Chapter Three

Birley dropped into a hardback chair. The wood frame creaked. What he wouldn’t give for an overstuffed sofa. Though Harmony had laughed at him, he was out of shape. At least he wasn’t showing it yet in his stomach. Too much time in that damn office chair would give him a potbelly like Dad’s.

Time for an early New Year’s resolution—starting in January, hit the slopes at least once a week. Or at least jog around the block.

Harmony sat across from him at the small table. “Why not sit by the fireplace?”

“We wouldn’t have any privacy.”

The cozy nook he’d chosen overlooked the main dining area where several skiers talked and ate, the sounds blending into a cacophony of indefinable noise. Good thing too. He could block it out. Sunlight streamed through the window at his side, warming his hands. Wow. He couldn’t get over it. The mountain flowed untamed as it had for generations. Pistes cut through the trees, urging him back to the slopes.

Heat slicked his back as the vent above him blew warm air. He removed his coat and scarf, then fanned his sweater to catch a breeze. Nice. After he popped a potato chip in his mouth, he munched on his ham-and-cheese sandwich. The salt from the chip sharpened the gooey cheese, mayo, and mustard on his tongue. The toasted bread crunched in his hands. He moaned, his eyelids fluttering.

“Wowza. You’re making love to your sandwich. I’m almost jealous.”

Harmony’s light, carefree voice sucker-punched him. He groaned, swallowing the bite. His cock twitched. The woman twisted him into all sorts of knots. He set the sandwich aside and wiped his hands on a napkin.

“I’m sorry. Have I interrupted the mood?”

Again, with that voice. What was she trying to do? Melt him into a puddle at her feet? “No, but if you want me to eat something, I’d much rather it be you.” The words rumbled from his mouth in a slow drawl.

Her breathing quickened. Blush tinged her cheeks as she drank hot chocolate from her oversized mug.

He smirked. Battle won. The war was anyone’s game.

Harmony picked a few sesame seeds off her bun. “So—um—your parents are retiring?”

“Semi-retiring.” He snatched the pickle from his small plastic lunch basket and snapped the crisp spear between his teeth. His taste buds tingled from the tart brine. “I’ve already taken charge of the day-to-day activities and all the financial aspects. Dad’s been grooming me for this since I graduated from college.”

“What about Ruby and Dylan? Aren’t they involved?”

“Sure, as instructors, not in management. My parents are leaving the academy to the three of us in their will, but I’m the only one qualified to handle the technical parts.”

She pursed her lips. “How are your brother and sister?”

“Dylan’s great. He’s finally sobered up and gotten his life back together after leaving his band. He met his fiancée, Erica, two summers ago, and they’re now living together. They’re watching Andy and Kay today.”

“And Ruby?”

“Married with a daughter. Brad’s a good guy, and Sapphire is adorable. She’s about a year old and has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Harmony laughed, her eyebrows winging to her hairline. “Sapphire, seriously?”

“Weird, huh? Ruby wanted a gemstone name to match hers, and the name Sapphire made sense, thanks to the little girl’s eyes.”

“The baby is healthy?”

“Yup, and spoiled rotten.”

“Ruby’s a lucky woman.” She brushed her hand along her stomach, then grabbed her grinder. A large portion of the sandwich disappeared between her teeth.

He frowned. What was that about? He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Her back off vibe was unmistakable. He clutched his mug of spiced tea, and the insulated ceramic protected his hands. Steam wafted across his face, the scent of cinnamon and cloves opening his nasal cavities. He sipped the drink, the liquid burning his throat, warming him from the inside out.

What had happened to her? While they were waiting in line at the ticket booth, a faraway look had tightened her face and chilled the air around them, which had nothing to do with the temperature. The same mystery pain now narrowed her eyes and tipped her lips in a frown.

He missed the girl she once was, but what did he know about the woman? So much time had passed. How had he managed to get through his days, the long years, without thinking of her every second?

“A penny for your thoughts?” Harmony licked a dab of brown mustard from her finger.

