“It’s good stuff.”
“Not bad.” He took a long swallow. “You know what? We should toast Emmett and Pam. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Good point. And I’m even going to the wedding tomorrow.” She leaned over and clicked the rim of her glass against his. “To Emmett and Pam.” She glanced at his arm as he raised his glass to his lips. “Trey, I promised myself I wouldn’t ask you about your tattoo, but it’s late, and we’ve had sex and wine, and I keep staring at it whenever you flex your arm.”
He tried to ignore the sense of foreboding. Things were going so well, but this wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss yet. “Why do you suppose I have a tattoo? It’s so ladies will fixate on my manly muscles.”
“I’ve heard that’s why guys get tattoos there.”
“You’ve heard right.”
“But why an angel wing?”
His pulse rate spiked. How to answer? “I needed a tattoo and I liked it better than the hula girl.”
“I don’t believe that’s the reason. You’re not the type to pick some random thing and have it inked on your body, not even to get women.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
“Because... Well, I just know, that’s all.”
So she wasn’t going to admit that she’d learned important things about him, too. Of course she had. They couldn’t have been so intimate without her picking up on facets of his personality.
He thought about lying and saying that it was a generic symbol of his guardian angel. He wasn’t in the habit of lying, but he didn’t think she’d like hearing the truth. They had a fragile understanding, one that could be easily shattered.
But he had hopes for this relationship, fragile though it might be. Lying about his tattoo would be something he couldn’t fix if they ended up together. Eventually he’d have to tell her why he had it, and then he’d be exposed as a liar.
So he chose to tell her the truth and accept the consequences. “As I mentioned before, I tried to find you after you saved me last spring.”
Her expression turned wary. “Right.”
“When I couldn’t find you, I needed...wanted...to commemorate that lifesaving moment. I thought of you as my angel. Well, an angel, not necessarily my angel. So I got the tattoo.”
Wariness had turned to shock. “So the tattoo is for me?”
“I needed something, Elle, something to express my gratitude for being alive, and your part in it. I chose this. It represents a twist of fate as much as anything.”
She didn’t seem to be buying that. “I’m not an angel, Trey. I’m so far from being an angel it’s hysterically funny. I spew four-letter words when I have sex with you!”
“That’s not the point.” He reached for her, but she leaped off the bed.
“I think it’s exactly the point. You’ve created some idealized image of the person who rescued you. She’s an effing angel. Her wing is now a permanent part of your body!”
“I did that before I knew you.” He left the bed, desperate for her to understand. “I wasn’t even sure you were real! For all I knew, you were some heavenly being who’d swooped down to make sure I didn’t die!”
“I am real, Trey.” She picked up her yoga pants. “And human and fallible. I make mistakes all the time. One of them might be getting involved with you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I said might.” She pulled on her pants. “The jury’s still out on the question. But my initial impression, when I heard you calling out for your girlfriend, Cassie, was that you were a romantic soul who needed to find an equally romantic soul.” She located her jacket on the floor.
He wanted to argue with her about being a romantic, but he thought she could be right. Who else but a romantic would have an angel wing tattooed on his arm? Who else would write a song about the angel who had saved him, and then actually perform it for other folks?
So, if they were ever going to have a future, which seemed less likely now than it had five minutes ago, she’d have to accept that about him. “Maybe I am a romantic guy,” he said. “If I have that tendency, I’ve tried to downplay it because I sensed that wouldn’t impress you.”
“You’ve got that right.” She zipped her jacket. “Sappy sentimentality doesn’t work for me.”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.” She scanned the floor looking for her shoes. “That was a little harsh.”
“It was a lot harsh. Is that how you see me? A sentimental sap?”
“No. At least not mostly.” She found the shoes. “We’ve had some good, honest sex that wasn’t sentimental at all. I’m on board with that. But when I discover that the angel’s wing on your arm represents me, I get worried. You’re expecting something from me that I’m not prepared to give.” She shoved her feet into the shoes.
“Yet.”
She whirled to face him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Don’t forget that I’ve made love to you, Elle. I’ve known you in a way that you may not even admit to yourself. There’s a depth of feeling you may not acknowledge, but I feel it. Damn it, I was there, holding you, and I felt it!”
She gazed at him. “You’re delusional.” Then she turned and walked out of his room, closing the door quietly behind her.
He wished she’d slammed it. That, at least, would have shown some fiery emotion. He knew she had it in her. He’d experienced it firsthand.
But she was willing to pretend that her ordered life had no room for that kind of passion. He scared her because he threatened to upset the careful image she’d created of how things should be.
He didn’t blame her for being confused. Although he had to read between the lines, he could guess that she’d been taught not to get attached to people or places. That might have been a by-product of being a kid with parents in the military, but he’d known others with that background and they weren’t so fiercely independent.
The clue might be her lack of interest in seeing her parents for Christmas. Hell, if he still had parents, he’d make damn sure he traveled to wherever they were. But she might have been taught through example to minimize the importance of family celebrations.
She’d told him that his emotional response to losing Cassie had kept her from maintaining contact. But although she tried to present herself as a person who didn’t need those messy emotions, her joyful response to hav**g s*x with him said otherwise. He suspected she was hungry for a deep personal connection.
Maybe she’d sensed that she was making one with him and had panicked. He could go after her, calm her down. Instead, he decided to sit tight and see if she could stay away. He was hoping that she couldn’t.
Chapter 10
ELLE HAD A bad feeling she’d overreacted. But she needed time to think, and she couldn’t think very well when in the presence of Trey’s magnificently nak*d body, especially decorated with that exceedingly sentimental tattoo. Thankfully no one was in the halls as she hurried back to her room.
