It Started with a Kiss (A Sequoia Lake Novel) Read online

  It seemed Dale had skipped the invite, choosing to honor his son’s life with Harris and some of his buddies instead. Didn’t stop to think that making the trip with Ty might lead to some kind of understanding. Then again, understanding required an honest conversation, something Ty and his dad had never seemed to reach. For as long as Ty could remember, his dad was more interested in talking about who he wanted Ty to be instead of who Ty really was.

  The difference now was Ty had found some kind of peace with who he was, and now he wanted to find the same acceptance with who he’d been.

  “He said you were working that mudslide in Santa Barbara—didn’t want to bother you.”

  “I would have come,” Ty pointed out.

  “I know you would have. But I also knew that they needed every hand they could get for that rescue. They were even pulling guys in from Reno and Portland.”

  Ty let out a deep breath. “Yeah, this time of year I can barely get a weekend off.”

  “Yet you’re here.”

  He was there all right, and not for a vacation. “Lance Meyers was the representative sent on behalf of Cal-SAR to oversee SAREX. My dad didn’t have a thing ready for the meeting.”

  Harris stilled, his eyes going into Oh shit circles. Fitting since this was an Oh shit moment of epic proportions. “Isn’t SAREX in two months?”

  “Yup.” SAREX, the annual Northern California Search and Rescue intensive training, was a huge moneymaker for the lodge, bringing in specialized teams from all over the state. Hundreds of extreme first responders came to train, learn new skills, and enjoy the mountains. Sequoia Lake Lodge had been the host for the past fifty years, and it had gained them a lot of recognition in the S&R community. That combined with the local Type 1 terrain attracted adrenaline junkies from around the world and made Sequoia Lake Lodge the premier destination in extreme adventures.

  “By the time Lance called to let me know about the botched meeting,” Ty continued, thankful that Lance, a friend from the academy, had thought to call him, “his boss, needing to know if they should move the training to a new location, had already sent an inspector out to see if the lodge was up to code.” Ty blew out a breath. “We failed the inspection, by the way. But based on the history with the lodge—and me—Lance said he’d give us some time to make the upgrades and he’d send an inspector back out. I figured if Lance was calling me, it must be bad, so I took a personal leave.”

  If they lost SAREX and word got around that they’d failed a safety inspection, it could be a huge hit to the lodge—and the community who relied on the tourists for their economy. He owed Lance big-time.

  And Ty hated owing anyone anything.

  “How long did they give you?” Harris asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?” Harris laughed as if Ty were delusional. “I take it your mom didn’t fill you in much on what’s going on.”

  A knot formed somewhere between his ribcage and his stomach, and then it started twisting. “Just that ski season had been rough and they’d hired some extra help to get the lodge back in order for SAREX.”

  Harris gave a low whistle. “Man, you must be slipping with the ladies.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “First your mom gave some BS story about hiring new help, and you believed her, even though you know Dale is a tight-ass when it comes to outsiders working in his lodge. And second, the girl next door, who has no game, zero”—his hands made a zero—“just played you.”

  “She wasn’t playing me.” Ty picked up the Flaming Pig’s Ass and took a hearty swallow, grinning like an idiot even as the liquid burned him inside out. “That’s what flirting looks like, in case you forgot in your old age.”

  “You’re two years my senior,” Harris said, picking up an empty mug and pouring himself a beer, sans the shot from hell.

  “You haven’t seen the flip side of nine o’clock in over a year.”

  The ass just grinned, so genuine and content a part of Ty prickled with jealousy. “When you share breakfast every morning at five with the prettiest girl in the world, giving up beers with the guys isn’t all that much of a sacrifice.”

  “No arguments from me.” Ty lifted his glass, because if he had a pint-sized pixie like his goddaughter, Emma, looking at him like he hung the moon, he would probably trade in late nights with the guys too.

  Harris clinked rims. “Good, I’ll let Emma know you’ll be over bright and early for pancakes tomorrow. She keeps asking when Uncle TyTy will be back so you can watch that Frozen DVD you bought her for Christmas.”

