Chapter Three
Lucia
The twins are bundled like marshmallows in their booster seats on each side of me, while I sit as snuggly as a sardine between them. Dad burned my ears this morning about how useless my sports car is in the snow and I had no other choice but to climb in his SUV.
I know he’s probably right. Well, not probably. My car is made for the streets of New York City in the summer, not Maine in the winter.
Dad steers us down the snowy drive toward Hallowell Farm.
The twins are both bundled up tightly in their pink polka dot coats, pink pom-pom hats, and pink mittens.
They swing their feet in tandem as they press their faces to the windows, their faintly green skin, gifts from their half-troll heritage, adorable in the morning air while I'm sweating profusely, the heater blasting against my face.
Somehow, I feel twelve years old again, stuffed into my father's car, on my way to a holiday tradition I'm weirdly excited about despite myself.
"Are we there yet?" Arwen asks for the fifteenth time in ten minutes, her breath fogging the window.
"Almost, sweetheart," Dad says, his voice warm with the kind of patience born of decades of parenting.
Isla bounces in her car seat. "Aunt Lucia, did you know horses can sleep standing up?"
"I did not know that," I say, turning to smile at her. "That's pretty cool."
"And they can run really, really fast," Arwen adds, not to be outdone. "Faster than cars sometimes."
"Faster than Aunt Lucia's little red car?" Isla asks.
"Everything's faster than Aunt Lucia's car in the snow," Dad mutters, which earns him a swat on the arm from Mom.
The parking lot at Hallowell Farm is packed with families, their voices carrying across the crisp air as kids dart between cars with sleds and parents juggle thermoses and camera bags.
The whole place looks like a Christmas card come to life, complete with rolling fields of evergreens dusted with snow, a red barn strung with lights, and a hand-painted sign that reads North Pole Village in cheerful script.
The car crunches to a stop, and everyone climbs out in a heap of girl giggles and Mom’s fussing. I tug my scarf tighter as the cold bites instantly at my cheeks. The air smells like pine and chocolate and woodsmoke, and despite myself, something in my chest loosens.
Maybe this won't be so bad.
"Oh, this is perfect," Mom breathes, already pulling out her phone to take pictures. "Girls, stand by the sign so Grandma can get a photo."
Isla and Arwen dart toward the North Pole Village setup like heat-seeking missiles, stop halfway there, then come back and grab each of my hands and tug me along before I can protest. They're surprisingly strong for six-year-olds, and I find myself half jogging to keep up with their enthusiasm.
"Look, Aunt Lucia!" Isla points to a collection of painted elf cutouts arranged around a candy-striped sleigh. "We can take pictures with Santa's helpers!"
"They're not real elves," Arwen says with a world-weary air of sophistication. "But they're still pretty."
"Can we take silly-face selfies?" Isla asks, looking at me with a smile that shoots directly at my heart. "Mommy lets us make funny faces in pictures sometimes."
The request catches me off guard, and I burst out laughing. It feels surprisingly good to let myself go with the flow. I've taken exactly zero silly-face selfies in months. The prospect makes me happy.
"Absolutely," I hear myself saying, pulling out my phone. "But I want to see your silliest faces. We're talking full commitment here."
I kneel down between them, and they immediately press against my sides like little warm furnaces.
For the first shot, I cross my eyes and puff out my cheeks while Isla sticks out her tongue and Arwen scrunches her nose.
The camera captures us mid-laugh, and something in my chest does this unfamiliar flutter thing.
I really need to spend more time with them. Those girls are amazing.
"Another one!" Arwen demands. "This time, let's all be monsters!"
We take half a dozen more photos, each one sillier than the last. The girls dissolve into giggles every time they see themselves on my phone screen, and I find myself laughing with them. Really laughing, not the polite chuckle I usually deploy around people at social gatherings.
For a moment, it feels good. Like maybe I can do this. Like maybe I can belong here again, be the aunt these amazing little girls deserve instead of the distant stranger who's too wrapped up in her own problems to show up.
I'm still smiling when I glance up from my phone screen to show Mom the pictures.
That's when I see him.
Gideon.
He stands across the parking lot by the barn, but even from this distance, he's unmistakable. Tall and broad-shouldered, his head gleaming in the winter sun, wearing work clothes that emphasize the solid bulk of his frame. He’s even larger than I remembered, his arms and legs bigger and his neck thicker.
His face is shadowed with the same brooding intensity I remember, all sharp angles and that permanently furrowed brow that used to make me want to smooth it with my fingers.
He looks like he's carved from granite. Literally, he is.
Our eyes lock across the lot, and the world narrows to just this moment, this connection that feels like touching a live wire. My heart does this stupid, traitorous thing where it forgets to beat for a second before hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
He's staring at me with an expression I can't read, his gray eyes dark and unblinking. For a heartbeat I think I see something flicker across his face. It could be surprise or something that might have been longing if I were the type to indulge in wishful thinking.
Which I’m not.
Then his jaw tightens, and he looks away sharply, his whole body radiating the kind of tension that used to mean he was pissed. I know in the back of my mind that I should do the same and look away. But I can’t. I just stare at his stupidly handsome profile, my entire chest gaping open.
