carafe, he stirred in a heaping spoonful of sugar. “Here. Caffeinate.”
“Thanks.” Andrew grabbed the drink, took a long swig then coughed. “Right. Hot.”
Tavish snorted. “Sleep deprivation have you forgetting the basics of temperature, genius?”
“In about seven months this’ll be you.” Andrew pointed a finger at Tavish. “Just wait.” He eyed Zach. “What’s got you so cheerful today?”
“I—Physio problems. Thought I’d come in to get some work done—distract myself—but I see my desk is taken.” Zach tilted his chin at the mess of photographs and draft promotional materials scattered across his desk. “I’ll grab my laptop and go work in the staff lounge.”
“No, you’ll go home and rest,” Andrew instructed. “Doctor’s orders. And mine.”
Zach scowled at Andrew, who was well practiced at flipping between buddy mode and boss mode. “How the hell is sitting and editing the policy-and-procedure manual not resting?”
“Anyone can do office work. Only you can get you better. And I need you sparky for opening day.”
“Oh, I’ll be on skis in plenty of time for a December opening.” And he’d be hiking along the avalanche site far before that, getting Sam’s film done.
“That’s not what my sister said,” Andrew threw back.
“Which one—the nosy one or the nosier one?”
Tavish snorted.
Andrew glared at his brother-in-law. “You wouldn’t be laughing if Lauren were here.”
“I’ll make it up to her.”
“Yeah, didn’t need to know that. But I meant Nosy Two, not Nosy One.”
“Cadence won’t be able to tell you my secrets anymore,” Zach grumbled. “Client confidentiality and all that.”
“Client?” Andrew asked.
Zach nodded.
“About time,” Andrew crowed. “Don’t know why it took you so long.”
And Andrew never would. What guy wanted to know that his sister was starring in a friend’s nightly fantasies? Not that Andrew had a leg to stand on there—he’d married Tavish’s sister, Mackenzie—but still. Time for the easy answer, even if it would make Zach sprout feathers and start clucking around the office. “She had to talk me into it. Needles aren’t my thing.”
“But skiing is,” Andrew said.
Zach lifted a shoulder.
Tavish ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “Lauren texted me. Told me I was supposed to help convince you for the sake of the new wellness center. Apparently they want you as a poster boy?”
“So goes the story.” Zach slumped and then straightened as he caught himself cradling his right elbow. Damn it. He really needed to stop favoring his injuries. His arm didn’t really hurt anymore. But his back sure did, from having thrown himself out of alignment by not taking it easy.
“I don’t buy it,” Andrew announced.
“Why?”
“As if the center’s going to be anything but successful. They already have a full slate of reputable wellness providers, and the promotions team has sold a ton of gym memberships and spa packages.” Andrew narrowed his eyes. “This is about Cadie somehow.”
Slapping the desk, Tavish got a “Eureka!” look on his face. “When she and Lauren weren’t talking to each other last month, it was all about Cadie’s independence. This is probably that, too.”
“You taking up psychology instead of photography, Fitzgerald?” Zach grabbed a mug and busied himself making his own beverage. He managed to do it while putting minimal weight on his left leg, avoiding the inevitable winces and tugs that came along with standing on his injured limb. Best not show Andrew how much Zach still needed his crutches.
“Um, if anyone’s going to know Dawson women, it’s Andrew and me.”
Zach kept silent. Yeah, Andrew and Tavish knew the Dawson women well. But so did Zach. And Cadie had been increasingly awkward with him since his accident. So if joining her client list could facilitate them getting back their once-easy equilibrium? Another reason to go along with her request. Even if it meant having to take cold showers every night.
“This project is Cadie’s baby,” Andrew pointed out. “She knows it’s going to succeed because the company name’s on it and people trust AlpinePeaks’s ventures. But she wants to be the one to make that happen. With the way she’s poured herself into it, I’m thinking she’s using it to prove herself.”
Tavish waved a hand at Andrew. “What he said.”
Zach’s heart panged and he needed to sit down. Not because of his aching thigh, for once. “That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” Tavish asked.
“She thinks she owes me,” Zach said quietly.
Andrew’s dark brows rose. “So let her pay you back.”
“She doesn’t need to.”
“And when are you going to feel like you don’t need to owe her anymore?”
Zach blinked at Andrew’s pointed question. Was he that obvious? He didn’t make a habit of talking about the promises he’d made to Sam, but then, Andrew wasn’t stupid. “I don’t.”
“Why else would you move here, man?” Tavish asked.
Okay, so Tavish wasn’t stupid, either.
“I will cop to keeping an eye out for her. She was wrecked and pregnant and it seemed the prudent thing to do.”
“Big sacrifice,” Tavish mused.
He didn’t know the photographer as well as he knew Andrew—Tavish had been out of town up until recently—and the blasé observation made Zach blink.
“Sam was my best friend,” Zach explained.
Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “And Cadie is...”
“My best friend’s wife.” Oops. Zach hadn’t meant for that to come out so harshly. Time to backpedal, and quickly. Before either of his friends figured out how often he had dishonored Sam, picturing Cadie as his wife. Ben as his son.
And he didn’t have the will to force the fantasy back into the mental vault he’d built the moment he’d spotted Sam flirting with Cadie at that bar in Steamboat Springs.
He and Sam had both honed in on Cadie, who had been dancing with a friend that night, dark hair streaming around her bared shoulders—she’d been wearing a sleeveless top that was probably illegal a hundred years ago. An ill-timed visit to the john had meant Sam moved in on her before Zach had the chance. There hadn’t been a thing he could do about it then, and that was twofold now. He wasn’t going to throw another shovel of dirt on his dead friend’s grave by pursuing Sam’s widow.
“Pretty sure there’s a statute of limitations—”
Zach cut Tavish’s lighthearted statement off with a glare.
“—or not,” the guy finished.
“Yeah, not.” Andrew shot Tavish a disbelieving look.
Zach cringed. He’d come to the office to think about something other than Cadie, not to spill his guts to her brother and her sister’s fiancé. Unplugging his laptop and tucking it under his arm, he leaned on one of his crutches and moved toward the door in an awkward, hitching hobble. “Coffee klatch is over. I’m going to get some work done.”
But something told him that Cadie was going to be drifting throughout