I fixed my eyes on the hill instead—the track we’d carved through the untouched white, the faint groove where the sled had flown, the path that had led directly to me doing the exact thing I’d promised myself I would not do.
“Come on,” I said, voice wobbling only a little as I grabbed the sled rope. “Let’s get back before we freeze to death.”
Or do anything else incredibly stupid.
My heart thudded hard and hot against my ribs.
I turned up the hill, snow crunching under my boots, trying to move like we’d just survived a minor collision and nothing else—like my mouth hadn’t belonged to his a few seconds ago, like I wasn’t already wondering how I was supposed to live in the same house as a man whose kiss felt like the first good decision I’d made in a long time.
Every step back up the hill felt like trying to walk a straight line after spinning in circles.
The sled rope bit into my glove where I’d wrapped it around my hand, the plastic dragging over the packed track we’d carved. My thighs burned from the climb. My lungs stung from the cold and from the fact that my heart had not calmed the hell down.
My lips tingled. My mouth tasted like him. Every time my brain relaxed for half a second, the kiss replayed in high definition.
His hand on my neck, fingers spread, holding me like he meant it.
The rough drag of his mouth over mine, hungry and sure and nothing like an accident.
The way his body had pressed up into mine, like his restraint had finally snapped and I’d been standing on the fault line.
Beside me, Wes tromped up the hill in stubborn, measured strides. His sled rope looped around his hand too. His breath came out in steady, controlled exhales, fogging in front of his face. His jaw was set, the line of his mouth back to neutral like he hadn’t just kissed me so thoroughly I was going to be mentally revisiting it in the nursing home.
We crested the slope and hit the flatter stretch of yard. The house glowed at the far end of the property—big windows lit warm, roof shouldering a fresh cap of snow, smoke ghosting from the chimney. The path we’d trudged out was already softening, edges blurring as flakes drifted down again.
The warmth of the house hit me like a wall.
The door shut behind us with a soft thud, swallowing the bright white world and replacing it with heat and the faint smell of breakfast that had sunk into the walls.
I kicked my boots against the mat, snow thudding off in clumps. Mittens went into my pocket. My fingers felt clumsy, half frozen, half fried from everything else.
My mouth still tingled.
Wes stepped in behind me, crowding the narrow mudroom with big shoulders and cold air, the whisper of his breath brushing the back of my neck as he reached past to shove the door all the way closed. His coat rustled. Snow slid off his sleeves and hit the floor with soft, wet plops.
We were both suddenly very interested in the practical business of having bodies.
I peeled my hat off, static making my hair lift and cling in a chaotic halo. A chunk fell into my eyes and I shoved it back, fingers trembling just enough that I hoped it looked like cold instead of kissing-your-brother’s-best-friend-on-a-hill shakes.
Across from me, Wes’s movements were slower than usual as he worked his coat off his shoulders. Controlled. Deliberate. I watched the way his jaw tightened when he tugged his sleeve free, like his muscles were protesting the extra work.
He was steady, though.
Solid, even as he shifted his weight to toe his boots off. The prosthetic thudded lightly on the mat. No flinch. No wince. A small, stupid coil of pride unfurled in my chest.
We both bent to wrestle with laces at the same time and nearly knocked heads.
“Sorry,” I blurted, jerking back.
“You’re fine,” he said, and his hand bumped my shoulder in the tight space as he straightened.
Every brush, every contact in the cramped mudroom felt magnified. His arm along mine when he reached for the hook. My hip grazing his when I stepped sideways. The ghost of his mouth still imprinting heat on my lips while the air around us tried to pretend nothing had happened.
Instinct screamed at me to bolt.
Up the stairs. Into the safety of my room. Pull the covers over my head and pretend the kiss had been a weird, hyper-specifichallucination brought on by cold exposure and sled-related near-death experiences.
Greg’s face surfaced for a heartbeat—not as some great lost love, but as the friend I’d almost married, knowing he wanted a different kind of life and a different kind of love than I could ever give him. I’d called it helping, called it practical, while I smiled and said I was fine and let us both hide behind a lie until it had nearly swallowed me whole.