  Ty groaned at the thought of hearing that soundtrack one more time, but he couldn’t keep the smile from creeping in. Emma was damn cute. He’d missed the little tyke. And with her mom out of the picture, Ty didn’t mind watching her princess movies with her.

  Not that he wanted a family of his own—more people to be responsible for. But he understood why other people needed that. The love, the connection, the belonging. That kind of vulnerability wasn’t someplace Ty was interested in visiting again.

  Ever.

  “Oh, and in case those beach babes and eternal spring-break hookups are clouding your judgment,” Harris said, “what happened a second ago wasn’t flirting. That was kissing a stranger or some kind of girls’ night out BS small-town ladies do for entertainment.”

  Ty opened his mouth to argue but then realized Harris was right. The lipstick innuendo on his window, the bull, and that kiss . . .

  “Well, shit.”

  He’d been played. He was probably some kind of scavenger hunt item to be checked off and giggled about by a bunch of hot ladies during their next wine tasting.

  “I’ll give her the weekend to gloat.” Ty sat back, knowing by the Sequoia Lake Lodge employee logo on her shirt that he’d see her Monday.

  “You sure about that?” Harris asked. “This is Sequoia Lake—by tomorrow it will be all over town, and come Monday your mom will be inviting her to dinner.”

  “I don’t think I have to worry about that,” Ty said with confidence. Avery didn’t seem the type to gossip lightly. Plus, once she learned who Ty’s mom was, he doubted she’d want to tangle with that. “Monday is soon enough. I know where she works.”

  Harris looked over the rim of his beer. “She know where you work?”

  “Exactly my point.” Because come Monday when he called a staff meeting at the lodge and started cleaning up the mess his father had created, she’d figure it out.

  Too bad fooling around with his employees was not how he operated. Because he might have found the one thing that could have made his stay a little more enjoyable.

  “To you coming home.” Harris held up his beer.

  “To Garrett.”

  “I can’t believe he did that. In front of everyone,” Grace Mills, the town’s self-appointed hall monitor and one of Avery’s best friends at Living for Love, gasped, brushing a bold red streak down the middle of her flowerpot, making it look artsy.

  “It wasn’t in front of everyone,” Avery explained, making the exact same stroke on the exact same spot on her flowerpot. Only instead of a statement, it looked like she’d cut her finger and bled all over her project.

  It was the last Sunday of the month, which meant the ladies of Living for Love had gathered to work on their community projects. This year the group was making Love Blooms, hand-painted terracotta flowerpots filled with blooming bulbs to be delivered to long-term hospitals in the area. The idea was to bring a little sunshine to an otherwise sterile existence.

  Avery had once been the recipient of a Love Bloom, and she was beyond honored to pay it forward and brighten someone else’s day.

  Sips and Splatters, the local art school and wine bar that Grace managed, had agreed to help with the project, and she invited them to their famous Monet and Martinis class. While a few of the ladies were there for the art lessons, the majority showed up for the free martinis and bottomless gossip. Because when the ladies of Living for Love
had an “outing,” everyone’s prattle was fair play.

  And Avery had done her share of playing this weekend—with the hot stranger she’d met on the ice-slickened street. But since that wasn’t the “he” her friend was referring to, she ignored her tingling lips and said, “It was just the gift shop girl, and Dale only expressed his concern that me taking out such a large group for my first solo trek might be too risky.”

  “Too risky?” Grace plopped her brush in the jar of water. “The only thing you’re in risk of with that group is Mr. Fitz wanting you to hold his pole.”

  “Dale is cautious,” Avery said with a smile as if the act alone would diminish her disappointment that the experience she needed to hike Sierra Point was that much farther out of reach.

  Dale was known as having the toughest guidelines of any lodge in the Sierras. He knew better than anyone how deadly those mountains could be. And Avery wasn’t asking him to make an exception to the rule—she just wanted the same rules to apply to everyone.

