Snowbound with Her Mountain Cowboy
Autore
Patricia Johns
Letto da
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17
CHAPTER ONE
A THUD SHOOK the front door of Mountain Springs Resort. Then another one—the pounding of a fist on the other side. The lodge was closed to new visitors for the next few days. Had someone made it through the storm? Angelina Cunningham hurried across the chilly foyer and flicked the lock, then pulled it open. The heavy door blew inward with a rush of frigid wind and swirling snowflakes, but it was the man standing in the snow who made her breath catch. Blood trickled down one side of his face and matted a section of his mahogany hair, and he stared at her blearily. He was tall and broad, and he swayed slightly as if the wind might push him over. Why was he looking at her so vacantly?
Angelina reached for him, catching the sleeve of his lambskin coat, and tugged him inside. It took all of her strength to shove the door shut against the howling wind. The news was calling it the storm of the century, and it had only begun.
“What happened to you?” she breathed. “Oh my God!”
His cowboy hat was clutched in one hand, and he dabbed at the wound on his head with his free hand, wiping the blood from his eye. His blue jeans were smeared with a streak of blood, and there were a couple of drops across the toes of his scuffed cowboy boots.
“I—I was in an accident,” he said. “And I think I belong here?” It was a question. He peered at her hopefully. “Do you know me?”
Angelina looked past him, out the narrow window that flanked the heavy doors, her gaze moving over the snow. His footsteps were still visible out there, along with a trail of crimson dots. Her heart hammered in her chest.
“This is not funny, Ben!” she said. “What happened? Where’s your truck?”
“Is that me? Am I Ben?” he asked hesitantly. “So you do know me?”
Angelina’s breath seeped out of her, and for a moment she struggled to take another. Ben King was staring at her, his expression perplexed. Was he being serious?
“You don’t know who I am?” she breathed. “Ben, look at me. You don’t know me?”
“I don’t remember... I...I don’t remember anything,” he said. “But this is familiar—” He looked around the foyer.
Mountain Springs Lodge should be familiar to him, but then again, so should she!
“Snap out of it!” She grabbed the front of his coat. “Hey! Look at me. Seriously, Ben!”
He just blinked at her. “Do I belong here?”
“No,” she said, releasing his coat. “You don’t.”
“Oh...” He licked his lips, and Angelina grabbed a cloth dinner napkin from a pile on the counter waiting to be put away. She dabbed at the gash on his head, then clamped the cloth over top of it and applied some pressure. He didn’t know her...
“Your name is Ben King,” she said, lifting the cloth to look at the wound before covering it again firmly. “And you’re my ex-husband.”
“Huh...” The information didn’t seem to be landing.
“Come on. Hold this to your head—” Angelina took him by the arm and tugged him toward her office. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You need a doctor. Where’s your truck?”
“In a ditch—” He gestured behind him.
“Right. That’s okay,” she said. “Leave it.”
One of the housekeeping staff who had volunteered to stay at work during this storm looked at them in surprise.
“Tammy,” Angelina said to her, “can you go find Dr. Thomas? Maybe he could help me out here. And bring back a blanket, too, if you could.”
“Right! I’ll go see where he is,” the young woman said, and she disappeared into the foyer.
Maybe having a couple of guests stick around during this blizzard wasn’t the worst thing in the world—especially since one of them was a doctor. Most people had wisely left for Denver to avoid the mountain storm, but a few had held out against better advice, along with a handful of staff who were willing to work the extra hours.
Angelina guided Ben down the hallway and into her spacious office. Ben sank into a silk upholstered wingback chair in her trademark pink. She gingerly lifted the napkin, and looked down at the cut. He could probably use stitches, but the memory issue was more worrying than the blood.
She idly wished she had a towel in here to protect the chair.
“Where were you going in this weather?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Here, maybe?” He looked up hopefully.
Ben’s coat was already undone, and she reached to tug it off his shoulders. He allowed her to remove it. He wore a starched white dress shirt underneath with a bolo tie, and gold horseshoe cuff links glittered at his wrists. That was Ben—his shirts were always immaculate, and it was the balance between wealthy city boy and rancher that he never quite got right. She tossed his heavy coat over another matching chair.
