Page 46 of Wren's Winter

“It’s mountain courtesy.”

She repeated my words back to me with a raised brow. “Yeah, acknowledging other people, saying hello. We all share the mountain here.” Seeing her confused expression, I went on. “Is that not normal?”

With a sigh, she rubbed her hands together. “I’m starting to think I don’t know what normal behavior is. Or common courtesy, for that matter. It’s like I was in a fog, not realizing how warped my world had been for so many years.” She glanced over at me. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be unloading on you like that.”

I reached over, taking her hand in mine. “It’s fine. I want to know about you.”

She squeezed my hands once before throwing it back at me, pointing at the steering wheel. Smiling, I gripped the wheel tightly and increased the speed as we took the narrow hill up the top. On the passenger side, the treetops gave way to an open valley below as the edge of the road dropped away.

“Geez! Could you maybe not go fast?” she asked, then a darkness clouded her features, and she glanced at me with a furrowed brow. “It’s just that I’m a little freaked out by the cliffs on the sides, and I know you said that you’ve been driving these roads since you were young, but I’ve never done this and…”

“Hey, of course I will.” Slowly applying the brakes, my speed decreased. It wasn’t as fast as I enjoyed going, but her white-knuckling it as we went through the curves wasn’t an option.

Clearing her throat, she glanced away. “Thank you. I know you probably think I’m being dramatic, and I hate to put a damper on your fun in the snow...”

“I’m glad you told me. It’s not fun if you don’t feel safe.”

Her big brown eyes blinked at me, almost glossy. She couldn’t be crying over that, right? “Are you sure? I don’t want to be one of those bummer girls who can’t take risks and hold you back.”

Bummer girls. The idea was preposterous. Was that what she thought of herself as? A darkness rolled in my gut at her words. Having her think she couldn’t tell me if she was uncomfortable or scared because she didn’t want to bother me was terrifying. Is this how she lived?

“You wouldn’t be holding me back. I’m glad you told me. I care about how you feel. You can tell me no. You could have said you didn’t want to come up this mountain. We can turn around right now and go back down. Whatever makes you comfortable. It won’t change my opinion of you.”

“Bet?” she asked softly.

“Bet.” I agreed.

Nothing you say could change how I’m feeling about you.

I blinked away the thought. It was far too soon to put into words what was happening between us. I barely knew her. No, that wasn’t entirely true. I did know her. Maybe not the specifics, like her favorite book, or the name of her second-grade teacher. But we knew each other in a way, recognized something in one another, that no amount of time together could force.

A break in the trees and then the space opened before us. Pulling off the road, I parked in the clearing facing the west. From the high elevation, we could see the thin line of Vancouver, Canada, on the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Wren got out, her arms crossed over her chest as she took in the view. “Oh, wow,” she whispered. She glanced back at me. “This is incredible.”

My arms wrapped around her, pulling her back to my chest. I rested my chin on the top of her head. “Worth the wild drive?”

Turning her head, she gave me a devious grin. “Almost. I think I’ll need a little more to be persuaded.”

I smirked at her, bending low until my mouth was almost on hers. “What kind of persuading?”

My mouth slanting over hers, we met. The slight wind picked up little shards of snow swirling around us and biting at our cheeks. With her in my arms, I couldn’t feel the cold. The kiss turned into more, and she twisted to face me, her arms wrapping around my waist to pull me closer. Backing her into the side of my truck, the embrace became crushing. A lust pounding through me as I wanted to strip her bare and have my way with her on this mountainside. She gripped the zipper on my jacket, to pull it down, making it halfway before I pulled back. “Wait. Not yet.”

She dropped the zipper, and I stepped back to give her space. “I didn’t bring you up here for that.”

With an arched brow and a smirk, she looked me up and down. “No?”

“Not only that. I really did want you to see the views here.” I never had the urge to take a woman to this spot before, but I wanted Wren to see the best of the area. The best of me. While I was still unsure how to proceed with whatever it was that was building between us, I knew I wanted to share this special place with her. I might not be able to these growing emotions into words, but I had the wide expanse of trees and the gray-blue waters that led to the ocean. I had the trees and the amber and gray rocks that had been my childhood.

Unlocking my tailgate, I grabbed her by her waist, hoisting her up on the back. Her legs dangled over the edge as I hopped beside her. With the well-loved thermos of hot chocolate at my side, I poured her a small mug and then myself one. Together we sat in an easy silence, the winter air cold and biting our cheeks but the hot drink warming us. “As a kid, my Gramps would take me up here for sledding, like those kids we passed. I thought, for years, we were the only ones in the world to know about that spot, but once I grew old enough to drive, I realized a lot of people know about it.” I pointed down a narrow road to the left. “And over there. My grandparents used to bring me up here every December. We’d pick out a tree for the cabin and cut it down ourselves.”

“You can do that. Cut down whatever tree you want?”

I laughed. “No, you buy a pass at the ranger station. My parents have this beautiful fake tree they bought years ago, but coming out here with my grandparents always meant more to me. Even when the tree we picked was lopsided or five feet too tall. Somehow, it was better in my mind than this perfectly symmetrical thing my parents decorated with all white and silver baubles.”

Wren scrunched her nose and gritted her teeth. “Yeah, I can see how your parents might be like that. No offense. I’m sure their home is lovely during the holidays, though.”

I laughed. “None taken, trust me. And it is gorgeous and cold. When I was little, they’d let me put my kid ornaments low on the tree, but as I got older, they were left in the box. But my grandparents always let me put whatever I wanted on the tree. Broken popsicle stick reindeer and chipped clay candy canes. If I made it, they wanted it.”

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