Chapter 27

ChapterTwenty-Seven

Sadie

From the chalet window, I watch skiers cut through the new morning’s fresh powder.

The sun is bright over the mountain, the rays casting down on white snow to ignite the land that glitters as far as the eye can see like a fantasy come to life. Everything about this town, from the quaint painted cedar and stone siding on the charmingly constructed buildings to the black antiquated lantern-lined streets currently dotted with evergreen wreaths topped with a bright red velvet bow, is like a fantasy come to life.

And everything about this town feels like home to me, which is insanity, because I grew up in Yuma. Yuma is my home. It’s always been my home. The land of sand dunes and date shakes, citrus trees and sweltering days, and blue skies that stretch for miles and miles—that’s my home. Cactuses, and red earth, and the smell of sunbaked sand—that’s home. This place shouldn’t feel like home to me. This town with its gingerbread Mainstreet, and chalets with the adorable wood stoves and timber beams and snow—shouldn’t feel like it does. Like it’s home. Like it’s where I was always meant to be.

But it does. It feels like home. Like the kind of home that the soul recognizes before the body claims.

I’ve never skied a day in my life, but as I watch the skiers race down the hill, I think I might want to try. I might want to get up on skis and race toward the earth from the very top of a mountain. I might want to feel that freedom as my body soars, cutting through fresh powder on a new morning.

My hands curl around a warm cup of coffee, and I lean closer to the table, my gaze locked on the outside even though I can feel Allie’s gaze is locked on me.

“Have you skied before?”

I shake my head. “I think I might want to try.”

“It’s fun. I’m pretty good.” She shifts to look out the window. “I could teach you but…” the but lingers between us as my eyes slide from the window to her. “Nick is better.”

“Of course, he is.” Nick is good at everything he does. “Maybe I’ll ask him to teach me. Could be fun.”

The blush starts in my chest, and it doesn’t take long to slide up my neck and into my cheeks. She’s just like Katie. She has no reserve about saying the inappropriate.

“Katie thinks I need to give him something he can’t deny.” I finally tell her. I’ve already told Allie all about Katie, so she knows exactly who I’m speaking about.

Since we had Allie, Trevor and Will over, I’ve texted Allie a lot. She’s like my new bestie in snow land. Katie is my sun bestie. I have the best of both worlds, no doubt.

I know when I told Katie about Allie, she was a little jealous. But I also know she’s happy that I have someone here. More, she’s happy that I have someone like her. I think Katie is more apt to come and visit to check out Allie than she is to check out Will. But I have this gut feeling that when Katie meets Will, that’ll be it for her. Snow and blizzards and gingerbread towns will replace sand dunes and sun and date shakes.

She’ll fall hard, and what’s even better—I have a feeling that Will is going to fall too. Harder.

Because Katie’s amazing. Any man would fall hard for her if given the chance. The thing is Katie rarely gives the chance. She’s a one and done kind of gal. She’s always been that way. I don’t think she’s ever had her heartbroken aside from the first time, and that’s good—but I also want more for her. I want love for her.

And Will is flirty enough—determined enough—to break through her reservations and fight her cold shoulder.

Allie brings me back to the present as she takes another big bite of her stuffed French toast. “We’re going to send him to his knees.” She nods to herself, like she’s liking this plan a little too much. “We’re going to make him beg.”

“Sounds like you have big plans.”

“Oh, oh yeah, I do. Big, big plans.” She swallows her toast. “Believe me, Nick needs it. He needs you. He needs a woman who wants to bring him to his knees. He needs a woman who’s going to make him feel like a man again.” She frowns. “Like he’s wanted.”

“I don’t get it,” I say softly, quietly. “Why would he feel like he isn’t already a man worthy of desire?”

Allie’s eyes lift from her plate to connect with mine. There’s something there in the depths. Something that makes me a little uncomfortable, and I shift my seat.

“Allie?” I call.

She shakes her head. One sharp shake and drops her fork gently to her plate. “I want to tell you, Sadie, I want to tell you everything I know. But it’s not my place. And if I do, I worry that I might destroy what you guys are becoming. So, I’m not going to do that. That’s for him. Not me. I just hope that when he does, you listen, and you stick around.”

“Well, that’s ominous.”

Her eyes continue to hold mine. “He’s a good man. A really good man. And any woman who walks away from him, in my opinion, is a fool.”

I lift my coffee to my lips and take a long sip. And then I agree with a small nod. “I guess I better not walk away from him then.”

She smiles. It’s big and bright and way too happy. “Trevor likes you for him, you know? Will does too.”

I raise a brow. “Will flirted with me all night.”

“Oh, I know.” She laughs. “He was testing you. Your loyalty to Nick.” She snorts in memory. “Totally pissed off Nick, and he liked that too.”

“He was?” I frown. I don’t know how I feel about that, about being tested.

“Like I said, Nick is a good man. He has good friends. They want good things for him, and he hasn’t had a lot of good things. So, they wanted to make sure that you’re going to be a good thing.”

“And they think I’m going to be a good thing?”

Her grin turns cheeky again. “You’re going to be the best thing for Nick.”

I lift my own fork and push my toast around my plate, then my eyes lift to hers and my heart jolts in my chest. “You know I don’t live here, right? I’m from Arizona.” I cast my gaze out the window to the skiers that ride the slope. “This isn’t my life.”

“Who says it couldn’t be your life?”

I lift a shoulder. “It’s complicated. I have a home. I have things.”

“All of your things can move.”

“I have people.”

“That’s a little harder,” she agrees, nodding. “But it’s not like there aren’t planes, and it’s not like you can’t take vacations.”

I can’t look back at her when I say, “But Nick would have to ask me to stay, and we’ve only been doing this for a little over a week. It’s crazy to be thinking about forever with a man I’ve known for a little over a week.” My pitch is rising. “I don’t even know him. Not really, anyway.”

“Girl, you are sleeping in his arms every night.”

“But he doesn’t talk. Not much, anyway. He’s like a vault. And prying into him is not easy.”

She gives me a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. In fact, it’s a little sad, a little guarded, and it makes the little hope that I have in my chest deflate. “You have time, Sadie. Make him talk. Make him let you inside that uncrackable vault and invade him with all the,” her eyes scan me. “Sunshine you’ve got going on.” I laugh and she continues, “It’s up to you whether you’re going to try and do that. I can’t make you. I just hope that you do. Because I know he needs you. And I think,” she waves her fork at me. “I think you need him too.”

She has no idea how right she is. How much I really do need this man. And that thought is amazing to me. Really, it’s just shocking. Because a week and a half ago, I showed up unbidden on his doorstep. A week and a half ago, he’d been angry to see me there. A week and a half ago, if there hadn’t been a dangerous blizzard blowing, he would have sent me on my way.

And a week and a half ago, I would have run from him. I never would have stayed had there been a way for me to leave. But as fate would have it, the blizzard trapped us together for just enough time to give our lonely hearts a taste of companionship. To give our aching souls a promise of more.

“I know I want him,” I admit. “I know that I want him like I’ve never wanted any other man. And I know if he tells me he wants me too, I won’t go home. I’ll stay here with him for as long as he wants me. As crazy as that is, it’s how I feel.”

Allie takes a swig of her coffee. “Honey, that man is never going to let you go.”