Chapter Fourteen
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A ragged cheer went up from the group when the last roof was finished on the tiny houses. Kai had spent far more time this past week helping to frame in walls than he had cooking—or gardening, although he’d helped with that, too. The interiors were far from finished on the four new dwellings that dotted the hillside, but there’d be enough housing for the couples who married during the winter. Everyone else would have to hunker down the best they could in the bunkhouse.
“Almost makes me want my turn,” Curtis joked. Daisy barked.
“Don’t you?” Kai asked, angling his head to look at the high clouds sheering over the sky. Snow was coming. Even a California boy like him could smell it in the air.
“You know what they say: twice bitten, shy as fuck.” Curtis ruffled his dog’s ears.
Kai chuckled, but he felt for the man. “You know what they also say: third time’s a charm.”
“Hear that?” Curtis yelled to the sky. “Send me a keeper.” Daisy barked again, as if in agreement.
Kai wasn’t the only one who laughed at that.
“We’ll know who goes next in a couple of days,” Anders said. “Maybe it’ll be me this time.”
“Or Walker—seems like it should’ve been his turn ages ago,” Angus said.
Walker only shrugged.
Kai’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out, frowning at the unfamiliar phone number.
“It’s Felicity,” a female voice said when he accepted the call. “Addison’s sister. Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Sure.” He took a few steps away from the other men. “What’s up?” He knew Addison hadn’t talked to her sister since the night of the ball.
“I… need to apologize.”
He bit back a sharp retort. She sure as hell did—but not to him. She’d ruined the ball for Addison after all of Addison’s hard work.
“I drank too much, and I acted so badly. I don’t remember too much of it, but my husband does, and he’s made sure I know every detail.”
“Ouch.” Sounded like a rotten week in paradise to him.
“Yeah… ouch. How is Addison?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” He could tell this was meant to be a warm-up call. Felicity was testing the waters, but that was the coward’s way out.
“I will. I know I should be talking to her, not to you, but… I’m chicken.”
“She loves you, you know. You’re her sister. She needs you in her life.” Kai found himself pacing.
“I know she does, which makes this all worse. I never should have played games with her. I thought I knew better than she did what she needed, but all I ended up doing was breaking her heart. She wanted the penthouse so bad. I should have just given it to her, but I thought she needed more than a place to live—”
“Felicity, you have to have this conversation with Addison.”
Felicity drew in a breath. Let it out again. “Yeah. I know. Like I said, I wanted to apologize. I ruined what looked like a lovely night for you two, and I almost ruined everything. It’s just… watching the show—I could see her falling in love with Base Camp and with you. I knew she was going to stay in Montana, and I was going to Rome. I felt… like we were never going to see each other again.”
Kai stood still. Suddenly, he got it, and despite himself compassion flooded him. He wasn’t the only one who feared losing the ones he loved. “You wanted her back in New York. In your penthouse. So even if you were away you could picture where she was and feel close to her.”
“Yeah.” Felicity was crying. “I’m such a jerk.”
“You can come here anytime, you know. Stay at the manor. Dress up like a Jane Austen character. Have a little fun.”
“I guess.” She was quiet a moment. “Actually, when you put it like that, it does sound fun.”
“It will be. And Addison will love seeing you. Call her, okay?”
“Okay. She’s pretty lucky to have found you. I should get some credit for that, right? Maybe enough to make up for what I did at the ball?”
Kai thought about it. “Okay, I can go for that. The slate is clean. Call your sister; she’s dying to hear from you.”
Addison had taken charge of gathering up the costumes to return to Alice after the ball. She’d managed to round up all of them except Kai’s missing toga. No matter where they looked, she and Kai couldn’t find it.
It had been Addison’s experience, however, that this was an honorable group of people, and if someone had taken the costume for any reason, she had a hunch they’d give it back, if given the opportunity. She assembled the costumes she had in a large box and left it inside the door of the bunkhouse. As she prepped and cooked with Kai, she tried as best she could to keep her eye on it.
Sure enough, she spotted Avery lingering near it a little before lunchtime. Addison kept watch as Avery carefully slid a rolled-up bundle of white material into the box. Before Avery could slip out of the bunkhouse again, Addison stepped out of the kitchen and shut the door behind her.
“Busted,” she said quietly.
