I was stunned. My brain wouldn’t function, no words would come forth. Because standing right beside him, grinning as well, was…
Brad Connor.
Chapter 2
“You’re one to talk,” I finally tossed back at him when my brain kicked into gear. “Throwing snowballs. What are you, like, one?”
Okay, so maybe my brain was still in lockdown mode. It was trying to putter along, but it obviously wasn’t warmed up yet.
“God, Kate, your comebacks are sharp enough to…well, heck, I guess they aren’t sharp.”
Nothing more humiliating than having someone point out the obvious, especially in front of someone you like. I glowered at Sam. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Aunt Sue invited me and my buds to use the condo over winter break.”
My mouth dropped open. “Not this condo!”
“Yeah, this condo.”
“But we’re using it.”
“We can share. You remember my roommate, Brad, right?”
Since he made a nightly appearance in my dreams and was plastered all over my computer screen at home, yeah, I remembered him.
“Hey, Brad,” I said.
He leaned forward, folded his arms on the railing, and gave me a smile that could have melted our snowman, because it was sure melting me. “Hey.”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard one word sound so incredible. He made it seem so important, and I know I was probably grinning like an idiot, but I couldn’t help it.
“And this is Joe Foster,” Sam said.
My mother had raised me to be polite. I tore my gaze from Brad “the hunk” Connor and shot a quick glance at the grinning guy standing on the other side of Sam. “Hi.”
“Cool snowman.”
“Thanks. Going the nontraditional route was Leah’s idea.” With my thumbs, I pointed to my friends standing on either side of me. “Leah and Allie.”
“Hey, Sam,” Allie said, sounding a little breathless. Cold could do that to you. “Brad, Joe.”
The guys muttered their greetings, but Brad’s gaze never wandered from me. I was completely down with having him stay in the condo, but no way did I want Sam around. I would be too self-conscious flirting with Brad while Sam looked on. Especially since I knew Sam would give me a hard time about it once he realized I had a serious interest in Brad. It’s just the way Sam was.
Besides, we’d gotten here first and staked our claim. After all, this area of Colorado used to be mining country, and that was the way it was done. You staked your claim. Let Sam find someplace else to bed down.
I forced my attention back to him. “You can’t stay here. There are only three bedrooms, and we’ve already claimed them.”
Sam held up a finger. “There’s the main bedroom on this level—”
“I’m familiar with the bedrooms. We’ve already checked them out and settled in. That one is mine.” Although it had a king-size bed in it, I wasn’t about to share it with anyone. Okay, not completely true. I could see myself sharing it with Brad, but not if Sam was around.
“—two bedrooms at the level below,” Sam continued as though I hadn’t spoken, holding up two more fingers like he was talking to a kindergartener. “Each has a set of bunk beds. That’s five beds.” He flashed five fingers. “And the couch. Six people, six places to sleep. We can work it out.”
“Sam could sleep in my room if he wanted,” Allie said quietly.
“Please! He snores and has stinky feet. He can stay with Aunt Sue. She invited him.”
“Kate, this is non-negotiable.” Sam liked to throw around words like that, like he was always in charge, just because he was fifteen months older. Another reason I didn’t want him around. He thought he was the boss of me. I didn’t want Brad to see me as a kid. He’d lose all interest.
“We’re staying,” Sam continued. “And it’s childish to deny us a bed when they’re available.”
It was childish. I knew it was and his pointing it out made me seem even more childish. At that moment I hated my brother, but I tried to look on the bright side. Brad hadn’t taken his eyes off me and he was still grinning. I just didn’t know if he was grinning because he liked watching me or he thought I was having a totally moronic conversation with my brother. Where was my confidence when I needed it?
“Allie can move into my room,” Leah said. “I’ll even let her choose the upper or lower bunk. That’ll leave one whole bedroom for the guys to use.”
