At Last

Chapter 16

One of life’s little mysteries is how a two-pound box of chocolate can make a person gain five pounds.

Matt had a hell of a long day, which included noncompliant picnickers, a search-and-rescue mission for a beginning biker on an advanced trail, a small wildfire in the fourth quadrant, which had nearly gotten away from them, and the arrest of an idiot for illegal poaching. When he finally left his post, he went to the diner for a late meal.

Okay, he went to the diner to catch sight of Amy. He deserved it after the day he’d had. Amy happened to be on a break when he walked in, sitting at a small table in the far corner, bent over something.

Drawing, he realized when he got closer. She was sketching on her pad, oblivious to the room. Or at least she was until he got about halfway across the diner, then suddenly she went still, lifted her head, and met his gaze.

Lots of things flickered across her face, with heat leading the way. But what grabbed him by the throat and held on was the reluctant affection.

She wanted him. He’d proven that. Hell, he wanted her right back. But she also liked him. She didn’t want to, but she did. Inexplicably buoyed by that, he slid into her side of the booth, pressing his thigh to hers. “Hey.”

“Hey.” As always, she closed her sketch book and slid it away from him. “I was just taking a break.”

“You ever going to let me see your drawings?”

“I don’t know. They’re sort of personal.”

He leaned in close. “You’ve shared your body with me. And that felt pretty personal.”

She gave him a little shove and a laugh. “Not the same thing.”

Enjoying the sound of her amusement and the fact that she looked so pretty smiling, he let one of his own escape. “One of these days, you’re going to want to share with me.”

“My drawings?”

“Those too.”

She nudged him again, less of a shove this time. “Move. I’ll get up and get your order going.”

He didn’t move, but he did enjoy her hands on him, one on his arm, the other on his chest, especially since they lingered as if she couldn’t help herself. “I’m a patient man, Amy. I can wait.”

“It’s late, and you’ve got to be hungry,” she said, purposely misinterpreting that sentence. “At least let me put your order in. The usual, right? Or a double-double?”

They’d shared a double-double just last night, and it hadn’t been food. And actually, she’d gotten more than two orgasms. Maybe even a quadruple. He smiled at the memory, and she pointed at him.

“Stop that,” she said.

“Stop what?”

“You know what. You’re thinking things.”

He laughed. “Okay, you caught me. I’m definitely thinking… things.”

She looked around to see if anyone was paying them any attention. No one was. He’d come late enough tonight that the place was nearly emptied out. Only two customers were at the counter and one at a table on the far side of the diner. Leaning in, Matt put his mouth to the sweet spot just beneath Amy’s ear. “Why don’t you tell me what things you think I’m thinking?”

She actually blushed beet red, which was so adorably revealing that he laughed. She shoved him again, which made him laugh more.

“You’re crazy,” she said.

Yes. It was entirely possible that he was crazy. Crazy for her.

Riley walked by. She was wearing ratty jeans, battered sneakers, a sweatshirt he recognized as Amy’s, and a bright pink Eat Me apron. She was carrying a tray of dirty glasses and dishes and a very large chip on her shoulder. Matt looked at Amy.

“I got her a job,” she said, and when he smiled at her, she lifted a shoulder. “It was no big deal.”

But it was. “You’re helping her.”

“Anyone would.”

“That’s the thing,” he said. “They wouldn’t. They don’t.”

She stared at him. “You seem to have this blind faith in me, like I’m a good person and some sort of decent influence.”

“You are.” He reached out and pushed a strand of hair back off her face, stroking it behind her ear. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

She was already shaking her head. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough. It’s all there in your eyes.”

Those eyes met his now, filled with a warmth he didn’t know if he’d ever get used to.

“Your life has been very different from mine,” she said.

“Does it matter?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

She looked around the diner, then back at him. And then she put her hand on her sketchbook and pushed it across the table toward him.

Not one to squander an opportunity, Matt put his hand over hers on the book. “Yeah?”

She paused and then pulled her hand free. “Yeah.”

He held her gaze, smiled at her, then opened the book and found himself completely speechless at the sheer mind-blowing talent leaping off the page. Each drawing was a rendering of the Pacific Northwest in some fashion or another. Squaw Flats, Eagle Rock, Four Lakes, Sierra Meadows, and Widow’s Peak, she’d done them all, rendering them in colored pencil, so perfectly that he could almost smell the pines and feel the breeze. “Amy, Jesus. You’re amazing.”