“I doubt you were headed here.” She sighed. “I’m not your favorite person.”
“Really?” He smiled faintly. “How come?”
“We got divorced, for one,” she replied. “And you were engaged up until recently.”
“Not anymore?” he asked.
So he didn’t remember Hilaria Bell, either. It had been quite the drama, that breakup, and Ben had come here to tell her he was about to do it only a few weeks ago. He hadn’t updated her after the fact, although she did hear some rumors.
“You two broke up,” she replied. “The wedding was called off. I don’t know the details.”
Ben raised his eyebrows, but that was all the reaction she got out of him. At a tap on the door, Angelina turned to see her guest, Dr. Thomas, standing there with Tammy at his side. She carried a folded blanket in her arms.
“Thanks for coming,” Angelina said. “This is Ben King, and he said he was in an accident. Ben, this is Dr. Thomas.”
“You can call me Warren,” the older man said, and he came inside. “Can I take a look?” He gently peeked under the napkin, then nodded toward Tammy. “Can you bring us a first aid kit, please?”
“And a few towels, if you could, Tammy,” Angelina added, accepting the blanket from her.
Tammy nodded and disappeared out the door again. The doctor took Ben’s hand and brought it back up to his head to get him to hold the napkin in place, then he perched on a chair in front of him.
“His memory seems to be gone,” Angelina said. “I know this man—very well. He has no idea who I am, or who he is.”
Warren met her gaze. “This is... Benjamin King?”
So Warren knew the name. It shouldn’t surprise her. Anyone in Colorado had heard of the King family.
“He is,” she confirmed with a nod.
Warren turned to Ben and asked, “Do you know what day it is today?”
Ben paused, then shook his head.
“Do you know what year it is?”
“Um...what year?” he repeated.
“Yes, what year is it?” Warren asked.
Ben shook his head again.
“Do you know how to scramble eggs?” Warren asked.
“Yeah.” Ben brightened.
“Tell me.”
“You crack a few eggs into a bowl, whisk them up, add some salt, a dash of milk...fry it.”
Warren nodded. “Your address?”
Ben sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Phone number?” Warren pressed.
Ben shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t know.”
“Your name?” Warren pressed.
Ben didn’t answer for a moment. “Well, you said it was Benjamin King, right? I don’t actually remember that, though. I don’t know the name.”
“Right...” Warren sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “How do you drink your coffee?”
Ben’s expression brightened slightly. “Cream and sugar.”
Warren nodded. “Okay, I’ve seen this before. It’s normally very temporary amnesia brought on by head trauma. It does pass. The brain just needs to rest and heal.”
“He remembers some things, though,” Angelina said. “He knows how to scramble eggs, and how he likes his coffee. I don’t get it!”
Warren looked over at her, then lifted his shoulders. “It’s just the nature of this kind of injury. Not everything is lost, and every case is different. It depends on which part of the brain has been bruised,” the older man replied. “I’d recommend a CT scan, just to be on the safe side.”
“The problem is getting him to the hospital.”
Angelina paused, thinking. The King family wasn’t exactly used to waiting in emergency rooms. They had private doctors who came to them...and when they went to the hospital, it was to a private room.
“His family has their own doctor. They call him in for everything,” Angelina went on. “Ben, can I see your phone?”
He patted his pockets, and pulled out a cell phone. He looked mildly surprised to see it.
“Thumbprint—” She held it out for him, and Ben obliged.
She flicked through his contacts and stopped at Dr. Ballinger, then passed the phone over to Warren.
He pressed the call button and put the phone up to his ear. Angelina turned back to Ben, and he met her gaze uncertainly.
“You really don’t know me?” she asked softly.
He shook his head. “I feel like I remember this lodge, though.”
Of course. He wouldn’t remember the wife he divorced, just the settlement. But Mountain Springs Lodge had been built in the early seventies, and this section of land beside the mountain lake had been in his family for longer than that. She glanced over her shoulder when Warren paused in his conversation.
“Do you have a penlight?” he asked her.
“No—my cell phone has a flashlight. Would that do?”
