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  Rugged

  Ava Bloom

  Copyright © 2018 by Ava Bloom

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Contents

  1. Mallory

  2. Derrick

  3. Mallory

  4. Derrick

  5. Mallory

  6. Derrick

  7. Mallory

  8. Derrick

  9. Mallory

  10. Derrick

  11. Mallory

  12. Derrick

  13. Mallory

  14. Derrick

  15. Mallory

  More by Ava Bloom

  Join the Club

  1

  Mallory

  I took a deep breath of the crisp, wintry mountain air and smiled. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved my life back in the city, but it was definitely nice to escape to the mountains for a few days. Especially with all of my best friends.

  I looked around at the group of them. Katie, Hillary, Jane, and I had been friends since we were practically still in diapers. We’d grown up together and shared all our major milestones with one another. Boyfriends, graduations – you name it, we’d always been there for one another. I couldn’t imagine life without them.

  Vicky and Megan were the newer additions to our group – but I couldn’t imagine life without them either. The six of us had all gone to the same college, and although we’d majored in different things, we’d lived together through all four years, first in on-campus dorms and then off-campus in apartments. We had since moved to different parts of the city, but we made sure to meet up at least every week for brunch, coffee, game night, or some other excursion.

  I knew I was lucky to be here with all of them, together, at the luxurious Twin Valleys Resort…

  We left our bags for the bellhop and made our way into the spacious lobby. The building was like something out of a movie: the perfect, rustic A-frame style, exactly what you’d expect to come back to after a long day of skiing. There were real fireplaces scattered throughout the space and blankets strewn over couches and comfortable-looking chairs. Everything was just so cozy. The perfect getaway.

  Or pseudo-getaway, in my case. I still had to keep up with work while I was there. But a few hours here, a few hours there – it shouldn’t be anything major. I hoped.

  One of the resort staff brought over six flutes of champagne, and we all laughingly clinked glasses. “To the bride-to-be!” Vicky cried, and we all cheered.

  I knew this probably wasn’t the final trip that we would all take together, but at the same time, I couldn’t help feeling that this was the end of something special. Once Jane was married, I would be the last one of our group without a husband – or even a long-time boyfriend. I had known them all long enough to know that we would always be friends, but I was starting to wonder how much I would feel like I was still part of the group, once they started having kids and moving on to different stages in their lives.

  As though reading my thoughts, Hillary flashed me a wicked smile. “Here’s to finding Mallory a boyfriend while we’re here in paradise!” she said, raising her glass for another toast.

  I felt my face heat up. “Come on, you promised you weren’t going to start that,” I reminded her. I wanted to have fun while we were there, not feel like I continuously had to justify why my career always came first.

  My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket with a grimace. Work already, ugh. “Can’t those guys survive five minutes without me?” I muttered under my breath.

  Suddenly, Jane grabbed my phone out of my hands. “And you promised you weren’t going to start that until at least the second day, while we’re all out skiing,” she reminded me. When I started to protest, she gave me her best puppy-dog eyes. “I’m getting married, Mallory,” she said plaintively. “Can’t you at least give me one night?”

  I laughed and shook my head, taking my phone back but putting it in my pocket. “All right, all right,” I told her. “No more work until tomorrow.” I was lying, and they probably all knew it. But I’d at least duck out of sight of the rest of them before dealing with it. “You guys are just lucky that you have jobs you can leave for six whole days,” I told them, only partially joking.

  “Come on, Mallory,” Megan said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like you need the money. And you’ve got, what, a billion vacation days saved up?”

  “That’s not the point,” I said stubbornly. “I have a lot of responsibility at work. I manage people. When I’m not there, the whole system breaks down. They need me.”

  “If they need you that badly, you need to learn to delegate more,” Megan said firmly.

  Jane groaned. “Guys, I don’t want to have that argument now,” she said. “Tonight’s supposed to be fun. We’re going to go out on the town, get drunk, and go dancing – aren’t we?”

  I wanted to argue with what Megan had said – it wasn’t about delegating; I just had the jobs that I needed to do. And sure, I might be a perfectionist and double-check what everyone else did. But they had proved time and again that when I handed over the reigns, they weren’t capable of maintaining our high company standards. So why should I continue to let them muck up our reputation?

  But as much as I loved my friends, it was a point that we never saw eye to eye on. Anyway, they were all cheering at Jane’s suggestion of going out and getting drunk. And I supposed I could let myself relax for one night. I could get caught up in the morning and then go out skiing for a little while in the afternoon.

  “So where do you recommend we go?” Katie asked the man who had brought us champagne.

  The guy flushed a little, looking over our group. “You’re here for a bachelorette party, right?” he asked.

  “Yup!” Jane said, flashing her shiny engagement ring. “We need someplace wild – only not too wild since most of them are already married.”