“Thanks.” Her cheeks were a little pink with the praise, making him wonder if she’d ever shown anyone her drawings before.

He flipped back to Sierra Meadows. “This is close to where I found you that night, when you were… not lost.”

That earned him a small smile. “The night I fell down the ravine. The night you shared your tent.”

“Which has been in heavy rotation in my fantasies ever since.”

“You have some sort of a rescue fetish, Ranger Hot Buns?”

“No, I have a pale blue panty fetish.”

She let out a low laugh. “It was dark.”

“I have panty x-ray vision. God-given talent.”

She laughed again, and the sound warmed him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her work. “You’re so talented,” he said, truly awed. “You should show these more often. You know Lucille runs an art gallery, right? She’d love these.”

“They’ve always been just for me.”

He met her gaze. “So what changed? Why show me now?”

She paused. “Well, I guess it’s because you let me in. You told me about your childhood, your family. Your past. You’ve counted on me to help Riley.” She shrugged. “You shared yourself with me, so I guess that somehow makes it okay for me to share with you.”

At this, Matt felt his smile slowly fade, and guilt twisted in his gut. She thought he’d opened up, when in fact he’d purposely told her only the good things. What was even worse was that he’d let her think she could trust him, count on him. He liked the idea of her trusting him, a lot, but the last time he’d been down this road, he’d fucked up. Royally. His ex could attest to that. He’d promised not to get attached, but he was.

Deeply.

And suddenly, he wasn’t in the least bit hungry. Suddenly his stomach was burning and churning. Suddenly, he had to go. Be alone. Now. Gently, he pushed her sketch pad back to her.

She cocked her head to the side, eyes on his, clearly sensing a change in him, but just as clearly not understanding what.

As he couldn’t understand it either, there was no way to explain it to her. “Jan’s trying to get your attention,” he said.

She held his gaze a moment longer, eyes sharp. He hadn’t fooled her. But in classic Amy fashion, she took the easy way out and let him distract her. She glanced up at Jan, who was indeed pointing to her watch.

Matt stood up and let her out of the booth. She brushed against him as she did and sucked in a breath at the contact.

He did, too, but he managed to keep his hands to himself, shoving them into his pockets to ensure it. She’s not for you…

Amy hesitated for a moment, and Matt held his breath, though he shouldn’t have bothered. She didn’t press for answers. She wouldn’t, because as he’d counted on, that’s not how she operated. And then there was the bottom line-she didn’t want this any more than he did.

That night Amy went home, running through the light rain to her apartment, hoping the damp had brought Riley back.

It hadn’t.

She grabbed her mail and dropped it all on the kitchen table. Mostly junk, but there was a manila envelope from New York, and she recognized her mother’s handwriting. She spent a moment staring at the package as if it were a striking cobra before she opened it.

Inside was a short note and a small notebook. The note said:

I’ve had this all these years, but it occurred to me after you called that maybe it’s your turn to hold onto it. Mom

The notebook was identical to her grandma’s journal. She opened it and then realized it wasn’t identical at all. The paper in this notebook wasn’t lined. And someone had filled the pages with sketches. Not in colored pencil, like Amy did, just black charcoal, but the sketches were so eerily similar to her own that Amy sank to a chair, weak-kneed. Lucky Harbor, Sierra Meadows, Four Lakes, Squaw Flats… the images wavered as Amy found herself choked up.

She hadn’t known her grandma could draw.

She flipped through, marveling, swiping her eyes on her sleeve. There was only one picture she didn’t recognize, the very last one-a vista of rough-edged, craggy mountain peaks that was so wonderfully depicted she could almost smell the trees.

This drawing was different than the others. This drawing had a figure sketched in, a woman. Drawn in shadow, she stood in profile on the plateau, the wind blowing her hair and scarf out behind her as she held something above her head. A container. From it came a cloud of dust-

Oh, no. Amy’s heart sank. Not dust. She thought back to the journal entry before, where her grandma had switched from the “we” to “I.”

She’d not been with Jonathon on this journey, at least not a living, breathing Jonathon.

Amy turned to the journal and reread the last entry again.

… standing at the very tippy top, looking out at a blanket of green, a sea of blue…

Amy eyed the drawing. It certainly looked like the tippy top. She opened her map. The highest peak was Widow’s Peak. Her grandma hadn’t left her initials on that mountain.

