“Are you serious? Are you even allowed to leave the lodge?”
He gives me a wry look. “Of course I’m allowed to leave. The show isn’t holding me hostage.”
“But what about your adoring fans?”
Shrugging, Mason flashes me a nonchalant look. “Please, they don’t intimidate me.”
I cock my head to the side, staring him down.
He takes me by the shoulders, bending his knees slightly so he can look me in the eyes. “Besides, I’ll be in snow gear. Incognito.”
After several minutes, I finally give in. “Fine. Let’s go snowshoeing.”
***
“You’re a bit of a show-off,” Mason pants from behind me.
I look over my shoulder, grinning. “Why do you say that?”
He hurries to catch up with me, his arms moving awkwardly with his poles as he attempts to walk through the fluffy snow. The hill I just climbed isn’t steep, but Mason keeps slipping nevertheless.
“You have to really dig your snowshoe in,” I remind him. “Don’t forget to ‘Engage with the snow.’”
That’s what the man at the rental shop said. Several times.
Mason rolls his eyes as he struggles with the hill. His skin is flushed from the cold air, and he looks beyond scrumptious in his snow gear. It’s a weird thought to have considering Brandon just shattered my heart, but it’s there, and I’m afraid I must acknowledge it.
“Engage with the snow,” Mason mutters as he attempts to tromp harder. Unfortunately, that just digs him in deeper.
“Let me help,” I say, turning around. I feel like a giant rabbit with the snowshoes attached to my boots.
“No, stay there,” Mason says, stubborn. “I got this.”
Ignoring him, I start down the hill. I stumble just a bit and throw out my hands and poles to steady myself.
All right, I will admit it; going down is a little more difficult than going up. Just when I’ve almost reached him, I slide again. This time, however, I don’t regain my balance.
Shrieking, I plow right into Mason. He tries to catch me, but my momentum gets the best of him, and we fall down the gentle hill, poles flying and feet flailing in the most uncoordinated way.
I fall next to him, getting a mouth full of snow. I try to push myself up only to have my hands sink deeper. Mason laughs next to me, not even trying to right himself yet. He landed in the soft bank back-first, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think he stopped to make a snow angel.
I’m laughing too hard to stand up, so I flop to my side and take in a deep, gasping breath.
Mason turns his head toward me. After several minutes of looking at the sky, I meet his gaze. The snow is cold on my flushed cheeks, but the day is warm for winter, even if the sun is now hidden behind dark clouds.
“I haven’t had this much fun in a long time,” he says.
I shift, aware that my leggings are only water resistant, and the snow is already soaking into them.
“Me either,” I say, and I’m surprised to find I really mean it.
He flashes me a boyish grin—one that does funny things to my insides—and groans as he pulls himself up. Once he’s steady, he offers me a hand.
As soon as I’m on my feet, he looks up at the sky. The first snowflakes are coming down, but it looks as if their friends are eager to join them.
“I suppose we should get back to the lodge,” Mason says.
I shiver as a clump of rogue snow slides from my hair down my neck. “All right.”
We trek along, both of us doing well on the flat stretches. The air is crisp, and the scent of spruce surrounds us. It’s peaceful on the hiking trail, far away from the slopes and busy roads. We don’t talk much, so the only noise is the crunch of the snow and the sound of our breathing.
Even though the quiet of my hotel threatened to choke me, the silence is soothing out here. The snow falls around us, further masking the cars on the distant road.
By the time we make it back to Mason’s rental car, it’s late afternoon, and the entire sky is dark gray. The clouds have settled around us, the wind has picked up, and the storm has gone from gentle to harsh.
“I’m going to get your seat wet,” I say after we stash our gear in the trunk.
Mason waves the concern away. “It’ll dry.”
Shivering, too cold to argue, I slide into the car. We’ve been out for hours, so the car isn’t warm, but it’s nice to be out of the snow and cold breeze.
Mason immediately reaches for the heater, cranking up the thermostat as high as it will go.
