27. Lacie
LACIE
I woke with sandpaper in my eyes and a bite in my ankle. Last night, I’d tried convincing him otherwise, but Jared had insisted that I take the bed again so I could elevate my foot.
Wincing, I stretched my arms over my head and moved my foot from its pillow, pulling my pant leg up for a good look at the bruise there—and in the process, I saw Jared.
He wasn’t on the chair but sprawled out on the floor. His hand was tucked into the hem of his shirt, pulling it up just enough that I saw his skin and the definition in his abs.
He looked surprisingly peaceful with his mouth hanging open and his dark hair sweeping over his forehead. The sight of him tugged my heart.
I relived our conversation in the barn at least a thousand times before falling asleep last night. And every memory was just as painful as living it had been. Adding that confusing journal entry on top of everything else?
Did Santa think he was helping us? Because that entry had only added more to what I didn’t understand.
It was Christmas Eve…wasn’t it? I needed grounding. The date. The time. Our plans. Had this really been a mistake?
Needing grounding about the situation’s status, I glanced at my planner on the bedside table.
Its contents were still wiped. That meant?—
The magic was still at play.
Opening my phone, I tapped on my social media and skimmed over my feed. Then I looked up Jared’s. Sure enough, the pictures of our wedding still smattered every site and were getting fresh comments and congratulations from well-wishers.
We were still married.
How? How could any of this be real?
Wincing, trying not to wake him but knowing the phone call I needed to make, I pushed back the blankets and lowered my feet to the floor. I attempted a small amount of weight on the ankle, grateful Jared had been able to wrap it.
To my surprise, I managed to stand. Phone in hand, I limped to the door and slipped into the hall in my pj’s. The hall was bright with morning sunlight and the smell of cinnamon and freshly baked bread. I leaned against the wall, wishing there was some other way, some other solution, than going home.
Knowing our options were limited, I looked up the Billings airport and found a flight that would work.
“Morning,” a bright voice said, startling me, stopping me before I clicked purchase .
I peered up to find Junie strolling toward me from the top of the stairs. She hadn’t been at the reception desk when Jared and I had finally made it back last night.
It was the only reason we still had that stupid journal entry.
“We braved the storm,” Junie said.
“That we did,” I said, but I suspected Junie had no idea how literal the statement was.
“Too bad the pass didn’t.”
“The—pass?”
“Sure. The pass back to West Hills is completely snowed over.” Junie rolled her eyes. “Good thing you’re staying until Christmas,” she added with a laugh. “No one is getting through that bad boy.”
My vision blanked and unease gave me a swift kick in the chest. No—we couldn’t stay here any longer. We had to get home. We had to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.
“How long before it’s cleared?”
“It usually only takes a day or so for the guys to clear the snow, though last night’s storm was a doozy. Came out of nowhere. I haven’t been able to get ahold of my sleigh driver. Hope he made it to his cottage okay.”
That’s right. Boone had taken a guest out just before the storm. Had they been stranded out in it?
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Junie smiled as though the thought of her cousin going missing was no big deal. “You coming to the bonfire tonight?”
Christmas Eve. The bonfire.
I wasn’t sure what to do now. Going home wasn’t possible, not if the pass was closed.
“I—I think so.”
“Great. See you then!” And Junie resumed her journey down the hall.
Heart sinking, I rotated on one foot and limped back into the room to break the news to Jared. He was still on the floor, but he wasn’t sleeping. Now, he propped his long, lean body in a plank, exhaling with every pushup he did.
That sight didn’t help. Was there anything sexier than watching his muscles carrying the weight of his toned body? Forcing my eyes away, I limped to the bed and sank down.
“Morning,” he said after a few more pushups.
It’d been a few days since he’d been to the gym. I knew he liked to work out regularly. Finishing a final pushup, Jared rotated to his tailbone, braced his hands behind his neck, and began guiding one knee at a time to his chin.
“Morning. You should try the gym out here.”
“It’s okay,” he said with strained breath. “I can hit things up with the guys when we get back.”
“That’s the thing. I just talked to Junie. She said the pass to West Hills is closed.”
He slowed. Lowered his feet to the floor and his hands to his knees.
“Oh,” was all he said.
“Snow,” I said as if that explained everything.
“Snow,” he agreed.
The moment was thick with awkwardness. I wasn’t sure what to do now. What could I say now after he’d all but rejected me last night?
Could we keep being friends after all this? I’d meant what I’d said. I couldn’t be myself around him anymore, not now that we’d pushed that boundary. Not now that I wanted romance from him along with friendship.
Jared grunted and rose to his feet. He dug around for his workout shoes and slipped into them.
