Ten minutes later, our gingerbread house looks like a mild natural disaster hit it, but we’re laughing too hard to care. Ethan has a streak of frosting on his thumb and, without thinking, he licks it off.
I freeze mid-decorating. He notices. “What?”
“Nothing,” I squeak.
He narrows his eyes. He knows exactly what.
“Here,” I say quickly, reaching for gumdrops. “Roof tiles.”
We lean over the house together, shoulders bumping. His forearm brushes mine. He smells like pine and warmth and everything dangerous to my sanity.
“Ethan,” I whisper when my hand accidentally bumps his for the fifth time.
“Yeah?”
“We’re supposed to be focusing.”
“I am.”
But he’s looking at me, not the gingerbread. Heat blooms low in my belly. I force myself to attach another gumdrop. It falls off immediately. Ethan picks it up and sticks it back on. “There.”
“You fixed it.”
“For now,” he says, eyes lingering on mine a few seconds too long.
Is he talking about the house? Or … us?
We finish just as the judges pass by. Our cabin looks crooked, slightly melted, a little too glittery thanks to Ethan. But it’s ours.
When we step back to admire it, he slides a warm hand to the small of my back, thumb moving in a slow circle through the fabric of my sweater. It’s the simplest touch. But it lights me up from the inside out.
“We make a good team,” he says quietly.
I swallow hard. “Yeah. We do.”
And for the first time all day, I stop worrying about the end of the week. About what’s real. About what’s pretend.
Because right now, with his hand on my back and our lopsided gingerbread cabin leaning dangerously to one side … it feels real enough to hope this is something that could last.
Chapter 18
Harper
The restaurant at the Grand View Lodge is quieter than I’ve ever seen it. Most of the dinner crowd is gone, leaving only the low clink of distant dishes and the soft crackle from the stone fireplace near our table. The lights are dim, candlelight pooling gently over white tablecloths and polished wood. Outside the tall windows, snow drifts down in lazy flakes, dusting the dark pines.
If I were watching this in a movie, I’d roll my eyes at how romantic it looks. Instead, I’m sitting here with Ethan Kinkaid, pretending I’m not completely gone for him.
The server refills our water and leaves us with two plates of roasted chicken and winter vegetables that smell incredible. We’ve barely touched the bread basket, too busy stealing glances at each other whenever we think the other person isn’t looking. I’m learning that we’re both terrible at being subtle.
Ethan leans back slightly, the firelight tracing along his jaw and catching tiny strands in his beard. He looks super sexylike this. Less like the mountain hermit and more like a man who could ruin your sense of reality with one look. Which he already has.
I stab a roasted carrot, mostly to give my hands something to do. “This hardly feels like part of an official town itinerary,” I say lightly.
He huffs a quiet laugh. “What, the cocoa and interrogation stations weren’t enough for one day?”
I smile. “We did survive the cocoa gauntlet.”
“And the gingerbread disaster,” he adds.
