A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain #1)(43)

“You are relevant,” Callie insists, setting a stack of plates and a pile of napkins down beside the bakery bag. “You run this place.”

“In a hands-on way, yes, but I don’t write the leasehold contracts. Thank God. Now, speaking of hands-on, after we stuff muffins in our faces, we have forty torches to assemble. I brought the paper, the punches, and the scissors. Be careful not to cut yourself, Callie.”

“That was one time. And you’re changing the subject.” Callie takes a bite of her muffin and watches me intently. “Did Reed go to the meetings?”

It’s such a clumsy attempt to bring up Reed that I practically roll my eyes. “I think so.” I retrieve a muffin from the bag and take a big bite.

Reed did, in fact, go to the legal review meeting, after a goodbye kiss that ranked a seven on the Richter scale. I’m doing my best to act like my normal self right now, but it’s a struggle. My head isn’t in the game this morning. It’s back in bed with Reed.

Last night was outrageous. We were up for hours, reprising the same kind of urgent, sweaty sex we’d had when we were young.

Now I feel exhausted and vulnerable. And my friends are circling like seagulls.

“Did you two fool around?” Raven asks. “We’re dying, here.”

I’m saved from answering as the door is flung open to admit Halley. “Oooh, Black Diamond muffins? Got an extra one?”

“Maybe,” Raven says. “But only if you help us set up the candle torches. And help us interrogate Ava.”

Halley winces as she removes her coat. “Go easy on Ava. Hardy just told me that Reed’s girlfriend flew in last night, and Reed sent her luggage up to the Vista Suite.”

“What?” Raven gasps as all eyes turn to me.

“God, Ava, are you okay?” Callie squeaks.

I groan into my coffee cup, because mountain gossip is swift and brutal. This place is like a small town on meth. “Guys, I haven’t even processed everything that’s happened to me in the last seventy-two hours. This kind of attention doesn’t give me any space to get my thoughts in order.”

“But I need to know whether to accidentally pour too much bitters into his drinks,” Halley insists.

I sigh. “In the first place, you shouldn’t listen to gossip. I mean—Hardy’s facts are essentially correct, except he missed the part where Reed’s ex stayed in the Vista Suite alone while Reed stayed with me.”

A happy gasp escapes from the crew. “That’s why you look so exhausted!” Callie shrieks. “You were up all night having wild monkey sex with the second hottest Madigan!”

My face bums brightly, but I seize on this opportunity to change the subject. “Second hottest? Who’s in first place?”

“Weston,” Callie says with a shrug. “I met him once, the night before he left the mountain. That man is scorching.”

“Let’s get back to the monkey sex,” Halley says. “I thought you were hungover, but now I think you’re just tired.”

“I do feel hungover,” I admit. “I have the same spacy head and muzzy thoughts that too much of an intoxicating substance can bring you.”

“Except the intoxicating substance, in this case, is Reed Madigan?” Raven asks.

“Right,” I say quietly. “He has always been my biggest weakness. I let myself get swept away by him again last night. At the time, it all seemed big and important. As if closure was a thing I could ever have.”

“He’s still your guy,” Raven says gently. “You never got over him.”

“Hey—it’s not that I don’t want to. At least we’ve finally aired some things out. We’ve talked a lot.”

“In between rounds.” Halley snickers. “How’s his stamina?”

“Oh, geez.” I drop my face in my hands. “That would be TMI.”

Everyone laughs, and I might as well accept that my face is going to be permanently stained this shade of pink. Reed’s stamina is still as top notch as it had been when he was a twenty-two-year-old athlete. And my acting skills aren’t great. “The next time we’re in the same room together, I’ll probably start drooling on myself.”

“And when will that be?” Callie asks. “After the Madigans sign the sale agreement, is Reed going back to California?”

“Yes,” I say with evident misery. “He has a whole life there. And I’m finally going to run this place, like I’ve wanted to.”

My friends are quiet for a moment. Callie picks up one of the cute little paper bags I’ve brought to make the torches. She picks up the punch and starts making holes in the bag for the light to shine through.

We do this every year—we ski down the mountain in formation on opening weekend with resort guests watching our lit up-parade. The high school band plays, and there’s hot cider and cocoa and wood-fired pizza. It’s one of the mountain rituals I’ve come to love.

But Reed wants no part of it anymore. He hasn’t wavered on that point. Soon he’ll go back to California, and that’s all there is to it.





Later that morning, the front desk gets a weekend cancelation for a top-tier room—the Colorado Suite. I quickly reserve it under Reed’s name.