Snowy Mountain Nights. Lindsay Evans
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without stumbling into them. The early-morning train from Penn Station to Saratoga Springs was full—after all it was the Friday before Valentine’s Day weekend—but it wasn’t overwhelming. The last few seats before the bathroom were even empty.
She loved trains. It was because of her that the four of them took the train up to the resort every year instead of flying. But it was because of Bridget’s expensive tastes that they traveled in the first-class car with its wider aisles, Wi-Fi and attendants who regularly came through the car offering everything from coffee to newspapers.
As Reyna neared the bathroom, she noticed a man standing in the aisle. With his back turned to her, he leaned his shoulder against the wall of the moving train, looking as comfortable as if he were in his living room. Or office.
Despite his casual clothes—the gray sweater across his broad shoulders, jeans that lovingly skimmed his body—everything about him shouted business. He held a cell phone to his ear and spoke into it in a low, intent voice that stroked a delicate place deep inside Reyna. An unexpected flutter of attraction took wing in her belly. The man’s dark jeans draped over a backside that would be envied in any fitness magazine. Or a woman’s bedroom. She bit her lip at the thought.
“I find it extremely difficult to care what he doesn’t want to do. He had those children with the woman he’s leaving behind, and so he has to help support them.” His tone rumbled with casual power.
Reyna came up behind him. “Pardon me,” she said. “Are you waiting for the bathroom?”
The man turned, and Reyna nearly lost her breath. His intent dark eyes swept her from head to foot in a single, scorching glance that was at odds with his cool demeanor. His face was not handsome; instead it was distractingly sexy with its full mouth, sharp cheekbones and dimpled chin. She knew him.
Garrison Richards.
Memories she’d long ago put behind her came rushing back. Garrison’s impassive face as he sat next to her ex-husband at the conference room in his downtown law office. Ian watching her with the eyes of a stranger as if they hadn’t spent the past eight years of their lives as man and wife. Reyna’s horror when she’d realized just what it was that she had signed in those divorce papers.
She flushed, mortified that she had just been lusting after Garrison Richards. That afternoon when they met five years ago, there had been nothing sexy about him. Only an off-putting sternness and judgment that left her cold.
In the rocking car of the train, Garrison’s gaze raked over her. She felt it from the tips of her snow boots to her shoulder-length curls that she’d sworn had been presentable when she’d left her apartment. She fought the urge to rearrange her hair. Instead, she touched the necklace at her throat, sliding the silver star along the chain. A habit she had when she was nervous or uncertain.
He tipped the phone away from his ear and replied to her earlier question.
“The bathroom is empty. You can go ahead.” Directed toward her, his voice was even more compelling, a deep and seductive rumble.
He moved back to allow her to walk past him and into the bathroom. The door rattled shut, and the lock clicked. Reyna took a deep breath as she stared at herself in the mirror. She looked calm and in control, but her cheeks were blazing with heat—a combination of embarrassment and the unwelcome attraction she felt for the man who had represented her husband in their divorce.
She quickly used the bathroom and pushed Garrison from her mind. Afterward, Reyna splashed some water on her face and took her time toweling her skin dry. She desperately hoped he wasn’t near the bathroom anymore.
But when she walked out, he was still nearby and still on the phone. But he had stepped away from the door to give her some room. He stared intently at her again and said something to the person on the other end of the phone before speaking to her.
“You look familiar,” he said. “Do I know you?”
Reyna ruthlessly shoved the attraction aside and gave him her most scornful look. “No, you don’t.”
With that, she walked past him and made her way back to her friends.
Garrison stared after the woman while his secretary’s words on the other end of the line fell away from him in a garble of sound. She was the same one he had been watching from before. Now that he’d seen her face, she was breathtaking: an Amazon with a hauntingly beautiful face and body. He drew a quiet breath, hypnotized by the sway of her hips under the green sweater and jeans as she walked away. Halfway down the train, she sat down with her three friends, never once glancing back at him.
“Garrison, are you still there?”
It took him a few seconds to realize Anthea was trying to get his attention. He mentally shook himself.
“My apologies, Anthea. I’m right here.”
He finished going over the particulars of the Reichman divorce, yet another rich client who didn’t want to financially support his offspring, then went back to his seat. He could hear the muted strains of the woman and her friends’ conversation from where he sat. And he wasn’t the only man glancing in their direction. Annoyed with himself for his uncharacteristic fascination, Garrison opened a folder for a case still in arbitration, but couldn’t concentrate on a single word.
The woman’s eyes haunted him. They were black and intense, her gaze as regal and unflinching as a queen’s. He drew a swift breath of surprise as he abruptly recalled who she was and how he knew her.
Reyna. Reyna Barbieri.
He’d handled her divorce from her actor husband nearly five years ago. From the look on her face, she had undoubtedly known who he was on sight. And she hadn’t been happy to see him.
Garrison remembered the first time he saw her. Ian Barbieri, a client of his whose ship had come in the form of a syndicated crime drama, was a few years into the TV show when he filed for divorce. Every fall, his face was on billboards all over New York City, advertising the new season of his show.
With his star burning bright through the network TV sky, Barbieri had breezed into Garrison’s office wanting a quick and surgical separation from his wife of nearly nine years. Garrison hadn’t been surprised. Although Ian Barbieri was a relatively small fish in the show business pond in New York, the rumor had been going around for months—with pictures included—that he was cheating on his high school sweetheart. He left her to keep the home fires burning while he had sex with nearly every wannabe starlet and groupie in the city. What had surprised Garrison was that Barbieri’s wife hadn’t hired a lawyer of her own. Neither had she objected to any of the terms of the divorce that her ex proposed.
Garrison drafted the documents with the stipulations Barbieri wanted and arranged a meeting with the wife thinking that, since the divorce was uncontested, it would be an easy and quick process. Barbieri wanted to keep just about everything he’d made and acquired since the marriage, leaving his wife with nothing but her wedding ring. She hadn’t protested.
Then Reyna Barbieri walked into the conference room. Given Barbieri’s movie-star looks, Garrison had been prepared for a similar creature, perfectly coiffed and artificial, the New York version of Hollywood. But Reyna had that wholesome loveliness that came from a life lived apart from show business. The air in his lungs stuttered at her natural, long-legged beauty. And the misery in her face.
Her shoulders were slumped. The floral summer dress and light sweater were too insubstantial for the fall weather and too big for her body. The wounded and defenseless look of her made him want to protect her. Garrison wanted to pull her into his arms and shelter her from everything that he knew was to come.
His heart thumped viciously at the unusual wave of feeling. He sat in his chair staring at Reyna as if she were the only person in the room. Garrison was surprised that everyone else hadn’t stared at him for his blatantly fatuous and unprofessional behavior.
He