Charlotte’s left ankle twinged a bit, but it wasn’t bad, and she’d be damned if she admitted it.
“No,” she said.
“I’m all right,” Brighton said. “Just winded.”
“Yeah, well, you’re lucky,” Adele said, folding her arms. “Those kinds of collisions are how people die on the slopes.”
Charlotte just nodded. She wanted a hot bath. And a drink. And a damn cabin free of one Brighton Fairbrook.
Still…
She turned around, shielded her eyes against the heavy snowfall, and looked up at the mountain she’d just come down.
She’d done it.
She’d made it down in one piece.
Granted, not very gracefully, but it still counted in her book. She took a deep breath and turned back around, then noticed everyone around them hurrying toward the ski lodge, the ski lift stationary and seemingly shut down.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Blizzard warning,” Adele said. “Slopes are closing, and everyone’s being directed indoors.”
“Blizzard warning?” Charlotte said, panic flaring. “Your dad said six inches.”
Sloane laughed. “Classic Dad. During the Blizzard of 2003, he kept saying, ‘Ten inches, tops! Nothing to worry about!’ ”
“Biggest blizzard to hit Colorado in a decade,” Adele said, then looked at the sky, which was morphing from a fluffy, snowy white to an ominous storm gray. “We should get inside.”
The group quickly scurried to the ski shop and returned their boots, skis, and poles—in the rush to beat the storm, the shopworker didn’t even register Charlotte’s missing pole—and then set off on the path toward their cabins.
“Are we getting snowed in?” Charlotte asked Sloane, hurrying as fast as she could without revealing her sore ankle.
“Who knows?” Sloane said casually. “If it gets bad, we’ll all hunker down in the big house.”
“If?” Charlotte said as they came to a stop in front of her cabin.
Sloane squinted at her. “You okay?”
Charlotte huffed a breath. “Will you please stop asking me that?”
Sloane’s jaw clenched. “Yeah, maybe I would if you’d tell me anything just a little bit close to real, Charlotte.”
And with that, she turned away, hurrying to her own cabin without another word.
Charlotte’s throat went tight. She was getting damned tired of that word—real. What was she, fucking make-believe? A made-up person, invisible until she was wanted?
The thought made her suddenly tired for some reason. Standing there in the snow, thunder rumbling across the sky as her friends hurried for shelter, she felt completely exhausted.
Brighton finally arrived with their key, opening their cabin door wordlessly, snow already building up a little at the entrance. Charlotte watched her face, ruddy from the cold, a tiny scratch on her cheek that hadn’t been there earlier. It was barely red, but still.
“Are you okay?” Charlotte heard herself ask softly, before she could tell herself she didn’t care, didn’t need to voice it even if she did.
“Fine,” Brighton said flatly as she swung the door open.
Charlotte’s cheeks burned, embarrassment over the past twenty-four hours—actually, every hour since she’d arrived in Winter River—finally catching up with her. She practically ran inside, her ankle screaming at her the whole way, and headed straight for her bedroom, closing herself safely behind the heavy oak door.
Chapter 20