  Since being hired on, two other coordinators had been tapped, trained, and promoted to guides. Sure, they both had prior climbing and survival experience, but Avery was a fast learner, yet she couldn’t even get Dale to agree to a start date for her training. “I lack the skills and experience.”

  “Skills?” Grace snorted. “What kind of skills does one need to babysit a bunch of old retired men while they compare fish stories?”

  “Dale just wants to make sure I’m ready before I take on my first solo trek.”

  “Do you feel ready?” Olivia Preston asked as she walked up behind them, drops of evening mist still clinging to her coat from the outside. Olivia was the newest member of Living for Love and the third bestie in their trio.

  Avery considered this, thought through every skill she’d need to possess to handle a simple fishing hike with a group of seniors. “I think so.”

  “Then get yourself to a place that you know so and tell him you’re ready.”

  “And if he disagrees?”

  “Then agree to disagree, because unless you want to go back to living in a bubble, you’ve got to fight,” Liv said, shrugging out of her coat. “And if he’s still being stubborn and can’t see past the sick woman you once were, well, then send him my way.”

  Liv was one of the top nurses at Mercy General. Known for her nurturing bedside manner, her attention to detail, and most importantly, her ability to cut to the heart of the problem, she would convince Dale to listen to reason.

  “And if that doesn’t work,” Grace said as she took Avery’s brush and extended the lines of the red blob, making it into a beautiful redbird, “get creative.”

  Right, that whole don’t wait for permission mantra she’d adopted. Easy in theory, but hard in application for a woman who’d spent her entire life waiting. On tests, on doctors, on her name to rise to the top of the list.

  After the transplant had taken, Avery had to wait in that recovery room for three months until a panel of experts told her she could finally go home. Even then, she’d been given a list of approved food and drink and activities.

  Now she could finally plan a life past her lab results. She just needed to remind people of that.

  “Be assertive. Fight. Get creative. Got it,” she said.

  She might not have convinced Dale to let her take out Senior X-Treme or earned that princess crown for Caroline, but she was making steady progress. Her energy was slow coming and she still bruised easily, but she’d gained back a few pounds and her skin was looking less pasty, plus she’d spent most of yesterday filling out page six in her memory journal—making one more person’s final wish a reality.

  Avery’s wish had been that her dear friend Bella was with her so she could tell her that kissing a stranger in the heat of the moment led to the exact kind of heart-fluttering and soul-melting magic Bella had dreamed of. That two days had passed and Avery’s heart was still feeling the aftershocks.

  Or maybe it was her blood pressure still stabilizing. Either way, she placed a hand over her heart to keep it steady, then set the brush in the water jar and grabbed a martini. Even with her kidney 2.0 she couldn’t drink the whole thing, but a sip wouldn’t kill her. “Who knew living loud could be so”—exciting, thrilling, mind-blowing—“overwhelming.”

  “It’s the pushover part that gets me,” Grace said, taking a martini of her own.

  “Tell me about it.” Liv slid into her seat, and bypassing the art project altogether, she went straight for a martini—fisting two. “I spent that past hour negotiating with a five-year-old over the importance of eating your broccoli.”

  Grace and Avery exchanged looks.

  “Don’t judge,” Liv said. “It’s the rules of Mom’s night out.”

  “Funny, I thought we were here for our monthly Living for Love craft night.” Grace waved her paintbrush in the air as proof.

  “I believe the invitation said ‘Monet and Martinis.’” Liv held up her glass. “Plus, I ate all of my broccoli. Now tell me why he said no so we can figure out how to get him to say yes.”

  “He didn’t technically say no,” she said, and Grace coughed something that sounded a lot like bullshit. “Okay, he also didn’t say yes. He said when I’ve had the proper training we can talk.”

  “Oh, he’s good.” Liv leaned back in her chair, her lips twitching with irritation—and admiration. “That is some serious parenting skills right there. I tried that with Paxton tonight. ‘You can have dessert after you finish your greens.’ It still took a few gags, a convincing argument about green foods equating to green poop, and a story about some boy who grew hair on his chest from eating green things, but he finished every last speck.”

