“Good.”
They didn’t say anything more during the short drive to the iced-over pond. Each grabbing a folding chair, pole, and tackle box out of the truck bed, they headed out onto the ice. They cut open two holes in the ice and sat down in front of them, their lines hanging in the freezing water.
For the first time in days, Gabe stopped to appreciate the silence. He’d always liked the mountains during winter, even navigating the sometimes rough conditions. Although, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking, he’d much rather be here with a seven-year-old who couldn’t stop talking...and her gorgeous mommy.
“How is she?”
When had self-obsessed Zach turned into a mind reader?
Gabe hadn’t forgotten the way Zach had flirted with Megan at the holiday party or that he’d gone over to her house to change her tire.
“None of your goddamned business.”
Zach looked amused as he sat back deeper in his cloth chair. “You don’t know, do you?” Shaking his head, his brother said, “Never even got in her pants, did you, before she kicked you to the curb?”
Gabe sprang from his seat so fast, he had surprise in his corner as he knocked Zach off his chair and onto the ice. The sound of his brother’s skull hitting the ice was the best thing he’d experienced in days.
“I’m going to tear you apart, ass**le,” he promised in a menacing voice.
Zach was in great shape, but Gabe’s career meant he had twenty pounds of muscle on him.
“Uncle.”
But Gabe still owed his brother for the flirting and the tire, so even though he made it seem like he was getting off Zach, he made sure to get in one more head-slam, along with a knee to the kidney.
“You’re all losing your minds.” His brother groaned as he lay there on the ice even though Gabe was back in his chair. “Chase. Marcus. Should have figured you’d be next.”
“Stay away from her,” Gabe warned. “Megan is off limits.”
Zach slowly sat up and rubbed his head with both hands, then grinned despite the pain he was clearly in. “Maybe,” he conceded, “but you’ve got to admit she has a really fine ass.”
Gabe knew his brother had started with one broken-down old car and turned Sullivan Autos into a megabucks business, but right now he was the dumbest person on the planet.
“I warned you.” Gabe cracked his knuckles and prepared to mess up Zach’s face.
His brother held up his hands again. “A joke! It was a joke. Swear to God, I didn’t think you’d go here again. Not after what happened with what’s-her-name.”
Here he’d thought Megan’s dead husband was the only ghost between them. Now, suddenly, he realized Kate’s was too, just as much.
“When Marcus was going through all that bullshit with Nicola, I thought the rest of us agreed on the score. That it’s better to keep things easy. Casual. Fun. Especially you. After what happened that time with that girl who tried to kill herself in your house.”
Zach looked as earnest as he got and Gabe knew he believed the bullshit he was spouting wholeheartedly. A week ago, Gabe would have been right there with him.
“Megan’s different.”
“Another one bites the dust.” Looking disgusted, his brother made the sound of a plane falling from the sky and crashing hard.
Gabe stared at his brother, but he didn’t see him.
Was that how Megan’s husband had died? Who had told her? When? How?
And how had she told Summer?
Damn it, Megan had kicked him out of her life before they could talk.
Gabe wanted to know more about her. Not just about her husband’s death, but what she ate for breakfast. Did she like to hike or was she more of a biker? Did she have any siblings? Where did her parents live, and did she have a good relationship with them?
Yes, Megan had kicked him out of her room that morning, but he was equally to blame for their breakdown of communication. Because just as he’d barely been able to see her through the haze of thick smoke when he’d found her in her apartment two months ago, even though he’d seen her several times since, he hadn’t wanted to let himself see her for who she really was. Instead, he’d told himself it was smarter to force himself to look at her through the thick haze of the smoke created by his ex’s crazy behavior.
He hadn’t been able to forget what she’d said when they’d been making love in her hotel bed. Please love me. Were they simply heat-of-the-moment words...or something more?
Strong enough words, from a deep enough place, to finally start cutting through the dark, heavy smoke that lingered from his past.
And hers, too.
Gabe closed up his chair, grabbed his pole and tackle box, and headed back to his truck.
“Where the hell are you going?”
Gabe revved the engine and Zach had to scramble after him to throw himself and his fishing gear into the truck before it skidded out across the snowy terrain.
Ignoring his brother, Gabe went through what he knew so far. Megan had drawn her line in the ice and she didn’t plan on budging. And he’d understood where she was coming from—had been right there with her, in fact.
But that was when Gabe hadn’t planned on skating over his line, either.
Not until he’d just realized—with some help from his asshat of a brother—that the ice was always shifting.
No one had ever told him just to go away like she had. And, sure, his pride was involved. So yes, he couldn’t deny that getting Megan to come around was a challenge. But just as he wouldn’t deny that he thrived on challenges, that facing down untenable situations that other people would go out of their way to avoid was precisely what he lived for, Megan was far more than a challenge.