Keep On Loving You. Christie Ridgway
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of being the usual black or silver or white, the paint job was a profusion of flowers in pink and green and yellow and blue.
Jace cleared his throat. “Check out the license plate.”
Mac redirected her attention. Seven letters spelled out WLKRWIF.
“Walker wife,” Angelica whispered, then hiccuped a sob.
“Oh, jeez,” Mac said, even though her heart was being squeezed like a sponge. “You’ve turned sappy, bro.”
But Brett only grinned as he pulled his bride into his arms. “You’re a real mountain girl now,” he told her.
“I’m your mountain wife,” Angelica said, pressing her cheek to his chest. She let out her breath in a shuddering sigh. “You know what I need.”
“I do.” He kissed the top of her hair. “And I’ll always do my very best to give it to you.”
Angelica looked back at the car, smiled. “What made you think of spring on four wheels?”
“Because you’re every season of my heart.”
On the brink of losing control of her own sentiments, Mac walked away, pushing past Shay and Jace and Poppy and Ryan, both couples moved by the moment into their own hugs and kisses. The closeness of the pairs was cutting her to the bone and another moment witnessing their happiness might have her bawling like a baby. Single. Alone.
Who would have thought Brett had such a grand gesture in him? The SUV symbolized that Angelica had carved her place as a Walker in their mountains. But he’d made it all her own by painting it to please his bride’s very feminine side.
“Mom always said,” she murmured to the empty room, as she went in to collect her belongings, “there’s something irresistible and utterly grand about a grand gesture.”
Reaching her place at the long table where the bridal party had sat, she snatched up her coat from the back of the chair and tucked her tiny evening purse in the outside pocket. Then she looked at the bouquet. Maybe she’d leave it there.
But that might hurt Angelica’s feelings. So she scooped it up and brought the cool petals of the roses to her nose. As she drew in their sweet fragrance, her gaze landed on the cocktail napkin that had been tucked beneath them.
Emotions bombarded her. Elation. Anticipation. Thrill. Then the lessons learned through heartache had her locking down on those feelings. The older and wiser Mac was no longer the naive girl who’d been left behind. Experience had taught her to protect herself by curbing flights of fancy and avoiding bouts of what-could-have-been.
Still, that didn’t stop her from dropping her hand to the soft paper surface, where she ran a fingertip over the three distinctive ink slashes that etched a single letter.
Z.
ZAN ELLIOTT PUSHED open the door of Oscar’s Coffee, situated smack-dab in the middle of the village of Blue Arrow Lake. Already chilled by the short walk from his car, the inside heat hit him like a slap, and a shudder racked his body. He clutched the jamb as the world tilted for a moment. When it righted again, he shrugged off the brief disorientation.
A caffeine deficit, most likely. Or it could be that the altitude was getting to him. Though he’d traveled to higher elevations in the past ten years, it had been that long since he’d visited these particular mountains.
He was surprised by how...not odd it was to be back.
That befuddled him, too. He’d never considered the environs of Blue Arrow Lake truly home—that had been the beach house where he’d lived with his parents and siblings until he was nine—yet coming back four days ago he’d experienced an unexpected settling of his restless soul.
It should worry him a little, he thought, as he stepped up to the register and gave the order for his drink. Christ, did it mean he was getting old?
Then he moved toward the pickup counter, his gaze landing on the man standing directly in front of him—and suddenly he was a boy again.
Aware of the grin stretching his mouth, he clapped his hand on Brett Walker’s shoulder. “So you’re a husband now. It boggles the mind.”
Brett turned, and his familiar gray eyes widened, then narrowed. “Zan.”
“In the flesh.” He rocked back on his heels, studying his old friend. While he’d seen Brett at a distance when he’d crashed the wedding reception, he hadn’t been near enough to completely register the changes the years had wrought. The other man’s hair was shorter now, and scars slashed his eyebrow and across the bridge of his nose. He’d probably gained thirty pounds of pure muscle. “I’m not sure I’d beat you at arm wrestling like I used to.”
“That’s revisionist memory, pal,” Brett said, then turned back when the barista called his name. Swiping up his drink, he didn’t give Zan a second glance before strolling around a corner to the seating area.
“Well,” Zan said to the empty space around him, “thanks for the effusive welcome. It’s great to see you again, too.” Not sure if he should be amused or affronted, Zan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Apparently Brett wasn’t interested in hashing over old times.
Not that Zan mulled over them very often himself. He wasn’t a person who liked to look back, and it didn’t take a genius to understand it stemmed from the family tragedy he wanted to forget. Still, he’d had many good times with Brett. He’d been living with his grandfather just a few weeks when after school one day the towheaded oldest Walker had casually asked him, “You fish?”
Zan had lied, of course, and said yes. Little time passed before they were fishing buddies, and biking buddies, and, later, chasing-after-girls buddies. Nearly inseparable, though their temperaments were not completely aligned. When Zan had proposed trouble, Brett had counseled caution. Zan ran red lights, Brett took note of stale yellows. During the execution of Zan’s wildest pranks, Brett had participated only as lookout.
But they’d both had a dogged determination, so when his own tall Americano was ready, he took the same path as his old friend. He really wanted to have a conversation with the other man. What was the story about his wife and marriage? How were the rest of the Walkers faring?
Sue him, but he was curious about what Poppy and Shay had been up to during the past ten years.
Not to mention their older sister.
Turning the corner into the seating area, he caught sight of Brett in the far corner at one of the brightly painted picnic tables set on the scarred cement floor. Across from him sat dark-haired, blue-eyed Mackenzie Walker.
Zan’s world spun again as a thousand memories assaulted him.
Cheeky little-girl Mac, with her gamine grin and her resolve to do anything and everything along with her big brother and his best friend. Like Brett, he’d ignored her, teased her and even went to great lengths to ditch her until her pouting lower lip would melt his will.
Coltish preteen Mac, all skinny arms and legs and big eyes that followed his every movement. She’d had dark mutterings about every high school girl who caught his and Brett’s attention freshman year.
Then she’d been in high school, too, and other boys were fixating on her. For a time, he’d fooled himself that his own interest in Mac was merely brotherly—and that the eye daggers he threw at the guys who hit on her were because he only had her best interests at heart. Then one summer afternoon, a playful wrestling match rocked his world when he flipped her to her back and found himself hovering over her, his hips between her spread legs.
This is Mac, he’d tried telling himself. Mac, who in winter had a habit of shoving snow down the back collar of his jacket. Mac, who’d once pretended to have a leg cramp while swimming in the lake so he’d jump in to save her—wearing