Cindi Myers - Marriage on Her Mind

“Long story.” Trish’s grin widened. “Nothing to worry about, though. He’s a great guy. Just don’t make any plans to take him home and show him off to the folks.”

The idea almost made Casey laugh. Any man who didn’t wear a designer suit and come with a mile-long pedigree was unlikely to meet with her parents’ approval. That was only one of the reasons she was glad to be so far away from home. As for Max, well, if she were in the market for a boyfriend, she would definitely find him tempting.

She eyed Trish a little more closely. With her long blond hair, blue eyes and high cheekbones, Trish looked like a Scandinavian princess. The kind of woman who’d get a second look from any man. “Do you speak from experience?” she asked.

Trish laughed again. “Nah. I already had a boyfriend when I came here. But I know the type. Ski towns are full of them.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Zephyr said. “She thinks all men are scum.”

“Not all of them,” Trish said. “But let’s face it, most men come to a ski town because they’d rather play than work.”

“Then why do most women come here?” Bryan asked.

“Maybe the same thing.” She winked at Casey.

“I’m going to go see if I can find some wood or something for the moose antlers,” Bryan said. “It was good meeting you, Casey.”

“It was nice meeting you, too,” she said. “All of you.” Her feet were freezing standing here. She stamped them and nodded toward the coffee shop. “Is the coffee any good here?”

“The best in town,” Trish said. “Come on in and I’ll pour you a cup on the house.”

“She only says that because she runs the place,” Zephyr said. But he followed the women up the steps and into a small front room that barely had space for three small tables, a combination deli case/front counter and a huge gleaming brass-and-silver espresso machine.

“What’ll you have?” Trish said, moving behind the counter.

“A mocha, please,” Casey said.

“Whipped cream?” Trish asked, already turning levers on the coffee machine.

“Of course.”

“I’ll have one of those, too,” Zephyr said.

“You have to pay,” Trish said.

He grinned. “Put it on my tab.”

Trish rolled her eyes, but pulled a second cup from the stack by the machine. “So where are you from, Casey?” she asked.

“Illinois.”

“Where in Illinois?” Zephyr asked.

“Um…Chicago.” She watched his face carefully. Would her name ring a bell?

“No kidding.” He shook his head. “Never been there.”

She relaxed a little. She didn’t know why she was worried. People out here probably didn’t care about the society pages in the Chicago paper. And she wasn’t going to care about them anymore, either. “I’m going to be working at the chamber of commerce,” she said. “But I bet you already knew that.”

“You probably think we’re nosy, but C.B. is still a small town,” Trish said. “A new person moving in is big news.”

“Especially a new, single female.” Zephyr removed the top from a glass jar of biscotti and helped himself, dodging Trish’s hand slap.

“Oh?” Casey asked. “Why is that?”

Trish’s eyes widened. “You didn’t know? I thought maybe that was one reason you came out here.”

“Know what?”

“Single men outnumber women two to one in ski towns,” Zephyr said.

“Military bases and Alaska are the only places you’re likely to find a better ratio,” Trish said. “Of course, like I said before, that depends on your definition of eligible bachelor.” She angled a look at Zephyr.

“What?” he asked, brushing crumbs from the front of his sweater. “Chicks dig musicians.”

“Tourist chicks, maybe,” Trish said. “Those of us who know you better aren’t so sure.” She handed Casey a steaming cup topped with a mound of whipped cream.

Zephyr grinned. “You only say that because you want my body.”

“Like I want cellulite and chapped lips,” Trish said.

Casey sipped her coffee and kept quiet. The drink was sweet and rich and warmed her through. But more warming still was the feeling of being accepted so quickly by these strangers. All her life she’d heard about small town residents’ views of outsiders. Maybe the locals-versus-tourists mentality in Crested Butte negated all that.

“You should stop by the Eldo tonight,” Trish said.

Casey vaguely remembered passing a bar by that name. “What’s going on at the Eldo?” she asked.

“Just the regular Sunday Night Soiree,” Zephyr said. “One last chance to party before the workweek begins.”

“All your neighbors will be there and it’ll be a good opportunity to meet them,” Trish said.

Max hadn’t been kidding when he’d said it was impossible to stay uninvolved in C.B. She half expected if she said no, people would come and drag her from her room. But honestly, everyone was so friendly she didn’t really want to refuse. And the Sunday Night Soiree didn’t sound anything like the boring social events she’d endured too often in Chicago. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe I will.”

She was feeling better about making this move. The people she’d met so far made her feel that being a little bit different wasn’t a bad thing. Who knew, she might even find what she needed in this place to slay a few personal dragons of her own.

The Eldo was a long narrow room occupying the upper floor of a building at one end of Elk Avenue. The place was packed, every table and barstool occupied by young men and women, the crowd spilling out onto the balcony that overlooked the street. Despite the frigid temperatures, the balcony was full and patrons cheerfully called down to friends and passersby on the street below.

