched the girl he’d known for so long fade before his eyes. She was replaced by someone more confident and more relaxed. Maybe the old Avery had been fading all along and he just hadn’t noticed.
Or hadn’t thought to look.
But in the last week he’d finally begun to realize she wasn’t the same girl he’d known since he was small. The woman who stared back at him had seen her fair share of life and it had marked her.
Made her stronger.
More interesting.
And far more valuable than she’d been given any credit for.
“When he left, I thought my life was over,” Avery said in a quick rush. “And it wasn’t. It took me a long time to realize that. But it wasn’t over.
I
wasn’t over.”
“Of course you weren’t.”
“He left, Walker. Left to see the world. To live the big life. And he never looked back. I think that’s the part that hurt most of all.”
“He did look back, Ave. You know he did. All the gifts. He’s not immune, you know.”
“Gifts don’t count as looking back. They’re guilt. There’s a difference.”
Walker didn’t entirely disagree with her, so instead of replying, he rubbed a hand over her back.
“I’d have been okay if he’d just ended it. I really would have. But the hiding. The unwillingness to remember where he came from. The abandonment. I can’t forgive that.”
“You don’t have to.”
She let out a small laugh and she bumped him with her hip. “Good. ’Cause I’m not.”
He bumped her right back. “So don’t.”
“Come on, lover boy. I know you’re only being nice standing over here talking to me.”
“Nice, nothing. You’re a hottie in that skullcap you’re wearing.”
“I’m damn hot and don’t you forget that, Walker Montgomery. However”—she shoved at his shoulder, the impact just enough to turn him in the direction of Sloan and Grier—“I believe there is a certain lady over there who’s managed to capture all of your attention.”