“I came to bring you home.”
Conrad got to his feet, staring down at her, too astonished at first to say anything. Getting here from Kathmandu involved a flight to Lukla, followed by a tough hike of a few days over gorges and mountain terrain. “You wasted a lot of time and money. I’m not going back.”
“So, you’re converting to Buddhism and plan to spend the rest of your life drinking yak butter tea, chanting mantras, and enjoying celibacy.”
When she put it like that…
“No.” He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly self-conscious about the fact that it now reached his shoulders. And his beard … Well, he hadn’t shaved or gotten a haircut in more than a year. “I just need some time.”
“It’s beenfifteenmonths.”
“Did my agent put you up to this?” His agent had been contacting the monastery almost weekly for most of a year now, probably worried that her gravy train would dry up if Conrad didn’t do something to appease his sponsors soon.
“Do you think I’d come all this way for your agent’s sake?”
Conrad thought about that for a half second. “Probably not.”
Conrad walked out of the Dokhang and down the empty hallway, Megs keeping up with him as he made his way to the front entrance of the main building.
“Rain just had a baby girl with Joe,” she said, as if they’d been talking about Scarlet Springs all this time.
“Wow.” Everyone knew that Rain and Joe had a thing for each other—except for the two of them. It seemed they had finally figured that out. “They had a baby?”
“They got married at Knockers last Christmas. You should have seen Rain’s gown. Rumor is it cost a fortune.”
Conrad had all but forgotten about Knockers. Scarlet Springs felt so far away—like part of another time, another life.
Megs went on. “Vicki had her baby the day I landed in Kathmandu.”
“Wow. Hawke’s a father? How did that happen?”
“A lot of unprotected sex. That’s my guess.”
Megs had always been a smartass.
Hearing his friends’ names brought their faces to Conrad’s mind, an unexpected pang seizing his chest. He missed them.
Joe. Rain. Hawke. Victoria. The rest of the Team.
“The town is in the middle of a baby boom. We had a blizzard that dumped seven feet last December. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more pregnant bellies at Food Mart than I have this past summer.”
“Wow,” he said for the third time.
Clearly, it had been a while since he’d had a real conversation with another human being. His vocabulary had shrunk.
“Kenzie is still single.” Megs let that hang in the air.
“Huh.” He tried to sound indifferent to this news, even as an image of Kenzie with her long dark hair, big blue eyes, and sweet smile lodged itself in his mind.
If there had ever been a woman who tempted him to settle down …
Kenzie was everything a man could want, but Conrad’s father had taught him not to shit where he ate. He hadn’t asked her out because she was on the Team, too, and he didn’t want to risk a professional association for sex. Besides, Megs frowned on casual hookups between Team members. It wasn’t against the rules exactly, but no one wanted to get on Megs’ bad side.
More than that, Kenzie wasn’t into his crazy lifestyle. If Conrad had learned anything growing up, it was that two people had to want the same things in life to make a relationship work, and Kenzie didn’t climb.
Neither do you. Not anymore.
“Does she still have Gizmo?”
