Weston stared at the keys as though they were an enemy that needed to be vanquished.
Guess the man wasn’t keen on moving back in with his family.
Ava’s smile slipped a fraction. “And I know it might be awkward since we don’t really know each other, but we’re going to be family.”
“I’m not sleeping in that house.” Weston’s statement was spoken softly, but the determination in his voice was solid steel. “Not now. Not ever.”
Oh crap. My stomach rolled again.
“Oh,” Ava whispered.
“Has nothing to do with you, I promise.”
“I get it,” she said with a forced, professional smile, picking up the keys and shoving them back into her pocket. Ava was always dressed for business, but this was family, and I of all people understood just how complicated family could be.
It wasn’t like I was down for moving back in with my parents either.
“What about the dorm-style units by the lodge?” Weston asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t need much.”
Yeah, because that’s where one of the Madigan brothers belonged, in one of the tiny seasonal rooms. My head started to spin.
I’d worked my way up the employee ranks for seven years before I’d called in every favor I had to score this house so Sutton and I could have our own space. Years I’d put to good use, saving every possible dollar to build up enough money for a down payment on a place of our own in Penny Ridge—a place we could never be kicked out of—and we were so close. Just another six months, maybe a little more if property prices kept skyrocketing, and we’d have enough for a solid, competitive bid. Right now, I could only afford to offer asking price, and we were getting laughed out of every showing.
“Even the dorm-style ones are full,” Ava said slowly. “Season is starting up in four or five weeks, depending on the weather this month, and with the expansion happening, we brought the new hires in to train early on the lifts and runs. And we’re almost done renovating the guest rooms in the lodge, but they won’t be ready for a few weeks yet, and then we’re completely booked out.”
My heart galloped, my breath coming faster and faster as the edges of my vision narrowed. “You’re going to kick us out,” I whispered. Of course they would—they should. The Madigans owned this entire property. He owned my house. If he had nowhere to live, that meant Sutton and I were out on our own.
And this real estate market wasn’t just tough, it was impossible.
“No one is kicking you out. I might be an ass, but I’m not that big of an ass,” Weston promised, a glass of orange juice appearing in front of me. “Drink that. You look like you’re going to pass out.”
My hand trembled as I lifted the glass to my lips and took a sip.
What was I going to tell Sutton? I’d promised myself I’d give her stability, that the next house we lived in would have my name on the deed.
“Is there anything to rent in town?” Weston asked, but his voice dimmed as I took slow, steady sips of the juice, lost in the chaos that had just been dumped into my head. Get a grip. You have to think, Callie.
“The last place we saw was the one our staff recommended to your mechanic,” Ava said. “I sent the info to her husband, Scott.”
“They signed that lease two months ago,” Weston muttered. “Two months early, just to be sure they had a place when we got here.”
“Because that’s how ludicrous the market is around here.” I set the half-full glass on the counter. “The second the resort announced the expansion, properties started getting snatched up by every AirBnB manager and out-of-state vacationer with cash. The town council is thinking of passing a rule to limit the overnight rentals, but nothing yet. Prices have skyrocketed and houses are getting sold before they’re even on the open market. Believe me, I know.” My hair fell forward as I lowered my head. “I’ve been trying to buy a house in Penny Ridge for the last eight months.” Every offer we put in got passed over for another one that came in with a higher appraisal gap clause or cash. The expansion had been great for the local economy, but I was getting priced out of the place I’d come to call home, and the frustration was real.
“Are you sure you don’t want your old room, Weston?” Hope eked its way into Ava’s tone.
I brushed my hair back and slowly looked up, but whatever optimism I had left ran screaming at the look in Weston’s eyes.
“I’d rather die.”
He meant it.
Ava’s shoulders sagged.
Okay. This was fine. We’d have to move to A-basin, or maybe down to Keystone. It was thirty minutes away on a good day, and Sutton might have to switch schools, but it was better than going all the way to Frisco. The rent was going to devour my savings, but we’d make it work. We always did. I’m going to lose my down payment money.
“And like I said, it’s not you, Ava,” Weston continued. “I’m sure you’re great. Hell, you must be some kind of saint to put up with my brother’s bullshit. But I just can’t live there.”
“It’s your home,” Ava whispered.
“It hasn’t been my home in fifteen years, and I haven’t lived there in eleven.”
Fifteen years. That was when his mother had died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. I knew enough about the Madigan family saga to reference the timeframe. According to what Ava had told me the last couple of months, the only way Reed had managed to even get Weston back to Colorado was by asking him to start up the resort’s new heli-skiing operation.
An idea hit me. It was absolutely absurd and unrealistic, but it was all I had.
From what I knew of Weston, he was a good guy. Rumors were treated like gospel in a small town, and though many of those rumors circulated about the Madigan brothers, I’d never heard a bad thing said about Weston other than he was pretty much Madigan’s own Grinch, the silent, grumpy type.
I could deal with silent and grumpy.
And the doors locked to the separate wings upstairs, right?
Maybe there was a way to keep Sutton in her school, a way to save our down payment so I could keep house hunting.
“I might have a solution,” I said with a voice that sounded way stronger than I felt.
“Okay?” Weston’s gaze swung to me like a laser beam. No wonder he’d been in the military for years. He probably glared people to death.
I took a deep breath. “We could both live here.”
3
Callie
* * *
I placed a spiral notebook and fluorescent pink fine point Sharpie on the kitchen island, taking the same stool I had two hours ago when I’d proposed what could have been the most ludicrous idea known to man.
But he hadn’t shot me down.
He’d simply stared at me with that intense look of his, the one that made me feel like he could see beneath my words and faltering smile, and suggested we meet back here in a couple hours after we’d both had a little time to think it over and come up with some ground rules if we decided to go through with it.
Ground rules? I was still stuck on my pros-and-cons list of living with an actual stranger. Every pro I’d come up with for the situation had to do with stability for Sutton, and there had been only one con: I knew next to nothing about the man I’d just propositioned to live with me. But that was something I could remedy.