“So I’ll be staying at the lodge?” she asked. “Fancy.”
He swallowed, grateful for the change of subject. “Yes. Or one of the cabins, which are even nicer.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to stay there.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Spendy,” she replied.
He shook his head. “I’ll have to talk to Mark about setting up a locals-only rate. It’s not right that the lodge should be supported by a town that can’t even afford to enjoy it.”
“Well, we do enjoy meeting up there, but that’s nice of you. I think a lot of people in town would take you up on it. But wouldn’t you lose money?”
“That’s not how I like to make money. Excluding people who are poor. And we aren’t usually fully booked, even in tourist season. The lodge is just too big.”
“Ah. Right,” she said lightly, and he panicked, wondering if the conversation was boring her. The last thing he ever wanted her to feel in his presence was boredom.
“So tell me about this ex,” he said as they rounded a turn that put the large lodge in sight in the distance. He almost caught his breath at the view. Large mountains covered in snow rising up on either side, white-laden pines swaying in a blurry haze. Beautiful white all around. “You didn’t seem happy to see him.” Well, it was out on the table now. Hopefully she wouldn’t be mad at him for bringing it up.
She let out a sigh full of confusion and pain, and his throat tightened. His bear was almost too good at reading into any sound or vocalization, and he simultaneously regretted bringing up something painful but was grateful that if she needed to share something with him, she could.
“It’s a long story. You want the long or the short version?”
“Whichever you want to tell me.”
She laughed. “You’re good with women, you know that? I wouldn’t have guessed on first meeting you.”
“I came on too strong, didn’t I?”
She leaned on the window and eyed him playfully. He made an effort to keep his eyes on the road, though he knew the route by heart. “A little. I guess I haven’t had anyone come on to me in a while.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he said a little too forcefully. “I mean, you’re beautiful. I’m sure the men in this town are just fighting over you constantly.”
“Hm, fighting? I don’t know about that. I think most of them still probably see me as Scott’s property. Lots of the folks here are old-fashioned, and it doesn’t help that he owns the bank and a lot of their mortgages. Including mine.”
“Not good,” Ryder said. “He doesn’t look like the type I’d want handling my mortgage.”
“He’s the only game in town,” she said quietly.
“Not anymore.”
“Right,” she said with a sigh. “Anyway, we met online. I thought it was amazing that this handsome, successful guy could be so interested in me. And we met up a few times. I fell in love with the town when I visited. He convinced me to move out. I foolishly jumped at the chance to open my own business. But really, I think I felt he was my last chance. I’m shy, and I’d never really met anyone. No one who showed as much overt interest.”
Ah, so that was why she’d been wary around him. She already jumped in it once with a guy who came on too strong, too fast. But this was different. Ryder was a bear, and his bear was instinctive, but never wrong. And he’d just have to prove that to her. While keeping this other jackass away, of course.
“Anyway, shortly after I moved here, selling everything I had to do so, Scott cheated. Well, I discovered him cheating. I guess he could have been cheating before that, but that’s when I found him. I felt so stupid. I couldn’t go back to my family, who’d done nothing but say ‘I told you so,’ and I had nothing left. So I settled.” Heavy silence hung over them while she thought. “But anyway, I thought he was done. But a few months later, after his girl on the side left town, he was back. Thinking, I guess, the fat girl in town wouldn’t have any other options.”
He snorted. “Fat girl?”
She shook her head. “Look at me.”
“I have been,” he said, grinning. “Ever since I first laid eyes on you. You’re beautiful, curvaceous. If you want to call it fat, fine. But I call it the kind of body that was made for a big man like me.”
“Rude!” she said, but then she laughed, and he knew she was warming to him. Good. He’d just have to keep her warming to him.
“You’re hot, babe. That’s all there is to it. He tried to have his cake and eat it too, and now he realizes what he let get away. Men often do, you know. When they cheat.”