Loe raamatut: «Snowy Mountain Nights»

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Copyright

Chapter 1

“I hope you know that thirty-six-year-old men can die from overwork.”

Garrison Richards’s secretary, Anthea, walked into his office and put an envelope on his desk. He looked up from scribbling on the yellow legal pad, surprised at the darkness that had fallen outside his windows.

He didn’t dignify her comment with an answer. But she apparently didn’t need him to say anything.

“Your train ticket and other essentials are right here.” She tapped the envelope with a manicured finger. “The weekend at the resort is already paid for. Your train leaves at eight in the morning.”

He put down his pen and glanced at his watch, frowning. It was much later than he thought. Nearly ten o’clock. New York, a bright and glittering jewel, flashed in its beautiful finery from his twentieth-story view.

“Are you kicking me out of my own office on a Thursday night?” he asked.

“Yes, I am. With the help of your mother.”

Garrison assumed that his mother had paid for the resort and train tickets, while Anthea made sure his schedule was clear. With help like this, who needed a wife?

Anthea stood at his desk with the warm overhead light spilling over her still features, looking more motherly than his actual mother, in her practical gray pantsuit, the spectacles sitting on her gently lined face. She clasped her hands at her waist and watched him with endless patience.

“You have the cabin at the resort for the weekend,” she said. “I already had your snowboarding equipment delivered.” Anthea lifted a finger to forestall his complaints about missing work. “Since you’ve been trying to meet with Mrs. Taylor-Rodriguez about the latest draft of the agreement, I also arranged a meeting with her on Sunday afternoon before your train home in the evening.”

Garrison considered being firm with his secretary. Putting on the more serious than usual face that had his associates and junior attorneys scurrying to do his bidding. It rarely worked on Anthea, but she would at least know he was serious.

That was one of the reasons he hired her. She was efficient and effective, yes. But he enjoyed immensely that she reflected his inner calm, the calm he wanted to reflect in his office. In nine years, he hadn’t once regretted his decision. Even when she insisted on mothering him when no one else was around. Now wasn’t the time, though. As usual, he had a lot of work to do.

“All the other work can wait.” She pressed the button on the remote that controlled the windows, darkening them so he could no longer see outside to the brilliant nighttime Manhattan skyline. “You’ve been distracted lately. Your work hasn’t started to suffer yet, but it might if you don’t take a break. You haven’t had a proper vacation in over a year.”

Garrison’s lips tightened at her observation. Part of her effectiveness lay in that she knew how to reach him. His work was precise and thorough, very efficient, which was one of the reasons he was the top divorce attorney in the state. The idea that he could slip up and compromise his usual standards of excellence gave him pause.

“That’s not very fair.” He felt like a twelve-year-old boy debating the merits of a punishment.

“Life is not fair, as you’re always fond of reminding me.” Anthea withdrew to the door. She had left the office earlier at her usual time of five-thirty, but apparently came back to ambush him.

“Go, Garrison.” Her faint smile chided him. “These broken marriages can wait until Monday morning.”

* * *

And so the next morning found him doing what she directed, getting on a train heading north to the Adirondack Mountains. With his overnight bag over one shoulder and a briefcase in hand, he looked like the only person in the first-class car with work in mind. His fellow passengers sat back with drinks already in front of them: mimosas, Bloody Marys and some with just plain coffee.

He passed three women getting themselves settled into a quartet of seats. They were beautiful, he noticed automatically, well-made-up and expensively dressed. The kind of women he’d seen at New York society and industry parties he’d been invited to over the years. He idly wondered if they skied or were simply heading north to bask by winter fireplaces while carefully trained servants tended to their every need. When he passed them, his idle wonderings disappeared.

Garrison tucked away his bag and claimed his seats, two sets facing each other that Anthea had arranged just for him, knowing he didn’t like to be crowded. Soon the train began to move, and he sat back to make the most of the ride.

