Holden wobbled his head. “There might be some of that. But I also know it’s really important for my parents to have their tree selected. My dad’s sixtieth is coming up and when his dad turned sixty, they chose his tree for the lighting,” he carried on. “My dad’s really big on tradition and legacy. It’s part of the reason he wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become a firefighter.”
“But you’d rather build fires than put them out?” she teased, her gaze meandering over to the steady flames in front of them.
“I thought about firefighting, but it wasn’t for me. I also thought about becoming a doctor. I figured something in the medical field would make him equally proud,” Holden explained. “But that wasn’t in the cards, either.”
“And why was that? Your grades were certainly good enough.”
“The money wasn’t there,” he admitted freely. “And neither was the passion. I need to be outside. Up on this mountain. Out on those slopes.” He looked out the windows next to them. “Do you ever miss it? This place?”
“Miss the summit?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s fair to say Snowdrift couldn’t be further from the city, landscape-wise. But are you satisfied with your concrete jungle?”
She didn’t know how to answer. “It was always my goal to get there. Me and Bethany—that’s what we were going to do. Grow up, move out, and live together in the bay, achieving our dreams side by side.”
Holden’s features softened. She hadn’t meant to bring up her sister, and the sudden turn the conversation took surprised even her.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Rachel. Losing a sister.” His eyes found hers, and nothing but compassion filled his green gaze. “I don’t know what I would do without Sarah. That must have been devastating.”
“It was,” she said on a shallow breath. “But I threw myself into academics, focused on my grades, and got to live out those dreams all on my own.”
Holden just nodded, but she knew he could sense the uncertainty in her tone.
“And believe it or not, competing with you all of those years was a good distraction. It’s hard to find time to grieve when you spend every waking moment trying to prove you’re better than Holden Hart.”
CHAPTER24
Her words gutted him.
How had he never realized there was more to Rachel’s motivation to succeed than just one-upping him? Had he really been that inwardly focused? That dense?
Hearing this revelation, the history somehow played out differently. It wasn’t just about defeating Holden. It was about Rachel choosing to carry on when her sister could not. It was about putting one foot in front of the other, taking life one day at a time.
Sensing the seriousness that had descended upon their conversation, Rachel let out a laugh that Holden knew was every bit artificial. “How has it been living with the knowledge that you were bested by a girl?”
“Easy, because I wasn’t bested by a girl. We were tied.”
“No, our last competition was the Christmas Contest our senior year. Don’t you remember all of those elaborate challenges I came up with? Gingerbread house decorating? That sledding race down Holiday Hill? The snowman making contest? There were twenty-four contests in all. One for every date in December leading up to Christmas day.” She lifted to her feet. “I still have the ornaments I made as trophies.”
That didn’t surprise him one bit. In fairness, he still had his tally of paper rings.
“I’m sure you do,” he said, chuckling. “And if you look, you’ll probably see that you have twelve ornaments. I have the other twelve.”
“There’s no way. I know for a fact there are thirteen in that box.”
She withdrew a brown packing box from behind the dimmed Christmas tree and picked it up to bring over to the fire. She set it down between them and lifted the lid. Holden would’ve looked inside, but he couldn’t wrench his gaze from her haughty mouth all curved up in defiance.
With determination in her movements, she thrust a hand into the box and pulled out each ornament one by one, lining them up on the floor like toy soldiers.
Ten, eleven, twelve…
Her eyes bulged. “It must be missing.”
Holden leaned closer. “What must be missing?” he asked, purely for entertainment’s sake.
“The thirteenth ornament. It must be misplaced or something, because IknowI beat you.”
“If you beat me, then why do you think I spent the following year planning the ski race down the summit? That was the tiebreaker, Rachel. The competition to end all competitions.”
