His mouth quirked and she felt a tug in the pit of her stomach. Something like the beginnings of loneliness. Their time together was over and it was time to go back to the real world. The world where Nathan wasn’t a part of her life.
“I got that. How about the roads?” he asked.
Keira raised her chin and gave him a bright smile. “Your prayers are answered. That was Bill Hambleton, the deputy mayor. He was calling to let me know the crews were out and the road to the lodge should be clear by late afternoon.”
“Bill, huh?” Nathan nodded, picked up the remote and turned the TV off in the middle of the movie they had been watching. “How’d he know you were here?”
“His wife, Patti, knew I was coming here the day the storm hit.” She shrugged. “Guess she just figured when she didn’t see me in town that I had gotten stuck here.”
“His wife,” he mused.
“Yeah.” Keira cocked her head and smiled at his expression. Was it possible he had been—even momentarily—jealous?
“So you’ll be leaving.”
“Time to go home.”
“For some of us.”
“You’re the one who said you didn’t have a home,” she reminded him.
“Touché,” he acknowledged with a nod. “I guess I meant that one of us will be leaving.”
“So, you’ll definitely stay for the rest of the month?”
Nodding, he leaned back into the couch. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”
“Thanks,” she whispered and resisted the urge to reach out and smooth his hair back from his forehead.
“It’s okay.” He propped his feet up on the coffee table and said, “It’s only two weeks. And, hell,” he added quietly, more to himself than to her, “guess I owe it to Hunter.”
Keira leaned into the couch too, curling her legs up under her. “Tell me about him.”
“What?”
“Hunter Palmer,” she urged. “Tell me about him. I mean, all I know is that, for some reason, he chose our town to build his lodge in—and he’s arranged for some amazingly generous donations to charity.”
Nathan looked at her briefly, then shifted his gaze so that he was staring at the fire burning in the hearth. As if mesmerized by the flames, he began talking slowly, as if unsure just where to start. “My guess is Hunter chose your town because its name was the same as his. Probably thought it was a good joke. Anyway, we went to college together. Hunter, me, and the other guys who’ll be coming here.”
“Where?”
“Harvard,” he said easily, and she wondered if he knew he was smiling. “After our first year, we rented a house off campus together.”
“Just you and Hunter?”
“No, all seven of us. Back then we called ourselves the Seven Samurai.” He shot her an amused look. “Not real clever, but…” He shrugged and let it go. “We were all as close as brothers back then.”
“I was looking at the framed photos of all of you in the upstairs hall yesterday,” Keira said. “Your hair was a lot longer then.”
He chuckled at that, and she thought he looked a little surprised. “Don’t remind me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I sort of like a man in a ponytail.”
His smile slowly faded as he shook his head. Firelight shimmered in the room, and Keira watched as memories swarmed in the depths of his eyes. “We were different then. All of us,” he said, his voice soft and far away. “We were so certain how life would turn out for us. That night we promised to build this lodge together, it never crossed our minds that we wouldn’t all be there to see it.” He paused. “Hunter got sick our senior year. Skin cancer. By the time they found it, it was way too late. He died by inches.”
“Oh, Nathan.”
He let his head fall to the back of the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “I watched him sliding away and finally one night I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to a bar near the campus, got blind drunk and picked a fight.” A quirk of his mouth appeared and disappeared again a moment later. “Naturally, I picked the wrong guy to mess with and got my ass kicked. I ended up in the hospital.”
Keira’s heart ached listening to him, but she knew she had to let him finish. She had the distinct impression that he’d never said any of this before.
He turned his head to look at her. “I woke up three days later and found out Hunter had died and was already buried.”
“I’m sorry.”
A closed door snapped into place over his eyes and his voice lost the memory-tinged softness. “It was a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday.”
He turned and speared her with a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nathan, I can see it in your face,” she said gently. “The pain of it is still with you.”
“You’re wrong,” he said and pushed himself to his feet. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked around the room like a caged tiger looking for a way through the bars. “It was ten years ago, Keira. I’m over it.”
“I wish that was true,” she said softly. “But it’s not.” Shaking her head, she got up from the couch, crossed the room and stopped right in front of him. Reaching up, she cupped his face between her palms. “Whether you can admit it or not, you’re punishing yourself for a single mistake you made when you were in pain. Don’t you see that Hunter wouldn’t want you to be so alone? Still suffering over something you never meant to do?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, pulling away from her touch, “I’m not a wounded animal, Keira. Or a child. I don’t want or need your sympathy.”
“Well, you have it anyway,” she said.
Shaking his head, he choked out a strangled laugh. “God. I don’t know how you got me talking about this, but don’t think I’m looking to be cured. I’m not carrying around a burden of guilt for being a stupid kid. I’m not hiding myself away from people so that I never have to worry about letting someone down when they need me again.”
“I didn’t say that’s why you’re alone so much,” she pointed out quietly, “but it’s interesting that it’s the first thing that came to you.”
“This is great,” he snapped, pushing one hand through his hair and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but where he was at the moment. “A mayor who’s a part-time psychiatrist. Lucky for me you were here.”