LITMIR.BIZ

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      He sent her a wry smile. “Worried I’ll wreck my good looks?”

      More like worried his good looks would wreck her sanity.

      She shook her head. “We need to give each other space.”

      “I’ll do my best to stay out of your hair until I leave town. I’m taking off on Sunday—I have jobs lined up until the wedding.”

      She’d have to learn to pretend ambivalence in his presence by then. She wouldn’t let their ruined marriage impact Mackenzie and Andrew’s ceremony. “How long are you going to be in town that weekend?”

      “Five days.” The blank look on Tavish’s face gave away nothing. “But, look, Sutter Creek’s not that small, right? We won’t be in each other’s pockets.”

      Ugh. Sutter Creek was exactly that small. But she appreciated his optimism. “You haven’t spent that much time at home since college.”

      “I know. But I have to, for Mackenzie’s sake. You’re okay with it, right?”

      “It’s been a year.” Last May, embarrassed by her failure, she’d hidden her short marriage and speedy divorce from her family. The soul-sucking lie of omission ate at her daily. She never wanted to lie to a person she cared about again. And as much as she didn’t want to, she more than cared about Tavish.

      He stared at her, eyes stark with honesty. His cheek flinched. “This still gets to me.”

      So not admitting I agree with that one. Lauren brushed a thumb across his jaw, under the abraded skin. She wished she could chalk up the pang of concern to her Hippocratic Oath. But she knew better. “You winced. I’ll get you a cold pack for your face.”

      Giving a one-shoulder shrug, he tossed her a smile. A delicious smile. One he’d used mercilessly when he’d spent hours with his mouth on her breasts. On her stomach. Everywhere. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.”

      The careless endearment hung in the air long after he left the room.

      She propped her elbows on the table and took the weight of her head in her hands. She could feel the imprint of his words on her skin.

      Don’t worry about me...

      That was the problem with Tavish Fitzgerald. She did worry about him—not for his sake, but for hers.

      ...sweetheart.

      Knowing he’d be in Sutter Creek for the next couple of days, her muscles twitched with a sudden, and long-absent, urge to run away from home.

      * * *

      The last thing Tavish felt like doing after locking horns with the living reminder of his divorce was to go to a bachelor party to celebrate someone else’s impending bliss. And offering to pick up the happy groom from the Sutter Mountain base lodge did nothing to help clear his mind of the woman he’d never been able to love like she deserved. The minute he set foot into the rubber-floored hallway next to the ski school, he was thrown back to the summer he’d graduated high school. How many times had he sneaked kisses with Lauren in the staff lounge? He’d worked for Sutter Mountain Resort in his junior and senior years, teaching skiing in the winter and rock climbing in the summer. The work had been awesome. So had finding excuses to flirt with Lauren up at reception.

      And if he was going to have even half a chance of enjoying Drew’s bachelor party tonight, he needed to get his mind off his high school girlfriend. His wife.

      Ex-wife.

      Trudging down the hall, he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The movement tugged on his bandaged forearm, making him wince. Making him think of Lauren again, of her struggle to stay unresponsive while she’d sutured his cut. Her cheeks had gone all pink and... Stop it. She’d been holding back distaste, not desire. He shoved open the door to the ski resort’s safety department headquarters. “Greetings.”

      “Hey.” Drew, alone in the room, sat at his desk with his fingers in his dark brown hair. “Get stitched up?”

      “Yeah.” He rolled his shoulder, hissing at the soreness caused by his dismount into the shrubbery. “Your sister did her level best to chastise me—us—for our stupidity.”

      “Not surprising. Have a seat.”

      “Uh, where?” Tavish blinked in surprise at the disastrous state of the office. Outdoor equipment and first-aid supplies covered every surface in the place. During the winter, the office served as the headquarters for Sutter Mountain Resort’s safety department. In the summer, it was the nerve center for Wild Life Adventures—or WiLA, as the staff nicknamed it—which offered everything from zip-line tours to rafting adventures. Drew and Mackenzie were damn proud of Sutter Mountain’s success. Even though it was one of the smaller resort towns in Montana, they’d been operating at capacity for the last five years. And his friend would be run over by the paraphernalia involved in all that success if he didn’t find a minion to organize his crap quick. “Tough to find office lackeys these days?”

      “With both Zach and Mackenzie out of the rotation I had to promote my lackeys,” Drew grumbled.

      “Raw deal. Still, no way should you still be working at seven on a Friday. We should get going. There’s a line of shots on the bar at the Loose Moose with your name on it.”

      “I need another ten minutes.”

      “All right. It’s your party. Guess we’ll be fashionably late.” Tavish eased his way past a stack of paddles leaning against a shelf and threw himself into the chair behind the other desk. He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back in the cushy leather seat, propping his booted feet on the corner of the desk. The seat springs complained with a metallic squawk.

      The complaint from Drew was a hell of a lot more colorful. He yanked off his reading glasses and tossed them onto a stack of invoices. His eyes lit a livid blue. Put Lauren and her brother side by side and he’d barely be able to recognize them as siblings. Lauren, with her blond hair and hazel eyes, resembled their late mother. But temper-wise, the Dawson siblings shared a hair trigger.

      “Quit it.” Drew spat the words out.

      “What, this?” He leaned back again, eliciting one more metal-on-metal grind from his chair for emphasis. He shot his friend a cocky grin. “Invest in some WD-40. Problem solved.”

      “Funny, lubricating the chairs hasn’t been a priority.” He waved a hand around the office. “We’re so short-staffed I barely have time to sleep. I need to find a replacement for Zach or else I’m going to lose it.”

      “Shouldn’t you have replaced him months ago?” Drew’s assistant had been injured in a brutal ski accident during spring takedown and had been off since. Add in Tavish’s sister being almost seven months pregnant, and Drew was short two of his most experienced guides.

      “I thought I’d be able to cover for him. Once Mackenzie started showing, she pretty much took over as my assistant in Zach’s stead. But he had a setback with his rehab. He won’t be back to work until well after the wedding. And without him—or someone to work in his place—Mackenzie and I won’t be able to go on our honeymoon.” Drew pressed his fingers into his temples.

      “Jeez. Getting married makes you overdramatic.”

      The other man glared before turning back to his computer. “You offering to step in?”

      Tavish snorted.

      “Then shut it. I’m just emailing a few buddies in Colorado who might be able to help me out. Then we can go.”

      Him, work in Sutter Creek? Ha. Right. Tavish was about as capable of that as his father had been. Even if he didn’t have plans to hop on a plane to Alaska on Monday—which he did—there would be no way he could cover for Zach once Andrew and Mackenzie were out of town. Being in Sutter Creek had always made him itchy to leave. Adding his divorce to the mix made that nagging itch intolerable.

      But

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