A Cliché Christmas(34)

“How could you think I only wanted some sort of winter-break romance with you?”

“I . . . I just thought—”

He reached for my hips and pulled me toward him, his breath tickling my mouth as he spoke. “Stop it. Please.” He shook his head and leaned his forehead against mine. “Stop thinking so much. Stop telling yourself that what I feel for you isn’t real. Because it is, Georgia. There are so many things I want to say to you, but I can’t because you’re not ready to hear them. Not yet.” Weston’s deep breaths warmed my face.

My body was limp with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify. Weston let go of me and took a step back, giving me space that I neither needed nor wanted at that moment.

“Why not?” I asked, the snow falling harder, making small piles on my shoulders, hood, and boots.

He studied my face and shook his head as a snowflake landed on his cheek and melted instantaneously. “Because you don’t trust me.”

I forced my next words out, hoping I believed them. “Yes, I do.”

“Do you?” he asked, his eyebrows pulling together. “Then stop worrying about having too many expectations for me—stop wondering if my feelings for you are going to last.”

Had he been reading the script written on my soul?

“I care about you, Georgia.” His breathy whisper cut through my many layers of self-preservation and doubt.

Tears blurred my vision, and he reached for me again, his cool gloves brushing against my cheeks.

“I want to believe that.” And I did.

“Good, because someday I won’t be able to hold back what I really want to say.”

His lips covered mine a second later. And our kiss opened up a rhythm inside me that I wasn’t sure existed until now.

Something was happening to me . . . something as achingly wonderful as it was devastatingly uncertain.

I was falling in love with Weston James.

For the second time.





Despite the intense start to the day, tubing proved to be the stress reliever we both needed. We’d ridden the lift to the top of the tubing hill a dozen times, but my legs ached from the little bit of snow-walking we’d done—and from the fact that I was completely out of shape.

Cara would be griping at me right now for my lack of endurance.

Weston warmed my frozen cheek with a kiss as we rode up the side of the mountain.

“Remember that time we came up here with the youth group? I think it was sophomore year?”

“It was. That was my last time here.”

“Are you serious? Willa and I came up here at least ten times a winter. Our parents love to ski.”

I smiled and shrugged. “Nan’s not a big fan of snow.”

“Your mom, either?”

I shook my head. “Nah.” Actually, she wasn’t a fan of much—until she met Brad, anyway.

Weston squeezed me closer to him, not commenting.

“I love it, though,” I said, dreamily.

“Love what?”

“The mountains. Sometimes I think it’s easier for God to hear us from way up here.”

Weston kissed my temple as the ski lift came to a stop. “I think He hears you just fine, Georgia. Whether you’re on the beaches of California or in the Himalayas. He hears you.”

I grinned at him, my chest exploding with a kind of satisfaction I hadn’t felt in . . . maybe forever.

We hopped off the lift, and Weston dragged our tubes alongside him. As I watched his caveman-like stride, I caught a dose of the giggles. A big dose.

“What’s so funny back there?” He stopped his trek and turned.

“You look like you’re dragging a dead animal behind you after a hunt.”

Before I could blink, my back was flat against the snow, and Weston was standing over me, gloating like a third grader who won in a game of Red Rover. Had he really just pushed me?

“I may be small town, sweetheart, but I can hold my own pretty well . . . Wouldn’t you agree?”

He held out a giant gloved hand to me, but I had no intention of getting up. If I was going down, so was he. As I faked a hold on him, I swept my leg behind his knee and rolled to the side. He came down hard.

“Did I mention that Cara teaches yoga and self-defense?”

Weston army crawled toward me as I squealed and tried to crab walk away from him in the snow. I needed to get away from his path of revenge. Too late.

With one quick pounce, Weston wrapped his arms around my legs.

“No! No! No!” I couldn’t breathe between my eruptions of giggles.

“You started this, O lover of all things winter.”

I tried to wrestle my way out of his grip, but my efforts were futile. As I sunk farther into the fresh layers of powder, large snowflakes fell from the sky, wetting my face.

“Stop . . . wiggling,” Weston wheezed.

“Never!”

And then we were rolling . . . rolling . . . rolling.

I heard several people shout at us, but we were a nonstop wheel of snow gear and childhood rivalry. As we separated, I knew exactly what he was going to do. Race me!

I pushed myself to keep rolling, even when the tubing slopes came into view on my right.

I didn’t care.

Neither did he.

I wasn’t going to be the first to stop.