Okay, this could work if Brad took the couch. He’d be upstairs with me while everyone else—
“I’ll take the couch,” Joe said, and I hoped my face didn’t reflect my disappointment.
“Great!” Sam said. “We’re all set then. We’ll haul in our stuff and leave you girls to finish playing with your snowman.”
Sam was still chortling like one of the three stooges as the guys disappeared into the condo. I wanted to kick my brother for his arrogance and for always making me feel so stupid. Frustrated, I spun around and drove my booted foot into our snowman.
“Hey!” Leah said, slapping at my leg. “Don’t destroy my creation just because you want to destroy your brother. Besides, this is great!”
Had her brain totally frozen in the cold?
“What’s so great about it?”
“Brad?” She gave me a pointed look. “Staying with us, sleeping with us, eating with us.”
I shook my head. “Not with Sam here, too. You see how he treats me.”
“Forget about Sam. Focus on Brad. You wanted him to notice you. This is the perfect opportunity for you to get to know him. And better yet, for him to get to know you. No ski instructor for you, girlfriend. You get to have the real thing!”
“I can’t believe you invited Sam. And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that you’d invited him.”
Leah might have thought our present situation was great, but I was not yet convinced. Not as long as Sam was in the picture. I’d trudged down the hill to the main part of the village where my aunt had her bookstore—A Novel Place.
“Katie, sweetie, I couldn’t make the offer to use the condo to you and not to him,” Aunt Sue said.
“Sure you could have,” I muttered.
“Besides, I thought I told you he’d be here,” she said, totally ignoring my previous statement.
“No, I would have remembered if you’d told me something as horrible as sharing the condo with my brother.”
I was sitting on a stool at the hot chocolate counter, sipping on some comforting mint chocolate. My mug matched Aunt Sue’s. It showed the backs of four cowboys sitting on a fence and below them was written HOT BUNS AND COCOA TO START THE DAY. Like Leah with the snowman, Aunt Sue appreciated the fine shape of a man.
In addition to the hot chocolate counter and the bookstore area, A Novel Place also had a little area in the front where people could curl up in plush chairs or on loveseats with a book and something warm to drink. It drew in the crowds when it was really cold outside, which was at least half the year.
A fire was dancing in the corner fireplace nearby, the scent of burning cedar filling the air. The huge window looked out over the town and the mountains. It was a breathtaking view.
Aunt Sue placed her elbows on the counter and leaned toward me, her long gray braid draped over her shoulder. She’s always reminded me of a gypsy, a free spirit, the complete opposite of my mom even though they’re sisters. She has dark green eyes like mine, and in her youth, her hair had been the same shade of red as mine. She still had freckles. Unfortunately, so did I.
While working in the store, she dressed in flowing clothes so the exact shape of her body seemed a mystery. That was how I always thought of her—as a mystery.
She lived in Snow Angel Valley during the winter months when business was brisk. But in summer when there weren’t many tourists, she closed down everything and traveled the world, going to…well, going to novel places.
I hadn’t been sure if she’d named her shop A Novel Place
because it was a place where novels were kept or if the name referred to the places she’d visited and the photos she’d hung on the walls. There were framed pictures of herself with Sherpas at the bottom of Mount Everest, penguins in Antarctica, kangaroos in Australia—too many photos to list them all. My aunt had set foot on all seven continents and swam in all the oceans. She wanted to travel on the space shuttle someday.
She was an adventurer and I loved her dearly. When I’d once asked her what the name of the shop applied to—the books or the places she’d been—she’d said, “A Novel Place means many things on different levels. It’s a state of mind.”
Thoughts too heavy for me to figure out. But I loved her anyway. Even though I was presently majorly ticked off at her.
“What’s wrong, Katie?” she asked. “You’re not upset because your brother is here. There’s more to it than sharing space with Sam, since you’ve done that most of your life. So let’s get to the root of the problem so we can address it and you can have a good time while you’re here.”
She knew me too well, and I knew I could trust her with anything.