“Guess I’ll go find the gym, then. How’s your ankle?”
I didn’t have the heart to ask him how he felt about this. I wasn’t sure I could handle another deep conversation. He’d made his feelings clear.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as we thought. I was able to limp out to talk to Junie.”
“That’s good,” he said distractedly. “Did you tell her about that journal entry we found?”
“Not yet,” I said.
Truth be told, it hadn’t crossed my mind. In the moment, I’d only been thinking of the snow.
With his shoes on, Jared paused at the door long enough to smile at me. A smile was good, wasn’t it?
“I’ll see you in a bit,” he said, stepping out into the hall.
I couldn’t return his smile. This was all wrong. Too fake. Too superficial.
If magic was real, shouldn’t it fix all of that? Shouldn’t things work out perfectly under its spell?
I could tell he was trying to play things off, to act as though nothing had changed. But everything had changed.
“See you,” I said as he closed the door behind him.
The rest of the day passed in a similar fashion. I spent the majority of it with my foot propped on a pillow, resting my ankle. I did manage to ready myself—dressing in a soft, lavender-blue sweater and jeans and twisting my auburn hair into a bun on top of my head.
Later, when I felt up to it, I headed to the restaurant to find that Jared had already showered and eaten without me.
He kept his distance too much for my liking so that by the time I crossed paths with him in the hall, I didn’t care that the brunette woman—who stepped out of what had been my room—overheard me grumbling and reminding Jared that I wanted to go home.
A few beats allowed me to realize that this woman—Grace—had also been the one to ride out with Boone Harper just before the storm. At least they’d made it back safely.
“Everything okay?” Grace asked.
She wore a shirt with a red truck on the front, a pine tree in the truck’s bed. Her hair was wet as though she’d just gotten out of the shower, and though her question was kind, she looked slightly frantic, as though she’d just lost something valuable.
I slid Jared a look. He watched me as if he wanted the answer as well.
And when he didn’t give any signals against elaborating, I steeled myself, knowing how crazy this was going to sound.
Grace had probably heard about the radio since coming here, but I felt the need to warn her and anyone else within listening distance against it.
“If you hear music from the fancy radio downstairs? Run,” I blurted.
I hoped the vague explanation was enough, but when I reached for my room’s doorknob, Grace’s hand shot out, and her expression pleaded for more.
“What do you mean?” Grace asked. “The radio downstairs? Do you mean the one they claim was delivered by Santa Claus himself?”
Her voice altered. She was more interested than a casual guest should be—and my suspicions shot sky-high.
Had the radio played for her, too?
I took a gradual breath and kept my voice down. “I mean that thing is wreaking havoc in our lives. I’ve been snowed in here with my best friend.”
Jared gave Grace a friendly little wave, and I took heart. We didn’t know this woman, but if she’d heard the radio play, too, then I needed to give her as much of a heads-up as I could.
“We were married by a snowman, and now, whatever supposed magic ”—I bent the first two fingers on each of my hands in the universal quotation sign—“is streaming from the radio, is completely messing things up.”
The more I thought about it, the more frustrated by that magic I became. Jared had asked me what I expected magic to be like. If anything, magic would make things work the way they should. Magic wouldn’t be so confusing. Magic would make things right.
Except Santa’s journal entry had implied that wasn’t the case. Ugh, what did that even mean?
“Hang on,” Grace said, forehead creased. “You were married next to a snowman?”
Maybe I was saying too much. But Grace wasn’t laughing it off. She acted as though she wanted details and perhaps context to help with whatever situation she found herself in as well.
“No,” I clarified, “I mean, a snowman pronounced us husband and wife.”
Grace’s brows shot up. “You—a snowman married you two?”
My heart sank, but at least Grace wasn’t laughing or accusing us of insanity. “I know it sounds insane, but we were building a snowman outside, and then we heard this music, and the snowman, like, spoke. Junie admitted they have this joke in their family that the radio is some kind of matchmaker.”
“Junie said that?” Grace sounded genuinely surprised.
Her expression turned pensive, and again, I wondered if the radio was playing tricks with Grace, too, somehow.
The more we spoke with Grace, the more unsettled I felt about the situation, yes, but especially the question of what was going to happen between us. By the time we parted ways, my stomach had hardened with worry.
Grace had asked if we wanted to stay married. I didn’t know what to say.
I’d gotten tongue-tied, but the more I reflected on the conversation, the worse I felt about it all.
I was done with magic.
From what I could see, it only made messes.
The truth was, the radio had ruined everything. My friendship with Jared would never be the same, not after this.