Jace was asking her a question—something about her boots. She was in a daze, brought on by getting lost in kissing him, just like she had with Tucker. In fact, she wasn’t sure which one she was kissing for a minute. They were so much alike, yet so different. God, what was she doing?
She nodded her head and stood. “Yeah, sure.” She sat back on the chair and took off her boots.
Billy stood. “I’ll help,” he said and picked up her boots. “Jace, you go get the skis, and I’ll meet you at the rental place.”
“Are you okay?” Renie asked.
“What? Yeah, I’m fine. I got a little light-headed for a minute. Alcohol, altitude, and an overly affectionate cowboy will do it every time,” she grinned.
“You two are cute together.”
“Cute? What? Who are you?” Blythe looked at her. “Aren’t you the person who told me to stay away from him yesterday?”
“I don’t know. It’s different now. He seems different.”
“Who does? Jace?”
“Yes, of course, Jace. I don’t know what it is, but I like it.”
Blythe raised her eyebrows.
“No, not like that. I mean, I like him with you.”
Blythe had a hard time believing it but didn’t say so. A minute later Jace walked back in, carrying her snow boots. When he handed them to her and she slipped her feet in them, they were warm. She looked at him questioningly.
“Boot warmers. I put them in while we were skiing, so they’d be warm when we got back.”
Blythe looked at Renie and they both giggled.
“Oh, God,” Jace groaned. “What now?”
“Cowboys,” they answered in unison before they started giggling again.
“Call your brother,” Jace’s mom said a few minutes after they walked in the front door. “It’s time he came back.”
“Where is he?” Blythe asked.
“Out wandering,” Jace answered. “He’s not big on holidays. He usually disappears for most of the day.”
“Why?”
It wasn’t something Jace wanted to talk about, especially to Blythe. “I’ll tell you later,” he answered. Even though he had no intention of doing so.
Tucker saw the text from Jace but wasn’t ready to be around people yet. He supposed he should go back anyway. If he stayed out here any longer, he might not ever go back, and then instead of escaping everyone’s attention, it would be spotlighted on him.
He took one last look at his drawing before he closed his sketchbook. He almost didn’t recognize the woman he’d spent the last half hour drawing. She didn’t look like the woman he’d started to draw—she’d morphed into someone else. Someone who looked more like Blythe than her.
God, he hated holidays, but this one, more than most. When he woke this morning, it wasn’t the first thing he thought of. He thought about Blythe instead, and how it’d felt to hold her the night before.
When he’d gone upstairs to find she wasn’t there, that she and Jace had left and no one knew where they were, his thoughts had turned inward. Back to her. Back to that night. He’d gone out on the porch to be alone, and then Jace came back, and told him they were going skiing.
Jace had asked if he was okay. Did he really need to ask? Of course he wasn’t okay. Jace felt it. This wasn’t something Tucker could bury deep enough for Jace not to feel it. There wasn’t a deep, deep enough for this.
Mama’s gonna send me lookin for you, Jace texted.
Heading back.
Blythe didn’t need to turn and look when Tucker walked in. She knew he had. She could feel him