  Hillary leaned in towards the guy, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But if you have any single friends that you could hook her up with…” she said, jerking her thumb towards me.

  I rolled my eyes but let yet another comment slide, reminding myself that we were just very different people and I couldn’t expect them to understand everything about my lifestyle. It was part of what made us all great friends, right: opposites attract.

  “Well, the place to be for après is Joe’s,” the guy – Mitchell, according to his nametag – told us. “It’s right at the base of the mountain. A lot of the ski instructors go there at the end of the day; it’s a fun crowd. But it’s a little…” He trailed off, looking like he was thinking hard. “Let’s just say it’s one of those love it or hate it places,” he finally said. He gave a pointed glance around the lobby. “It might not be your style.”

  Vicky laughed. “You hear that?” she said. “He thinks we’re too hoity-toity to do the real après experience. Bring it on!”

  Again, there were cheers from most of the group. We quickly headed upstairs to ditch our things and get ready for a night out in a ski town. I gave myself one last once-over in the mirror. Dark brown hair in an intricate braid beneath a soft beanie, a little bit of makeup to add some color to my lips and cheeks as well as make my green eyes stand out, and a neat green sweater to complete the wintry look. I was ready to go.

  “Really, Mallory – jeans?” Megan sighed as I came down into the lobby.

  I looked around at the rest of them. “Vicky and Katie are in jeans too,” I pointed out, not sur
e what the problem was. Did she think we were going to find a club with some ridiculous dress code while we were there? It was a tiny ski town, for crying out loud!

  Then it hit me, and I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, enough about the boyfriend thing,” I said. “I don’t want to spend the whole vacation with you guys trying to hook me up with people.”

  “All right, all right,” Megan said with her hands in the air.

  When we got to Joe’s, I could see immediately that it wasn’t the kind of place that everyone was going to like. It definitely had a sort of grungy, ski bum vibe to it. Jane wasn’t exactly a snob, but this was her bachelorette weekend and she wanted everything to be glamorous. She didn’t want a place with rusty signs all over the walls, stained wooden counters and tables, and a crowd of unwashed ski instructors all wearing the same exact beanies.

  I kind of liked the place, though – it was cozy, just like the lobby of our hotel, but in a more authentic way. And it felt like what I expected from a ski town: a small group of locals who all knew one another, who hung out the same places that they worked. It wasn’t the kind of life I would ever imagine myself living, but at the same time, I could appreciate the stark contrast from the anonymity that I enjoyed in the city.

  We were barely two sips of mulled cider in before everyone else had decided that they were ready to leave, though.

  “Come on, it’s not that bad,” I said. “We can at least finish our drinks.”

  “We’ll finish our drinks,” Jane agreed. She looked around and wrinkled her nose. “But I think we should go sit outside on the deck. It smells sort of musty in here.”

  Everyone else nodded, and they started outside. I trailed after them, casting one last look at the comfortable chairs over by the fireplace.

  “Hey, miss! Green sweater – wait!”

  I turned back around to see who was calling me. I frowned when I saw that it was one of the bartenders. Had Vicky forgotten to tip him? I automatically reached for my wallet but stopped when I saw that he was holding out my hat.

  “Oh!” I said, reaching up to touch my hair. “Whoops, almost forgot about that.” Of course, I would have realized it the moment I got outside and the cold hair hit my ears, but I appreciated his gesture nonetheless.

  I reached out and caught the hat, jamming it firmly back on my head. As I did so, I couldn’t help giving the bartender a once-over. He was sexy, I had to admit. With his broad shoulders, scruffy beard and dark hair, he looked more like a bouncer than a bartender. He even had tattoos covering each muscular arm. There was something about the way that he held himself that didn’t fit the bartender attitude either – or the laid-back, ski bum vibe.

  “Your friends are going to be waiting for you,” the man – Derrick, according to his nametag – said, raising an eyebrow at me.

  I hardly spared a glance for the doorway, instead choosing to hop up on the empty seat next to the bar. “So let them,” I said evenly.

  I didn’t really know what I was doing – I wasn’t thinking about flirting with the guy. But really, where was the harm? It had been a while since I had a one-night stand, and wasn’t this the perfect place for one? I could have a little holiday romance and then disappear back into my own world again.

  Really, the only thing holding me back was that my friends would tease me endlessly about it. I could handle a little teasing, though. Especially if it meant I could have those strong, skilled hands on me…

  I watched as he poured another couple drinks before coming down to my end of the counter again, beginning to dry off the haphazard pile of glasses that had been stacked there.

  “So, you live around here?” I asked Derrick. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt like an idiot. Of course he lived around there; he was working there. I blushed.

  Derrick gave me an amused smile. “Yeah, I live around here,” he said. “You don’t – you’re just here on vacation.”