He rolled his cramping shoulders. “Just thinking about the past, the mistakes I made, the things I wish I could change.” Shit. Where was the super glue for his mouth?

If he had the chance to go back in time and fix things with Harmony before their relationship skidded off the rails, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. He loved Andy and Kay more than anything. Without Susannah, he wouldn’t have his kids.

“I’ve missed you, Harmony.” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “You’ve been through a tough time, so we should stop flirting. I want to be friends again.” His shaft throbbed in rebellion, the stubborn thing.

She slid her thumb across his knuckles, shooting sparks up his arm.

Was friendship the answer? Would it be enough? He wanted a do-over, a chance to right the wrongs and the foolish choices they’d made, but her husband had recently died. Was she ready to jump into another relationship?

Harmony drew back. “What happened with you and Susannah?”

Birley slouched. His heart clenched. The words clogged his throat, but he forced them out. “Everything was perfect in college. She was spontaneous and carefree, and I felt alive for the first time since you and I broke up.”

Her eyelashes swept down like crescents across her cheeks.

“I took her home with me a few times to meet the family, and she thought the academy was this huge, money-making machine. She had no clue as to how business and economics worked.” He tsked. “I should’ve set her straight, but I was blind.”

“How so?” She sipped her cocoa.

“I wanted to make her happy. I didn’t want to lose—” Another woman he cared for, but he bit back the admission. A root canal would’ve been preferable to a second failed relationship.

He cleared his throat with a rough cough. “We married after graduation and moved here. The veil over her eyes disappeared real quick, as did mine. We couldn’t afford a house and were renting the apartment above the academy. She hated everything—the town, my family, the fact I didn’t have access to the school’s bank accounts. Like I would’ve emptied them for her.” He tapped the tabletop. A heavy weight settled on his chest. “We could’ve moved anywhere she wanted, but she refused to use her liberal arts degree and get a job. She wanted me to take care of her, and I didn’t see a point in leaving town.

“Then she got pregnant with Andy. She wanted an abortion, but I threatened to divorce her if she got it.” He winced. If only he could forget the resulting screamfest.

Harmony snapped her head up. “I’m all for a woman’s right to choose, but I can’t imagine not wanting to keep a baby if I had the ability to take care of one.”

“She wasn’t like you. Not by a long shot.”

“Every time I ran into you and Susannah, the tension between you could’ve combusted and left a crater in the street.”

Heat crept into his face. “Her bad attitude always doubled when you were around.”

“She despised me.”

“Yes, because she was jealous. You were my first love.” He squeezed his nape, the sharp pressure easing the stiffness burrowing into his muscles. “I pitied her. Her parents died when she was a teenager, and the funds from their life insurance policy paid for her education. There wasn’t much money left once she graduated. I regretted marrying her, but like her, I was trapped.

“After Kay was born, Susannah called it quits. She was having an affair with a tourist in town for ski season, and the man wanted her to leave with him.”

“Are the kids—um—how do I say this?” She rubbed her crinkling forehead.

“Are the kids mine?” He blew out a long breath as she nodded. “I think so. They look like me, but I never demanded a paternity test. Had the results not been in my favor, I could’ve lost them. It doesn’t matter, though. I love them, so they’re mine.” He braced his sweaty palms on his jittery knees, stopping the shakes. “Anyway, she filed for divorce, and everything came together quickly. She didn’t want custody of the kids; she didn’t want anything from me, except her freedom. Which was fine with me.”

“Poor kiddos. They must miss her, or at least miss not having a mom.”

“Yes, to both. Susannah rarely visits, but they love it when she does. They always cry when she leaves. She only comes around during the holidays—if she’s between boyfriends.”

Harmony snorted. “She gets lonely.”

“Exactly. I worry every Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas that she’s going to be knocking on my door.” He clenched his jaw, the tendon in his neck pulling tight. “The marriage lasted five years. I was a fool to have stuck with it for so long.”

“You’re not the only fool sitting here.” She traced the wood grain of the table.