“Shit.” Avery spun to face her. “Addison—I can explain.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m sure you had your reasons.” Although she couldn’t guess what they might be. Had Avery needed a toga for some short film she was making? If so, why not simply ask to borrow it?
She remembered Avery hanging around Boone’s desk. Remembered Boone asking about a missing paperweight.
Was this the first time Avery had filched something?
Addison took the toga out of the box again, shook it out, refolded it carefully and put it back. “Come here.” She led Avery outside to the fire pit and sat down with her on a log. “I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” Avery eyed her suspiciously.
“The kind of favor you’re good at. I need you to steal something for me.”
Avery straightened, her face tight with offense, but Addison took her arm and kept her from jumping up. “It’s Kai’s binder—where he has his recipes and notes. You know what I mean?”
“Why don’t you just ask him for it?”
“I want to surprise him. I need to make a digital copy. He has no backup, and he doesn’t have a version he can edit, either. I want you to take the binder, scan every page and turn it into a document I can use. Can you do that?”
“Why? He’ll be pissed if he catches me, you know.”
“I do know that. I also know you’re hiding something—something important. Even if I don’t know exactly what it is, I can put a stop to it. Do you want me to do that?” Addison held the other woman’s gaze until Avery looked away.
“No.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“Yeah, we have a deal.”
“Up for some nighttime birdwatching?” Kai asked when they were prepping for dinner.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Addison asked, stopping midway through slicing one of the last onions. She’d been out in the greenhouses with Kai earlier that day and had admired the new lettuces that were growing well. There were green onions poking their heads up and even potato plants. They hadn’t solved their food problem completely, but there was hope, as Kai had told her.
“That means exactly what you think it means,” Kai said, brushing a kiss over her cheek as he passed to fetch something else from the refrigerator.
There weren’t any camera crews in the room today. As soon as they stepped out of the kitchen, however, they’d be trailed all day, which is why a nighttime excursion was his only chance of proposing to Addison alone. He’d done it once already, but he wanted to do it again. With a ring, this time. He wanted proof of her pledge on her finger—not because he didn’t believe her, but because he wanted to be reminded every time she was nearby that he was going to get to be with her for the rest of his life.
Besides, making love to Addison under a canopy of stars was one of his favorite things to do.
First, however, he needed a ring. He waited until they’d served lunch and Addison had gone off with the other women to the manor to prepare for their next round of guests.
Curtis met him in the door to the kitchen. “Boone sent me,” he said. “Wants to know if we’re having a wedding this weekend?” He must have left his dog with someone else; there was no sign of Daisy.
“One way or the other,” Kai said. “I’m off to buy a ring right now.”
“I’ll come with you,” Curtis said.
“Sure. I could use the moral support.”
Curtis was too quiet on the ride into town to offer much support, however, and Kai wondered what was on the man’s mind. He expected him to head off on an errand of his own when he parked on the street near Thayer’s, the sole jewelry store in town, but Curtis stuck close, even when they entered the store.
As Kai searched for an engagement ring to give to Addison when he proposed, Curtis perused the trays of rings, too. It took a long time for Kai to settle on a gold ring with a sweep of diamonds like a wave crashing against the shore. It was elegant, and he thought it suited Addison. He turned to show it to Curtis and found the man holding a ring of his own.
“Have you been seeing someone?” Kai asked him, intrigued. Since Harris had stolen the bride Boone had chosen for Curtis, the man had seemed far too withdrawn from the world to get up to much of anything. Now Kai wondered if Curtis had fooled them all.
“Nope.” Curtis shook his head. “But I thought about our talk the other day, and I’ve decided I’m going to. I’m not going to wait to draw a straw or for someone else to pick me a bride. I’m here at Base Camp. I’ve pledged to get married. I’m going to find my own woman. And this is the ring I’ll give her.” He held up a ring Kai hadn’t seen—a large oblong diamond surrounded by smaller ones set in a platinum band.
“That’s a hell of a ring.”
“My future wife deserves it. I won’t pick a woman who doesn’t.”
Curtis was a man on a mission. Kai was impressed.
“You two gentlemen finding everything okay?” A petite woman with dark hair came to help them.
“I’d like to buy this ring,” Kai said and handed the pretty bit of jewelry to the clerk. “I’m Kai Green. From Base Camp.”
