Ronan stood in the middle of the room, shrugging off his coat. His hair, long and pale as fresh snow, clung to his shoulders and back. It made him look almost ghostlike against the darker tones of the room.
“Are you suggesting I should’ve chosen somewhere else?” I asked, turning fully now, folding my arms loosely across my chest.
He flicked his coat onto a chair without looking. “No,” he corrected, eyes sliding to me with a certain mirth. “It’s just cold.”
I laughed, “Would you have preferred someplace tropical where you’d get heatstroke and third-degree burns from the sun?”
His responding laugh made my heart soar. “God, no,” he said, padding closer after toeing out of his boots. Softer, he reassured me, “You picked a great place, babe. Thank you.”
I caught his wrist, pulling him flush to my chest and breathing in the fresh air still clinging to his hair. “I love you, doll,” I murmured.
He pressed up to place a chaste kiss on my lips. “I love you too, Wes. Do you think the fireplace over there actually works?”
I released him then, letting my hand fall away as I walked to where we’d dropped our luggage by the door. “It should. Why don’t you figure that out, and I’ll unpack,” I said, tone shifting back into something more grounded. “We’ve got reservations for dinner in two hours.”
He made a face. “Already?”
“Yes, already.”
“We just got here.”
“And I intend to enjoy every part of this trip. Plus, the restaurant is one of the ones on the property. We can just walk over.”
He sighed, long and theatrical, then smiled lightheartedly. “Isupposethat’s acceptable.”
As I crouched to zip open one of our suitcases, he shuffled over to the fireplace in his thick winter socks, kneeling down on the furry rug under the mantle.
I was halfway through the first suitcase when I heard the familiar sparking of an electric fireplace. Sure enough, when I glanced over, orange flames were casting a glow on Ro’s face, highlighting the happiness in his expression.
It made me a bit emotional whenever his eyes lit up at the simplest things—not that I showed that outwardly. I knew he’d be embarrassed, although he had no reason to be.
It just reminded me that there was still a young boy hidden under his beautifully vicious exterior. It reminded me that this man, who grinned wildly when he gutted the men stupid enough to cross him, was still the boy from before it all. The boy who yearned for a family, a place to belong. The boy who may have never sat in front of a fireplace before. Or if he had, it’d been during a time he hadn’t been able to enjoy it.
I turned back to the suitcase before he could catch me looking too long.
There were some things Ronan tolerated.
Being watched like that—softly, sentimentally—was not typically one of them.
So I folded instead. Sweaters first, then his shirts, mine after, stacking them in neat piles before transferring them to the dresser.
Behind me, I heard him get up, the soft rustle of movement against the rug, and then the creak of the couch.
“Wow, this place is huge,” he muttered.
I smiled to myself and kept working. “What?” I asked, already knowing that tone.
“Just looking at the map in the welcome packet,” he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice.
“Yeah? See anything you want to do, babydoll?”
“Umm, let me see…” he murmured, flipping a page, his voice brightening. “Oh! They have something called an alpine rollercoaster! You take a ski lift up the mountain and then ride the coaster down.”
“I’m not the best with rollercoasters,” I admitted.
“‘Cause you’re old?”
I huffed out a laugh at the mischief in his tone. “Want to try that again?”