“Is it always like this?” Casey asked Trish as the two women squeezed past a group of pool players on their way to the table Bryan and Zephyr had saved for them. The table was near the small stage where two guitar players and a drummer played enthusiastically if not well.

“Mmm. Sometimes it’s worse.” Trish maneuvered past two men who were arm wrestling and plopped into a chair.

“I ordered us a pitcher,” Bryan said, his voice raised to be heard above the band. He grinned at Casey. “I’ll bet there aren’t many places like this in Chicago.”

“None that I’ve visited,” she said truthfully. Her mother would faint it she knew Casey was here now, drinking beer poured from a pitcher in a place she would no doubt have called a dive. Casey smiled and took a long sip of beer. The idea of unsettling her mother pleased her.

One of the arm wrestlers looked up from the struggle and spotted Casey and immediately released his hold on his competitor. He stood and came over to them. “Hi,” he said, grinning at Casey. “Wanna dance?”

She looked around at the packed bar. As far as she could tell, there wasn’t five square feet of free space anywhere. “There’s nowhere to dance,” she said.

“Sure there is.” His grin widened. “We’d just have to stand really close to each other.”

“Um, no thanks.”

“Maybe some other time, Chris.” Trish gently pushed the man away. “Casey just got here. Let her relax a little before she gets into the swing of things.”

Bryan grinned. “It’s already happening.”

“What’s happening?” Casey asked.

“I told you a single woman in this town was big news,” Trish said. “Now that you’ve been noticed, you’d better be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

But Trish didn’t have time to answer, as a waitress staggered toward them with a tray loaded with drinks. She set the tray down heavily in front of Casey. “These are for you,” she said.

“For me?” Casey stared, dumbfounded, at the half a dozen glasses—everything from bottled beer to a margarita to some drink that featured a number of cherries and a frilly pink paper umbrella. “I couldn’t drink all this. I’d be ill.”

“We’ll help.” Zephyr plucked a bottle of beer from the tray.

Trish picked up the pink umbrella drink and grinned. “Everyone just wants to make you feel welcome.”

Casey nodded and took another sip from the glass of beer she’d already started. “I don’t know what to say. It’s a little…overwhelming.” Coming to town, she had had a vague idea that because no one here knew her or her family, she would be able to fade into the background. Her past experiences being the center of attention had made her wary of the spotlight.

“Enjoy it while you can,” Trish said. “Pretty soon you’ll be just another local and no one will look at you twice.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Bryan said thoughtfully.

Trish elbowed him and he gave her a mock-wounded look. But Casey’s attention was quickly distracted by a trio of men in ski-patroller uniforms who were headed her way. “Hello,” they chorused.

Casey blinked, sure she’d fallen asleep and been sucked into a bizarre dream. “You’re Casey, aren’t you?” one of the men—a sunburned guy with thinning brown hair—said.

She nodded. “And you are?”

“I’m Mike. This is Scott and Eric.”

She nodded. “Nice to meet you, I’m sure.”

The three found chairs from somewhere and pulled them up to the table with the arm wrestlers. Soon Casey was peppered with questions about where she was from, what brought her to Crested Butte, did she want to have dinner, dance, have a drink, go hiking, skiing, biking, skating, et cetera, et cetera.

She felt dizzy and dazed and after a while stopped answering them, letting Trish fill in the details she knew. More drinks arrived at the table. More people crowded around them. The band stopped playing and they joined the group around the table also. At some point someone turned on a stereo or jukebox and the three ski patrollers took it upon themselves to serenade Casey with a very bad rendition of the Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones.” She didn’t quite get the connection, but then, nothing about this town really made sense.

About that time she looked up and saw Max watching her from across the room. She was so grateful to see a familiar face—and one that didn’t seem determined to impress her, woo her or find out everything about her—that she could have wept.

His eyes locked on hers and he frowned, then started toward her. He waded through the crush of people, easily shoving aside chairs and stepping over the tangle of outstretched legs and feet. “Are you guys trying to drive Casey out of town her first day here?” he asked the three ski patrollers.

“We were just providing a little entertainment now that the band was done,” one of the men—Eric?—said.

Max shook his head. “From what I heard, there wasn’t anything entertaining about it.” He offered Casey his hand. “If you’re ready to leave, I’ll walk you home.”

A chorus of groans and catcalls greeted this offer, rising in crescendo when Casey let him pull her out of her chair. “It was nice meeting all of you,” she said. “But I really am exhausted.”

She followed Max through the crowd to the door. They didn’t speak until they’d descended to street level. It was snowing, tiny flakes gently drifting down like powdered sugar shaken from a jar. The chill night air hit like a slap in the face, reviving her. She drew her parka more tightly around her and gave Max a grateful look. “Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she said.

He nodded. “You looked a little overwhelmed in there.”

“It was all a little…much.” They began walking slowly down the deserted sidewalk, sidestepping patches of ice.