by Joanne Rock
“Don’t say that.” Clutching his arm for a moment, she squeezed it briefly. “That won’t happen. You’ll retire when you’ve accomplished everything you want to. The mountain has no say in it.”
He wanted her to keep touching him, still regretting that missed opportunity back at the ice rink. But now, he shoved open the gates to the park, leading her past the playground with the slide that held his best and worst memories of their time together. He noticed her gaze dart toward it too.
Take it slow, he reminded himself.
This wasn’t a race down the slope with his team. The payoff had the potential to be a lot bigger than any medal.
Guiding her toward the carousel, he took her hand to steady her over an icy patch on the sidewalk where it curved uphill. Afterward, he didn’t let go and neither did she, his leather glove enveloping her red mitten.
When they reached the courtyard around the carousel, he watched her expression, waiting for her reaction while the painted reindeer went around and around. The deer pulled Santa’s sleigh, the biggest feature of the ride, and a comfortable spot for older visitors or families with small children to enjoy the attraction.
“Wow.” Rachel shook her head for a moment before turning to look at him, sadness plain in her eyes. “My mom told me that they were letting some of the original installments fall into disrepair, but I had no idea things had gotten this bad.”
She referred to the peeling and chipped paint, of course. Elsewhere the forest greens and crimson reds had faded to shades of mint and pink. Rudolph’s nose had stopped lighting up long ago. Even Santa had suffered, his hat broken off at the end and his capacity for sound broken. The carousel still worked, but it looked worse for the wear.
“I think the town council is just waiting to declare it broken beyond repair so they can take it down.” Gavin found the sight a little more disheartening each time he walked past.
“This is a piece of town history. Our first real Christmas attraction.” Her forehead wrinkled in confusion for a moment before it cleared again. Understanding lit her blue gaze. “Because it was my father’s first real achievement in turning this place around. They want to erase his mark on Yuletide.”
That had been his thought as well. But he’d already made his case about wanting her to take a role in the community again. He didn’t want to overplay his hand. And, bottom line, it was up to her how much this place meant to her.
Or didn’t.
Maybe a wiser man would have brought her to any one of a hundred more romantic places around town to try and win that kiss he wanted. Badly. Because he could tell that seeing this piece of her childhood so broken and neglected was hurting her, and it saddened him to know he’d helped put that disillusionment in her eyes. But the more time he spent with Rachel the more he realized he wasn’t just angling for kisses.
He wanted more.
The knowledge rocked him. No matter how much he liked her personally and thought she possessed the same creative vision for the town that her father had always shown, Gavin knew that similarity also made the locals all the more resistant to her return. Because Yuletide wasn’t exactly rushing to embrace her. Just bringing her to a pre-wedding party had nearly gotten him kicked out of the Garrett home the night before. A full-fledged relationship could create enough backlash to drive any of his local start-up ventures into the ground.
Besides, he needed to be thinking about his career and what was most likely his last opportunity to stand on a podium. He’d worked too hard chasing his dream to take his eye off the prize now.
Remembering that around Rachel Chambers, however, wasn’t going to be easy.
*
Rachel had expected her hometown to resent her father.
They had every right to hate him for embezzling their start-up fund for a new Santa’s workshop. It hadn’t been a fortune, but for a small town full of people struggling to make ends meet, it had been significant enough. And, bottom line, even if he’d stolen five bucks, it was stealing and that was wrong. She had never tried to defend his actions.
But for the town to spite him so much they would deliberately allow a cornerstone of the community to deteriorate this way? The carousel was a beautiful piece of Yuletide’s heritage, a project that had represented a big turning point in making the vision of a “holiday town” into reality. Her father had found the old carousel online and traveled all the way to a New Jersey beach town to retrieve it. He’d rented the flatbed trailer himself to haul it in pieces and worked tireless hours figuring out how to reassemble the merry-go-round.
He’d traded hours of his time and expertise—he was a home builder—putting up a garage for a local art teacher who had given her time to remodel giraffes and horses into reindeer. Finally, her dad had coerced his wife into helping him host parties on this very site to entice community members to come out and help paint every inch of the intricately decorated structure. Instead of a barn-building party, there had been a carousel-painting get-together every weekend for a whole summer. Paint some ivy and holly—get a hotdog. Virtually everyone in town had a hand in the project before the inaugural ride.
“Should we keep walking?” Gavin asked, his hand squeezing hers gently.
Despite her sadness, his touch warmed her, fanning the small flame inside her that had started flickering to life back at the skating rink. She had known spending time with him would be dangerous to her peace of mind, but she hadn’t expected him to stir so many emotions beyond their obvious chemistry.
“I’d like that.” She nodded, her voice a husky whisper. “I don’t think I’ll be visiting the carousel again anytime soon.”
“For what it’s worth, I put a call in to the state historical society to see if it qualifies for their protection since it dated back farther than our town.” He led her to the outskirts of the park where gently sloped hills made for good sledding with young children.
Rachel stuck close to Gavin, her boots made for fashion more than trekking through snow.
