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.
What had she been thinking to repeat old history with him? As if the first time hadn’t ended on a disastrous enough note.
Pocketing her phone, Rachel took a deep breath. “I guess I’m going to end up at the bachelorette party after all.”
“Can I walk you over there?” he asked.
“They’re at Frosty’s Igloo.” She pointed the way. “It’s in the opposite direction of home, so I’ll be fine on my own.”
No more repeat kisses that way.
“What kind of gentleman would I be to let you walk up icy hills in the dark?” He held out his arm—perfectly chivalrous and entirely too tempting. “I’ll just stay with you long enough to make sure you arrive without spraining an ankle.”
Grateful in spite of her misgivings about her ability to resist him, Rachel slid a hand into the crook of his elbow. He felt warm and strong, and with the taste of him still on her lips she felt her cheeks heat. She didn’t dare to meet his eyes, knowing he might read the hunger there.
And she couldn’t afford to fall back into another kiss. Not until she gathered her scattered thoughts. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Is this your first bachelorette party?” he asked while they walked through the light mist of snowflakes. “Or are you a pro at these things? I don’t know anything about your life in the big city.”
“I’ve been to a couple of them, but only for acquaintances, not for super close friends.”
“Do you have those kinds of connections in New York?”
“In Brooklyn, close to where I live, I’ve met some really great people.” She missed Shea and Larissa, who’d encouraged her to fulfill the pact to make peace with the past. That “peace” sure didn’t involve kissing Gavin. She wasn’t a woman who shared that kind of thing lightly. Now she was more confused about what she was doing here than ever. “One of my friends, Larissa, just moved back to Cheyenne and I’m going to really miss her. She was hoping to come here for a visit this week, but her favorite sheep is sick.”
“Her favorite sheep?” Gavin didn’t bother to hide a grin as they walked out of the playground and toward the igloos into a more rustic area.
Visitors could experience more of an old-fashioned holiday in some of the wooden cabins ringing the igloo area, while the faux ice-houses were stocked with more modern amenities.
“Yes. I’ve had so much fun hearing about her life out there. She moved to New York after I did to work on Broadway, but I think she always missed the wide-open spaces of her old life.” Rachel had liked hearing her stories and had learned a lot about using wool in her designs from Larissa the sheep expert. “And my other friend, Shea, just opened a boutique in a Vermont ski town.”
“Really?” That got his attention. “Which one?”
“Cloud Spin.” She had high hopes Shea would order some of her designs for the boutique once she got a little more established in her new space.
That hope had been a bright spot in her flagging career.
“I’ve been there.” He nodded. “Good moguls course for snowboards. But it sounds like your closest friends have both left Brooklyn.”
“Believe me, I told them I wasn’t crazy about that aspect of our plan to make peace with the past.” She could hear the country music from the bachelorette party as the igloos came into view. “Both of my friends ended up moving closer to where they grew up.”
Gavin slowed his step. He slipped a hand over hers where it lay on his arm. “Maybe one day you’ll want to do the same.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” She shook her head. She didn’t see herself ever returning to Yuletide for good. “I promise I’m not going to move home and cramp your style when you’re getting your new business underway. I feel guilty enough I’ve caused an uproar already.”
“I’m not worried about what everyone else says.” All traces of good humor fled from his features. He was absolutely serious.
Did he mean that he wanted her here? And did that suggestion have a romantic overtone, or was she just being hypersensitive after what they’d just shared? Up until that moment, she wouldn’t have thought it was possible to feel butterflies in her belly at the same time she tensed with new worries.
“But living here means doing business here, and associating with me will only make that tougher for you.” She understood what was at stake for Gavin.
“I’m not planning on moving back here permanently until I retire.” Now, he quit walking altogether, keeping them in the shadows of the tree line ringing the private igloo.
She noticed he was vague about his future plans, especially when it came to snowboarding. He’d told her once that he wouldn’t retire until the mountain “got the best of him.” But did he really mean to snowboard until he couldn’t do that any longer?
“You’ll be opening the Jingle Elf house before then, right?” She guessed he could afford the home even if he wasn’t living there year-round, but knew the town would have never approved the sale of prime real estate like that without dictating that it be open for tourists within a reasonable amount of time.
“It needs to be operational within eight months of when I closed on the house,” he admitted while night creatures scurried in the underbrush of the surrounding trees.
“That’s good. But I won’t have a change of heart where Yuletide is concerned.” She withdrew her hand from where he held it, knowing she needed to resurrect some boundaries where Gavin was concerned. “I plan to deliver those bridesmaid dresses and make peace with Luke before the wedding so I can finally find some closure. I hope attending Kiersten and Luke’s wedding will make me feel like I can come back to Yuletide sometimes without so much stress. But after that wedding, I’m going back home.”
His gaze roamed over her in the moonlight, reminding her of that night she’d scrambled out of her house to follow him to a bonfire in the woods and he’d skipped the event to walk her home. Looking out for her. Keeping her safe.
Even to his own detriment.
“What if I don’t want you to leave?” he asked, sliding the backs of his leather-clad fingers along her cheek.
