The frown didn’t leave Bridget’s face when she followed Reyna into the room. But she quickly forgot her dissatisfaction when Louisa appeared in their doorway wearing a teal ski suit, complete with furred hat and boots. Very black Russian sex kitten.
Louisa posed in the middle of the bedroom. “Who’s ready to go check out the place?”
“That’s not fair!” Bridget said, eyeing Louisa’s clinging and questionably warm outfit. “I want to be sexy, too.”
Reyna groaned. “Then change already. There’s a glass of hot apple cider waiting out there for me.”
After Bridget got sexed up to her satisfaction, the four women made their way to the lodge. As their booted feet crunched through the snow, Bridget teased Marceline out of her funk while Reyna and Louisa walked behind them.
“So who was that guy you were checking out on the train?” Louisa asked.
She kept her voice low, but at a conversational level so the other women wouldn’t think she was trying to hide anything from them.
Reyna shrugged. Lying about Garrison Richards’s identity would be a waste of time. Louisa was smart and had a husband named Google. If those resources failed, her brother worked high up in the FBI and could get her any information she wanted. Sometimes she was a little scary.
“He’s someone I knew years ago,” Reyna finally said. “From the divorce.”
“Ah.” Louisa grinned, her eyes sparkling as if she’d just found out a secret. “That explains why you didn’t look exactly glad to see him.” She squeezed Reyna’s waist. “But you couldn’t look away from him, either. I don’t blame you. He’s a sexy beast.” She growled playfully.
Reyna paused, surprised that Louisa didn’t throw around any of her usual adjectives for people she found appealing: hot, handsome, fine. Maybe because Garrison was none of those things. He was too stern, too cold, to be anything but sexy. And a beast. She swallowed thickly at the thought.
While in that conference room with him five years ago, she hadn’t paid any attention to his looks. He had been all shark, cool and efficient. Presenting her with the facts of her impending divorce after drafting the awful document that allowed her ex-husband to toss her out on the streets with nothing. Admittedly, she had been young and foolish, naively relying on Ian to do the right thing.
Reyna sighed. “Yes. He is sexy. If you like that sort of thing.”
“That sort of thing? Girl...” Louisa chuckled. “What man-loving woman with a working libido wouldn’t be into that sort of thing?” She fanned her face and grinned.
Reyna had to silently agree. Garrison’s understated dress only emphasized the belly-quivering masculinity of him. The subtle swagger in his walk, the way he appeared to see clearly everything around him. Those small details made her wonder wicked things. Like what kind of focus he would have in bed. Would he please his woman first and take his own pleasure at the end of a long and sweat-dripped night? How would it feel when his...? She cleared her painfully dry throat.
The fur on Louisa’s hooded jacket fluttered around her face as she laughed. “You don’t fool me one little bit, honey.”
At the lodge, they found their usual table near the window and beneath one of the heater vents. Unwilling to wait for table service, Bridget went to get them a round of hot apple cider. Reyna stretched her legs under the table next to Marceline’s, more than ready for the relaxing weekend.
The lodge’s restaurant, which could comfortably hold at least fifty people, was already a quarter full on that Friday morning. Conversation wound through the airy space, mixing with laughter and the clink of cups and saucers. The guests were a mix of couples, singles and groups all gathered at their tables to enjoy the morning and the beginning of the weekend.
“Here you go, ladies.” Bridget came back to the table with a silver kettle and four matching cups on a tray. “The first round is on me.”
A collective sigh of appreciation went around the table. At first, Reyna thought it was for the apple cider, then she noticed that none of the women were paying any attention to the drink. Instead, their gazes were fastened on something over her shoulder. Ahmed Clark, Reyna guessed without looking. But she was wrong. Instead of the basketball player, it was Garrison Richards who had walked through the door.
She drew a breath of surprise. What was he doing here? She thought he had... Reyna shook her head. It didn’t matter. All she knew was that her friends were acting like hormonal teenagers.
She wanted to slap them all. But while pouring a glass of cider for herself, she snuck a look at Garrison from under her lashes. Yes, he was sexy. There was no denying that. There was also no denying that she should stay away from him. It took a ridiculously long time for her friends to stop staring at him like vultures at the sight of new carrion.
Louisa poured drinks for the rest of the women and slid Reyna a private, provoking glance. “He’s a nice specimen,” she said to Marceline. “Maybe that’s just what you need to get over your broken heart this weekend.”
“I’m pretty sure Reyna has dibs on him already.” Marceline’s voice seemed tinged with regret.
“Hmm,” Bridget chimed in. “He is a cutie! Isn’t that the guy from the train?”
“Most definitely.” Louisa grinned. “And I don’t see a ring.”
She was the most perceptive of them all, but was also the most cruel, using her insight to play games that most people were not ready for. Louisa gave Reyna another annoying look, but Reyna didn’t bite. She only shrugged and tasted her cider. It was perfect, the heated cinnamon, sugar and apples coating her tongue with delicious flavor. Just the perfect thing on such a cool and spectacularly beautiful day.
Reyna kept her eyes on the cider and not on the man her friends refused to stop staring at.
“You know that a ring doesn’t mean much these days,” Bridget said, picking up from Louisa’s earlier comment. “Some married men travel without theirs just to pick up some stranger before going back home to the wife.” Bridget nodded in Garrison’s direction, although he was far from the only man in the lodge. Reyna was willing to bet, though, that he was the most...appealing. With the gray heads, men who were obviously with their lovers and the immature-looking boys, Garrison was unfortunately the hottest thing in the room.
“Yeah, what’s that about?” Marceline muttered. “I know plenty of girls who would love to land a married man. If he had on a wedding ring, it’d be like catnip.”
“Maybe they don’t realize exactly what they’re trolling for,” Bridget said. “Territorial women can be vicious.”
Louisa gestured with her cup. “That’s not the only thing they have to watch out for. Some of these hot-ass married men have diseases they’re ready to pass on to anyone, including their wives.”
A chorus of agreement went around the table.
While the women got distracted from Garrison with the talk of cheating married men, Reyna watched him from the corner of her eye. So she noticed that he sat at the empty seat closest to the fire, his booted feet nearly nudging the grate. And she also noticed when he started watching her.
He took a sip of his drink and looked at her over the edge of his cup. She ducked her head, but not before his penetrating gaze managed to scatter her senses.
She came in on the tail end of her friends’ conversation about cheating. “I don’t know why anyone would want to have an affair with a married man. Seems like a recipe for heartache to me. And not just for the actual wife whose husband is doing the messing around.” She knew from experience how awful that was. “These girls might get attached and then fool themselves into thinking their lovers are going to leave their wives.” Ian had been cheating on her, but as far as she knew, he never married or lived with any of the women he’d cheated with.
“Some