“It’s Brad,” I admitted reluctantly.
“Sam’s roommate?”
Scrunching up my face, my nose no longer numb thanks to the hot mist of chocolate tickling it while I drank, I nodded dejectedly.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.
“That’s the problem. There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“I see,” she said, drawing out the last word like she wanted to savor it. “He is a cutie.”
I’ve never known Aunt Sue to think any guy wasn’t a cutie. Not even the ancient hunched-over village mailman who looked like he’d been born around the time the mountains were carved by glaciers.
“He’s such a cutie,” she’d say after handing him complimentary hot chocolate to-go when he stopped by to deliver her mail twice a day. On really cold days, he delivered mail to her three or four times. Always junk mail that I thought he held in reserve for emergency deliveries, but she’d act like she was thrilled to get it as she handed him his hot chocolate to-go.
“When did you see Brad?” I asked, turning my thoughts back to my immediate concern and impending nightmare.
“Sam and his friends stopped by to pick up a key to the condo. I thought Joe was cute, too.”
“Joe?”
“His other friend?”
Oh, yeah. The sandy blond–haired guy who had also been standing on the balcony smiling. Was he cute? I couldn’t really draw an impression of him from my memory except for the smile. It was pretty dazzling as I recalled, but nothing at all like Brad’s. Brad was the hottie of the group, hands down. No competition there whatsoever. And like I said, Aunt Sue thought every guy was cute, so I’d really have to take another gander at Joe to properly assess his cuteness factor.
“Oh, yeah, right,” I mumbled. “Joe.”
“So Brad is the one for you, huh?”
I nodded again.
“Well, then. This is the perfect opportunity for him to get to know you better.”
“But if Sam notices that I’m crushing on his roommate, he will tease me unmercifully—and he’ll do it in front of Brad. I know he will. It’ll be a major turnoff for Brad. Sam will ruin everything. And I like Brad so much.”
“Why?”
I stared at her. “You’ve seen him.”
“Yep. Like I said, he’s a cutie. And I’ve talked to him, and he’s nice. But I need more than cute and nice to give a guy my heart.”
“What else do you need?”
She winked, before turning to help a customer, and tossing over her shoulder back at me, “That’s what you have to figure out.”
Chapter 3
“Okay, we need to talk house rules,” I announced.
Sam was lounging on the couch, Brad and Joe were sitting in the recliners, all were watching a football game.
“Later, Katie, we’re busy,” Sam said, never taking his eyes from the thirty-six–inch screen.
I walked over to the TV and turned it off. That got an immediate reaction. Sam bolted upright, his feet hitting the floor with a resounding thud.
“Hey! Brady was about to throw a pass!”
Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. I’ll admit he was cute enough to get my attention, but I’d never tell my brother that. Or that I knew most of his quarterback stats.
“I’ll turn on the TV—” I began.
Sam picked up the remote, clicked a button, and the echo of screaming fans filled the room.
“Sam!”
“Later, Kate. You made us miss the touchdown. Now move your butt so I can see the game.”
“Hey, man, relax.”
This from Joe, who’d put the footrest down on his recliner and was now sitting up as well. “She wasn’t expecting us to invade her space, so let her give us the rules.”
Joe didn’t seem at all bothered by the glower Sam threw at him. Then Sam looked over at Brad.
Brad shrugged. “Whatever, dude.”
Sam leaned back and stretched his arm across the back of the couch, like some emperor giving his subjects an audience or something. “Okay then, let’s discuss the rules.”
Could he get any more irritating?
“Mute the TV,” I ordered.
To my surprise he clicked the remote again, and the TV fell silent. No arguments from him. Thank goodness.
Allie and Leah came to stand beside me, the three of us forming a united front. I looked down at my yellow legal pad. We’d held an impromptu meeting in my bedroom to discuss our demands, so we’d be prepared when facing the guys.
