Chapter 1

One

JAKE

I leaned back on the couch and kicked my feet up onto the coffee table. The wall of glass at the back of the hotel had a view of the glittering light of the Las Vegas Strip. It was even more bright and festive since it was the night before Christmas Eve.

Normally, I did everything I could to go to my hometown of Winter Falls and spend Christmas with my family. With my professional schedule and intense training, there had been quite a few missed.

This year, though, I knew I’d need to be somewhere I could blow off steam.

Tomorrow, I’d either be celebrating hard or drowning my sorrows. Either way, I would be spending Christmas Day with a killer hangover. Then I had to be in Germany two days later for a championship competition. It would be my last one until after the Olympics because I’d focus strictly on training until the games.

To a casual observer, I probably looked the picture of relaxed, but in reality, I was metaphorically sitting on the edge of my seat.

I’d been a professional snowboarder for over fifteen years and hadn’t felt this nervous since my first competition. I loved my job, the freedom of flying down those snowy hills, the adrenaline rush, the travel. It was my calling.

But here I was, nervous as hell, while I waited for the phone call.

I’d had a lot of goals and bucket list items when I started out, and I’d achieved all of them. Except one.

I wanted the gold.

Some athletes might have been content with two Olympic medals. I earned my first one—a bronze—when I was nineteen, then snagged a silver when I was twenty-three. A couple of years before the next winter games, I was injured and hadn’t returned to the top of my game, and I barely lost my spot on the team during the qualifiers.

Now I was thirty-five, and a lot of skeptics expected me to fail against all the up-and-coming pipsqueaks.

However, my years of experience and refined skills were an asset. I’d never been in better shape and hadn’t lost a competition in over a year. But none of that meant anything if I had a shit run during the Olympic qualifying rounds.

And this was my last shot. I had commitments through the end of the year, but then I would be retiring.

The phone rang, and I grabbed my phone so fast I almost dropped it.

It was the call I’d been waiting for.

“Jake Ashley,” I answered.

“You fucking crushed it, kid,” Gary, my coach, said, excitementI rating in his voice.

The breath I hadn’t realized I was holding came rushing out. Then I inhaled deeply as I pumped my fist in the air. “I was trying to be cool, but I gotta tell you, I was sweating bullets,” I admitted with a laugh.

Gary chuckled. “It was unnecessary. Your time and score were the second highest.”

“Are you serious?” I’d worked my ass off to get here, but I hadn’t expected to hear that.

“Of course, I’m serious. Now, go celebrate. But be smart because being near the top means there is almost nowhere to go but down. No pun intended.”

“Got it,” I agreed with another chuckle.

We said goodbye, and after hanging up, I navigated to my favorites and tapped on my sister’s number.

She picked up after the first ring. “Well?” Raven practically shrieked.

I winced at her shrill tone, but couldn’t help smiling at her enthusiasm. My family was awesome, even my meddling mother, who wouldn’t stop harassing me to settle down. But Raven and I had always been extremely close.

“I’m in.”

“Holy snowmen!” Raven screamed, and I held the phone away from my ear, laughing.

“Baby, calm your ass down,” Caleb, my brother-in-law, said. “You’re going to hurt yourself and the babies.” Knowing my sister, she was jumping up and down and freaking out. Since she was six months pregnant with twins, I understood Caleb’s concern.

He sighed, his voice suddenly close to the phone. “Congratulations, Jake.”

“Thanks, bro.”

We talked for another minute while my sister calmed down, then I said goodbye and called my parents and other sister, Cammie, to share the news.

They were ecstatic, and while Cammie simply congratulated me, my mother spent twenty minutes trying to convince me to go on a date with the daughter of a friend of a friend. Apparently, she was a speed skater predicted to compete in the Olympics.

I let her ramble on until my dad caught wind of what she was doing and took the phone away. “Let it go, Francie,” he said in a voice that always seemed to make her melt and made me and my siblings want to throw up.

“I just want my boy to be happy, Stan.” I heard her sigh.

“I know, darling. But let him get past the Olympics, then you can resume matchmaking.”

“Thanks a lot, Dad,” I grunted. He was usually on my side.

“You’re thirty-five years old, Jacob . I want grandbabies, too.”

“Raven has four kids!”

“They are all girls,” he reminded me. “I love my sweet babies, but we need some boys around here.”

“What about Cammie?” I argued.

Truthfully, I didn’t hate the idea of a wife and kids. I’d thought more about it over the past couple of years. But I wouldn’t give my mom any more ammunition to harass me about it.

My dad chuckled. “What makes you think your mom isn’t pestering her too?”

My mom gasped in the background. “I don’t pester!” she insisted.

“You’re right, darling. I should have said encouraged.”

I rolled my eyes and rushed to say, “I’ll call you guys in a few days to talk about table arrangements. Love you both.” Then I hung up.

Afterward, I grabbed a late drink with one of my buddies and made plans to meet up with several of them the next night. Then I headed to bed, knowing this Christmas Eve would be a night to remember.