“Thank you for doing that.” She was touched he’d thought of it. “You can’t have much time to devote to your home here with your training schedule. It means a lot that you want to help this place.”
“I was just glad I thought of it. I’d considered proposing a plan to restore it at a town meeting but then—” He stopped suddenly, his attention focused on two men on the hill above them who appeared to be holding a string or maybe a measuring tape between them.
“What is it?” she asked, following his line of sight.
“That’s Dewey, the town engineer.” Gavin was already striding toward them, tugging her along with him. “The other guy works at one of the local ski resorts as a groomer.”
She wondered if he was just in a hurry to say hello to a friend or if something was wrong. She didn’t ask because he was already hailing the pair, waving one arm as his long strides carried him uphill.
“You’re far from home,” he called to the groomer, a very fair man in all black with an ID badge and ski pass clipped to the zipper of his jacket. “What brings you to Yuletide, Sven?”
Something in Gavin’s tone warned her of his mood. A hint of tension threaded through his voice. She could feel it in his body too, even though they only held hands.
“Gavin!” The other man grinned, greeting him warmly with a clap on the back as the man juggled his tape measure to the opposite hand. “Good to see you, even if you belong on the other side of the globe this week.” With a laugh, Sven gave another one-armed hug. “You need to train, my friend. This is your year to bring home the gold.”
“I’m home for a good friend’s wedding,” Gavin replied before turning back to her. “Rachel, this is Sven Neelson and you might remember Dewey Lars from high school.”
She shook hands with both men, recalling the Lars family who ran the Snowball Snack Shack on the opposite end of Main Street from where she’d grown up. But there was no time to reminisce since Gavin quickly commandeered the conversation.
“S
o what are you working on?” he asked. “Looks like you’re doing some surveying.”
Dewey, a former athlete who had been a football star, tucked his clipboard under one arm. “Just an informal one, Gavin,” he answered, his whole manner guarded.
Sven didn’t hold back. “The town wants to do a feasibility study for a cross-country skiing course right through town.” He gestured toward the ridge above the sledding hill. “We’re trying to map out somewhere with the right grades.”
Rachel’s heart sank at the news, and she could only imagine how Gavin felt as Sven went on to regale them with a funny story about getting the call from the Yuletide mayor while Sven was on a high peak near Whiteface Mountain, trying to fix a piece of grooming equipment in the dark. It was just as well Sven had something to say to fill the awkward aftermath of that revelation. Otherwise, she had the feeling Gavin would have had some choice words for Dewey—who most who surely knew the idea for a cross-country trail had come from Gavin. For charitable purposes.
After a few pleasantries—terse ones for the engineer and more heartfelt for Sven—Gavin strode down the hill and away from the men. Now that they were alone on the walk back to the playground, Rachel could see the anger etched in Gavin’s handsome face.
“Maybe they will get the trail up and running, then use it for charitable events too,” she suggested, hoping the mayor and his group would do the right thing. “Even the most thrifty community member should see the publicity boost an event like yours would bring.”
“If that’s the case, it seems strange no one on the council let me know they were going to follow up on my idea.” He huffed out a sigh as they reached the Jack Frost Playhouse with small slides and a maze of tubes for smaller children. “And if they’re just looking to make a buck off tourists on new trails while they let beloved entertainment areas go to ruin, they aren’t being good guardians of Yuletide’s resources.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Briefly, she weighed the idea of sticking around the area long enough to attend one of these town meetings and make her thoughts on the subject known. But her whole point in being here was to make peace with the past this week—not get mired in it all over again. Still, for all his work to help Yuletide, Gavin’s efforts should be championed.
“I’ll call the mayor tomorrow.” Gavin nodded as he seemed to come to a decision. “Ask him point-blank what his plans are.”
“It does seem like an unlikely coincidence they brought Sven in at a time when they thought you were going to be in Austria for the week.” That worried her about the mayor’s intentions. “I checked your schedule before I came, and the website for the team says—”
She realized what she’d revealed, perhaps because his grin made her all too aware.
“You checked my schedule. Were you wondering if you would see me?” He seemed to like the idea, based on his teasing tone and the way he squeezed her hand tighter.
She realized they’d walked to the Candy Cane Slide as if drawn there by the past. They stopped there now, right at the site of that long-ago kiss.
“I was trying to make sure I would avoid you,” she shot back, even though the words lacked any heat. “Just because I thought it might be awkward to patch things up with Luke when you were here.” She had spent a long time thinking about the best time to return to Yuletide after she’d made the pact with her girlfriends to heal the past. “I didn’t realize you two had repaired your friendship so well after Luke found us that day.”
Not that she’d expected one kiss to drive a wedge between good friends forever, but Luke could be stubborn. Judgmental. Then again, that was nineteen-year-old Luke. He would have matured a great deal since then, the same as her. Even if he had avoided her at the party last night.
“I went to see Luke every day before he left for his next deployment.” Gavin rested a shoulder against one side of the steps leading to the top of the slide. “He didn’t acknowledge me until his last twenty-four hours in town, but by the time we spoke, he was ready to move past it. He admitted you’d broken things off with him weeks before that day he found us.”