  Huh, Avery might need to take a lesson from little mister Paxton. A whole hour? She had caved in two seconds flat.

  “Then he said instead of dessert, he wanted a hamster.”

  “I thought he wanted a dog,” Avery said.

  “Until I told him a dog was a lot of responsibility, and maybe when he’s bigger.”

  “Saying no without saying no,” Grace said. “Smart.”

  “That kid’s smarter. We tracked his height for over a week, and when he realized that the line hadn’t moved, he pointed out that a hamster is smaller than him, and he’s even big enough to carry the cage.”

  “How did that go?” Avery asked, her cheeks a little hot at the realization that Dale had used the same trick and—unlike Paxton—she’d fallen for it.

  “I told him he made a valid point and I’d look into it, and then I gave him a second helping of dessert.” Liv shrugged. “Mommy misdirection at its finest. Making a promise with no expiration and distracting him with a treat.”

  “But that’s what this new year is all about, remember?” Grace said, pointing her brush at Liv. “Eight months ago we sat in that awful hospital room, waiting on Avery’s doctor to read the verdict, and we made a pact. We said no matter the results we weren’t going to let fear and heartache hold us back from living.”

  “I know, and a hamster sounds like an easy first step, right?” Liv let out a long, tired sigh. The kind of sigh that went soul deep and ached to release. “Did you know they only live a few years? Opening my heart up to a cute little critter that has the life expectancy of snow tires isn’t something either one of us is ready for.”

  Last year, after Liv’s husband was killed in a snowstorm, she’d relocated with her five-year-old son to Sequoia Lake and took a nursing job at Mercy General, where she and Avery met. Without family of her own nearby, Liv hoped being near her in-laws would help with the healing. But when his parents, unable to live among the memories, decided to relocate to Palm Beach, Liv bought their house—and Avery brought her to Living for Love.

  Since then the three had been inseparable.

  “How do you know you’re not ready if you don’t try?” Grace said.

  “And what if I get the hamster, he dies, Paxton goes back into that silent place where I can’t even reach him, and I realize
, whoops, we weren’t ready? What then?”

  “You try again,” Grace said, her voice thick with compassion and understanding. “Every loss ached until I thought I would pass out from the pain, but I never regretted opening my heart up to the possibility of love.”

  Powerful words coming from a woman who had lost more than any one person should be able to lose and still smile. But Grace always smiled, even when her body rejected every attempt at expanding her family—which ultimately cost Grace her marriage. “Maybe this is Paxton’s way of telling you he’s ready to try love again.”

  “Maybe,” Liv said quietly, but Avery didn’t think her friend would be opening up her heart anytime soon.

  Avery had taken a step, a huge one, and her head was still swimming at the memory. “I fulfilled one of the wishes in my living memory journal this weekend.”

  Liv’s eyes went round. “You lived out someone’s wish?”

  “And you waited this long to tell me?” Grace sounded about as upset as a kid at Disneyland.

  “I wanted to wait until you were both here.” Avery looked around to make sure all of the busybodies were busy painting, then lowered her voice. “Also, because I didn’t want to broadcast it.”

  “Oh my God,” Grace said. “You’re blushing, which means it was a juicy one. Was it birthday-suit BASE jumping?”

  “No,” Liv said. “Her doctor hasn’t cleared her to do physical activity that could bruise the kidney.”

  Plus, BASE jumping was Avery’s dream, and the purpose of her journal was to live out other people’s wishes for them when they were no longer able to.

  “Wait.” Liv snapped her fingers. “She streaked naked through town with Hugh Jackman.”

  “Nope.” Avery still wasn’t sure how she was going to pull that off, but she would figure something out to make that wish happen. “And what’s up with people wanting to be naked all the time?”

  “It’s called foreplay, which leads to sex,” Liv said as if she were getting some regularly.

  “We should all try it again sometime,” Grace said, and they all laughed.

  It felt good to laugh, and it felt even better to say, “It wasn’t sex, but it did include a hot stranger.”