Once there, she went to switch on her bedside lamp and changed her mind. Instead, she turned on her Christmas tree lights. Then she flopped down on her bed and lay there surrounded by the soft, multicolored glow.
It reminded her of a Christmas many years ago, one she’d spent with her parents in Germany. She’d been in third grade, so she would have been eight. She’d begged for a tree that year, as she had every year.
They’d never had one, or even much in the way of decorations. Her mother had insisted that hauling ornaments around from place to place was ridiculous. Neither was she willing to buy new ones each time and discard them when they moved, because that would be wasteful.
When her mom hadn’t budged that year, either, Elle had used money she’d been saving for a bike and bought a tree, a stand and ornaments. It hadn’t been a very big tree, but she’d put it up in a fit of rebellion, determined that she’d enjoy the heck out of it.
That hadn’t been easy when her parents had both made her feel silly for doing such a thing. They’d acted as if the tree was a nuisance, and she’d been told to take it down the day after Christmas. Putting it up and taking it down by herself had been a lot of work, and when they’d moved, her parents hadn’t wanted to take the ornaments. In the end, she’d given them to a friend at school.
She’d always assumed her parents, especially her mother, were simply being practical. Now she wondered if that was the whole story. Neither of them made a big deal out of anything tradition-oriented, come to think of it. Not birthdays or anniversaries, either.
Elle had accepted their lack of interest in celebrating, along with the idea that wasting time and money on such things made no sense. They would laugh if they knew Pam Mulholland had rented out an entire ski resort for her wedding to Emmett Sterling. Elle saw something of her parents’ attitude in Emmett.
What a shame it would have been if he’d succeeded in ruining this for his fiancée. Elle had always identified with the Emmett Sterlings of the world, but tonight, to her surprise, she found herself siding with Pam. If a sixty-something woman wanted to use her money to celebrate marrying the man she loved, why not?
How all that tied in with Trey was unclear right now, but Elle would go to the wedding. She was very interested in seeing how Emmett adjusted to his bride’s need to mark the occasion with public joy and extravagance. And Elle would dance with Trey if he still wanted her to. With that thought, she left the Christmas lights on, which was completely impractical and wasteful, and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY she estimated that she’d probably spent more time dressing for the wedding than the bride herself. Because she traveled between Jackson Hole and Argentina every year, she kept her wardrobe simple. Yet she wanted to look good. No, not just good. She wanted to look amazing.
That left her with one choice―a cobalt-blue, knee-length jersey dress that could be dressed up or down. Today’s event called for dressing it up, so she added a hammered silver necklace with large, irregularly shaped links, and earrings with the same type of asymmetrical loops. Her open-toed silver stilettos hardly ever came out of the closet, but now was the time.
She’d spent a good twenty minutes on her makeup, and she’d piled her hair on top of her head and secured it with several rhinestone hairpins. The glitter might be a bit much for an afternoon wedding, but she expected the reception to last into the night. She rummaged through her drawers and found the silver clutch she’d bought to match the stilettos.
Her small, utilitarian room didn’t have a full-length mirror, so she could only see herself from her h*ps up. That much looked okay, so she’d assume the rest passed muster, too. As she walked down the stairs and into the guest area of the resort, she realized the dress code for a ranch foreman’s wedding might be Western formal. Oh, well. She didn’t own anything that fit that description.
The mellow sound of guitar music beckoned her to the room where the wedding was being held. Her stomach churned at the thought of seeing Trey again. Their night together hadn’t ended well, mostly because of her.
He hadn’t tried to contact her since then, even though they had each other’s cell numbers. She’d reminded herself that he was no doubt busy with wedding activities, but that argument didn’t wash. He was the guitarist for the ceremony and the reception, not a member of the wedding party.
That meant he could have texted or called this morning. He hadn’t, but then she hadn’t contacted him, either. Frankly, she didn’t know what to say. She still worried that he’d created a fantasy that she could never live up to.
When she thought of him having his arm tattooed to commemorate her rescuing him, she shivered. Getting tattooed hurt, or so she’d been told. Maybe he’d done it after several shots of hard liquor, but still. He’d subjected himself to the process in her honor.
She didn’t know what to do with that information. Her parents, the people who’d given her life, hadn’t done much of anything for her major life events. Graduations were taken in stride, and when she’d won skiing competitions, they’d phoned to say it was nice. No flowers, no card.
Trey had allowed someone to stick needles under his skin and permanently alter his appearance because he believed she deserved to be honored. Not her, exactly, but the idea of her, the angelic vision he carried of that rescue. The guy was adorable, and wow, could he do the horizontal mambo, but the tattoo thing was intense.
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Even so, she yearned to see him, to be with him, to hold him close. He was Trey, the sexy guy who’d given her orgasms she wasn’t likely to forget anytime soon. He was also fun, and caring and honest.... He could have lied to her about the tattoo. She gave him props for not doing that.
A sweet-looking redhead who couldn’t be more than eighteen sat at a table just inside the door with a guest book in front of her. She looked up when Elle approached. “What a gorgeous dress!”
“Thank you. I’m Elle Masterson. I’m a ski instructor here. I don’t know if Emmett had time to mention that he invited me, but I—”
“I know exactly who you are, Ms. Masterson.” Her blue eyes shone with excitement. “You’re the lady who rescued Trey Wheeler.” The girl held out her hand. “I’m Cassidy O’Connelli. My sister Morgan is married to Gabe Chance, and my sister Tyler is married to Alex Keller. You gave Alex and Gabe ski lessons yesterday. Everyone had a blast!”
“Good! I didn’t see you out there yesterday. Don’t you like to ski?”
“I’ve never tried it, but I might tomorrow. Pam needed me to help her with a few things, and that was fine with me. I love weddings. I’m apprenticing to be the new housekeeper at the Last Chance. You should come and visit.”