“It might actually.” He toggled the light and shone it in to Ben’s pupils a couple of times, and then put his fingers against his neck. He gave Ben a reassuring pat on the shoulder and then returned to his phone call.
“Yep...Agreed...Yep...Okay, hold on. I’m going to put you on video and let you talk to him.” He turned the phone on to video then, and passed it over to Ben.
Dr. Ballinger asked Ben his birthdate, his hometown, how many eggs made a dozen... Ben could only answer the last question, but he did seem to be less bleary now. Warren took the phone back, and they continued talking, their conversation sprinkled with medical terms.
Tammy came into the room then with a first aid kit and towels, and Angelina accepted them with a smile of thanks. She put the towels over the armrests of her chairs, then opened the first aid kit and sorted through, looking at what they had to work with.
“Sure, hold on,” Warren said, and he passed the phone to Angelina. She accepted it, and Warren settled himself in front of Ben again. “I’ll patch him up. But Dr. Ballinger wants to speak with you.”
Angelina stepped away, watching as Warren pulled the napkin from the wound and began to work with the contents of the first aid kit.
“Hi, I’m Angelina Cunningham,” Angelina said, looking down at a mild-faced middle-aged man. He was dressed in a sweater vest and dress shirt open at the neck.
“Ms. Cunningham,” Dr. Ballinger said briskly. “How does he seem to you?”
“He was confused, and kind of muddled,” she replied. “But he seems a bit better now. With a few butterfly bandages, his head should be okay. Dr. Thomas mentioned a CT scan—”
“I doubt that is necessary,” Dr. Ballinger said. “Dr. Thomas and I have both seen this before. With the storm really blowing, I think it’s probably safer if he stays with you until the streets are clear. I’m going to call Karl King and speak with him. I’ll tell him to call Ben’s cell phone. You pick up and speak with him first, if you could.”
She felt that familiar sinking sensation of discomfort at the mention of her former father-in-law. She hadn’t spoken with him directly since just after the divorce, when she signed the nondisclosure agreement in exchange for this old lodge. The King family had been heartily glad to be rid of her, and they hadn’t even tried to mask their happiness at the end of her marriage to Ben. She probably could have gotten a bigger settlement out of them if she’d wanted it, they’d been so eager to see the back of her.
Five minutes later, Angelina’s cell phone rang, but it was Belle Villeneuve, one of Angelina’s close friends.
“Hi, Belle,” Angelina said, picking up. All eyes turned toward Angelina, and she angled away from them. She did have a whole life apart from her ex-husband, after all.
“I guess the Second Chance Dinner Club won’t be meeting tonight,” Belle said with a smile in her voice.
“No, I don’t think we’ll manage that,” Angelina replied. “I’ve sent most of my guests down to Denver to miss the storm. But I’m kind of in the middle of something. Do you think I could give you a call back?”
“Of course!” Belle said. “You sound...stressed. You okay?”
“I am stressed,” Angelina admitted. “I’ll tell you what I can once I’m done dealing with this. Promise.”
Ben’s phone rang next, with an incoming video call.
“Hi, Angie.” Karl King had silver hair and the tanned face of a man who’d just come back from vacation. “Where is my son? What’s going on?”
It was as if no time had passed. Angie. He didn’t exactly have a right to use Ben’s nickname for her, but Karl King wasn’t a man who deferred or asked permission.
“Ben showed up with a bloodied head at my door,” she said. “It seems he was in a car accident. He has no idea who he is.”
“No memory at all?” Karl frowned.
“Not much of one.”
“Doesn’t he remember you?” He sounded incredulous there.
“No. Apparently our short marriage didn’t make the cut. But he doesn’t seem to remember Hilaria, either, if that makes you feel any better. I don’t know what to tell you. He’s here, though. Do you want to talk to him?”
“Yeah, fine,” Karl said with a curt nod.
Angelina passed the phone over. The Kings would have to figure out a solution here. She was no longer part of the family, so it wasn’t her place to make the call. In fact, she fully expected someone to come pick Ben up and get him safely out of her clutches.
Ben answered a few questions, then handed the phone back to Angelina.
“He wants to speak with you,” he said.
“Yes?” she said.
