Of us.
Chapter Thirteen
Ash
It’s snowing again.
Big, slow flakes drifting down like the whole mountain is trying to pretend it’s peaceful. Like Devil’s Peak isn’t full of people who can’t follow basic safety rules. Like Lucy Snow isn’t five feet away from me, rearranging boxes of festival supplies in the back of her SUV while humming some off-key Christmas tune that’s been living rent-free in my brain for three days.
I load another box into the truck and try not to look at her.
Fail.
She’s wearing a green sweater that dips dangerously off one shoulder, hair piled on top of her head in some messy knot she probably pulled together without thinking. A candy cane is tucked behind her ear. There’s glitter on her cheek — again — and I have no idea how she manages to make that look like something a sane man would find attractive.
But I do.
God help me, I do.
“Careful with that one,” she says, holding a box labeledFRAGILE: SNOW GLOBESas if it’s a baby. “They’re vintage.”
“Everything you bring to this festival is vintage,” I mutter.
“It has character.”
“It has lead paint.”
She gasps. “That’s slander.”
“It’s a fact.”
“Then you’re slandering facts.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “That’s not how any of that works.”
She grins at me, wide and bright and too damn disarming. “Relax, Calder. You’re going to wrinkle that cranky forehead of yours.”
“Pretty sure that ship has sailed.”
“Hmm.” She tilts her head. “I think the wrinkles are cute.”
I freeze.
She doesn’t seem to notice — or she pretends not to — bending to grab another box. Her sweater slides further, revealing a line of skin I absolutely shouldn’t look at but absolutely do.
It’s over in a second. Not the looking. That would take an act of God. But the moment — the moment where my guard slips.
Because when she stands again, she’s closer.
Too close.
Close enough that our hands brush when she reaches for the same box I do. It’s a split-second touch. Accidental. Nothing.
But it detonates in my chest.
She jerks her hand back like she’s been shocked, eyes wide for a heartbeat before she masks it with a flustered smile. “Uh — sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
