Page 35 of Snow Balled

As far as I was concerned, she always looked fantastic, but all those people who told her what to eat probably would want her to wear something other than sweats. “Is it true how bad stage moms can be?”

“Yes.”

Her voice was clipped, and she swiveled her head back to the fire, a clear sign that it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. I understood, but I still wanted to continue the conversation, now that I’d finally gotten her talking. In order to avoid any sensitive topics with her, I decided to reveal more about myself. “In college, I was the only computer science major who worked out twice a day.”

That made those gorgeous green eyes point in my direction again. “Why?”

“Most didn’t care about their bodies. All they cared about was coding.”

“No, I mean why did you work out so much?” Unless I was mistaken, her gaze dropped to my bicep, which was flattering.

But she probably wanted a real answer and it was hard to explain. “I—I resented my scrawny body in high school. It felt like something that was inflicted on me instead of being a part of me. But my roommate, freshman year, went to the gym regularly, so I tagged along. I liked the way it felt to work my muscles. It… it was like my body and my mind were one—and not like my brain was the only important part of me, and the rest of me was just luck of the draw.”

“You remade yourself,” she said.

“Yes. Or…more like, I accepted all parts of myself. I liked the way I felt after a good workout.” I reflected on it a moment longer and then grinned. “And I found it a lot easier to get dates after I started working out.”

“I’ll bet.”

She was definitely checking me out now. Part of me wanted to preen. A movie star liked the way I looked.

But that was exactly the kind of reaction she didn’t want. She was just Sierra, a lovely young woman who was staying with us. Being an actress was just her job. It didn’t affect who she really was.

Or at least, it shouldn’t.

“Do you exercise?” It was the safest thing I could think to say.

“Some. Mostly yoga and Pilates, but sometimes I run on the treadmill.”

She’d worn yoga pants when I first encountered her in her cabin. I hadn’t had a lot of time to appreciate how they hugged her legs then, but my mind filled in the details now. “How much yoga would you have to do to have a beer?”

She grinned. “Tonight doesn’t count. I’ll get it.” She pushed aside the blanket and was on her feet before I said anything else.

A minute later, she returned, handing me an open bottle. We clinked them together before she sat down again, this time with one foot up on the couch and one on the floor as she faced me.

“How come tonight doesn’t count? Do calories not exist on a Thursday?” I frowned. “Wait, is it Thursday?”

Sierra’s laugh was light and musical. “To be honest, I have no idea. That kind of thing doesn’t seem to matter way up here.”

“Agreed.” I took a long swallow of the ice-cold beer. “But seriously, is tonight some kind of time out?”

She looked away, this time toward the door to her room, not the fireplace. But she seemed more lost in thought than looking for an escape. “Not really a time out. But… I don’t know. I didn’t want you all to find out, but now that you have… it’s like I can stop worrying about it. Like the thing I feared most happened—and I lived to tell the tale.”

Maybe it was the two glasses of wine and then the beer, but I couldn’t quite follow that. “Staying with us is the thing you feared most?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, yeah, kind of. Getting stranded with strangers—especially men—was definitely not on my bucket list. But ever since I got here, I hoped you wouldn’t find out about my career. But you did, and… well, so far, it’s not quite as bad as I thought it would be.”

So many questions piled up in my slightly inebriated brain. “But why didn’t you want us to know? And why ‘especially men’?”

Her face was earnest as she looked back at me. “I’m not very good with them. Surely you’ve noticed that?”

I nodded, fighting the urge to give her a hug. She looked so lost and forlorn at the moment. “You flinch so much, I was beginning to think that was your primary form of cardio.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Seriously, it was wrong to want to hold someone who jumped whenever I got near, but I wanted to anyway. “Doesn’t it affect your acting?”

“No.” She frowned. “Well, not usually.”

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