Allie didn’t see the need for rules. She trusted Sam and his friends to be good roomies. But I knew Sam a lot better than she did, and Leah had two brothers—so Leah and I knew a little more about living with guys than Allie did, since she had only one sister. We definitely needed rules.
“Rule number one: Toilet seats are to be placed in the down position before exiting the bathroom.”
Sam rolled his eyes and groaned. “Kate—”
“It’s non-negotiable.”
I heard a snicker of laughter from Joe. Sam looked over at him. Joe was shaking his head, grinning. He did have a cute smile.
“Hey, man, I’ve got three sisters,” Joe said to Sam. “You’re not going to win this one.”
“Fine, Kate, you can have your rule.” Sam snapped his fingers impatiently at me. “What else?”
I felt a surge of triumph. Gosh, it felt good. I seldom won an argument with Sam. I looked back at my list. “Rule number two: The girls will cook if the guys will clean.”
“Sure, I’ve got no problem washing my hands before I eat. I’m civilized.”
Honestly, my brother was totally clueless sometimes.
“Not clean your hands, stupid. The kitchen. We want you to clean the kitchen, the pots, the pans, the counters. We spend time cooking, you spend time cleaning, fair trade.”
Sam looked at Brad, who was nodding. Joe, too. Sam looked back at me. “How many meals will you cook?”
“We’ll fix breakfast and dinner. For lunch we’ll be on the slopes so we’ll all fend for ourselves.”
“There’s a dishwasher in there, right?”
“Yes, but you have to rinse the food off before you put the dishes in it.”
Sam nodded. “Like I said, I’m not totally uncivilized. What else?”
I didn’t quite trust the ease with which he’d capitulated, but decided to trust him for now.
“We—meaning Allie, Leah, and I—get the TV for two hours every night, the exact times to be decided by us.”
“No way! We’re in the middle of the playoffs!”
“Exactly. Which is the reason we want some TV time.”
“Nope. Ain’t gonna happen. It’s non-negotiable.”
“It’s football! As long as you see the end of the game, why do you have to see the beginning? The end is when it gets exciting. That’s what you really want to see.�
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“And what is it you want to watch, Kate? Some girly—”
“Lost, for starters.”
“I’m down with that,” Joe said. “I’m hooked on that show.”
I shot a quick look over at Joe. He was still smiling, an unexpected ally in this war.
“It’s childish to hog the TV, Sam,” I said. “And selfish.”
Sam narrowed his eyes at me. He didn’t like having his words tossed back at him. Too bad. He shouldn’t have thrown a snowball earlier. I still owed him for that and was already plotting my revenge. I planned to get him where it would hurt him the most.
“Okay, you can have your two hours, but it can’t be during the last hour of a game.”
I looked at Allie and Leah. They both nodded. I turned my attention back to Sam. “Okay.”
Sam sighed. “Next.”
I looked at my list, looked back up. “That’s it.”
“Okay.” Sam gave me a familiar grin. I knew it too well. It said I was in trouble.
“The guys’ rules. No girly things hanging in the bathroom to dry. The guys get the bathrooms first in the morning because we’re fast and efficient. If you want to hitch a ride with us to the slopes, you have to be ready to leave when we are. We’re not waiting for you. When the guys are watching football, the girls can’t be in here talking—”
“Whoa! There’s this room, the kitchen, and our bedrooms. You can’t not share this room with us.”
“She’s right, dude,” Brad said. “I don’t mind having the babes around. I mean I like football, but I like having babes around more, you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, but one of the babes isn’t your sister,” Sam said.
Brad winked at me, while talking to Sam. “All the better, dude.”
My heart did this little somersaulting flutter inside my chest. Had Leah and Aunt Sue been right? Was this the perfect opportunity to have Brad fall for me as much as I’d already fallen for him? Had I misjudged the Sam factor?
I was almost giddy as I turned my attention back to Sam, ready to be more than magnanimous. “What other rules do you have?”
Love on the Lifts Page 2