The snow soaked through his hat, and his hair is slightly damp. I have the strangest urge to set my hand on his neck, see if he’s chilled.
After Mason finishes with the heater, he catches me watching him. He narrows his eyes in a questioning, almost playful way. “What?”
“I was thinking about what you said.” I glance at my hands as I pull off my cold, wet gloves. “About how different things might be if you never joined Forever Now, if we met somewhere normal and boring like a football game.”
From the corner of my eye, I see his expression soften. “Or a grocery store or gas station.”
I look back, meeting his gaze. “Exactly.”
He shifts, angling his body toward me, and crosses his arms. “Tell me the truth. If I were just a normal guy, would I have a better chance with you?”
“Yes,” I admit, not even needing to think about it.
“Why does my job bother you so much?”
“Everyone knows you—of you, rather. You have groupies and paparazzi following you around. It’s a lot. And honestly, Mason, you’re only interested because you’re stuck here for a few weeks.”
I pause, taking a moment before I continue, “And I already know how this will play out. You’ll probably tell me your life is hard—that you just wish you were normal. I’ll fall for it, and we’ll have this bright, sweet, short romance. But after this publicity stunt is over, you’ll go back to your normal life, and I’ll go back to mine. Years down the road, when I’m married and have children, I’ll see you on television and briefly think ‘what if.’ But I’ll fade from your thoughts completely, until one day, you won’t even remember my name. I’ll just be that girl from your hometown you met on a Christmas baking show one year.”
Mason’s frown deepens until his eyebrows practically touch, and then he suddenly laughs. It’s a happy, rich sound, and it completely fills the car. “You are incredibly cynical.”
I roll my eyes and let myself smile as he leans forward, giving me a better view of his gray eyes. The color is like smoke, completely mesmerizing.
“First of all—I love my job, and I will never tell you differently. I love performing. I love singing. I love the travel and the lights and the fans. No, I don’t always care for the schedule. It can be exhausting, and it’s worse when I’m on tour. I very rarely get a homecooked meal. Sometimes the girls and paparazzi are overwhelming, especially in cities like LA, but there are plenty of places I can go to get away.”
He pauses to shift closer, and his knee bumps my leg. “And do I wonder what it would be like to have a normal life? Of course I do. Especially when I met you, and I realized that a normal life might have had you in it. Because there is no way that normal me wouldn’t have seen normal you—at a game, at the grocery store, at a gas station—anywhere—and not found a way to come talk to you.”
I stare at the curve of his lips, unable to look away. It takes me a moment, but I pull myself out of my trance. “It wouldn’t have worked though.”
His eyes spark with amusement. “Why’s that?”
“Because you probably would have been a geek in glee club,” I tease, “and it would have been social suicide to be seen with you.”
“Let me guess. You were the prom queen type?” he asks, grinning.
“No.” I lean forward, letting my leg press closer to his knee. “Homecoming.”
He shakes his head, and his eyes drop to my lips
, sending a jolt through my body. “Well, that settles it. You’re out of my league.”
I shouldn’t let him kiss me—it’s not fair to him. But Mason’s balm on an aching wound, and when he’s close, like he is now, Brandon’s rejection doesn’t sting quite so much.
Throwing caution to the wind, I lean forward. Just as I’m closing my eyes, a familiar truck pulls into the trailhead parking beside us.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I sit back quickly, adjusting my coat. My pulse thrums in my ears, and I know my face is flushed.
Riley hops out of the passenger seat and hurries to my window.
“Sorry,” she murmurs to me when I roll the window down. Then louder, she says, “It was getting dark, and a winter weather advisory was just issued. We were worried that you guys were still out there. We were going to hunt you down.”
I texted Riley earlier to let her know where we were going. I’m not sure if I’m upset or relieved that she interrupted us, so I decide to be grateful she cared enough to check on me.
“We were about to head back to the lodge,” I tell her.