She’d left Jonathon’s ashes.

I would never settle. I would never stop growing. I would never give up…

Coming here had given her grandma the hope and peace she needed to go on with her life after losing Jonathon. She’d gotten the hope to go on. And the peace to live without him. Amy understood that. She’d followed her grandma’s journey to make a change in her life, too, to learn about herself. To grow.

Baby steps, and like Riley, she was taking them.

She ran her fingers over her drawing of Widow’s Peak. Her grandma had never settled, and she wouldn’t either. She’d never give up. She went through the pictures one last time, and when she finally closed the book, her resolve to finish this journey was renewed. She definitely had hope and peace now, and she wanted the rest. She wanted to find her heart.

Two days later, Amy had a day off and was mountain-bound, equipped with her grandma’s drawings. She’d studied the map and had found a trail called Heart-Stopper. Was it possible that grandma’s “heart” moment had been a play on words? The problem was that the Heart-Stopper Trail ran perpendicular along the Rim Trail, except higher up, along the top of the peaks, from the north rim all along to the south rim in a huge semicircle, connecting the two. The loop that Matt had insinuated was too hard for her. She’d have to break it up into a few separate trips.

Or she could show Matt the drawing and see if he could help.

And she would have-except she kept playing that night in the diner over and over in her head. He’d backed off, and she didn’t know why.

But it was okay. She could figure this out, just like she’d figured all her other shit out.

She cheated by taking the fire roads up past Squaw Flats and Sierra Meadows, straight to the trailhead of Heart-Stopper. It was beautiful, but she felt… off.

That’s because you miss Matt…

How ironic was that? She’d told him not to get attached, and then she’d done it. She’d gotten damn attached.

Not that it mattered, not that it would slow her down. Matt wasn’t her journey. This was her journey.

But though she managed to hike half the Heart-Stopper Trail before she had to turn back, she never found anything specific. Unlike at Sierra Meadows or Four Lakes, there was nothing obvious, nothing in her notes to point out a direct item. And of course, there were a million trees. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and she’d had to admit defeat for the day. She got back to the North District Ranger Station just before dark. Matt’s truck was in the lot, and seeing it put butterflies in her belly. She never got butterflies. Damn man. So they hadn’t spoken in a few days, so what? It wasn’t a big deal, and certainly not the reason why she entered the building. Nope, she just needed a new map is all.

And maybe, if she saw him, she’d tell him about her grandma’s drawings. Not that she wanted to see him…

But she did. He was on the phone behind the reception area, his broad back to her. Amy picked out the new map and paid the young ranger-in-training behind the desk while simultaneously trying not to notice that Matt really earned the moniker of Ranger Hot Buns.

He turned and caught her staring. Still on the phone, he arched a single brow.

She waved her map at him and ran out. “You,” she said to her reflection in the rearview mirror when she was in her car and on the road, “are an idiot.”

At home, she showered then joined Mallory and Grace for a night out. They went to the Love Shack, Lucky Harbor’s one and only bar and grill. The place was done up like an old Wild West saloon, complete with walls of deep bordello red, lined with old mining tools. Lanterns hung over the scarred bench-style tables. The bar itself was a series of old wood doors attached end to end. Run by former world sailing champion Ford Walker and Lucky Harbor’s mayor Jax Cullen, the place was never wanting for customers.

The three women got a table and ordered a pitcher of margaritas, which was served by Jax himself. Tall, dark, and handsome, Jax poured them each an iced, salted glass with a smile that could charm the panties right off a nun. “Enjoy, ladies.”

“He’s hot,” Grace said, watching his ass as he walked off.

“Yes,” Mallory agreed. “And very taken by one sweet Maddie Moore, who runs the B &B down the road.” She lifted her glass. “To leaving Chocolate-ville for Margarita-ville.”

Grace lifted her glass. “To new chapters.”

Amy clicked her glass to theirs. “To no good girls tonight.”

They all drank to that, until Grace suddenly choked.

“What’s the matter?” Amy asked, pounding her on the back.

Grace coughed and sputtered some more, then recovered, as in unison Amy and Mallory swiveled their heads to see what she’d been looking at.

Two tables over sat three guys. Three gorgeous guys. Ty Garrison, Dr. Josh Scott, and Forest Ranger Hot Buns, all focused in on the Chocoholics’ table, smiling as if they saw something they liked.

