Epilogue

KACIE

“ Spend Valentine’s Day on a lift with your love. What do you think?”

I set down my fork and looked around the table. My husband and kids were my biggest fans and my harshest critics. Well, the kids were anyway. Brandon didn’t criticize as much as suggest.

“Who wants to spend Valentine’s Day on a ski lift?” our seven-year-old, Benjamin, asked.

The kid was just about the smartest child I’d ever met. But I might be biased.

“Plenty of people,” Brandon said. “Skiing is very romantic.”

Our eyes met across the dinner table and my heart did a flip-flop. I knew his thoughts were going to the very place mine were. A ski lift on Valentine’s Day just six weeks after we’d met. It was hotter than any fantasy I’d ever had, even though he’d done it specifically to act out the fantasy I’d mentioned that first day.

“Maybe ‘hit the slopes with your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day,’” I said, throwing out my second idea.

I’d been working all day to come up with the perfect slogan for the Seduction Summit Lodge’s Valentine’s Day promotion. The lodge was thriving, but we still struggled with a drop in guests the week of Valentine’s Day. There was plenty to do in Seduction Summit now, but skiing didn’t seem to be at the top of people’s lists for Valentine’s Day celebrations.

“I like that one,” Brandon said. “What does Emma say?”

Emma was my boss. She’d hired me only a year after I moved here. I was working remotely for a firm outside of Pennsylvania—a job I’d landed just a few weeks after moving—and Emma noticed the work I was doing for them. She hardly had to twist my arm to convince me to join her small marketing agency here in town.

Together, we’d helped make Seduction Summit Lodge a year-round destination. Except on Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July. But we were working on boosting tourism for those holidays as well.

“Mom, can I go skiing?” Aubrey, our five-year-old, asked.

She’d been bringing it up a lot lately. Her big brother had done the bunny slopes a few times with his friends from school, and Aubrey had a serious case of FOMO.

“We’ll talk about it,” Brandon said. “Ski season is still four months away.”

“But Mom was talking about it,” Aubrey said.

“We have to plan these things in advance,” I explained. “Miss Emma and I look at gaps in the schedule and come up with ways to fill them.”

“And there’s a gap on Valentine’s Day,” Brandon said.

“Then I should ski on Valentine’s Day,” Aubrey said.

Her logic was pretty good, even if she didn’t realize it. There weren’t many slow days when ski season was underway. The final weeks leading up to Christmas and the last weeks of winter were the big exceptions. Once it started warming up, the lodge had to find other ways to generate business.

“May I be excused?” Benjamin asked.

The question pulled me from my thoughts. While I’d been caught up in work stuff, Benjamin had cleared his plate. He’d been doing that lately so he could get back to his homework. This kid loved school more than anyone.

“Sure,” I said. “As long as it’s okay with everyone else.”

Dad nodded. “I’m proud of you, son.”

At that statement, Benjamin beamed with pride. He climbed down off his chair and ran to his room.

“Me too,” Aubrey said. “I want to go do homework.”

She’d increasingly shown an interest in being just like her brother. She was still in kindergarten, which meant she didn’t have homework, but we gave her stuff to do. Every night, either Brandon or I sat down with her and worked on things like counting and writing her name.

“You still have peas,” Brandon pointed out.

Aubrey hated peas. She’d said so on more than one occasion, but now she shoveled them into her mouth—almost more than she could hold. I was worried she might choke, but before I could say anything, she swallowed them down and opened her mouth to show nothing was left.

“Can I go?” she asked.

Brandon and I couldn’t help but laugh. And we were still laughing as she rushed from the room, just like her brother had done.

“I’ll help her tonight,” Brandon said. “I know you have a lot going on with work.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No working at night. This is family time.”

We both had that rule, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier. Family was everything to me. I was determined to be the opposite of my parents.

“Mom asked when we were coming for dinner,” I said with a sigh.

I’d gotten the question earlier that day in a text. I’d sat down with both my parents just before Benjamin was born and laid out exactly how I felt about my childhood. They’d been offended and maybe a little hurt, but mom, in particular, was making an effort to be a better grandmother than she’d been as a mom. Unfortunately, she still tended to care more about her charities and friends than her family.

“We could always leave them with her and take a trip somewhere,” Brandon said.

I shuddered at the thought. “We could, but I’d rather leave them with one of our friends.”

We had quite a few couple friends in this town, and most of them had kids. Benjamin and Aubrey would be far happier hanging out at Emma and Alex’s house, where they’d have two kids around their age, than at my parents’ gigantic, empty house filled with marble and dark wood.

“Or we could just spend a weekend at the resort,” Brandon said. “I’m sure I could grab us the honeymoon suite.”

We’d never used that honeymoon suite before. We’d spent our actual honeymoon in the Caribbean. Maybe spending so much time dealing with snow had us going in the other direction, especially since we’d gotten married only a couple of months after meeting. And we were blissfully happy almost a decade later.

“We could reenact the ski lift adventure,” he said. “Or maybe take another crack at that hot tub.”

Our cabin had a hot tub on the back deck, and we’d gotten frisky in it numerous times, even this past winter. But the thrill of public lovemaking never got old. Not for the two of us, anyway.

“I technically work with the lodge. They’re our top client. I wouldn’t want to do anything that could get us in trouble.”

Even though my boss was married to the owner, I knew how things could go viral these days. All it would take was one disgruntled employee learning about our on-site tryst and sharing it online… It wasn’t even that I was worried about my job. I just wouldn’t do that to Alex and Emma, who’d become our closest friends.

“So we go to Passion Point,” he said. “I may not own the place anymore, but I definitely can get us some VIP treatment there.”

I liked the idea of escaping Seduction Summit for a weekend for a romantic getaway. I broke out in a big smile.

“Let’s do it,” I said, picking up my fork and knife to slice off another bite of chicken.

“I love you,” he said.

The statement was so unexpected, it pulled my attention off what I was doing. I looked up at him.

“I love you too,” I said with an even bigger smile. “What brought that on?”

Brandon shook his head. “It just came out of me when I looked at you.”

Those I love you’s were the best. The ones that were spontaneous and from the heart. They made my heart swell. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten so lucky—to live in this town, in this gorgeous cabin, with the man of my dreams and our two beautiful children.

I may have cut ties with those so-called friends of mine, but I did have them to thank for that. I just happened to have found a better group of friends. Friends who accepted me for who I am. Friends who would never make me feel bad about who I was.

Not that they could these days. The way I saw it, if this incredible man seated across from me loved me, I must be something special.