by Lisa Plumley
The ice-skating rink was popular—and it was understandable why. The rink was located in a scenic, historically significant spot, bordered by twin sets of bleachers for spectators and a light-bedecked retaining wall to contain the skaters. It was decorated with garlands and huge municipal ornaments strung overhead, and lit by more rows of white globe lights. Now that dusk was starting to fall, the whole place looked ridiculously picturesque. Christmas carols played over the loudspeakers, vendors sold hot chocolate, spiced mulled cider, and pies-in-a-jar from the Galaxy Diner. Cinnamon-scented deliciousness wafted over everything.
“No, Zach was fine all along. He’s a good skater.” Danielle smiled up at Jason from her position fastening Aiden’s double-bladed beginner skates. “Welcome to my world, though.”
“Your world?”
“Of worrying about these guys over every little thing.”
Oh. Jason wasn’t interested in doing that. He’d only just met these rug rats. As much as he liked them, he wasn’t—
“Karlie, look out!” Jason yelled, catching a glimpse of the girl spinning in the middle of the ice. A pair of unsteady skaters were about to crash right into her. “They’re going to—”
Hearing him, Karlie lost her balance. She wobbled. She swept sideways out of the way, narrowly escaping a collision.
“Whew.” Jason breathed again, casting a hasty look of concern at Danielle. “That was a close one.”
But Danielle, having equipped Aiden and set him on his feet, wasn’t looking at Jason. She was looking at her daughter.
“Uh-oh. Now you’ve done it.”
“Done what?” Jason looked. At the storm clouds gathering on Karlie’s pert, hat-topped face, he blanched. “I see. Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. I’m just going to leave you two to it. Aiden and I will be out on the ice.” Danielle held out her gloved hand to her son. He clasped it. In a well-practiced maneuver, the two of them trod gingerly to the rink. “Good luck!” she yelled.
Spying Karlie approaching, Jason knew he needed it.
Breathless and pink-cheeked, the girl stopped in front of him. She put her hands on her hips. She gave him a mighty scowl.
He was impressed. It was a pretty fearsome scowl.
“You have a future as somebody’s boss someday,” Jason told Karlie good-naturedly. “You’re going to be indomitable.”
She sniffed. “If you think I don’t know what that means, you’re wrong. Also, you can’t sweet-talk me. I’m not my mom.”
Oookay. Rallying, Jason gave her a serious look. “Sorry about distracting you out there. I was worried about you.”
“You don’t have any reason to worry about me.”
Her implication that he wasn’t part of her family was obvious. “I’m impressed. You look like a really good skater.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, temp.”
Jason angled his head. “Temp?”
“Yeah. Temp. It’s what we call people like you.” Karlie gave him a dismissive look. “People who aren’t from around here.”
Ah. “From what I can tell, most people in Kismet aren’t from around here. It’s a tourist destination. A resort town.”
Karlie lifted her chin. “That’s why it’s better to be a townie. People like you crowd up all the good spots. Like here.”
She glanced over her shoulder, indicating her disdain for all the vacationers currently on the ice-skating rink. That was interesting. Unlike Danielle, who insisted she didn’t want to stay in her hometown, Karlie was apparently proud to be a townie.
He wondered if Danielle had told her kids about her plans to move them all to L.A. There, they’d be the “temps.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” Jason said, “that if there weren’t any vacationers to ‘crowd up’ the ice-skating rink, the town might not set up the ice-skating rink at all?”
For an instant, Karlie looked uncertain. Like a typical ten-year-old, she recovered quickly. “That would never happen. For one thing, all these food places would protest.”
“They might not have enough customers to be here either.”
Her expression darkened. “Are you trying to completely ruin Christmas for me? I don’t even know what my mom was thinking, bringing you here with us. This is the worst time of year for her to have some stupid new boyfriend.”
Jason tried to take heart from that. At least Karlie was convinced he and Danielle were dating. That was progress, right?
“I might be a little less stupid,” Jason said in a conciliatory, leading tone, “if I knew how to ice-skate.”