She nods, and her eyes flicker to Mason.
“Hey, Riley,” Mason says in that delicious voice of his.
“Hi…Mason.” A giggle escapes her, and then she rips her attention back to me. “We’re going to go.” She points to the road. “Careful driving back. It’s already slick.”
“Okay.”
She widens her eyes briefly at me, her whole face brimming with incredulous excitement, and then she scampers back to Linus’ truck.
I wave to Linus as they pull onto the road. He gives us a friendly smile in return, and then we’re alone again.
Mason clears his throat. “I have a thing on Wednesday. I was hoping you might come with me.”
I turn to him. “What kind of thing?”
“I’m performing in a Christmas special. We’d leave on Tuesday night and fly home late after the show.”
We don’t have an episode to film on Wednesday, probably because Mason’s schedule has already been worked out with the network.
“Where’s the concert?”
“New York.”
I blink at him. “New York? As in city? As in days away?”
A grin flashes across his face, but he quickly schools it. “We’ll take a jet out of Denver. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour flight.”
“Are you serious? You want me to come with you?”
“I do.”
I sit back in my seat, overwhelmed. “I didn’t pack anything to wear to something like that.”
His hand drifts to my knee. “I’ll have my assistant get in touch with you. She’ll take care of everything.”
“I can’t accept—”
“You can.” He gives my knee a squeeze. “Come on. It’ll be fun, and I don’t want to go by myself. It’s a long flight if you don’t have company.”
“All right,” I say, and then I point a finger at him. “But I will have my own hotel room.”
He laughs and puts the car into gear. “I think I can arrange that.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mason mutters a curse under his breath when we get close to the lodge. Chrissy and Christy are standing in the driveway, chatting in the storm.
What the heck. Why? Why would they yap at each other in the snow when they could go inside and have the world’s best cup of coffee in the dining room?
“I hate myself for saying this, but you need to duck,” Mason says. “Fast.”
I whip off my seat belt and crouch on the floor, well under the window. Placing my hands on the seat and setting my chin on them, I angle my head toward Mason. “Good thing this wasn’t a date, huh? This would be an unusual way to end it.”
He grins, but he doesn’t dare look my way. We pull into the lodge, and Mason gives the women a curt wave of acknowledgment.
“Do you think they suspected anything?” I ask.
Mason glances in the rearview window. “I don’t know, but they’re headed this way.”
“What do I do?” I ask, growing a touch frantic.
They can’t see us together. They’ll make such a fuss about it, Tammy might have no choice but to toss Sadie and me off the show.
“Stay here. I’ll draw them away. Wait two minutes, and then make a run for the side door.”
“Got it.”
He quickly gets out of the car and shuts the door before Chrissy or Christy can see inside. They call to him in high-pitched, flirtatious voices that make me want to gag. They’ve got to be twenty years older than him—at the very least.
True to his word, Mason encourages the women to move inside and out of the weather. I wait several long minutes after it goes quiet, and then I stick my head up, feeling very much like a prairie dog poking out of her hole.
Another inch of snow has accumulated since this morning, and more is on its way. Even though it’s not quite dark yet, the street lights at the entrance have flickered on. There are plenty of empty cars and several of the network’s vans, but I see no sign of people.
Cautiously, I open the door. Unfortunately, just as I’m stepping out, another car pulls into the lot. I freeze, hoping to act casual as Jerome grins at me from the passenger seat of Cole’s Jeep. Jessica and Anne are in the backseat.
Please don’t let them realize whose car I just exited.
“Can you believe this snow!” Jessica calls to me as she gets out. She holds her hands to the sky, looking like she’s going to twirl. “It’s amazing.”
Cole shakes his head. “Tennessee girls,” he teases Jessica. “What do you think of the snow, Harper?”
I shrug, happy we’re talking about the storm and not Mason. “It makes for good boarding.”
“That it does.” Jerome helps Anne from the backseat. “What did you do with your day? I thought you were going to join us on the slope.”