“What do you mean?”

She sighed and leaned back. “Claude was a mistake.”

That was the understatement of the year. Birley had rarely seen Harmony after their long-ago breakup without one or both of their spouses intruding. Susannah would touch his arm or fiddle with his hair, marking him as her property. Claude would wrap his arm around Harmony’s waist, forcing her against him.

He grimaced. “You met Claude in Miami, right? After you moved there for your job?”

“Right. I was an entry-level accounting clerk at the Benacore Juices branch in Newark, then a full accountant once I transferred to the branch opening in Florida. I didn’t want to move so far from my family, but I couldn’t bypass the promotion and the chance to move higher in the company.” A tight smile creased her lips. “Claude was from New York, but he moved for a fresh start after a scandal involving him and a senator’s daughter. I should’ve known better. A man with a philandering reputation couldn’t be trusted, but I refused to pass judgment on him. Everyone makes mistakes.”

He pinched his nails into his palms to keep from touching her.

“The advertising firm where Claude worked handled the Benacore account, and we met at a party. Unlike the other women there, I wasn’t falling over myself to grab his attention. I didn’t care about his fancy car or watch, and he was relieved.”

Birley nodded. “I would’ve been too. It’s not a good feeling to know when someone is using you for your money and manipulating your emotions.” As Susannah had done with him.

“We married two years later.” Harmony twirled one of her curls around her fingers. “He believed the man was the head of the household, and the woman always deferred to him. We argued about that a lot, but he was also caring and romantic. After a while, I started telling myself he didn’t mean to boss me around, he was just direct. But it was more than that.”

He bit his tongue and blew air through his nostrils. “Did he hit you?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh no. No way. Had he done that, I would’ve kicked him in the balls and filed for divorce long before I did. He just acted like he was smarter and better than me because he had a master’s degree, and my associate’s was a joke.” Sudden tears welled in her eyes, and she turned away. “We wanted children, but I miscarried twice.”

His heart slammed. “Harmony, I—”

She lifted her hand. “I have a condition called balanced translocation. When I was in my mother’s womb, one piece of my chromosomes attached to the wrong section of another chromosome. No one knows why this sometimes happens in the development stage of a fetus.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised, but it’s a common issue. One in almost six hundred people, both men and women, has it.” She rested her hand on her chest, above her heart. “I don’t have any health problems, but when I conceive, the fetus is receiving either too little or too much of my genetic material. That’s why I can’t hold a baby to term.”

Birley massaged his pounding temples. No wonder she was upset earlier. Being around kids and knowing she couldn’t have any of her own had to be like rubbing salt in an open, festering wound. “There have to be ways around it, maybe fertility drugs or in vitro fertilization.”

“That’s right. Both cost a small fortune, and my medical insurance wouldn’t cover it.” She fiddled with her napkin. “After the doctor diagnosed the problem, Claude withdrew from me, started cheating. He didn’t want me anymore because I wasn’t woman enough for him.”

He snapped back. “What the hell?”

“That’s what he said when I caught him with some skank in our bed.” Her voice sharpened, her face flushing. “Everything we owned he’d bought on credit, which I didn’t realize until he died and I got some late notices in the mail. That should teach me not to leave the household finances fully in a man’s hands. Some accountant I am.”

“You trusted him.” He grasped her forearm. “You should’ve paid more attention, but he was lying. He’s at fault, not you.”

“Both of us were. Since we were still married when he died, I gained access to his bank account. Turned out, he’d blown a lot of money in online casinos. I sold his pretentious sports car to pay off some credit card debts, and I let the rental companies take back the artwork and décor he had to have, as well as the furniture.”

He huffed out a hard breath.

Harmony withdrew from his touch, grabbed her grinder, and ripped off an oversized bite of chicken, lettuce, bacon, and bread. Her jaw worked, and her throat expanded as she swallowed. “The lease for the condo was in both our names. He was two months behind on rent, which I had to pay. I stayed for an extra month, then left. I couldn’t afford it. All my belongings are now in a storage unit.”