He starts walking. Away from me, of course.
"Go on, Lucia." Mom's voice cuts through my frozen moment, cheerful and completely oblivious to the emotional earthquake happening inside my chest. "Say hello. It's been years. It’s always good to reconnect with old friends."
"You should." Dad's voice is quieter but carries more weight. “For old times’ sake.”
Before I can think of an excuse, he's herding the twins toward the sleigh line with Mom at his side, their voices fading as they discuss hot cocoa and horse rides.
Leaving me standing here with no buffer, no escape route, and no choice but to deal with the ghost of my past who's apparently determined to ignore my existence.
Well, fuck that.
"Gideon!" I call out, my voice sharper than I intended, carrying across the parking lot like a challenge.
He stops but doesn't turn around, his broad shoulders rigid under his canvas jacket. The fact that he's making me chase after him like some desperate ex-girlfriend makes my temper spike.
I jog a few steps to catch up, my heeled boots slipping slightly on the packed snow.
"Don’t act like you don’t recognize me!"
When he finally faces me, his expression is carved from stone. Which, again, is literal in his case. His gray eyes are flat and distant, like he's looking through me instead of at me.
"Lucia." One word. Flat. Like I'm some annoying acquaintance he's trying to politely dismiss.
Like I’m no one to him.
Like I’m not the girl who used to know every one of his secrets. Not the person who held his hand through his father's funeral. Not the woman who gave him her virginity on prom night and woke up the next morning to find him gone without explanation.
Just… Lucia. Like I'm nobody.
The casual dismissal hits me like a punch in the tits, and I have to work to keep my voice level.
"It's been a long time."
"Has it?" He glances at his watch with theatrical indifference. "I hadn't noticed."
Oh, we're going to play it like that? Fine. Two can play this game.
"Really?" I let my voice drip with false sweetness. "Because I heard from Mrs. Primrose that you've been asking about me. Something about wondering if I was married? Kids? How I was doing in New York?"
It's a complete lie, but the way his jaw ticks tells me I've hit a nerve.
"Evelyn Primrose talks too much," he says curtly.
"Funny, she said the same thing about you.” Another lie, but I'm on a roll now. “Such a Chatty Cathy, this Gideon.”
I’m so mad now I could scream.
Ten years of wondering what the hell happened between us, ten years of writing heroes in my books who sound and think exactly like him.
Ten years of measuring every man against the memory of a boy who couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye. It all comes bubbling up like acid in my throat and I don’t care if anyone sees it.
His eyes narrow. "If you'll excuse me, I have work to do."
He turns to leave again, and something in me snaps.
Without thinking, I bend down and scoop up a fistful of snow, pack it hard between my palms, and fling it square at the back of his head. It hits with a satisfying thwack, exploding into white powder that dusts his collar and drips down his neck.
He stops dead in his tracks.
Slowly, so slowly it's almost cinematic, he turns around.
Snow melts against the heat of his skin, droplets trailing down behind his ears.
His eyes have gone from flat gray to storm-cloud dark, and there's something dangerous in his expression that makes my pulse kick up for entirely different reasons.
Good. At least, that’s an honest reaction.
"Childish," he says, his voice low and rough.
"Stoneface," I shoot back, the old nickname slipping out before I can stop myself.
The air between us suddenly feels charged, thick with history and heat and all the things we're not saying. His gaze drops to my mouth for just a second, so quick I might have imagined it, before snapping back to my eyes.
For a moment, we just stare at each other.
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, can see the way his chest rises and falls under his jacket.
The space between us hums with tension, and I have the wild thought that he might actually step closer, that we might finally have the conversation we should have had ten years ago.
"Lucia!" Dad's voice booms across the parking lot, shattering the moment like glass. "The girls are asking if you’re joining us on the sleigh ride?"
I blink, the spell broken, and glance over to see my family clustered around the sleigh area. Isla and Arwen are waving at me, their faces bright with excitement, while Mom holds up their free hands.
"I'm coming!" I call back, then add louder, "Nothing interesting here to see anyway!"
As I hurry away from Gideon and walk past Dad, my father cuts him a glare sharp enough to chip granite. It's the same look he used to give boys who brought me home late in high school, and under different circumstances, it might be funny.
Gideon isn’t interested in me. He made that perfectly clear.
I fall into step beside my family, forcing a smile for the twins as they chatter about elves and cocoa and whether reindeer are really just magical deer or a completely different species. Mom links her arm through mine, her face glowing with happiness at having her whole family together.
But my pulse is still hammering, my palms still tingling with leftover snow and the memory of Gideon's eyes on mine. For ten years, I've told myself that Gideon Flintman couldn't hurt me anymore. That I was over him, over us, over the girl I used to be when I believed in forever.
One word, one look, one moment of standing too close, and I know I've been lying to myself all along.
The sleigh bells jingle as we approach the line, and Isla tugs on my coat. "Aunt Lucia, are you okay? You look funny."
"I'm fine, sweetheart," I lie, ruffling her hair under her hat. "Just excited."
But as we wait for our turn, I can't shake the feeling that Gideon is still watching me. And when I finally give in and glance back toward the barn, he's nowhere to be seen.
Which somehow feels worse than if he'd stayed.