She swigged her whiskey, lost herself in watching it as she swirled it around and the amber liquid caught the solitary light above her.
“Dad tried to make me see that my dream of restoring the only local bar, one that had been closed for almost a decade, was only that—a dream. It was something I had wanted to do since me and Billy and our friends used to hang out in the old parking lot in the summer. One night I looked at it and then at everyone and thought how great it would be to have it as our place to hang out when we were all old enough… when we had grown up.” Skye leaned back and looked at Knox, soaked up the sympathetic look he was giving her and how soft his gaze was—and how much he looked as if he wanted to come to her and hold her. She wanted that too. She wanted that with all her heart. “Dad did his best to convince me I would be better off going to the city and continuing my education.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t want to leave this place where we had grown up, where all my memories were. I thought…” She lowered her gaze again, couldn’t look at him as she admitted this, in case he gave her a look that made her feel as crazy as she was going to sound. “I felt as if I would be abandoning Billy if I did. I felt that his spirit lived on here, in these mountains he loved so much. Life is tough here, but it’s beautiful. It’s home.”
“What did you do?” He refilled his glass, proving her right about him. No judgement. No look that questioned her sanity. Just quiet, wonderful support that she needed so much right now. It was as if he could read her, was so attuned to her that he knew exactly what she needed from him. He glanced at her, a sombre edge to his sapphire gaze. “I had parents once. My dad was pushy. Always wanted me and Lowe to toe the line… something I wasn’t good at. I was too much like Dad at that age. A little like you were. Reckless.”
She was going to ask him about that later, was going to get his back story and learn all about him, but she needed to finish what she had started, needed to let him in and let him know her, all of her. Now that she had started, she couldn’t stop. She wanted him to know things about her that she had never told anyone.
She wanted that connection to him.
“I went down to the creek that runs through the woods close to town and did a little soul-searching. Part of me knew my dad was right and that the bar was going to be a lot of work and might never be a success. I might be wasting my life on something that I could never pull off. Getting an education and a good job was the easier route. It was more secure. Less reckless.” She tilted her glass back and forth. “I sat there for hours, going in circles. Do the sensible thing or run with my heart? I had almost settled on doing as my dad wanted.”
“What made you change your mind?” Knox sipped his whiskey and leaned a little closer, had her gaze shifting to him and locking with his. The look in his eyes told her he really wanted to know and it told her something else too. He was glad she was opening up to him like this.
She was glad too. He had hurt her, but she didn’t want there to be any bad blood between them. She wanted to move on and put the past behind her, and maybe see if she could have a second chance with him.
“This is going to sound crazy.” She smiled, sure that he would think her insane when she told him what had helped her make her decision. She had never been into the spiritual, had never been one to see signs in anything, but that day had changed something fundamental inside her. “Promise you won’t laugh.”
The corners of his lips curled.
He reached for her hand and placed his over it. “I swear I won’t.”
She glanced down at their hands, at his big one that covered hers, absorbing his warmth and the softness of his touch, and how damned good it felt to have this physical connection to him. It calmed something inside her, soothed her in a way that moved her, had her aching to twist her hand beneath his and curl her fingers around to clutch it so he wouldn’t let her go.
“A white moose strolled out of the woods on the other side of the creek and looked right at me. Just looked at me… calm as anything… and then it lowered its head to drink.” She lifted her eyes to lock with his and struggled to hold his gaze, even though not a hint of a smile touched his lips. “I felt honoured by it. It honestly felt as if the land was showing me where I was meant to be. I felt as if it was my brother reaching out to me and it moved me to tears.”
It was moving her to tears again, had them forming in her eyes despite how hard she tried to deny them.
Knox lifted his hand from hers and touched her cheek, his head canting to his left as he gazed softly at her. “It was a sign. Nature sent a spirit to guide you on your path and told you to remain here.”
He looked oddly grateful for that. Because it meant they had met?
Part of her was grateful for that too. She had never felt a connection to anyone like the one she felt to Knox.
“Is that why your bar is called The Spirit Moose?” His eyes leaped between hers as his fingers lingered against her cheek, warming her skin and soothing her with that physical connection she craved with him, one that made the emotional one that came from telling him about her past feel even stronger.
Deeper.
She nodded. “I can’t let it fail. When Karl slapped a thick wedge of money down on my bar top, I should have known there would be a catch… but all I saw was a way to save my bar.”
He dropped his hand from her face and leaned back. “It seems really special to you.”
“It is.” She held his gaze as she thought about it, as she thought about her brother, and how she would feel if she lost the bar.
Hollow. Dead inside. Defeated. Her soul was in that bar. It was part of her. Vital to her.
“The place where I live, south of here, is like that for me.” He swallowed his whiskey in one go and his eyes met hers again, their blue depths serious once more. “Special. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without it. Without that place. It’s my sanctuary.”
That made her feel he really did understand her and knew how she felt about her bar. It made that connection she felt to him stronger still, making her feel closer to him, drawn to him.
“I’ll help any way I can. I have some money.” He looked down at his empty glass. Toyed with it. “I don’t need it where I live. Maybe I can invest it in your bar?”
The soft warmth that had been filling her vanished in an instant, a prickly heat replacing it as the part of her that refused to let what he had done go rose back to the fore. Hurt welled again as she ran over his words and thought about his offer, part of her aware it was an olive branch he was offering while the rest felt it was a declaration of war.
The darker, hurt part of her won the battle.
“I’m worth your money, but not your time?” she bit out and huffed as she tightened her grip on her glass, looked down at it and considered drinking the two fingers of whiskey in one go. Because she wanted to let loose a little more or because she wanted to drown the hurt rolling through her?
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He reached for her and she stepped back, glared at him to keep him in place when he looked as if he might round the island to reach her.
The anger that had flared hot and hard in her veins rapidly gave way to the hurt, darkening her thoughts and weighing her down.