“You don’t even know how to skate?” Karlie blurted. She rolled her eyes, hands still on her hips as she gave him an incredulous once-over. “Were you born with flippers for feet?”
He almost laughed. This was too serious to make light of, though. Jason deliberately sobered his expression. “I’m pretty sure they’re normal feet. I wedged them into skates, at least.”
“Sheesh.” Karlie cast an exasperated glance at the festive light strings overhead. Behind her, skaters whizzed and/or wobbled by, including Danielle and Aiden and (more quickly) Zach, who’d found some of his friends to skate with. “That’s really pathetic. No wonder you’re overreacting so much to every single person coming anywhere near me and Zach on the ice.”
“Yeah,” Jason agreed. “No wonder.” He stared with open dismay at his laced-up black ice skates. “I didn’t want your mom to know, but I’m running out of reasons to sit here.”
He saw the craftiness enter Karlie’s eyes and knew he’d chosen the right approach. If Karlie wanted to sabotage her mom’s “stupid new boyfriend,” her opportunity had just arrived.
“You do look pretty stupid sitting there,” Karlie agreed.
Jason tried to appear as forlorn as possible.
If anyone who knew him could have seen him then, they would have laughed their asses off. Jason Hamilton was anything but forlorn—at least he was when he wasn’t at work at Moosby’s HQ.
He’d really been hoping his vacation would restore his work mojo. Instead, his trip had been cut short by his accidental scandal—and he’d found more inspiration and hope working here at the Kismet Moosby’s store than anywhere else.
“I could, you know, like, teach you,” Karlie offered grudgingly.
There it was. Jason brightened. “Teach me to ice-skate?”
She examined the end of her pigtail. Shrugged. Nodded.
“That would be great. Thank you, Karlie.”
At his relieved, grateful tone, Karlie seemed uncomfortable. She gave another shrug. “Whatever. Just don’t shout at me anymore. You sound like a freak. I have friends here, you know.”
Jason nodded. “What do I do first?”
“Fall down.”
Affronted, he frowned. “Hey. I might be good at this.”
“No, I mean, falling down is the first step of learning.”
“You’re making that up.” Jason was willing to look like a patsy if it made Karlie warm up to him. But when it came to actually being a patsy . . . he wasn’t down with that. “Come on.”
In the distance, Danielle blew him a kiss. With her other hand, she held on to Aiden as they carefully circled the rink.
“If I’m going to teach you,” Karlie said, “you have to do whatever I say. Whenever I say it. Exactly how I say to do it.”
Wow. Junior Control Freak was on a roll. He’d really started something here. But he really wanted to make this work.
“You know, I’m a big brother myself,” Jason began, “so I know what it’s like to be the leader. That means—”
“Stand up,” Karlie barked.
Oh boy. Obligingly, Jason made himself stand.
His ankles threatened to cave in immediately.
“My skates must be defective.” He frowned at them. “I’m really strong, but these are doing something to my ankles.”
He took a tentative step, hoping to muscle through it.
His knees momentarily buckled, joining the scre
w you party being hosted by his ankles. Suddenly, it felt as though his non-ice-skating body was staging a full-on rebellion. But he hadn’t become the man he was by quitting easily. So he kept going.
“Stop!” Karlie ran toward him. She grabbed his arm, then peered into his face with real concern. “You’re going to break your leg if you just blunder onto the ice like that, dummy.”
“What is it with you Sharpes and your broken leg fixation?” Jason asked, remembering discussing that same dire scenario with Danielle earlier. “I’m tough. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s everyone else I’m worried about,” Karlie informed him. “If you collapse on the ice, you become a human hazard.”
“You mean I might cause someone else to fall?”
“Or make them accidentally run over you and slice off a few fingers,” the girl said with gruesome delight. “You can’t go onto the ice until you learn how to fall properly.”
Jason scoffed. “I know how to fall.”
Karlie shoved him. He pinwheeled to regain his balance, refusing to fall before he’d even gotten onto the damn rink itself.