She’d lost her home? Damn. “Where have you been living?”

“In an extended-stay motel room. I had three choices—spend Christmas at the motel, go see my parents, or come home. I was hoping to fly in for Thanksgiving, but I couldn’t get a flight out until the night of.”

Birley muttered a few curse words. “You didn’t deserve that.”

She shrugged. “I lied yesterday because I wasn’t ready to discuss this. I don’t know why I’m saying it now, except that talking with you feels normal, like how it used to be between us.” The creases branching from her hazel-green eyes smoothed out a little. “All I wanted for Christmas was to come home. My manager wouldn’t give me time off, so I quit.”

“Why go back? You’ve referred to Willow Springs as home several times, not Miami. Stay here.”

Her eyebrows dipped in a V. “I thought about it, but my parents now live in San Francisco. After Christmas, I’m going back to Florida to rent a moving truck. I’ve always wanted to take a road trip, so I’m driving to California.”

“You’re driving cross-country by yourself? That could be dangerous.”

“Dad said the same thing, but I can handle it.” She rubbed her hands together. “I’m gonna stay with my parents until I find a job and an apartment. Claude’s insurance handled his funeral bills, thank God, but my savings won’t last forever. The airline took a chunk.”

“Your parents are important, of course, but what about Stan? You have friends here who miss you, like Hope—me.” He smacked his chest. She clearly needed the visual.

“That’s why I’m here—to visit Stan. If I was planning to stay indefinitely, I would’ve flown to California to see my parents and my many aunts, uncles, and cousins. I should be where my family is—the bulk of my family, that is.”

He sighed heavily. Him snapping at her wouldn’t convince her to stick around. “Have you thought about me over the years?”

Her bottom lip trembled, then she sucked it between her teeth. “Of course I have. High school was a long time ago, and our dreams clashed. You wanted a laid-back life, even though you cut loose with Susannah in college. I wanted big-city living, and I got it. I like it.”

“So a rich-ass condo means that much to you? You want a new job slaving away five or six days a week for some major corporation until you’re exhausted?” He silently cursed. Not only did he slave away at his job, he was growing more tired of it by the day.

Good job, man. Way to control your temper.

In the back of his mind, he’d always believed he and Harmony would find one another again. Susannah and Claude didn’t compute. How crazy was that? Did he marry someone so different from himself because, subconsciously, he didn’t want the relationship to work?

A frown creased her brow. “I don’t need or want expensive things, but I like to work, to feel useful. My dream home is a little yellow bungalow with a big yard in a suburb.” She rocked in the chair as though she longed to jump up and run out the door. “I don’t want to argue. Let’s finish eating and hit the slopes.” She polished off her chips in a handful of loud crunches.

“What did you expect?” His throat constricted. “We’ve never hashed this stuff out since Susannah and Claude were always stuck up our asses. It’s time we deal with it.”

She scowled, then finished her grinder.

Birley gritted his teeth. Why had he been so stupid all those years ago? He’d wanted her to attend the University of Vermont with him, but she balked at another lengthy stint in school. He never should’ve walked off, leaving her crying on the porch of her parents’ house. She wanted time to think about her future—they’d only graduated from high school that morning—but her refusal didn’t mean she’d stopped loving him.

Too bad he hadn’t realized the truth at the time. She’d hurt his pride and broken his heart. Nothing mattered but hurting her in return. They avoided each other for the rest of the summer, then he headed off to the university.

God, how he’d missed her. She’d continued to work for her uncle while earning her accounting degree at a local community college and later moved to New Jersey for her job. Any chance of repairing their relationship had left with her, but by then, he was with Susannah.

Birley ate the rest of his sandwich, which slid down his gullet like cardboard. “No matter what you decide, I’m happy you’re home now.” The hope in his chest deflated. He stood and tugged on his gloves. “Let’s hit one of the blue squares, okay?”

She nodded and followed him up. After they threw away their trash, they left the lodge.