Up ahead of him, he noticed that a fourth woman had joined the group of three he’d passed earlier. This woman was sitting with her back to him and speaking animatedly with her hands. She wore her shoulder-length hair in natural curls that brushed the back of her neck. When she stood to put something in the overhead luggage rack, Garrison noticed that she was tall, maybe even six feet, a height he’d always found...compelling. He admired her voluptuous shape, the way she filled out the long green sweater and the jeans she wore beneath it. His eyes returned to her again and again.

Very occasionally, he thought he heard her low voice above the soothing rumble of the train moving over the tracks. There was something about the woman’s voice that pricked an awareness of familiarity in him. But she never turned around.

He wondered if it would be too ridiculous of him to walk past the four women then turn back around just so he could get a glimpse of the mystery siren. He dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come. He wasn’t the type to get worked up over a woman, especially one he’d only seen from behind and hadn’t even talked to.

When the attendant arrived, he ordered a black coffee and opened one of the files he’d brought with him. Just to have something to work on during the train ride, of course.

* * *

“Reyna, I need you to cut his damn name off my body!”

Marceline made a sound of frustration and looked at the inside of her wrist, where she had tattooed her soon-to-be ex-husband’s name nearly three years before. Her normally beautiful and serene face was tight from stress. The long hair, twisted at the top of her head and fastened with silver chopsticks, only emphasized the unhealthy gauntness of her features.

Sitting opposite Marceline, Reyna shook her head. “Sorry. I only put them on. I don’t take them off.” She smoothed her fingers over her friend’s wrist then squeezed it with a reassurance she was far from feeling. Marceline’s eyes were dark with a pain Reyna hoped never to experience.

Beyond the long windows of the train, the landscape was awash in white—snowcapped mountains, pine trees heavy with late-winter white and gracefully twirling flurries drifting from the sky. Despite the turbulence in her friend, Reyna tried to hold on to the sense of peace the snow gave her.

The train, taking them on their annual single women’s trip into the Adirondacks for Valentine’s Day, rattled soothingly over the tracks, a sound Reyna had always found meditative. But Marceline, still in the middle of divorce proceedings from the man she thought was the one true love of her life, looked uneasy. As if she’d rather be hidden away in her big Long Island house than heading to a ski vacation with three of her closest friends.

“You can see my skin guy in Manhattan,” their friend Bridget said as she came back from the restroom, catching the tail end of their conversation. She had ears like a cat. With her short, coiled hair and big amber eyes, she even looked like one. “He’s a dermatologist. I’m sure he can take care of that for you.” Bridget wrinkled her freckled nose.

“And how would you know that?” Louisa, who had gone to the restroom with Bridget, walked up behind her. She raised an eyebrow, half in inquiry, half in challenge. Her straightened, shoulder-length hair swung down to hide her face for a moment, then she shoved it back, revealing features that had stopped more than one man in his tracks.

Bridget made a vague gesture to her face. “I had skin issues when I was younger. You all remember that, I’m sure.”

“Oh, yes. We remember.” Louisa smirked.

The four women had known each other since they were preteens at the same exclusive New York private school. They shared over fifteen years of friendship that had been through just about everything under the sun. Reyna, on scholarship that she and her blue-collar Brooklyn parents had worked hard for. Marceline, newly orphaned and recently arrived from Haiti. Bridget, a trust-fund baby looking for the next exciting thing. And Louisa, already cynical and frighteningly brilliant, intrigued at the idea of friendship with girls so different from her.

With the arrival of the two women, Reyna excused herself to make her own way to the bathroom. The train rocked under her as she walked and lightly touched the seats of the other passengers without stumbling into them. The early-morning train from Penn Station to Saratoga Springs was full—after all it was the Friday before Valentine’s Day weekend—but it wasn’t overwhelming. The last few seats before the bathroom were even empty.

She loved trains. It was because of her that the four of them took the train up to the resort every year instead of flying. But it was because of Bridget’s expensive tastes that they traveled in the first-class car with its wider aisles, Wi-Fi and attendants who regularly came through the car offering everything from coffee to newspapers.

