Page 44 of My Rival for Christmas

I cross my arms over my chest. “I’d rather you call a tow company.”

“You know I will.” He reaches into his back pocket for his phone. Some of the humor vanishes from his expression, replaced with a healthy amount of concern as he eyes me. Can he see the slight tremor in my fingers? “But you’ve already watched me call the only two companies in town. Both of them said the same, they can’t come up until the snow stops. The roads uphere are too hazardous otherwise. The best they can do is try tomorrow if they can get their truck here.”

He starts to redial one of the numbers, the companies owned by the same two brothers.

“Stop.” I shake my head. I don’t need him placating me. “There’s no point in bothering them. They’d probably just bump us down the list of rescues anyway.”

“Dax will be here tomorrow, as long as the roads aren’t covered in ice. And even then, we just have to wait for the sun to melt it.”

“We’re in a snowstorm, Nate. The sun could be hidden for days. The news kept saying be prepared. That sounds pretty serious to me.”

He shakes his head. “They always blow these storms out of proportion. The truth is they can only predict what they think will happen, and in my experience, it’s usually the worst so people will take it more seriously. Guarantee we’ll have you back at the resort by afternoon tomorrow.”

“And if you don’t?” My arms tighten around my waist. My flight to Austin’s goes out late tomorrow night.

“I’ll get you back down the mountain, Paige, as soon as I can. I promise.”

I know you will.The sentence gets trapped in my throat.I just hate that I’m stuck here with you.

I finally pull myself away from the window and plop down on the couch, trying to shift into a comfortable position. But the cushions are so old and flat, I feel the wood from the framework poking my already bony ass.

I try to keep my face neutral as I ignore the hard surface. Because despite my surly, if not completely volatile, personality right now, I do strive to have manners. And this isn’t an insult to Nate, but to his father who has always been a very kind man to me.

A pang of sadness breaches my bad mood. I miss Nate’s dad. And his grandparents.

From the moment Nate and I started to become close, as those little nine and ten-year-old kids, they quickly embraced me and my brother as family. And for two kids who only grew up wanting to be wanted, it was everything.

Betty still calls me, and James, Nate’s grandfather, will sometimes meet me for coffee before I go to the rink or catch me on the way home. His dad will send me birthday texts and postcards from his travels. He’ll even answer my calls if I ever need help with some kind of repair around my apartment.

But no matter how much they’ve felt like family to me and Austin and even my niece, Clover, they’re not ours.

They’re Nate’s.

And I’ve always worked really hard to respect that since he ended our partnership. And I think that’s what makes it sting the worst. Why I still care about his betrayal two years later.

It wasn’t only because of figure skating.

I didn’t just lose Nate as my partner.

I lost the family that chose me—Nate included.

My eyes start to sting, and I suck in a sharp breath.No, no. You are not allowed to cry. Not yet. Not in front of him.

I will not go from wanting to burn the weather down to crying. I have not reached that breaking point…yet.

Drawing in a slow breath, I pick my head up and look for something else to focus on.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to look at that can distract me. Leaving me with really only one option.

My eyes land on Nate as he adjusts the pocket of his shirt. Two red button eyes watch me almost smugly from it as he does.

“I can’t believe you put him in your shirt.”

Him being Snowball, my hedgehog. The forever stowaway.

He’s what I came to collect from the house when Nate went to start up the truck. Him, and my coat and my phone.

“I can’t believe you brought him with you.” Nate runs a gentle finger down the slope of Snowball’s nose, who lifts his little chin to follow. His paws clutch the pocket’s edge for leverage.

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