Keep On Loving You. Christie Ridgway

peak, dreaming up a vacation destination from which families could hike or bike in the summer, spring and fall, and ski and sled in the winter months. They’d argued and debated and refined their idea time after time.

      Brett had drawn it just as Zan remembered.

      Maybe better than he’d imagined.

      Pain radiated from his chest, and his throat felt strangled again. Shit, was he getting sentimental in his old age?

      Feeling eyes on him, he looked up to see Mac was staring.

      She abruptly stood, stacking a few plates, and headed to the kitchen with them. Without thinking, Zan followed with more dishes. There was some protest around the table, Poppy telling him he was a guest, but he just announced that he and Mac had the dishes.

      Her back to him, she was already rinsing and putting items in the dishwasher. He saw her spine stiffen as he came up behind her.

      Sheesh. So damn prickly, he thought, feeling another echo of that earlier pain. Where had his Mac gone, that fun-loving girl full of enthusiasm and zest for life? He wanted to find her inside this new hard shell.

      As he put his dishes onto the counter, an idea came to him on the fly. “Hey, I have a proposition for you.”

      “No.”

      “A business proposition.” Which he immediately realized was how he should have couched it. And it was a sensible idea, really. If she complied, then he’d be able to dispatch his obligations here that much more quickly and get on with...whatever he was going to do next.

      “No,” she said again.

      Brat. “You don’t even know what it is yet.” And the more he considered it, the more necessary it was to him.

      In the distance, he could hear the Walkers still talking around the dining room table. Arguing, really, and the kids were even getting into it. The sound of the good-natured squabble made him grin. He couldn’t let go of these people quite yet.

      Walking out of here tonight might mean not seeing them again. But if he could get to Mac, that would get him a small toehold into their lives. Temporarily, yes, but he’d take it.

      “I need some help at my grandfather’s place,” he said to her. “Clearing out belongings, sorting things, cleaning up so the house is ready to be put on the market.”

      She’d gone still. “I suppose I could send over Tilda or one of my other employees...”

      “Oh, it has to be you.”

      Over her shoulder, she sent him a narrow-eyed glance.

      He hoped he looked innocent. “I need your good advice on what should stay, what should go. You’d be good at that, since you’re in and out of other people’s homes around here all the time.”

      She’d yet to reply when Shay came into the room, followed by teenager London. They halted, their gazes going between him and Mac, as if they sensed the tension between them.

      “Um, everything okay?” Shay asked.

      “Sure,” Zan said, all casual attitude. “I just presented a business opportunity to your sister and she’s mulling it over.”

      “Mac’s mulling over a chance to make money?” Shay asked, in obvious surprise.

      “It involves my grandfather’s house. I think she’s afraid—”

      “I’m not afraid of anything!” Mac retorted.

      “Then I guess that means yes,” Zan said, on a smile.

      It didn’t die until Shay brushed past him. “Dude,” she murmured. “You should be careful what you wish for.”

      * * *

      ASH ROBBINS HAD a few terms he liked to think described himself. Well educated was one, and he believed just about anyone would agree it fit, thanks to his parents’ money and his own pride in achievement. His name and hardworking had been mentioned in tandem more than once, and he’d also been taught to never stand on others to get ahead. He strove to be kind to everyone, small children and animals in particular.

      His parents, successful and respectable John and Veronica Robbins, for twenty-two years by word and through example had raised their only son to become an upstanding, decent man.

      He could only imagine their disappointment if they knew he was also a latent stalker.

      Still, Ash’s gaze stayed glued to the back of Tilda Smith’s hair. Its waves bounced against her thin jacket. He frowned at that. While it was sunny today and the last weather event here in Blue Arrow Lake had been rain, there was snow on the higher peaks. It glistened between the evergreens on the mountainsides, and the breeze wafted like frosty breath across his face.

      Tilda should be dressed more warmly.

      She turned a corner and he hurried, instinct pushing him to keep her in sight while still maintaining distance. Something about the girl was like floating dandelion fluff, a rainbow-hued bubble passing in the air, that great idea hovering at the edge of your mind that you’d lose if you reached for it too quickly or grasped too greedily once your fingers closed around it.

      If he wanted her, he had to take great care.

      And yeah, he wanted her.

      Again.

      From across the street, he saw her slip inside a little hole-in-the wall eatery. The place looked to be nothing more than a counter and a few molded plastic tables, chairs bolted to their metal legs like student desks in a classroom. Aware too much aggression might spook her, he didn’t follow her in immediately. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and watched as she ordered, then passed a couple of bills to a ponytailed girl.

      Next she took a seat at one of the tables, her back to the window. After a few minutes she stood to retrieve what appeared to be a cup of soup and a few packets of crackers.

      “You need something, pal?”

      Ash jerked his attention from Tilda. Another guy, about his age, was giving him a suspicious stare. His unremarkable jeans, navy watch cap and battered boots proclaimed him a local. Vacationers and the day-pass boarders who visited the area dressed in garishly colored winter resort gear and footwear that looked right out of the box.

      “I’m thinking about lunch,” Ash lied. He tilted his head to indicate the eatery. “That place any good?”

      “No sushi, no sweet potato fries, nothing made with kale,” the stranger said. “For that you need the cafés on the main drag.”

      “Burger? Shake?”

      The other guy’s gaze flicked over Ash, clearly skeptical that he was after something so prosaic. He stood his ground under the scrutiny. Until he’d wandered into an old-school restaurant in the village last May, he hadn’t been aware of the decided separation between the mountain visitors and the mountain natives. That night, he’d caught the raised eyebrows and the distrustful glances and realized he’d crossed a gulch without an invitation. He might have gotten the shit kicked out of him by a knot of young drunks, but he’d sent a drink to Tilda before he’d fully realized the danger.

      Then she’d taken a shine to him. Once he’d slipped into a chair at the table with her and her girl pals, he’d been safe.

      The man taking stock of him now might well have been one of the toughs who’d wanted to kick his ass from their hangout. “You had your eyes on Tilda,” the guy said now.

      Ash shrugged. What was the point of denying it? “You know her?”

      “Only since kindergarten.”

      “I met her last May,” Ash said.

      “Yeah? That was a rough time for her. Lost her mom in April.”

      Hell. Ash frowned. She hadn’t told him that. She hadn’t told him much of anything about herself, except it was her twenty-first