His lips quirked and he grabbed my suitcase and the garbage bag I’d bundled my wedding dress in. “They’ll do. You have something if we get stranded.”
Grateful he was thinking about winter survival while I was low-key wishing I could stay for longer, I went into the garage.
I walked like I was one of Autumn’s students making a path through two feet of snow on the playground. My boots dragged on the floor and I snickered, then waddled like a penguin.
He came around from behind me and opened the door. The corner of his mouth lifted when I shuffled the rest of the way. “You gonna balance an egg on your feet?”
My laughter grew. So fucking silly, but Jonah had gone with it. Boyd would’ve had a comment that made me feel uncouth and embarrassed.
I climbed in, struggling to keep the boots on. “Where’s your coat?”
He bent to guide my foot in and hold the dangling boot so it didn’t fall on the ice-cold floor. “In the back seat.”
I glanced back as he loaded my belongings. The tan material of a work coat was on the back seat. A hat and gloves were probably under the jacket. He’d have a true winter survival kit under the seat.
When he got behind the wheel, the cab shrank around us. His fresh-cut-pine smell wrapped around me. So different from Boyd.
I was returning to the real world. This respite wasn’t my life. Mama’s house was welcoming and cozy, and I could have private time, but not like the cabin. I didn’t have to hide in a room to get peace. Jonah could be on the couch with me, watching a show with a stoic expression that didn’t reveal if he was enjoying the movie or not, and I didn’t feel crowded. I didn’t feel like everyone was in my business.
He backed out of the garage and I squinted. With the sun high in the sky, the snow glare was blinding. I put the shade down but my eyes started to water. Had I been in Bozeman so long I’d forgotten how piercingly white the country got after a snowfall?
How was Jonah driving? Lines winged out from the corners of his narrowed eyes. No sunglasses for him. My pair was in my car, which was at Mama’s, thanks to my brothers.
I wouldn’t have to go back to Bozeman until it was time to return to work. “It’s going to be weird.”
He concentrated on the freshly cleared road. “What is?”
“Going back to an empty condo.” I lived alone, but for the first time in a long time, there was no one to make plans with. No friends. No fiancé. And most of my family was in Bourbon Canyon. “I was with Boyd for two years but it feels like so much longer.”
“One he can’t get into?” This time, he spared me a glance, menace in his eyes.
“No. He never had a key. And he never wanted to hang out there when he had an obnoxious milk box house.”
“Milk box house?”
“A new-age build that looks like he cut a flap in the middle of a milk box and stuffed a smaller milk box inside.” I’d never told Boyd I thought his place was ugly. The regret was strong. I had pushed to sell and buy a different house after the honeymoon. “Anyway, I keep expecting things to be different but they won’t be, really. He hardly came to Bourbon Canyon with me to visit my family. He worked long hours. Our dates were mostly his work dinners and they were so boring.”
“What would you have rather done?”
I stared out the window, closing my left eye because it was still fucking bright. “Talked. You know how you sit at a bar and just get to know each other?” I turned my head in time to see a muscle flex in the corner of his jaw. Shit. Right. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not a bar guy.”
He used to be. He hadn’t been a barfly, but he and Teller, and sometimes Tenor and Tate, would be out at night as much as they had been during the day. Jonah used to do tastings with Daddy and my brothers. I’d been jealous when they’d become a guys’ night. Mostly, they’d been outdoorsy guys, but Teller and Jonah used to be seen around town all the time.
“You and Boyd didn’ttalk?” He lifted a brow, but that pop in his jaw was still there.
“We didn’t—I mean—it wasn’t— The sex was boring.” Oh my god. I’d said that. Those words had gone out of my mouth into Jonah’s ears. I hadn’t even confessed to my sisters that Boyd was lackluster.
Jonah stopped by a larger county road that would skim the edges of town before heading back out of city limits to Bailey land. “A milk box house and boring sex? Jesus, sunshine. You know you deserve better than that.”
The nickname rolled off his tongue again. He’d never had a pet name for me when we were younger. It would’ve been inappropriate, considering I’d been dating his brother, but whenever he said it, I preened. We were different than we had been. Maybe things between us could be different too.
“I think I just wanted to be married. To get on with the family life. Wynter’s doing it and she’s six years younger than me.”
The brow ticked up again, but he remained quiet.
Why did all my embarrassing admissions slip out around him? He already thought me annoying and had spoken as if he hated me. We were at rock bottom. Maybe that was why I’d left with him. I had nowhere to go but up.
