Page 102 of A Little Too Late
“You know how the rhyme goes, right?” he asks. “Reed and Ava, sitting in a tree? K-I-S-S-I-N-G?” We both laugh, and then he gives me a quick kiss. “This was a silly ploy to get you alone,” he says. “But I have serious questions for you.”
“Okay?” I ask, leaning closer. He smells like spicy aftershave and clean mountain air.
“Is it all right with you if I come back to Colorado?”
“Of course it is,” I say immediately. “This is your home.”
“But it’s also yours,” he says, his voice turning serious. “And if I come back, we’ll see each other every day.”
My heart gives a nervous shimmy, because I don’t understand the problem. “I hope we’ll see each other every day, Reed. What are you asking?”
He turns me in his arms until we’re nose to nose. Then he gently lifts my goggles up onto my helmet, so he can look right into my eyes. “I love you. And I’m coming back here foryou, Ava. The resort is secondary. If you don’t see a future for us, I won’t come back. I’ll help my dad find a better buyer, and I’ll leave you alone. If you need me to.”
“Oh,” I say so softly that I might not have actually said anything at all. His brown eyes are so serious and so beautiful to me. I can’t believe he’d even doubt that I want that future, too.
“I want to be here with you. I want what my parents had, even if they didn’t have it as long as they hoped. I ruined things once. But if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
“Please stay,” I whisper. “I never stopped loving you, and I don’t think I ever will.”
He smiles. “Do you love me enough to work with me every day as well as stay with me every night? That’s a lot.”
“It depends,” I ask. “Am I still getting a vacation?”
His smile widens. “Somehow, yes. But—sorry—you’re still getting promoted. You’ll run the resort, and I’ll work on development. Sheila will be your number two, right?”
My heart lifts. “That sounds like a dream.”
“I want that for you.” He squeezes my knee and looks out at the view. “I spent a lot of the last twenty-four hours thinking about it. If you have other ideas, I’m here for that. But I won’t pretend to know how you run the place…”
“And I won’t pretend I know how commercial development works,” I add. “We can do this, Reed. Planning the future wasn’t ever our problem.”
“Iwas our problem,” he mutters.
“Terribleluckwas our problem,” I insist. “And who knows? Maybe we’ll even have more of it. And that would suck, but we can’t let it break us the same way twice.”
“No way,” he agrees. “I love you, and I won’t ever stop. I lost you once, and I won’t let it happen again.”
“And I won’t either,” I promise him. “I want us to have a real chance.”
His arms close around me. He kisses me for real.
And then we really are like the playground rhyme—kissing in a tree.
We ski several hours together all over the mountain. And every time we get onto a ski lift, we plan something new.
“I need to ask Weston and Crew to move home,” Reed declares as we float over pine trees.
“Will they say yes?”
He laughs. “Not easily. But I can start the conversation. Both of them will eventually need a change. And if we’re really going to grow this place, we need heli skiing and a halfpipe, right?”
“That’s true,” I concede. “But there are other pilots and other riders.”
“I wantthem,” he says. “Both of them. But here’s an easier question. Where do you want to live? If you and I could live anywhere in Penny Ridge? Where’s the dream house.”
“Hmm. I assume we’ll be in my apartment for a while, at least. Unless you need your own space. I hear room twenty-five is still vacant.”
He snorts. “Who’s a funny girl? How about this—I’ll have Sheila watch for any mountain condos that go up for sale. I assume you like your commute. But there’s always Penny Ridge, if you’d rather live in town. Someday there might even be a ski lift you could ride from town to work.”
