My breath caught as he drew his hand softly to my cheeks and ever so slowly began to wipe the snow from my face. His eyes pierced into mine, and his warm hand melted the snow as he dragged it off my face. His touch was sensual and warm, as heated as his gaze, and I could do nothing but lie there as each rhythmic ministration left me spellbound.
His eyes drifted down to my lips before meeting my gaze once more. There was a question in his eyes, but before I could answer, a loud revving of an engine tore through the quiet moment. We both turned to see Jett riding the snowmobile out of the barn. He looked over at us and did a double-take before waving somewhat awkwardly.
Miles’s head dropped down for a second before he stood and offered a hand to help me up. He ran a hand through his hair sheepishly before putting his glove back on.
“Enough trying to seduce me, Olive Wilson. We’ve got a sledding hill to get to.”
TWENTY TWO
"You can be too old for a lot of things, but you're never too old to be afraid."
Home Alone
Miles kept his promise. He made sledding the stuff of dreams. He even managed to make it that way with my mom and Russ acting like teenagers, flying down the hill with their arms wrapped around each other. There were times when I rode behind him on the snowmobile as he tore down the hill, picking up sledders and tubes at the bottom, hooking them to the machine, and pulling them back up. He’d tease and joke with the adults and was gentle and sweet with the kids. There were other times Jack would man the snowmobile, and Miles would place me in front of his sled, jump on behind me, and wrap me in his arms as we flew down the hill. The wind in my face and strong arms holding me tight had me feeling very much like I had been living half a life until now. Even when we wrecked, snow and powder flying everywhere as we rolled the rest of the way down the hill, it didn’t stop me from laughing until I cried.
But adventure for one not used to adventuring was exhausting.
Sledding was over. Jack had just hauled a trailer full of rosy-cheeked kids and their parents back to the lodge. I traded in my seat behind Miles’s on the snowmobile to little Ivy, who had developed a healthy crush on him while sledding. He couldn’t resist her charms asking for a ride and sent me an apologetic smile.
The arrangement was fine by me. And not just because watching him with Ivy—the careful way he held her and the way he leaned forward to try and listen to what she was saying to him, the ball on top of her big beanie smacking him in the face every time—did something to me that I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from.
But now we were back. My feet hit solid ground, and I had a second to breathe on my own. I needed to keep it together. Miles was a charismatic force of fun. But once out of his all-consuming presence, I couldn’t help but feel that I was just an exciting challenge to him during a week of boredom. Get her to talk. Get her to sled and snow mobile. Jump in a frozen pond. He claimed he liked me, that this wasn’t fake for him. And that could have very well been true…here on the mountain, in this cozy bubble we’d cocooned ourselves in. I could feel myself yielding. Being charmed. But the last thing I wanted to be was somebody’s adrenaline rush. Because once the endorphins faded, the crash always followed.
Chloe and Ben jumped down from the trailer. Ben took a sleeping Holly out of my arms while an excited Ivy leapt out of Miles’s arms and ran toward her parents—the little family making their way back toward their cabin.
I started to follow them when Miles rode toward me on the snowmobile, coming to a stop a few feet away.
“Come riding with me,” he called.
My steps slowed. “What? We just went sledding. I’m officially tapped out of adventure today.”
“I want to show you some places.”
My eyes flicked between him and the snowmobile. There it was again. The allure of danger. And I wasn’t talking about the snowmobile. Beneath his gray beanie, his hair draped messily across his forehead while his warm brown eyes were inviting and… I swallowed. “No, thank you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
He looked mildly taken aback, and a small spot of pride burned in my chest at throwing him off his game. He turned off the machine and climbed down, coming to stand a few feet away. “Why? What did I do?”
“You…keep…making me do crazy things and…kissing me…and…rubbing my face all sexy, and I don’t know what to do with that.” My hands were currently flailing about in a panicked rush, but I couldn’t seem to stop it.
He burst out laughing. “Rubbing your face?”
I lifted my chin, giving him a knowing gaze. “Yes.”
He folded his arms, regarding me with great interest. “What do you want to do with it?”
I scoffed, my mouth gaping wide open. Seriously, the nerve. I wanted to go back to my quiet cabin, have a bath, read a book, and pretend nothing had happened so I didn’t have to make any decisions about us or potentially get my heart broken and still have to face this man at work every day. It really was so simple.
When I didn’t say anything, his lips fell into a half smile, and he closed the distance between us. Instantly, my heart rate sped up, and I pushed at his chest. “No more kisses. Nobody’s around. You have to stop messing with me.”
“You think I’m messing with you? I told you pretty clearly that I’m not messing around.”
He did. But still, I kept my hands pressed against his chest, needing to get this out. “We’re just trapped in this dreamland where Santa and Rudolph and Frank Sinatra threw up all over everything.”
His nose wrinkled in distaste, which was so adorably distracting that a laugh sputtered out of me before I could stop it.
“It’s all been weird, and cozy, and…”
Happy.
That was the word so close to leaving my mouth. Happy? Really? While my mom was here kissing another man? When I did the polar plunge and then spent all day sledding in the cold? Happy? That couldn’t be the right word. But I couldn’t deny the lightness in my heart, thinking over the past few days. Even amid the doubts and the questions, I was happy whenever I was around Miles. I felt strangely alive when he was near. But really…that would end, too. I couldn’t keep up with him for long. He’d get bored of me, and then I’d be sharing a school with an ex-boyfriend—again.
Even though this particular man had proven himself to be much sweeter and more endearing than the last guy. And funny. And strangely insightful. And romantic.
Still a pain, though.
“Did you know your eyes do this sparkle thing when you laugh?”
“What?”
“Yup. I never noticed it until we came here.”
I folded my arms, squirming under his scrutiny. His eyes roamed all over my face.
“You smile a lot at school, but it always stops right here.” I stilled as he reached out his index finger and thumb toward my mouth, pressing the corners of it gently.
I stilled at the contact. He removed his hand and took a step back, though his eyes continued to hold mine.
“It always used to make me so mad to see you pretend so much. You’d smile, and take on extra jobs, and wash dishes, and get taken advantage of by everyone because, for some reason, you thought you needed to. And you’d be smiling the whole time, but it would never hit your eyes. But in the past few days, I’ve heard your laugh, and I’ve seen your smile—your real smile…” He broke off, shaking his head. “That’s not something a guy can just unsee. It’s a craving now, trying to make you laugh, or smile, or even get mad at me.”