“I have to say, I concur with Dr. Ballinger’s opinion,” Karl said. “This storm won’t be kind to anyone, and it sounds like his memory will come back pretty quickly. I think the bigger risk is trying to get him down from the resort to town. If you’re okay with it, I’d like him to stay with you.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. Since when did they want Ben King with her?
“You have a doctor on-site,” he said.
“A guest,” she clarified.
“Dr. Ballinger seems convinced that he’s competent,” Karl replied. “We’ll pay him for his time, and cover his room and board while he looks after Ben. We’ll pay you for your trouble, too, of course.”
“Feel free to compensate Dr. Thomas, but don’t worry about paying me,” she said with a sigh. Not everything came down to money—something Karl King might never grasp.
“It’s the least we can do,” Karl replied blithely. “You’ll be compensated, too. We don’t take advantage of people’s kindness in this family. And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you about the nondisclosure agreement you signed.”
“No, I remember that just fine,” she said.
“So if you could keep the fact that my son is there and without his memory as close to the vest as possible, I would take that as a personal favor.”
“I can’t exactly hide him,” she said.
“Agreed, but you could keep him sheltered.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I have a few guests here. I won’t be announcing anything, but I can’t control who Ben talks to, or who recognizes him.”
“Fair enough. But no media.”
“Mr. King, I don’t have the time or the inclination to contact any journalists about this,” she snapped. “I have a handful of guests to keep safe during the storm of the century, and my hands are going to be full with that. I have other responsibilities here, and it might surprise you to hear, an entire life of my own. I did sign a nondisclosure agreement at the divorce, but that was about the marriage and your family, not about your son landing on my doorstep. If the public finds out, it won’t be from me. That’s the best I can do.”
Karl’s eyes narrowed, and she felt the resistance through the phone. Karl had never liked her. “Fine. Can I talk to my son again?”
Angelina brought the phone over to Ben once more. Ben looked at his father’s face on the video chat, and his gaze remained mildly curious.
“Step outside the room, son,” Karl said. “I want to talk with you in private.”
As Ben moved to the hallway, Angelina looked at Warren tiredly.
“Wow,” she said.
“Yeah.” Warren pursed his lips. “So Benjamin King is your ex-husband, is he?”
“He is,” she said. “Of all the weekends...”
“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into yours,” Warren said, and Angelina smiled at the reference.
“A little like that.” She met the older man’s gaze. “Mr. King is concerned about keeping this quiet. If you could use some discretion here—”
“It’s fine,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I can be discreet.”
“So what does he need? What do I do to make sure he’s okay?”
“His memory will come back,” Warren replied. “There isn’t much else to do. We should probably keep an eye on him to make sure it doesn’t get worse, but other than that...”
Angelina nodded. “You’re supposed to be on vacation yourself, and I’m about to ask you to help me with an amnesiac.”
“Glad to do it.” Warren shot her a smile. “I kind of miss medicine. It’s only been six months, but retirement itches.”
“Thank you.” She sucked in a deep breath and glanced toward the door. Ben probably shouldn’t be left unsupervised too long.
BEN LOOKED AT the older man’s face on the phone, searching inside of himself for some memory, some tickle of recognition, but there was nothing. This was just a man—older, tanned, gray-haired. Ben glanced over his shoulder toward the office. The woman...it wasn’t that he remembered her exactly. But he felt like he should. If that counted.
“Son, you are Benjamin King,” the man said soberly.
“Yeah, so they tell me,” he replied.
“Listen to me,” the man’s voice firmed. “You are Benjamin King. I am Karl King, your father. You come from an incredibly wealthy family. You need to remember that, because people will try to take advantage of you. They’ll say pretty much anything to get their hands on the kind of money we’ve got. You understand?”
“Not entirely,” Ben replied. “I’m rich, and that’s a problem?”
“We’re rich, and that’s a vulnerability,” Karl replied. “You’re there for a reason. It’ll come back to you. In the meantime, just be careful, son.”
“Careful how?” he asked.
“For example, don’t sign anything. And perhaps expect some jealousy toward our family.”