Or not.In one unlikely instant, Jason landed in the snow. On his ass. With both arms flopping uselessly to his sides.
Karlie loomed over him, all pink coat and pigtails, wearing a smug expression. “You were saying?”
This was going to be more difficult than he’d thought.
Humbled, Jason nodded. “Fine. Teach me how to fall.”
“My pleasure!” Karlie gave him a hand up. Jason allowed her to believe she was hoisting all six-feet-plus of him to his feet. “Now, flex your knees in a squat, like you’re sitting in a chair,” she instructed. “Hold out your arms. Clench your fists to protect your fingers from passing skate blades. Now fall.”
With concentration and gusto, Jason did. Whooomp.
It was a good thing he’d invested in better cold-weather gear at Reno’s sporting-goods store. He was going to need it.
“Good!” Karlie applauded. “Now practice it again.”
Jason did, ignoring the stares of curious onlookers.
“Okay. Now, wait for it . . .” Karlie paused. “Again! Fall!”
Suspiciously, Jason did as he was told. He moved from a deep, CrossFit-worthy squat to a near face-plant in the snow.
Karlie had been waiting until her mother was looking, he realized belatedly. She’d timed his practice flop perfectly.
From the snowbank created by a recent snowplowing, Jason glimpsed Danielle ice-skating by in a graceful line composed of her, Aiden, and Zach, all holding hands. Aw. They were sweet.
And he was a sucker. Because he was letting a four-anda-half-foot tyrant dictate his every move. He must really like Danielle, Jason realized, to put up with all this.
“So, temp . . . how do you like my indomitableness now?”
Indomitableness? Karlie really had known what he’d meant.
She caught his surprised look and shrugged. “I read a lot.”
“Let’s go onto the ice now,” Jason suggested. “I’m ready.”
“Well . . . okay.” Karlie squinted menacingly at him. “But don’t try to hold my hand. If you really have to, you can clutch the wall. But if you try to grab me, I’ll body check you.”
Jason got up. “What kind of peewee hockey league do you play in, bruiser? I’m not on the opposing team, you know.”
“Says you. And I’m on the winning kind of hockey team.”
He admired her gumption. Even if Karlie was a tyrant (and she was), she was also determined, loyal, and ingenious. Those were all positive qualities. Jason didn’t want to see them crushed by a world that sometimes boxed in women too tightly.
“Then I couldn’t have picked a better teacher,” he told her. He smiled. “Thanks again for helping me impress your mom.”
Karlie looked away. Shamefacedly. “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t made it around the rink a single time.”
Jason wasn’t worried. He’d started making inroads with Karlie, and that was all he wanted. “I’ll get there eventually.”
“My mom hates bad ice skaters.”
“I’ll keep trying until I get better.”
“She hates positive thinkers, too.”
“You can only fail if you stop trying,” Jason insisted.
“Ugh.” Karlie frowned at him. “That’s what my mom says all the time. Like, when I have to redo a homework problem.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
“She says that, too!” Karlie’s mistrustful gaze pinned him midway to the ice-skating rink. “What’s up with you two, anyway?” she asked. “Because even my dad isn’t that good at sounding exactly like my mom.” She shuddered. “It’s spooky.”
Jason grinned. “I like it.”
“You would.” Karlie frowned elaborately. “Temp.”
But this time, her epithet held a little less animosity.
“Let’s ice-skate, townie.” Jason grabbed the wall. He stepped onto the rink. He felt crisp wintry air rush past him, pushed by the more expert skaters. “I’m ready to go.”
“You’re going to fail,” Karlie predicted glumly.
But just at that moment, Jason caught another glimpse of Danielle in the distance. She was moving backward as she ice-skated with precision slowness, towing Aiden with both hands.
The little boy whooped with glee. Jason smiled.
“I’m not going to fail. Not when I want this so much.”
Then he boldly pushed off, veered onto the ice, and crashed.
Danielle had never seen anyone fall so much.