As Reyna neared the bathroom, she noticed a man standing in the aisle. With his back turned to her, he leaned his shoulder against the wall of the moving train, looking as comfortable as if he were in his living room. Or office.

Despite his casual clothes—the gray sweater across his broad shoulders, jeans that lovingly skimmed his body—everything about him shouted business. He held a cell phone to his ear and spoke into it in a low, intent voice that stroked a delicate place deep inside Reyna. An unexpected flutter of attraction took wing in her belly. The man’s dark jeans draped over a backside that would be envied in any fitness magazine. Or a woman’s bedroom. She bit her lip at the thought.

“I find it extremely difficult to care what he doesn’t want to do. He had those children with the woman he’s leaving behind, and so he has to help support them.” His tone rumbled with casual power.

Reyna came up behind him. “Pardon me,” she said. “Are you waiting for the bathroom?”

The man turned, and Reyna nearly lost her breath. His intent dark eyes swept her from head to foot in a single, scorching glance that was at odds with his cool demeanor. His face was not handsome; instead it was distractingly sexy with its full mouth, sharp cheekbones and dimpled chin. She knew him.

Garrison Richards.

Memories she’d long ago put behind her came rushing back. Garrison’s impassive face as he sat next to her ex-husband at the conference room in his downtown law office. Ian watching her with the eyes of a stranger as if they hadn’t spent the past eight years of their lives as man and wife. Reyna’s horror when she’d realized just what it was that she had signed in those divorce papers.

She flushed, mortified that she had just been lusting after Garrison Richards. That afternoon when they met five years ago, there had been nothing sexy about him. Only an off-putting sternness and judgment that left her cold.

In the rocking car of the train, Garrison’s gaze raked over her. She felt it from the tips of her snow boots to her shoulder-length curls that she’d sworn had been presentable when she’d left her apartment. She fought the urge to rearrange her hair. Instead, she touched the necklace at her throat, sliding the silver star along the chain. A habit she had when she was nervous or uncertain.

He tipped the phone away from his ear and replied to her earlier question.

“The bathroom is empty. You can go ahead.” Directed toward her, his voice was even more compelling, a deep and seductive rumble.

He moved back to allow her to walk past him and into the bathroom. The door rattled shut, and the lock clicked. Reyna took a deep breath as she stared at herself in the mirror. She looked calm and in control, but her cheeks were blazing with heat—a combination of embarrassment and the unwelcome attraction she felt for the man who had represented her husband in their divorce.

She quickly used the bathroom and pushed Garrison from her mind. Afterward, Reyna splashed some water on her face and took her time toweling her skin dry. She desperately hoped he wasn’t near the bathroom anymore.

But when she walked out, he was still nearby and still on the phone. But he had stepped away from the door to give her some room. He stared intently at her again and said something to the person on the other end of the phone before speaking to her.

“You look familiar,” he said. “Do I know you?”

Reyna ruthlessly shoved the attraction aside and gave him her most scornful look. “No, you don’t.”

With that, she walked past him and made her way back to her friends.

Chapter 2

Garrison stared after the woman while his secretary’s words on the other end of the line fell away from him in a garble of sound. She was the same one he had been watching from before. Now that he’d seen her face, she was breathtaking: an Amazon with a hauntingly beautiful face and body. He drew a quiet breath, hypnotized by the sway of her hips under the green sweater and jeans as she walked away. Halfway down the train, she sat down with her three friends, never once glancing back at him.

“Garrison, are you still there?”

It took him a few seconds to realize Anthea was trying to get his attention. He mentally shook himself.

“My apologies, Anthea. I’m right here.”

He finished going over the particulars of the Reichman divorce, yet another rich client who didn’t want to financially support his offspring, then went back to his seat. He could hear the muted strains of the woman and her friends’ conversation from where he sat. And he wasn’t the only man glancing in their direction. Annoyed with himself for his uncharacteristic fascination, Garrison opened a folder for a case still in arbitration, but couldn’t concentrate on a single word.