“Okay,” Ben said, and he slowly nodded his head. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”
“Good, now—” The image on the phone froze, then disappeared when the phone beeped a warning. Ben checked the reception and saw there were no bars. The long, narrow windows that flanked the front doors to the lodge showed thick white snow.
Behind him he heard the woman’s voice as she came out of the office.
“No service on my cell phone, either,” she was saying. “It looks like a cell tower must have gone down, and the phone in my office is out—”
She swept past him to the reception desk and picked up the phone there, putting it to her ear.
“This phone is dead, too,” she said, glancing back at the doctor. “The landlines are out.”
Ben couldn’t help but admire her. She was curvy, tall and immaculately put together, from her golden hair swept away from her face to her understated makeup. Letting his gaze move over her, he felt mildly intimidated. She was stunning. The woman’s chest rose and fell with a sigh, and her gaze moved back to him. She regarded him thoughtfully, as if he were a problem to be solved. And he was—he could admit that.
“What’s your name?” Ben asked. “Did someone call you Angie?”
A smile turned up her lips. “Angelina Cunningham.”
“Angelina,” he repeated her name. It sounded nice in his ears. “It’s a distinct pleasure to meet you.”
The smile faded from her lips. “You’ve said that before.”
“When?” he asked.
“When you met me the first time,” she replied. “It was on a cruise ship, actually. And you said it...just like that.”
It had seemed like the polite thing to say—that was all. Ben wasn’t sure how to respond. He couldn’t remember a ship, or even this woman’s face. As far as he knew, this was the first time he’d met her. And it was a pleasure. He reached up and touched the bandage on his head.
“Maybe it’ll come back,” he said.
“It will,” the doctor interjected. “Don’t worry over it. That will only make it take longer. The best thing you can do for your own recovery is to relax a little bit.”
Easier said than done. His head ached, his feet were wet and cold, and he felt a shiver move through him.
“Ben, you’re soaked through,” Angelina said. “I have some clothes that have been left behind by guests over the years. I imagine we can pull together something for you to wear.”
The damp from his jeans and socks was working its way through him.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll take you up on that.”
“Come on up with me, then,” Angelina said. “This way.”
Angelina headed over to the reception counter again and picked up a stack of clean towels.
Ben followed her, and they made their way up the wide wooden staircase, his leather cowboy boots melting into its plush carpet. She led the way down one corridor flanked with doors with brass room numbers. At the very end, she pulled a key from her pocket, unlocked the door and opened it.
Inside, the room opened up into a much larger living area, and he followed her inside, glancing around at a small apartment. There was a kitchen, a living room with a TV, a fireplace, a balcony, a leather love seat and a plush chair angled toward the center. The floor was a polished hardwood, just like the rest of the lodge seemed to be underneath that carpeting, and when she flicked a switch, soft lights came on. She went over to a phone on a small table and picked it up, listened, then hung it back up with a sigh.
“Just checking,” she said with a wan smile. “I told my friend I’d call her back. Doesn’t look like I can make good on that now. Come on in.”
“Is this where you live?” he asked.
She eyed him again, then shook her head. “Sorry, it’s hard to get used to you like this.”
“Like what?”
“A blank slate,” she said. “Yes, I live here. I had my own place off-site for a while, but I decided to sell it and put the money toward retirement savings instead.”
“So you...own this lodge?”
There was something about this place that tickled the back of his brain, but he couldn’t quite get a grasp on it. She gave him another evaluating look.
“It’s called Mountain Springs Resort,” she said at last, “and it’s a far sight more than the lodge. But yes, I own and operate it.”
He nodded. “It’s...impressive.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve worked hard.”
“You’re concerned about retirement. How old are you?” he asked.
“Two years younger than you,” she said. “And I’m a regular person. Regular people worry about those sorts of things.”
“How old am I?” he asked.
“Forty-five,” she replied. “Your birthday was last month. We’re a week into November, now. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” He smiled faintly. “I wish I could remember that.”
“I’m sure you celebrated in style,” she said. Was that judgment in her tone?
Angelina disappeared into a bedroom, and then came back out with a pile of clothing in her arms. She held up a gray T-shirt, inspected it, then tossed it toward him. He caught it in one hand. She shook out two different pairs of pants until she settled on a pair of jeans and tossed those in his direction, too.