Rachel exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She leaned her shoulder on the side of the slide steps too, buffeted from the wind by the molded plastic wall.
“That was good of you.” She couldn’t help but admire Gavin for putting in the effort to make peace with his friend, especially when he knew Luke had been headed overseas. Although it would have been nice if one of them had reached out to her. She’d been hurt, too. “I’m sure it helped him to clear the air before he left.”
“For what it’s worth, he knew even then that he’d put you in an awkward position—asking you not to tell people about the breakup. I guess he hoped a big romantic gesture might make you change your mind.”
It had been romantic. Half the reason the town had been so outraged at her rejection was because Luke was a local hero and females from tweens to grandmas all thought he was a terrific guy. And he was. He just wasn’t right for Rachel. “We were too different. I always knew I wanted to leave Yuletide and even then he was talking about when he would come home to settle here for good.”
“All his family is here. I always envied him that,” Gavin said, a wistful note in his voice.
“At least now Luke is getting married to someone who will appreciate those big romantic gestures and wants to live in Yuletide too.” She knew Kiersten and Luke would have a beautiful marriage. “I’m glad they’re happy.”
In the quiet aftermath of her words, she realized how close they stood. How nice it felt to have his hand wrapped around hers, an anchoring warmth in the chilly evening while a few snowflakes took their time falling to the ground. They dotted her cheek and nose, skimmed her parka with a gentle swish-ing sound.
“How about you?” Gavin asked, his voice low and for her ears only, even though the playground was empty except for them. “Are you happy, Rachel?”
She stared into his eyes as he lifted his free hand to swipe a dark lock of hair from her cheek. Shivers of awareness radiated out from that small place he touched her.
“I guess so. Or, at least, I will be happy when I settle things here so I can go home with a clear conscience. Knowing I tried to smooth over old wrongs and make peace with Yuletide.”
“It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think I realized that my grudge against the town was as big as their grudge against me until I got back here.” She wondered when was the last time she’d had a conversation so intimate—so personal and focused on things that mattered to her—with anyone. “I don’t want to be the kind of woman who uses old hurts to justify being bitter or resentful.”
“In snowboarding, we call it being able to put the last run behind you.” Gavin stepped closer still. “If you can’t do that, it’s hard to find success in the next run.”
She nodded vague agreement, watching him as his head canted nearer. His lips.
And then, he was kissing her. His mouth covered hers gently, his fingers spearing up into her hair to draw her against him.
Chapter Seven
Kissing Gavin was every bit as amazing as she remembered.
More.
Rachel wound her arms around his neck, hungry to be closer. To make sure the kiss never ended. Light-headed with awareness of him—his scent, his touch, his every breath—she needed to hold on tight for fear her knees would fail her and she would collapse into the snow at their feet.
The world around them receded. Christmas music faded along with the warped strains of the merry-go-round soundtrack. The laughter of visitors and carols of the strolling singers all felt distant, a hazy background to the most important connection of her life. Or, so it felt at this moment. Gavin had a way of holding her and touching her like she was the only woman in the world. The only woman who mattered.
It was addictively delicious. Rachel feared if she continued the contact she’d never let go.
Still, she couldn’t seem to
pull away. The blood in her veins hummed pleasantly. There was a buzzing in her head that…
No. The buzzing was from her phone in her pocket.
Gavin seemed to come to his senses faster than her. He edged back, watching her. “Do you need to answer that?”
She didn’t want to, in fact. But maybe the cosmos had conspired to give her this mental time out to think about what she was doing before things turned even more heated.
“Um.” Digging in her coat pocket, she withdrew the device. “Maybe I’d better.”
Kiersten’s face filled the screen. What on earth could the bride want during the middle of her bachelorette party?
“Hello?” Rachel answered, her lips still tingly from kissing Gavin. She blinked twice, trying to ward off the haze of attraction.
“We just arrived at Frosty’s Igloo!” Kiersten shouted over a loud country holiday tune in the background, along with the high-pitched scrabble of feminine voices. “You have to come out and play now since we’re practically in your backyard.”
Swallowing back thwarted desire and a little awkwardness around Gavin, Rachel weighed her options. “I thought you were in Lake Placid for the party?”
“We wanted to end the night closer to home. Besides, the girls wanted to dance. If I don’t see you in ten minutes, I’m sending Emma over in the limo to bring you here personally.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Rachel’s chest constricted at the idea of facing the ladies of the bridal party tonight, but at least a few of them had seemed okay after the dress fittings. Besides, she probably needed to peel herself away from Gavin before she did something she’d regret. Like fall for a star athlete who was as attached to Yuletide as she was allergic to it. “I’m not at home anyway. I can be there in a few minutes.”
With a squeal and a cheer, Kiersten disconnected the call. Slowly, Rachel lowered her phone as Gavin watched her.
“The bride needs you?” The corner of his lips hitched in a half smile. His voice wrapped around her with an intimacy that made her shiver.
