it to her boot, as she sagged against the wall one legged, like a depressed flamingo. He almost laughed but thought better of it. Laughing would make her only more furious and he didn’t want to chance her breaking her good heel on his foot. She wobbled a little, biting her lip in frustration. She ducked down and tried to unzip the broken-heeled boot, but balancing on one stiletto in a small corridor with no good handholds made her less like a flamingo and more like an amateur athlete stuck on the end of a pole midvault.
“Al…” He leaned in now, close enough to get a whiff of her amazing perfume, the signature floral scent that always used to drive him mad. She smelled like the Rockies in springtime, all in bloom beneath the Colorado sunshine. “Please,” he said with deliberate deference. He reached out and touched her elbow. Instantly, her wobble steadied. “Let me help.”
She glanced up at him, an unanswered question in her emerald green eyes. He knew he wouldn’t be able to strong-arm her any more than he could tell daffodils where to grow.
“Please, Al.”
She softened a bit. Fairly confident she wouldn’t try to stick her good stiletto in his eye, he knelt before her and helped her unzip the broken boot, her delicate foot slipping out, revealing sheer lace socks. His eyebrows rose in appreciation. Only Al could make socks sexy. He saw the bright green polish on her toes and thought of her eyes. Still kneeling, he held her tiny foot on his knee, giving her a steady base, and tried not to think about the warmth of her toes against his jeans. He studied the shoe, and the heel that she wordlessly handed to him. He wasn’t sure if glue would work after all. Beck studied the slope of the boot’s sole, surprised to find it more like suede than leather, more pliable.
“Can I see the other one?” He reached for the good boot. She hesitated, but then let him, slipping her socked foot on the mat near the bathroom doors and raising her other foot. He slowly worked the zipper down the side, trying not to think about how he’d taken off her boots just this way…that night at the lodge. Boots…then jeans…then the delicate lace beneath. She stood very still, eyes watching his every move. He freed her from the second boot, and now she was standing in her lacy socks, her freshly painted green toes a beacon. He wanted to kiss them and stroke her calf all the way up to her knee. He watched as she shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“Floor cold?” he asked her, and she gave him a swift nod. He glanced around, seeing a stack of kitchen towels stashed in the shelves near the bathrooms. He grabbed a thick one and dropped it down near her feet. She tiptoed on the terry cloth delicately and stood there on the balls of her feet. He managed to divert his attention back to her boot in his hand. The good one. He’d put the broken one down on the floor. He straightened, as he studied the black suede boot, an idea coming to him. An idea she wouldn’t like, but that would help prevent her feet from freezing for the rest of the night.
He took the boot, which seemed so delicate and small in his hands, and quickly snapped the other heel off.
“What the hell!” cried Allie, her face beet red with anger. “Beck!”
“You can walk in these now and your feet won’t get cold,” he said, even as she gave his chest a shove. He tried to defend himself against her blows. “And calm down. I’ll buy you a new pair.”
She angrily swiped the boot out of his hand and jammed her foot in it. “I don’t need you to buy me anything.”
“I know,” he said. Allie could take care of herself, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t want to if she’d ever let him. Her head bounced up, a tendril of auburn hair falling across her forehead.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all.”
“So you break my shoe?”
“I evened the pair,” he managed. Now her ire was fully focused on him, the jerk at the bar long forgotten. Suddenly, the heel fiasco was all his fault, instead of the handsy SOB who’d started all this—or the wimpy bartender who couldn’t defend her even in his own place. “I didn’t want your feet freezing, or for you to fall and break your knee hobbling around like a pirate.”
She stuffed her other foot in the other boot and zipped it. They both glanced down at the flattened boots and saw her toes pointing oddly in the air. The once sexy ankle boots looked a bit like something that one of Santa’s elves might wear. Now Beck really did want to laugh. Hard. But he had to swallow his chuckle as she glared at her feet, exasperated.
“I look ridiculous now.”
Beck said nothing. She did, kind of, look ridiculous in her elf shoes. Not that any of the guys at this bar, or any other bar, would care. No man would be looking at her feet. She could wear a pair of stuffed bear paw slippers and still get hit on by every straight guy in the place.
Allie frowned, more tendrils of loose hair falling forward in her face, her bun all but coming undone. He wanted to put his hands in her hair and finish the job. He longed to see her face framed by the silken auburn streaked with red, wanted to feel that silky hair once more on his bare chest. He mentally shook himself. More thoughts like these and he’d have a hard-on in the bar, right there. And he’d promised himself: hands off Allie. Period.
“I don’t think your new boyfriend will care about the shoes, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Beck offered.
“Boyfriend?” Confusion crossed Allie’s face.
“The bartender?” Beck reluctantly nodded toward the bar, still not quite believing that the solidly below-average man was Allie’s choice to replace him.
“Him?” Allie laughed, confusing Beck. “He’s not my boyfriend. Any more than you are.”
The sting of the comment was surprisingly sharp. Beck blinked fast. “Sure seemed like you guys were friendly.”
Allie’s gaze focused on him with the intensity of a lion looking for the weak member of a pack.
“Were you watching me?” she asked, a note of accusation in her voice.
“Of course I was.” If she were in the room, then that was where his attention would be. Plain and simple. That hadn’t changed, might never change. “So you’re not dating him?”
Allie laughed. “The bartender? No.”
Relief flooded Beck. “Good.” That bartender couldn’t handle a woman like Allie. She was way out of his league.
“I don’t even know his name,” she added.
This felt like a punch in the gut. “You kissed a guy and you didn’t even know his name?” Beck felt like an alien had come down and taken over his friend’s body. She was not the make-out-with-strangers-in-a-bar type. Allie picked her lingerie with care, and her men with more deliberation. It was one of the things that made Allie…Allie. They’d spent enough time at enough happy hours to know how the other operated, enough time together lamenting the Aspen dating scene to know what made the other tick. It had been why they’d been such great friends. Until the blizzard that had snowed them in on top of the mountain and everything changed.
“Why?”
Allie shrugged. “Because Mira dared me to.”
“Dared you?” None of this made sense. “What the hell is that?”
Allie laughed. “I’m
