You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(92)
Snow-Kissed
by
Laura Florand
About the Book
In a snow-kissed Christmas cabin, a heart-wrenching tale of love, loss, forgiveness–and new hope.
After the utter destruction of her marriage and her happiness, Kai knew it was better to shut herself away from the world than to hurt and be hurt.
Holed up in her mountain cabin, she plans to spend her Christmas alone. Until her not-quite-ex-husband shows up as the first flakes start to fall.
Now should she send him back out into the cold? Or can she be brave enough to let this winter snow bind them back together?
Voted Biggest Tearjerker of the Year in the All About Romance Annual Reader Poll (you are warned) and named a Best Book of the Year by Dear Author and Romance Novels for Feminists. An Elite Eight finalist in the annual “March Madness” book tournament, the DABWAHA.
“If anyone should ask me why Laura Florand is one of my very, very favorite authors, I won’t need to say a word. I will let Snow-Kissed speak for me. It is undoubtedly one of the very best, most moving stories I’ve had the privilege to read.”
—The Bookish Babe
“Breath-taking, gut-wrenching. A must read.”
—Book Junkie
“One of the best second chance romances I have ever read.”
—The Reader’s Den
“Romance at its strongest and most powerful.”
—Dear Author
About the Author
Laura Florand burst on the contemporary romance scene in 2012 with her award-winning Amour et Chocolat series. Since then, her books have appeared in ten languages, been named among the Best Books of the Year by Library Journal, RT Book Reviews, and Barnes & Noble, received the RT Seal of Excellence and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and been recommended by NPR, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. In 2015, NPR gave her the enormous honor of naming her Chocolate Kiss to its list of the Top 100 Romances of all time.
Chapter One
The snow fell over the black granite counter in a soft hush of white. Kai focused on the sieve she shook as she brought a winter of sugar to the dark world, letting the powder slide across her thoughts the way snow on a falling night would, taking all with it, even her, leaving only peace.
That peace lay so cold. She had almost forgotten how cold she felt, until he showed up.
The man who, once upon a time, had always made her so warm and happy.
Now he stood at the window, looking as cold as she was. Destroying all peace. Past him and the pane of glass, only a few flakes fell against a gray sky, rare and disinterested, nature as usual failing her. Her fall of powdered sugar could not come between her and him, could not blur him to some distant place cut off by the arrival of winter. Could not hush him, if ever he chose to speak.
No, all she could do was concentrate on the sugar-snow. Looking up—looking at him—undid everything.
“I don’t think they’re coming,” the man said finally, and she swallowed. It was funny how her whole body ached at his voice. As if her skin had gotten unused to his vibrations running over it. As if she needed to develop tiny calluses at the base of every hair follicle so that those hairs would not want to shiver.
Light brown hair neatly cut, he stood angled toward the window, shoulders straight, with that long, intellectual fitness he had, the over-intelligent, careful man who had played sports almost like he might study for a test, maintaining perfect physical fitness as just another one of his obligations. She still remembered when he had discovered Ultimate Frisbee, the awkward, unfamiliar, joy-filled freedom in him as he explored the idea of playing something so intense just for fun. It had been rather beautiful. She had gone to all his games and chatted with the other wives with their damn babies and even played on his pick-up teams sometimes, although unwilling to put forth the effort to be part of his competitive leagues.
Those fun, fun years full of weekends of green grass, and friendly people, and laughter. They had had too many happy days. They clogged in her all the sudden, dammed up too tight, hurting her.
She had screwed them all the f*ck up. Forever.
She didn’t know what to say to him, after what she had done, so she concentrated on shedding snow, like some great, dangerous goddess bending over her granite world, a creature half-formed from winter clouds, drifting eerily apart from all humanity. She wished he had not come, but the thought of him leaving wrenched a hole in her that filled up instantly with tears.
Hot, liquid tears that sloshed around inside her and wanted to spill out. That in itself was terrifying and strange; she had thought she had tamed her tears down to something near-solid and quiescent, a slushy of grief that lay cold in her middle but no longer spilled out at every wrong movement, every careless glimpse of happy couples or children laughing in a park.
She had so hoped that she had reached a point where she could—see him. Where all that long process of coming to peace with herself and her losses would be strong enough to withstand a glimpse of him. But all of her, every iota of strength and peace, had dissolved into pain and longing the instant she saw him step out of his car, a flake of snow catching on his hair.
Damn it, his mother was supposed to be here. She was supposed to come with her magazine staff for this shoot, a whole entourage to make it easier on both Kai and Kurt. How could they have abandoned her to this reopening of wounds because they were afraid of a few flakes of snow?