  “That obvious?” I asked with a grimace. “What gave me away, the fact that I clearly did not just walk off the ski slope and into the bar, or the fact that you don’t recognize me but seem to know everyone else here?”

  Derrick laughed. “Both,” he said. “Where are you from?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “It’s a lot colder here than it is there.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “The weather, really? Is that the best you can do?”

  Derrick looked shocked for a moment and then grinned devilishly at me, leaning in close. “What do you want me to do, tell you all about how I’d like to take you home and have my way with you? Is that what you’re angling for?”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair. Luckily, before I had to respond, Hillary was there at my elbow. “Mallory, there you are!” she said. “We couldn’t figure out what had happened to you. But we’re all finished with our drinks, and Jane has picked out the best place for us. Let’s go.”

  I gave one last glance towards Derrick the bartender, but he had already moved on to help another customer, as though our conversation had never even happened. I frowned at his back but hopped off my stool, following Hillary out the door.

  2

  Derrick

  I woke up early, unable to sleep. What a dream..., I thought. Those bewitching green eyes still hung there in my mind. I shook my head to clear it. I didn’t even know the name of that girl from the bar. And now here I was dreaming about her.

  That was part of the appeal, though, I knew: I didn’t know who she was, and I would never have to see her again once her trip was over. I could take her home, pleasure her and myself, and forget all about her afterwards. I had a little bit of a deeper attraction to her because of the way she’d made me laugh – there was something interesting about her, something less vapid than the rest of the pretty girls. But there were plenty of pretty, sexy girls in town at this time of year. No point thinking about her anymore.

  It wasn’t like I needed to take anyone home anyway. It just might be nice to share a little company and warmth on a cold winter’s night.

  I took my usual route through town, heading up towards the mountain, along the condos, and then down into downtown. I swung down by the river, running along the railroad tracks, my feet crunching through early-morning frost. I got into the rhythm of the run, forgetting all about everything else, my mind focused only on the rhythm of my feet hitting the ground, my arms swinging at my sides, my breath rushing in and rushing out.

  To be honest, I was pushing a little harder than usual, trying to forget what this week was the anniversary of. But the burn felt good, and I kept going, heading further out along the river where normally I would turn and start heading back to my house.

  Speak of the devil, I thought as I neared a sudden familiar profile.

  The woman had her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, with a knit headband keeping her ears warm. She was still in jeans, but her sweater was covered up with a thick purple coat. She had a camera pressed up to her face, but as she lowered it –

  It was the same girl from the bar.

  For a moment, I considered running right past her, but something stopped me. I remembered my thoughts from before, about how interesting she was. And even bundled up like this, she was sexy, her coat belted in and hinting at those curves that I’d seen before. I wanted to strip her down and –

  I felt a punch of lust and hurriedly forced those thoughts out of my mind. A semi in running clothes would be…a little awkward.

  “Hey, good morning,” I said as I got closer.

  The woman looked first puzzled and then pleasantly surprised when she looked at me. “Hey!” she greeted brightly. “Derrick, right?”

  “That’s me,” I agreed, inclining my head towards her. “I’m afraid I never got your name the other night, though.”

  “Mallory,” she said, hurriedly holding out a hand and nearly fumbling her camera in the process. “Whoops…” She gave a nervous, embarrassed little laugh, and I couldn’t help grinning right back at her.
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  “So, you’re…still in town,” I said lamely, not sure what else to say. I didn’t know why I had even stopped; it wasn’t like I could drag her back to my place now. Taking a girl home from a bar was one thing. But most women didn’t go for one-night stands that happened before breakfast. Not that I’d ever tried that before.

  “Yeah, everyone else was pretty hungover this morning; I don’t think they’re going to get out skiing before noon,” Mallory said, grimacing. “I had planned on getting some work done this morning, but our servers are down, so I found myself with some unexpected free time.” She paused, looking around. “It’s really beautiful here, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I said. “But if you’re just taking pictures down here, you’re missing half the beauty of the place.”

  Mallory laughed a little. “I don’t know where else to go,” she admitted. “I was going to ask at the visitor’s center, but of course they don’t open until ten…”

  “Come on,” I said, grinning at her and reaching for her hand. “Let me show you one of my favorite spots in town.”

  Mallory looked dubiously at my outstretched hand and I nearly retracted it – but just when the pause was starting to feel uncomfortable, she clasped her hand in mine. “All right,” she said, letting me lead the way.

  To be honest, I forgot how much of a hike it was up to the saddle. It had been a while since I’d been up there, although it had long been one of my favorite places in the area to do some serious thinking. I’d steered clear of serious thinking ever since –

  But I didn’t want to think about that now. Instead, I concentrated on the hike up, letting my body fall into the same sort of rhythm – albeit a slower one – as when I was running. Concentrate on my footfalls, concentrate on my breathing, concentrate on my swinging arms – anything except that.