A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain #1)(3)

“Uh, yes.” I haven’t given much thought to where I’ll sleep tonight. When your family owns a ski resort, you don’t have to plan ahead. It’s only November, so there’s no way the place is booked.

I suppose I could sleep in my old bedroom if I have to. Although my father just got remarried to a stranger, so I don’t know if that’s my best option.

“Name, sir?” the young man asks. He holds out his hand for my rental car key.

I let out a snort and toss him the fob. “The name is Reed Madigan. Thanks, pal.”

He makes the catch in spite of the shocked look on his face. “Whoa, really?”

But I’m already turning my back and headed for the door to the lodge. My father had better be in his office. We’ve got some talking to do.





CHAPTER 2




LESS DANCING AND MORE SNOW





AVA

How about trivia night at the Broken Prong? I text to my girlfriends. It’s been a few weeks since we made the other tables cry.

I don’t have a babysitter, Callie replies. Could we do drinks at my place? I’ll make frosé.

Sure, I reply immediately.

I’m sorry! Callie says. I know it’s more fun to get off the mountain!

She isn’t wrong. I spend entirely too many hours on this property. I haven’t had a real vacation in years. That’s the first thing I’m going to do when the sale of Madigan Mountain goes through—book a trip somewhere and put my two-week vacation on the calendar. It doesn’t matter where, just as long as I’m not responsible for calling a plumber if a pipe breaks or soothing a finicky guest when all the spa appointments are booked up.

In the meantime, Tuesday night is always girls’ night, no exceptions. And it wouldn’t be the same without Callie. Don’t worry about it, I assure her. We always have fun. What can I bring?

How about brownies? Callie suggests.

Then our friend Raven chimes in. I love Ava’s brownies! And so do my hips. I’m down for frozen pink wine at Callie’s.

“Ava!” my boss calls from the inner office. “Can you make my keys sing? I can’t find them!”

“Yep!” I yell back. “Hang on.” I wake up my computer and pull up the app I use to keep Mark Madigan organized. I hit a big orange button on the screen, and a moment later I hear the telltale chime of the hotelier’s keys in the other room.

“Found ’em!” he yells.

Of course he did. I pick up my hot chocolate mug and drain the last of my afternoon treat. In the text thread, Raven has sent us a funny gif of a woman drinking wine from a fishbowl. So I’m grinning down at my phone when a deep voice says. “Excuse me, is he in there?”

Before I can even look up, my heart skips a beat. That voice. It’s straight from my past. And by the time I turn my head to find him in the doorway, I’m already trembling.

Holy crap.

Holy.

Crap.

Reed Madigan is standing there. Right there on the carpet in front of my desk. I’m so startled that my hot chocolate mug slips out of my hands. It hits the slate coaster on my desk hard, and at a bad angle. And then my favorite mug—my lucky mug—makes an unholy cracking noise, before splitting into two pieces right in front of me.

Oh my God. Now I don’t even know where to look—at the ooze of chocolate spreading toward my keyboard? Or up into the startled eyes of the only man I’ve ever loved.

“Ava?” Reed says slowly. Like he can’t believe his eyes, either. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. So I’m just stuck here, staring at him with a flattened heart and a spinning mind. Although I’m not too startled to notice that Reed looks good. That dark wavy hair is just as thick as ever. And I’d forgotten how the dark scruff on his face accentuates the chiseled line of his jaw.

But a few details are new and unexpected—like the hipster glasses, which only accentuate his big, dark eyes. His navy suit and crisp, white shirt with a deep green tie are a far cry from the flannel shirts he wore when he was a college boy. The effect is much more stern, and also expensive.

Jesus Christ, that is just not fair. He looks hotter at thirty-two than he did at twenty-two.

That’s how old he was the last time I saw him—when he dumped me just before my February graduation from Middlebury College in Vermont.

“Ava,” he clips. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

The unfriendly tone makes me die a little inside. But it also snaps me out of my haze. Ten years—that’s how long it’s been. My anger for him is like hot coals—toasty and dormant, but ready to flame up again. “I’m working,” I say sharply. “This is my desk.”

I try to bring the two halves of my mug together again. As if that would actually work. But my mind is full of static.

“Working,” he repeats slowly, as if I’d been speaking a language that’s new to him. “Here?”

“Here,” I say firmly. As if it’s perfectly normal to move to the tiny town where your ex grew up and take a job working with his father.

“For how long?” he demands, crossing his arms in front of a chest that’s even broader than it used to be back when we used to rip each other’s clothes off.