Making her breath catch.
“Your life isn’t here any more than mine is. At least, not yet.” She couldn’t let herself cave to the attraction. To the desperate need to kiss him again now that she knew the contact was even more potent as an adult than it had been in her teens. “Everything that we’re doing and feeling this week? It’s just temporary. A time out from our real lives.”
He frowned. She guessed he wanted to argue the point, but she wasn’t going to give him a chance.
“I have to go.” Turning on her heel, she headed into the ring of light around the igloo. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me, Gavin. But I’ll be okay from here.”
*
Gavin stomped through the woods, taking a shortcut to avoid seeing the locals. When he’d been walking through town with Rachel earlier, he’d noticed a handful of people—who normally greeted him with a friendly hello—snub him completely.
That in itself didn’t bother him personally. He didn’t need anyone’s approval. But Rachel was right about one thing—his business would. And the more time they spent together, the farther out of reach his charity skiing event became. For that matter, his plans for the Jingle Elf restoration could be stuck in the approval process for as long as the town chose. So if someone on the council wanted to drag their feet for spite because they held a grudge against Rachel…
Damn it.
If there was any justice in the world, he would be walking home with memories of her kiss to keep him warm. Now, instead of bringing them closer, the kiss seemed to have ignited her need to run. She couldn’t sprint off to the bachelorette party fast enough after that conversation. It bugged him that they’d parted on that note.
It bothered him even more that she assumed—rightly—he would care a great deal about his new business in Yuletide being a success. And that he cared more about that than her.
She’d been wrong about that last part. But she sure hadn’t given him a chance to argue with her.
He skidded down a small, icy incline near a frozen creek bed, and paused to gather his bearings. Finding a landmark on Main Street through the trees, he altered his course so he would arrive close to his house. He tapped the excess snow off his boots and started trekking upward again when his phone rang.
For one hopeful second, he thought of Rachel. But his caller ID showed it was his coach. He scrambled to answer, hoping it wasn’t bad news.
“Hey, John,” he greeted him. “Everything okay?”
It must be three in the morning in Austria, well past team curfew in a competition week.
“Everyone is fine.” His coach, a former competitor who’d been training the U.S. teams for over a decade, sounded tired. “Just seeing what I can do to get you on a plane and over here where you belong.”
John knew him well. From the time he was a kid, nothing motivated Gavin like the promise of belonging. He didn’t dare refuse outright. If his coach was calling with renewed efforts to get Gavin to Austria, he wanted to hear him out.
“I appreciate the call,” he said carefully, reaching the top of the incline as the sound of a hand bell choir drifted through the trees. “But I asked about this week a long time ago. My buddy getting married here is a close friend.”
Even though Luke hadn’t made any effort to welcome Rachel home. The last few days would have gone a lot more smoothly for her if Luke had lent his support.
“I know that.” John’s voice sounded so close he could have been in one of the nearby elf houses. The guy had been a good mentor and teacher over the years, so Gavin hated disappointing him. “But I’m missing the voice of a veteran over here. Someone to help these kids figure out how to deal with the pressure.”
Trudging toward Main Street through the dense pines, Gavin relaxed a bit, figuring the coach was just worn out dealing with the exuberance of youth.
“I learned that stuff from you. They will too.”
“The idea was if I kept a couple of veterans on the team, you’d pay it forward.” John cursed softly. “Or is that paying it back?”
“I promise I’ll educate the young guns when I get over there on Sunday.” He broke through the trees a few buildings down from his house and headed toward the sidewalk.
“You’re not going to back out on me and stay put?” John grumbled. “A trip home can make a man all kinds of nostalgic. You see the old mates. Hook up with an old flame—”
“Not happening.” Gavin cut him off, unwilling to think of Rachel in those terms. She wasn’t a hook-up.
She was different. Special. And yeah, Gavin had spent a whole lot of time thinking about her this week.
The line went quiet for a moment, making Gavin think the call had dropped until John said, “Are you sure, son?”
The “son” thing got to him. No one but Rachel’s dad had ever called him that. Certainly not his own father who would travel around the globe to watch a Formula One race, but it had never occurred to him to cheer on his own kid.
The only person who would make Gavin think twice about staying in Yuletide had just told him in no uncertain terms she wouldn’t be sticking around. She had a life to go back to and so did he. Gavin didn’t like the idea of ignoring the attraction and all the feelings that went with it. But what choice did he have when he was the only one curious about exploring it?
“I’m sure,” he told his coach. His mentor and friend. “I’ll be there on Sunday, ready to race.”
“Good man.” John disconnected the call as Gavin reached his empty house with just a few red and green lights to connect it to the rest of the Alpine-themed homes on Main Street.
An outcast, just like him.
Maybe he was trying too damn hard to make a life for himself in Yuletide. He wasn’t retired yet. And he might find a more welcoming home somewhere else if he gave it a chance.
But as he opened the door to the Jingle Elf house, his gaze slid sideways to Teeny Elf’s. The home he’d always associated with Rachel, even if she’d been gone until recently.
Leaving Yuletide wasn’t going to be easy.