Instead of answering, I avoid. “Anne! What did you do to your leg?”
Jessica’s cousin limps through the snow, clinging to Jerome’s arm.
She rolls her eyes. “I slipped in the parking lot. I don’t think it’s sprained, only twisted.”
I eye the girl’s ankle. It’s already swelling under her leggings. “Are you sure?”
Anne winces when she attempts to put pressure on the bad ankle. “No.”
Just the thought of trying to traverse the baking kitchen on crutches makes me cringe.
As soon as we step inside, I find Mason cornered next to the fireplace by both Chrissy and Christy. His posture is rigid, and he wears a pained smile. Neither appears to notice that they’re the cause of his irritation.
He glances our way and gives me a quick, subtle grimace.
“I’m just so glad we caught you as you were coming in,” Christy says, sounding as if she’s just about finished. “So, you’ll talk to Tammy?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mason says. Even though I’m just a casual observer, and I have no idea what they are talking about, I can tell that’s a brush-off answer if I’ve ever heard one.
“Thank you so much, Mason.” Chrissy sets her hand on his arm. She giggles—which is nauseating—and takes a step closer, not caring a bit that she’s flirting with a man half her age. “It’s only fair we all get personal interviews with you.”
Ever polite, Mason doesn’t step away, but he does crane his neck backward, trying to put distance between them.
Finally, the plastic twins pull themselves away from the singer and head up the stairs, toward their rooms.
“That’s funny,” Cole whispers from behind me, leaning down so the others won’t hear. “You and Mason seem to have arrived back at the lodge at the same time, and you’re both wearing wet ski gear. Yet we didn’t see either of you on the slopes.”
I turn to face him, unsure how to respond. He only winks at me in a knowing way and excuses himself as his group veers toward the dining room.
“Anne, do you need anything?” I ask before she hobbles through the doorway.
The girl looks over her shoulder, flicking her strawberry blond ponytail aside. “No, I’ll be all right. I just need to get off it for a while.”
“And some ice,” Jessica adds, frowning at the swollen ankle.
“At least we don’t have a show tomorrow,” Jerome says. “You’ll have all day to rest.”
We exchange goodbyes, and I head up to my room. Riley and the others are probably in the dining hall, but I want to change out of my wet clothes before I join them.
It’s bad enough Cole made the connection. There’s no reason to give anyone else the chance to come to the same conclusion.
After a long, hot shower, I get ready to go downstairs but end up sitting on the bed, browsing recipes online. Somehow, I find myself stalking baking blogs.
When Riley comes in an hour later, I’m reading a post titled “How to Start a Culinary Blog in Five Easy Steps.” I just finished “Baking to Professional Blogging in Two Weeks or Less.”
“What are you doing?” Riley asks as she plops on the bed beside me. “Everyone’s finished dinner and started on dessert.”
My sister gives me a curious look after she reads a little of the article. “Do you want to start a blog, Harper?”
She sounds so dumbfounded, I almost snap the laptop shut and brush off the idea. But something stops me. Not quite looking at her, I say, “Maybe.”
“What kind of blog?”
And to my surprise, she doesn’t sound as skeptical as I feared. In fact, she doesn’t sound skeptical at all.
I nibble the side of my lip, scrolling through the article. “Baking.”
Growing enthusiastic she scoots over to me and tries to steal my laptop. “That’s such a great idea! You could write recipes and takes tons of cute cupcake pictures. I saw one on Pinterest the other day that looked amazing!”
Frowning, I let her take my laptop. “What do you think Mom and Dad will say? I mean, it’ll take a while to get it going.”
And that gets her attention. My parents have always had high expectations for the two of us. While they are willing to support us, as they did when I left home to go to Texas, they aren’t always open to suggestions. As a joke, Riley told them she and Lauren were going to move to Los Angeles and major in performing arts. It didn’t go over well. Even once they found out she was joking…yeah. It still didn’t go over well.
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