The Man Most Likely. Cindi Myers
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player and snowboarder.
“Hey, Bryan! What’s up?” Chad, one of the crew members who helped with set construction, emerged from backstage and headed for them. He and Bryan bumped fists. “I been missing you on the slopes,” Chad said.
“I’ve been busy,” Bryan said.
“Yeah. I heard you were working at the hotel.” Chad shoved his hands in his pockets. “What’s up with that? I hear you’re even, like, a manager or something.”
Bryan flushed. “I have a degree in hotel management. Decided it was time I put it to good use.”
Chad laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d go over to the other side,” he said.
“What other side?” Angela asked.
“The suit-and-tie corporate side,” Chad said. “This guy—” he put his hand on Bryan’s shoulder “—was one of the slacker kings. He and his buddy Zephyr showed us all how it was done.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you gave up all that freedom for some job.”
Bryan shrugged off Chad’s hand. “I guess I figured it was time I grew up.”
“Oh, I’m wounded.” Chad clutched at his chest dramatically. “That hurts, bro.”
Bryan, a slacker? Angela considered the idea. It was true the picture his friends had painted didn’t exactly fit with the polished professional image he’d presented to her. The idea of him having this other side intrigued her.
“Rhiannon was asking about you at LoBar last night,” Chad said.
Rhiannon Michaels? Angela wondered. Chad had to be talking about the sleek, sexy siren pursued by half the men in town.
Bryan’s flush deepened, and Angela’s interest piqued. When Chad left and they were alone again, Angela decided to indulge her curiosity. “So you know Rhiannon,” she said.
“Yeah. We, uh, we dated for a while.”
That confirmed it, then. Bryan was definitely more party guy than serious businessman. Rhiannon only dated the wild ones—the men who only dated women like her.
Not that Angela believed she was ugly, but it took a particular kind of man to appreciate her and she was becoming less and less sure that Bryan was that kind of man. She hadn’t missed the disappointment on his face at their first meeting yesterday, but later, in the ballroom, she’d felt a definite zing of attraction. Those contradictory reactions had confused her—a feeling exacerbated by his appearance tonight. She didn’t like this push-pull sensation because it recalled times she hadn’t been so secure in herself. She had a great life without a man complicating things.
Of course, it wasn’t men in general she objected to, just ones who might break her heart. Like a good-looking, charming party boy out for a good time, a fling. A fling that was guaranteed not to lead to anything serious—since the very definition of a party guy was that he couldn’t be serious—was another possibility altogether.
Could she date a guy and not end up with her heart broken? Was she capable of that kind of cavalier, temporary engagement? Maybe with some guys, but with Bryan—she wasn’t so sure. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he laughed at something Tanya said. She hadn’t been this attracted to a man since Troy. And frankly, that worried her. A lot.
THE NEXT DAY was Bryan’s day off, so he and Zephyr went snowboarding. It felt good to trade his suits and ties for fleece and board pants. Fun didn’t have a high priority in his life these days, but it was still a fundamental part of him.
“Where were you last night?” Zephyr asked as they rode the Red Lady Express lift to the top of the mountain. “I looked for you at LoBar.”
“I dropped by the Mountain Theatre group for a while.”
“You thinking of going on the stage? Becoming an actor? That’s radical.”
“No. The hotel is hosting a fund-raiser for the group and they invited me to come by and meet people.”
“A fund-raiser? What kind?”
“A fancy party with chocolate desserts and a silent auction.”
“Chocolate!” Zephyr grinned. “Maybe Trish and I should make an appearance.”
“It’s a hundred bucks a couple.”
Zephyr’s smile vanished. “Maybe not, then.” He brightened once more. “But hey, you and someone from the theater should come on my show and talk it up.”
Bryan knew his boss would like that. Nothing made Carl happier than publicity for the hotel. “All right. I’ll ask Angela when she’s available.”
They glided off the lift and stopped to adjust their bindings. “Who is Angela?” Zephyr asked.
“Angela Krizova. She owns the Chocolate Moose.” But apparently making chocolate wasn’t her only talent. He still couldn’t get over her transformation onstage last night. “She’s coordinating the fund-raiser.”
“Cool.” Zephyr straightened and unzipped his parka partway. “Maybe she can make some chocolate recipes on the show or something.”
Bryan laughed. “You want her to cook?”
“Why not? Food sells. So does sex, but you can’t do that on TV—at least not on my show.”
The thought of Angela and sex sent a jolt through him. There was a definite sensuality about her, something Bryan was aware of every time he was with her. His attraction to her was unsettling. He’d never pictured himself with a woman who probably weighed more than he did, but when he’d been with Angela last night, he hadn’t thought about her size—except to notice the soft roundness of her hips or generous curves of her breasts. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
“This weekend I’m broadcasting live coverage of the Al Johnson Memorial Race,” Zephyr said.
“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do? Show footage of all the crazy costumes and stuff?”
“That, and I’ll interview some of the entrants. But first I put together a short film about Al Johnson.” Al had been an early mail carrier in Crested Butte, one who lived up to the old saying about neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night preventing the mail getting through. Al delivered the mail on skis, over mountain passes, sometimes in blizzard conditions. “I got Hagan to dress up in old-fashioned gear with a big mailbag we borrowed from the museum and I filmed the whole thing in black-and-white,” Zephyr said.
“Hagan is probably the only one who could ski on those big, old wooden skis,” Bryan said. Hagan Ansdar, a Crested Butte ski patroller originally from Norway, had won the race two years previously, skiing with conventional telemark gear, but dressed in a ratty raccoon coat someone had unearthed from a basement.
“He’s working this year, so he said this was as close as he could get to participating,” Zephyr said. “Maddie will be there, too, on call as an EMT.”
Maddie and Hagan’s wedding had been the third one Bryan had attended this past summer—the one that had turned his thoughts toward settling down. If a former playboy and ski bum like Hagan could find happiness with marriage and starting his own computer software company, then why couldn’t Bryan make similar big changes in his life?
They headed down the run, bombing through drifts of powder, carving wide turns on the steeps. They let out loud whoops as they raced each other through a stand of trees, then skidded into the lift line, red faced from the cold and grinning ear to ear.
“Magic!” Zephyr said, exchanging high fives with his friend. “I’ve missed being out here with you, dude.”
“This is great,” Bryan agreed. They inched their way to the head of the line and flashed their passes for the liftie.
On the chair once more, Zephyr said,