Again and again under the glowing lights of the Kismet municipal ice-skating rink, Jason pushed off on his rented skates, wearing a tenacious expression that only enhanced his incredible good looks. Once or twice, he actually got some momentum going. Then, just when it appeared he might finally be getting the hang of things, he’d inevitably tumble to the ice.
He didn’t exactly do any of those things privately, either. Almost everyone in Kismet either knew Jason or knew of him by now. The local residents were as quick with their heckling and grins as they were with their encouragement and helpful hints.
It was endearing, really. Jason tried his best to let Karlie teach him to skate—something that clearly didn’t come naturally to him—and her daughter didn’t take it easy on him, either.
Finally, Danielle couldn’t stand it anymore. Jason would keep going until his kneecaps cracked. Karlie would gleefully let him. So Danielle called an end to their ice-skating outing.
“That’s it, you guys. Time to head home,” she announced long after dark. “Look at Aiden. His lips are turning blue.”
“They are not,” her son argued, looking vaguely Smurf-like.
“Zach’s teeth are chattering,” Danielle persisted.
“Nuh”—chatter, chatter—“uh,” Zach disagreed, shivering.
“Karlie is one whip and a chair short of joining the circus.” Danielle leaned in. “Lighten up on Jason, okay?”
“I’m not done teaching him yet!” her daughter objected. At least she had the good grace to seem discomfited by her own heavy-handed “teaching” routine. “He’s still horrible at it!”
“Jason is getting pretty banged up. It’s time to go.”
On the ice, her temporary boyfriend gave her a cocky wave. “I’ve almost got it!” he shouted. “We can’t leave yet.”
Great. They’d all banded together to oppose common sense.
But as soon as Karlie saw that Jason wanted to stay, she changed her mind . . . of course. “Okay. I’m ready to go.”
With a smooth sideways swoosh, she brought her skating to a stop at the rink’s exit. Her departure made her brothers sigh.
Their only hope had been sticking together. They knew it. Once Karlie abandoned the cause, it was only a matter of time.
“Can we get whoopie pies?” Zach came in as well to join Danielle at the rink’s edge where she’d stopped. “They’re selling them at the concession stand. My fri
ends got some.”
“Me too! Me too!” Aiden clomped in in his brother’s wake.
“Do they have those pumpkin chocolate chip ones?” Karlie asked, never too grumpy for sweets. “Those are the best kind.”
In their wake, Jason kept skating. He was so muscular—and usually so agile. It surprised Danielle to see him struggling.
“If you both take Aiden with you, and you all stay together, that’s fine.” Danielle pulled out the cash she’d stashed in her pocket. “This should be plenty of money.”
Karlie took it. “You’re not coming with us?”
“I’m going to wait here for Jason. Just in case he needs help off the ice. Sometimes stopping isn’t easy.”
“He made it look easy,” Zach said. “With his butt.”
Aiden chortled. “Zach said butt!”
Karlie looked . . . guilty. Jason hadn’t won her over yet. But he was closer than he’d been that morning. That was something.
“He’s trying,” Danielle told them. “He’s from California. He’s never been ice-skating before. They don’t have ice there.”
Zach and Aiden looked baffled by that.
“They have snow, though, right?” Aiden asked.
“No. They don’t have snow. But they have sunshine, nice weather, swimming pools, high rises, the Pacific Ocean—”
“I like snow better,” her younger son said decisively. “You can’t build a snowman with any of that other stuff.”
“You could build a sandcastle,” Danielle told him. “That might be fun. You never know—you might like it in California.”
“You can swim here,” Zach reminded her. “We have a whole lake, remember? Kismet is so good, we’re a tourist attraction.”
Danielle couldn’t argue with that. Thwarted in her initial attempt to help her kids warm up to the idea of moving away to L.A., she looked at them. All three of them were bundled up against the cold, pink-cheeked and exhilarated by ice-skating.
Was it really fair to take them away from things they loved? Like ice-skating? And sleigh-riding? And sledding?
“I think it would be exciting to live someplace new,” Danielle ventured. “If I got promoted at work, Moosby’s would probably ask me to move to L.A. But I’d have lots more money—”