“I recognized you. I’m Rose Johnson. Nice to meet you.” She held the ring in the palm of her hand, and her gaze grew distant for a moment. When she focused on him again, she smiled. “You and your fiancée are going to be very happy together.”
“I sure hope so.”
They completed the transaction, and Rose handed him the ring in a small velvet-covered box. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“I want to buy a ring, too,” Curtis declared. “This one.”
“Oh—I didn’t realize you were looking, too. Is it going to be a double wedding?” Rose asked with a smile.
“I’m definitely looking.” Curtis ignored her question and handed it over, and Rose repeated her earlier move, curling her fingers over it, her gaze going slack. She frowned suddenly. Her brows furrowed.
She bit her lip. “Um…” She looked like she would hand it back to him before she caught herself, straightened her shoulders, tightened her grip on the ring and closed her eyes.
Kai and Curtis exchanged a look. Curtis raised an eyebrow. Kai shrugged.
Rose opened her eyes, a smile playing around her lips. “You… have an interesting journey ahead of you,” she told Curtis as she moved back to the counter and began to ring him up. “The woman who fits this ring is going to lead you on a merry chase.”
“But there is a woman out there for me?” Curtis asked, as if she might know the answer. Kai wondered if she did; there was something fey about Rose.
She stopped, her hands hovering over the keys of the cash register. “Of course there’s a woman for you.”
Curtis just nodded, but Kai saw a muscle working in his friend’s jaw.
Curtis had needed to hear that.
Kai was glad he had.
Addison and Kai slipped out of the tent long past midnight and tiptoed through the encampment and down the path toward Pittance Creek. Like last time, she was dressed only in her shift and coat, and tonight was so cold she shivered as they hurried to the creek. On its banks, Kai made a bed of four sleeping bags—they’d each been issued a second one because of the plunging temperatures—and they snuggled together under their covers, their heads resting on the pillow Addison had brought.
Soon she was warm enough to shed her spencer, and it wasn’t long before both of them had shucked off the rest of their clothing. Pressed against Kai’s hard body, Addison’s pulse accelerated knowing soon they’d be together. Nothing could compare to the spectacular beauty of this natural setting. It was so quiet she felt like she and Kai were the only ones in the world.
“It must have been like this in the old days,” she said.
“Can you imagine prehistoric times? Only a few hundred thousand people spread across all of Europe,” he said. “So much space. The world must have felt so big.”
She nodded and rested her head on Kai’s chest, hearing his heartbeat. It was all such a mystery—the past, the present.
The future.
“Do you think we’ll ever find out who stole our food?” she asked him.
“Probably not. I have a feeling Montague’s involved, though.”
“That makes sense.” She thought of Avery stealing Kai’s costume. And Boone’s paperweight. She’d wondered briefly if her friend could be behind the theft of the food, too, but she’d decided it was unlikely. Kai had told her the break-in had occurred during Harris and Sam’s wedding, and some subtle questioning proved Avery hadn’t left the celebration. Addison decided to keep Avery’s mischief to herself—for now. Taking the costume hadn’t hurt anyone—except Addison’s own pride when she’d mistakenly kissed Evan. Taking their food would put everyone at risk. Avery wouldn’t do that.
“Addison.” Kai shifted and pulled something out of the depths of the sleeping bag. A little box.
Addison stilled, her heart in her mouth, and forgot all about Avery.
“I know I asked you this before, but I want to ask you one more time. I want to do this right. You know now what my life is about. You know Base Camp, the people here, the work—the possibility we could lose it all. You know, too, how much I love you. How much I’d do to keep you happy. So, Addison—” He sat up and opened the box, exposing a beautiful ring that made Addison bite her lip and scramble up to sit, too. “Will you make me the happiest man on earth and be my wife?”
“Yes.” Addison blinked back tears as he slid the ring on her finger. It glittered there, promising a new life. An exciting, invigorating, incredible life with the man she loved. “Yes,” she said again. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Kai leaned in and kissed her, and Addison flung her arms around his neck.
“Do you want to—”
“Make love? Yes,” she said again. “What’s taking you so long?”
“Didn’t realize you were in such a hurry.”
As they snuggled back down into their sleeping bags, the stars and moon glittering overhead, Addison gave herself up to a world of pleasure with the man she loved.