“Let me ask you this. Be honest. If Ben died today, would you start over? Would you put yourself out there, believing you were going to find someone else?”
Liv didn’t answer right away. Instead, she walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine.
“It would be very difficult to think I could find someone after Ben. You’re right about that. But from the outside, looking in, I see things so differently. I understand your mother’s frustration with me, why she pushed me so hard to get back out there and live a life less isolated. Watching you, I want to grab you by the shoulders and shake some sense into you.”
“I need more time,” Bree said quietly.
Liv put her arm around Bree’s shoulders. “I know, sweetheart. Just be careful how much more turns into.”
The place where they went for dinner wasn’t very big. When they walked in, Bree wondered if they would have room to accommodate everyone in their party. When she overheard one of the owners welcome Liv and Ben, and then saw him turn the open sign to closed, she realized theirs would be a private party.
“They opened, tonight, just for us,” Liv explained. “They’re usually closed between mid-October and Thanksgiving.”
“Nice of them,” Bree murmured.
“It’s that kind of place,” Liv answered. “Crested Butte I mean. It’s one of the reasons I love it so much. No matter where we go, we know everyone, and they know us. It’s kind of like Monument.”
Bree understood what Liv was saying, but didn’t necessarily love it, the way she did. More often than not, Bree wished she could be anonymous, invisible, even. She wanted to go to the grocery store, or out for a cup of coffee, and not have anyone recognize her, or start a conversation with her, or ask how she was.
“Where’s that handsome brother of yours tonight?” she overheard the pretty blonde who’d just walked in ask Tucker. The woman looked familiar, but Bree couldn’t place her.
She wasn’t able to hear Tucker’s response, and was glad. Thank God Jace wasn’t there, and she didn’t have to endure the humiliation of seeing him with another woman. She turned around and willed the evening to be over quickly, so she could escape back to the privacy of Liv and Ben’s place.
Bree felt the cold air when the door opened. “Speak of the devil,” she heard Tucker say.
He was here.
“How’s it feel to be off the road for a few days?” Ben greeted Jace. “If anyone’s earned it, you have.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m not workin’ any harder than anyone else,” Jace grunted.
She couldn’t help herself; she had to turn around and look at him. Jace shrugged off his coat, and Bree watched as the pretty blonde leaned in and whispered something in his ear. It made them both smile. Suddenly she realized where she knew the woman from. She was the one who had left with Jace that night at the Villa.
When Bree stood, she almost knocked the table over. She stomped off toward the back of the restaurant where she hoped she’d find a back door. There would be cab service in Crested Butte, wouldn’t there?
No luck on a back door, but there was a restroom she could hide out in for a little while at least, until someone else needed to use it.
If only she hadn’t agreed to come to Crested Butte for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t as though she had other options, but the way she was feeling, staying home alone would’ve felt better than this did.
Too soon, she heard a soft rap on the door.
“Bree, are you okay?”
Dammit. What was Jace doing on the other side of the door?
“Be right out,” she said softly, hoping that, when she opened the door, he would be back in the midst of his family and had forgotten she was there. Instead, when she opened the door, he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of him.
“Hi, Jace.” She tried to scoot past him to let him have access to the restroom.
“Hey, wait,” he said and grabbed her arm. “Where are you runnin’ off to so quick?”
“I, uh, figured you were, uh, waiting to use the, uh…”
“No, Bree,” he leaned in close to her. “I was waiting to say hello to you. You skedaddled back here so fast, I didn’t have a chance to speak to you when I came in.”
“Well, now you have. Shall we go back and join the others?” She tried to wrench her arm away from him, but he held on tight.
“Wait a minute.”