The woman’s eyes haunted him. They were black and intense, her gaze as regal and unflinching as a queen’s. He drew a swift breath of surprise as he abruptly recalled who she was and how he knew her.

Reyna. Reyna Barbieri.

He’d handled her divorce from her actor husband nearly five years ago. From the look on her face, she had undoubtedly known who he was on sight. And she hadn’t been happy to see him.

Garrison remembered the first time he saw her. Ian Barbieri, a client of his whose ship had come in the form of a syndicated crime drama, was a few years into the TV show when he filed for divorce. Every fall, his face was on billboards all over New York City, advertising the new season of his show.

With his star burning bright through the network TV sky, Barbieri had breezed into Garrison’s office wanting a quick and surgical separation from his wife of nearly nine years. Garrison hadn’t been surprised. Although Ian Barbieri was a relatively small fish in the show business pond in New York, the rumor had been going around for months—with pictures included—that he was cheating on his high school sweetheart. He left her to keep the home fires burning while he had sex with nearly every wannabe starlet and groupie in the city. What had surprised Garrison was that Barbieri’s wife hadn’t hired a lawyer of her own. Neither had she objected to any of the terms of the divorce that her ex proposed.

Garrison drafted the documents with the stipulations Barbieri wanted and arranged a meeting with the wife thinking that, since the divorce was uncontested, it would be an easy and quick process. Barbieri wanted to keep just about everything he’d made and acquired since the marriage, leaving his wife with nothing but her wedding ring. She hadn’t protested.

Then Reyna Barbieri walked into the conference room. Given Barbieri’s movie-star looks, Garrison had been prepared for a similar creature, perfectly coiffed and artificial, the New York version of Hollywood. But Reyna had that wholesome loveliness that came from a life lived apart from show business. The air in his lungs stuttered at her natural, long-legged beauty. And the misery in her face.

Her shoulders were slumped. The floral summer dress and light sweater were too insubstantial for the fall weather and too big for her body. The wounded and defenseless look of her made him want to protect her. Garrison wanted to pull her into his arms and shelter her from everything that he knew was to come.

His heart thumped viciously at the unusual wave of feeling. He sat in his chair staring at Reyna as if she were the only person in the room. Garrison was surprised that everyone else hadn’t stared at him for his blatantly fatuous and unprofessional behavior.

He realized then that despite her husband’s flagrant cheating, she had not wanted to end the marriage. And that her husband had hurt her in ways she had never expected and would probably never recover from. Garrison remembered pulling out a chair for Reyna. He also remembered her flinching from him. Her reaction had hurt, twisted him with guilt even though he knew he’d done nothing wrong. At least not technically.

In hindsight, Garrison should have insisted that Barbieri provide for her, even though she had pressed for nothing on her own behalf and seemed to be waiting on the man she’d spent nearly half her life with to treat her fairly. Garrison’s inaction, and Reyna’s sadness, had haunted him ever since.

But the Reyna who had confronted him outside the bathroom was not the same sad woman he’d met five years before. Not at all. This Reyna Barbieri was stunning for a completely different reason.

She wore her confidence like a royal cloak. And her snapping black eyes had challenged him the moment she realized who he was. Her shoulder-length curls were tight and thick, inviting him to sink his hands into them and pull her closer. And her body. Christ Almighty...

The long and tight sweater hugged a figure that came straight from his dreams, a slender but curvaceous body he could easily imagine taking into his arms and making love to all night. Because of her, he was powerfully aware of every masculine part of him, aware that he wanted to be intimately joined to every feminine part of her.

Ignoring his work, Garrison stroked his lower lip and watched the seat where Reyna had sat down. A strong pulse of desire drummed deep in his belly, a guaranteed distraction for the rest of the train ride.