“No, but I can guess.”
“What? The investigation into Jasper Vanderhorn’s death? Did something come up after you and Sean got back last week and Nick decided to head to Vermont?”
“Not that I know of,” Hannah said. “Rose, I think Nick’s in Vermont because of you.”
She looked out the window but saw only her reflection against the black night. “Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“Does Sean have any idea?”
“Not a clue.”
Rose could sense her friend’s smile but wasn’t smiling herself. “Please don’t do anything that would jeopardize their friendship on my account.”
“That’s not your problem. You have to figure out what you want. Who you want. Nick and Sean live in a big world. Private planes, money.”
And women, Rose thought, but now she made herself smile. “Does that mean the prospect of bicoastal living in Vermont and California doesn’t scare Sean?”
Hannah laughed softly. “Not in the least.”
“What about you, Hannah? Does it scare you?”
“It did for about five minutes. Sean and I can make this work,” her friend said. “I’ve never been so happy. I hope you can be happy, too, Rose. No one deserves it more.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Easier said than done. But you should go. You must be exhausted.”
“Thanks. Say goodbye to Sean for me.”
Nick had stretched out on the couch, leaning back against pillows he’d arranged behind him. “This’ll work. Hurts less to sit up, and I’ve got a strategic view of the door should anyone else pay you a visit.”
“You’re not armed.”
“I could go find your snow shovel,” he said lightly, then nodded to a pair of her shoes by the fire. “Or I could throw one of your shoes. What are those things?”
“Waterproof running shoes. They’re good in the snow.” She felt hot, but was amused. “I can wear starlet high heels, you know. Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo. I can’t buy them in Black Falls, but I get to Boston on a regular basis. I know what they are.”
“Can you walk in four-inch heels?”
“Not on my driveway in the snow, but I could manage quite nicely at a Beverly Hills cocktail party. In fact, I have. Sean took me once.”
Nick was clearly unimpressed, as well as skeptical. “You’ve never worn four-inch heels in your life.”
She grinned. “All right, two inches.”
“Where would you wear heels around here?”
“More places than you obviously think. For instance, there’s a dance at the lodge during winter fest.”
“Hell, shoot me now.”
“Why, Nick Martini, what a snob you are.” Rose lifted a log out of the woodbox. “I don’t care if you’re a hotshot smoke jumper, you’re actually more Beverly Hills these days. I can see you waltzing into some cocktail party with a babe on each arm.”
He settled deeper into the pillows. “I might have a few pictures of me just like that.”
She set the log on its end on the stone hearth and lifted the lid on the top of the stove. “If I’m just one of the guys—some mountain woman in sensible shoes—why did you sleep with me?”
“We needed each other that night.”
He spoke softly, his tone even and unemotional, as if he were stating a simple, indisputable fact. Rose dropped the log on the fire, almost choking it out, and reached for the poker. “I know why I needed you,” she said, shifting the log, rekindling the flames. “Why did you need me?”
“You just asked and answered your own question.” His voice was steady, and she could feel his eyes on her. “I needed you because you needed me.”
She shut the lid on the fire and returned the poker to its rack. “That’s it, huh?”
“That’s it.”
She dusted bits of wood off her hands and turned around, feeling an immediate jolt at the unbridled sexiness of the man on her couch. His dark eyes, his flat stomach and long, muscular legs. She felt the heat of the fire behind her and decided it wasn’t helping. Moving away from the woodstove, she pushed back a faint sense of irritation at herself that she was still attracted to him.
She sat in her favorite knitting-and-DVD-watching chair. “Then why are you here now?”
He grinned at her. “Because my head hurts.”
“In Vermont, Nick. Why are you in Vermont?”
He glanced at the fire blazing behind the glass doors of the woodstove. “Unfinished business.”
The dim light from a floor lamp by the couch caught the raw scrape on the side of his head. As tough and accustomed to pain as he was, he nonetheless looked a little ragged and hurt, and he had to have a screaming headache. Rose knew she’d gone too far as it was. Did she really want to go further and press him about what he meant by “unfinished business”?
She launched herself to her feet and marched down to her bedroom, flipped on the overhead and pulled open her closet. She dug out a pair of dressy black heels. She’d worn them to an event Sean had dragged her to in Beverly Hills last summer. Did they just prove Nick’s point? They were heels, but they weren’t four-inch or expensive.
She shoved them back into her closet. “What am I doing?”
But she dug out a pair of nude-colored sling-backs with two-inch heels. She’d worn them to A.J. and Lauren’s wedding five years ago. They weren’t even close to sexy. They were…utilitarian.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the inside of her closet door. She’d changed into jeans and a dark burgundy sweater for dinner with her brother and sister-in-law. She hadn’t fooled with her hair—it looked okay, maybe a little wild. Of course she’d worn boots. It was winter.
Definitely not starlet material.
It wasn’t as if no one in Black Falls was. Lauren was elegant and beautiful, always perfectly, if simply, dressed for her days at the lodge. She had a natural sense of style. Hannah was pretty with her delicate features. Jo Harper, Elijah’s love, the Secret Service agent, had amazing turquoise eyes and that great copper hair.
Rose had never paid much attention to her appearance—well, she had. She just hadn’t done much about it. Spas, manicures, pedicures, hair treatments. They all took time and money she didn’t have. She’d been known to have her hair flop into her face, get irritated, grab scissors and hack off a hunk over the sink. One of her best friends from high school owned the one salon in town and would lament Rose’s self-cuts and recommend regular hair appointments. But how could she with her schedule?
Nick Martini had slept with her because she was there, and now he wanted to absolve himself of any guilt that would intrude on his friendship and business with Sean. That was all there was to it, and it wasn’t such a bad thing. She had to be smart and not set herself up for an emotional fall.
Or another night of hot sex with a man who’d walk away from her in the morning. They’d just had another adrenaline dump, and here they were—attracted to each other, restless, alone.
Who was she kidding?
Nick was a type A, mission-oriented man. He wasn’t in Black Falls because of her. He was in Vermont because he wanted answers. The possibility that Jasper’s death was linked to Lowell Whittaker was Nick’s only “unfinished business.”
Rose returned to the living room. Nick had pulled a knitted afghan over him. “Your handiwork?”
“Penny Hodges. She owns the only flower shop in town. She and my mother were friends. My dad used to say they spoiled Elijah.”
“Did they?”
“You’ve met Elijah,” she said, dropping back onto her chair, the fire bright orange inside the glass door. “He’s impossible to spoil.”
Nick crossed his ankles under the afghan. He’d taken off his boots, set them next to her snow sneakers. “You flew to Germany after he was wounded.”