Ty set down his drink and ambled over. He pulled a grinning Mallory from her chair and into his arms, and without a word, planted a long, hot, deep kiss on her. Finally, when surely they had to be out of air, he pulled back. “See you later,” he said with a naughty smile, then guided Mallory carefully back to her chair as if she were a precious commodity.

He was back at his table with the guys before Mallory recovered. “He’s mine,” she said, sounding shell shocked. “Can you believe it?”

Grace was fanning herself. “Does he always kiss you like that?”

“That?” Mallory asked, still looking dazed. “That was just the appetizer on the Ty menu of kisses.”

“You are one lucky woman,” Grace said.

Mallory grinned. “I am, aren’t I?”

Amy’s gaze was still locked in on Matt. He was as fixated on her.

The music was loud, the sounds in the bar joyous and rambunctious. There was dancing, and after a few minutes, Ty came back and stole Mallory away. Several other guys lined up to ask Grace to dance, and someone asked Amy as well.

But she didn’t want to dance with a stranger.

She didn’t want to dance at all.

What she wanted felt complicated and scary, but hell, baby steps, right? Right. So she got up and walked to where Matt and Josh were sitting. Both men smiled at her, but she had eyes only for Matt. He was still in his uniform, hair mussed, eyes shadowed and brooding. He’d gotten some sun today, but he looked weary to the bone.

Clearly it’d been a long day.

But there was something about this quiet, brooding Matt that got to her. He was so… real. Everything he was, everything down to the bone, was genuine.

And he’d come here instead of to the diner. To avoid her? Something settled in her gut. Disappointment. Regret. Worry. She tried to gauge his thoughts but couldn’t. He wasn’t drinking; the only thing in front of him was a soda, no doubt his beloved Dr. Pepper.

Maybe he was still working…

Josh stood up and took her hand. “You owe me a dance.”

She laughed. “I do not.”

“Okay, I owe you a dance. For all that great service you always give me at the diner, complete with such sweet smiles.”

She gave him a long look. She wasn’t known for her sweet smiles. They all knew that she wasn’t known for her sweet anything.

But he flashed her a grin and smoothly pulled her onto the dance floor before she could protest. “Look at you,” she said, surprised. “You can move.”

“You know it,” he said, dancing with the kind of abandon only a big white guy with absolutely no sense of shame could pull off.

She had to laugh, and then again when he moved in close and purposely bumped his very nice body up against hers, his hands on her hips. “Josh,” she said, smiling up at him, “why are you flirting with me?”

He grinned. “Because it’s pissing off Matt.”

She glanced over at Matt, still at the table, still nursing his soda, staring at them with an unreadable look on his face. “Nothing pisses Matt off,” she said. “He doesn’t let anything get to him.”

Josh chuckled and leaned in closer. “Don’t let his cool exterior fool you. He lets plenty eat at him. He’s just good at hiding it.”

“Well, then you’re mistaken about his feelings for me,” Amy said. “He won’t care that we’re dancing.”

“Hmm,” Josh said, noncommittally. The music slowed, and he pulled her close so that she felt his chest rumble with his own amusement. “What’s he doing now?” he asked.

Amy took a peek, and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of Matt, still slouched in his chair. “Just watching.”

“Watching, and getting more and more irritated with me, I’d bet.” Josh sounded quite pleased at the thought. “He cares, Amy, big time.”

“And you’re doing this why?”

“Because I’m banking on the fact that you care, too.”

The song ended, and Josh gave her a hug, and then ambled off toward the bar. When she walked past Matt’s table to get to hers, he stood up.

“Hey,” she said, her heart taking a good hard leap just before she realized he wasn’t looking at her. He was on his cell phone. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

He shook his head, silently telling her it wasn’t her fault, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he headed straight for the door.

She stared after him. There was no denying it. She’d hoped to see him tonight, maybe talk. And if he hadn’t looked so… well, distant, she might have also thought about stealing a kiss.

Or two.

Yeah, that’s what she really wanted. She could admit it to herself. She wanted his arms around her. She wanted his warm eyes looking into hers, making her feel like the only woman on earth, like only he could do.

She wanted to taste him, have him taste her. She’d wanted to slide her fingers into his silky hair and feel his warm strength surround her, making her feel safe.

And instead, he’d walked away from her without looking back. And though she’d done just that too many times in her life to count, she hadn’t realized how bad it sucked to be on the receiving end until now.