had struggled for four years to pay her tuition to private boarding school. Even the partial scholarship she’d received hadn’t provided much relief.
Lucky for him, she had inherited her mother’s quick intellect and had graduated early, earning a full academic scholarship to college. Medical school had been her responsibility.
But perhaps worse than the financial debt had been the emotional distance the separation had created between father and daughter. A distance they had never completely recovered from. Kylie regretted that more than any debt she had inherited.
She watched as a smile touched the corners of Michael’s mouth, deepening the interesting grooves that etched the sides of his lean cheeks.
She noted the rough, unshaven line of his jaw, a look that gave him a slightly dangerous edge. It touched off a strange sensation in her, almost as if she were thirteen again and crushing on him from afar.
Impatient, she pushed the feeling aside. No way was she going back to that place. Too much adolescent angst in there. She’d grown past all of that. Or at least she thought she had.
“You used to hang out with Gracie Greenley, right?” He cocked his head and his smile took on a teasing twist to one corner. “If I’m remembering correctly, the two of you used to climb trees and spy on us older kids. And you were the one who was always falling out of trees or tripping over rocks. Nikki Greenley was always calling you klutz, right?”
Wonderful. Why was it that when you met someone from your childhood they always remembered the embarrassing moments? Why the hell couldn’t he have remembered her as having great legs or a devastating smile? Blood rushed up the sides of her neck.
“Yeah, that was me.”
He studied her for a moment, and she saw a flash of something close to regret enter his eyes. “We were a pretty self-centered bunch of yahoos back then, weren’t we?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, you have to admit that you and Gracie were pretty relentless in your pursuit of us. Nikki hated it when her little sister turned up. I think she saw Gracie as cramping her style.”
“I guess everyone feels that way about their younger siblings.” Kylie shrugged. “But we only wanted to hang out with the cool kids.”
“Oh, so you’re saying that we were the cool kids, huh?”
The teasing note in his voice irritated her. Who was he kidding? Of course they’d been the cool kids. He knew that. Michael had been their leader, the instigator of all the wild, carefree parties out at the swimming hole. Parties she and Gracie would have died to have been invited to.
But Michael had always chased them off, telling them they were too young. That was until the night she and Gracie had wangled an invitation out of one of the younger boys who had taken pity on them. An invitation Kylie wished they had never accepted.
For a moment, fear tumbled around in the pit of her stomach. Would Michael want to talk about that night? Would he want to discuss how it had changed their lives?
She waited, but he turned away, glancing in the direction of her car.
“I suppose you’re here to clean out your father’s belongings.”
She nodded. “I need to get thing boxed up and into storage. The manager told me that the new caretaker will be moving into the cottage sometime next week.”
A stiff breeze whipped down the center of the road and sent chunks of snow flying off the branches of the pines. A hefty clump landed on her right shoulder and several icy chunks slid down the back of her neck. Kylie shivered.
Michael slipped off his glove and casually brushed the snow off the back of her neck. The warmth of his fingers against her cold skin sent a shiver rocketing through her, and she knew her reaction had nothing to do with the coldness of the snow.
He glanced down at her, seeming to notice for the first time that her body was racked with chills. “Why don’t we get out of this cold and into the warmth of the car. You can give me a lift up to the lodge. But I’ll drive.”
“I think I can manage to drive my own car,” she protested.
“No doubt. But try humoring me. I’m a man and I like to feel in control.”
“You should work on that,” Kylie grumbled, even though she’d already decided not to argue.
She opened the hatch of the Civic, and he shoved his damaged skis into the back end, slamming the trunk shut. She opened the passenger’s side door with numb fingers and climbed in.
The heat blasting out of the vents poured over her body and she breathed a sigh of relief. The ice in her veins started to melt.
The driver’s side door opened and he threw his ski hat onto the console between them. Expensive with a prominent gold logo on the band and a thick, tight knit to keep out the cold. Only the best for Michael Emerson.
“I’ll pay for the skis of course,” she said as he slipped behind the wheel and eased the car into Low. “You’ll have to let me know how much I owe you.”
“No need for that. They were an old pair. I have others.”
She was fairly certain he did. Many others. But replacing the skis was a matter of principle to her.
“I’d still like to pay you. The accident was my fault.”
He laughed, the sound rich and deep. “You’re right, it was. So if you have a real need to repay me, I’ll settle for a drink when we get to the lodge. Preferably something strong enough to take the chill off.”
“I think I can manage that.”
She didn’t add that she was only too aware that hanging out in the bar of the Cloudspin, no matter how empty the place was this time of the year, wasn’t something that an employee or a member of their family did. She made a note to herself to send him a nice bottle of wine when she got back to civilization.
His hands, large and capable, gripped the wheel with ease, and she found herself shooting quick glances in his direction, studying his profile and attempting to connect her memories of the arrogant teenager with the man who now sat next to her.
He’d grown up with an easy confidence, a sense of entitlement that only the rich seemed to master.
Not that any of that surprised Kylie. Eleven years ago, when other teens she knew had fumbled and stammered their way through adolescence, Michael had breezed through with ease.
At eighteen, he had commanded the undivided attention of all the females around him, young and old alike. The women had swarmed around him like anxious bees to honey, fluttering and buzzing for his attention.
Not that Michael had shown any indication that he was bothered by all that fluttering. He’d taken it in stride. Even back then, rumors about his sexual escapades had ripped through the employees like wildfire.
But in spite of how she’d felt about his youthful behavior, Kylie kept track of him over the years, and his high profile career in photography and adventure sports had made it a relatively easy undertaking. He’d become a media darling.