“They’ll be a little loose, but they’ll fit,” she said.
“Thanks.”
She held up a red woolen sweater emblazoned with the image of a skier. “It’s warm,” she said.
“Sure. I don’t know what my taste in fashion is anyway.” He looked down at the clothes he was wearing—blue jeans, a thick, glossy belt the color of dark caramel, a starched button-down shirt, cuff links.
“You can use my bedroom to change,” she said, nodding in the direction she’d come from.
Ben went into the bedroom and looked around. It was lit with a bedside lamp. Her bedding was a mauve color, definitely soothing, and everything seemed to smell faintly of lavender. There were a few pictures on the bedside table, and he picked up the first one—a picture of a couple holding a fair-haired little girl. The second photo was a black-and-white portrait of a woman from what looked like the 1930s. He wasn’t sure how he knew that.
What was Angelina like? She seemed organized—the bedroom was tidy, and everything was attractively arranged. There was a little vanity, and he paused at it, his gaze moving down to a perfume decanter with an atomizer ball attached. It looked antique.
He swung the bedroom door shut and began to undress. His fingers seemed to know how to remove the cuff links and bolo tie without too much thought. And then he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots one at a time. His socks were wet, so he took those off, as well. The jeans weren’t quite so loose as Angelina had predicted—maybe he was heavier now than he’d been when they were married. And the T-shirt and sweater cocooned him with warmth. He dropped the cuff links and tie into his jeans pocket, not sure what else to do with them.
“Just toss your clothes in the hamper,” Angelina called from the other room. “I suspect that shirt is dry clean only, but we’ll see what we can do. You’re particular about your dry cleaning.”
Was he? He wasn’t sure. He looked down at the crisp white shirt he’d taken off—it was good quality. His gaze moved toward the perfume again, unsure of why he was drawn to it, but he didn’t touch it. Instead he pulled open the bedroom door once more and headed back out into the living room.
Angelina shot him a smile.
“Well, you look downright approachable now,” she said.
He fiddled with the cuff links in his pocket. “Am I not usually?”
“No, you aren’t,” she said with a wry smile.
“What do I do for living?” he asked her.
“You live on a ranch,” she replied. “So you call yourself a rancher when you’re trying to be all salt of the earth, but that’s not the source of your main income. You’re inheriting an investment property corporation.”
“Ah. Yes, my father said that we were...well-off.”
“Well-off is an understatement.” She pursed her lips, looking unimpressed. “And I had no idea about your family’s wealth when I married you, for the record. You made sure of that.”
His gaze moved along some framed photos sitting on a side table. One picture showed a group of women sitting in a dining room in what appeared to be this lodge. They were all smiling, half-full glasses of wine in front of them, and Angelina at the center of them. She was smiling, and light glittered off her necklace.
“Friends?” he asked.
“Good ones,” Angelina said. “They got me through the aftermath of our divorce.”
Their divorce. Those words sounded ugly, and the way she said it spoke of pain.
“Was I so terrible then?” he asked after a pause.
She eyed him for a moment. “Not as terrible as I originally thought. Other women went through worse.”
“But you aren’t with me anymore,” he said. “Something happened.”
“That was a long time ago, Ben,” she said. “We don’t have to do this.”
“But I don’t remember any of it,” he said.
“That might be for the best,” she replied. “Besides, how can I ask you to apologize for something you don’t even remember doing? That’s not fair of me. When your memory comes back, if you have anything to say, you can say it. Until then...”
“I’m at your mercy,” he said with a small smile.
What was it his father had said—be careful and don’t sign anything?
“You don’t have anything to worry about from me,” she said, her tone softening. “You’ll be fed and sheltered. I’m over it. Really.”
He’d been joking. Mostly.
Angelina nodded toward the door. “Let’s head down and get the fire started. It’ll give people somewhere to warm up, boost a few spirits.”
“Sure.” As he followed her to the door, he glanced over his shoulder once more at that cozy, feminine space. It tugged at him, somehow.
But she shut the door firmly, locked it, and he felt the line drawn. That space was hers, and he didn’t belong there.
