Chapter Four
Trevor adjusted the snowboard tucked beneath his arm as he and Tyler made their way down the trail toward the lodge. Snow crunched beneath their boots while skiers and snowboarders passed around them, some heading back toward the lifts while others had the same thought they had—food.
The morning had been fun. Well, it was mostly fun.
The problem was that neither he nor Tyler could think about anything for more than five minutes without their thoughts circling back to their dad.
Even now, nearly eighteen hours after the encounter in the hotel hallway, Trevor still wasn’t entirely convinced it had actually happened.
The previous night had done little to help settle their hyperactive minds. After their mom had finally gone to sleep, he and Tyler had spent nearly two hours whispering back and forth between their beds, making plans, changing plans, and then arguing about the plans they had already made.
At one point, Tyler had suggested knocking on every door located on the floor until they found him, which Trevor had immediately pointed out was a fantastic way to get grounded.
Eventually, they had settled on something that sounded far more reasonable. They would spend the morning snowboarding, keep an eye out on the slopes, and then hang around the hotel lobby afterward in hopes of seeing him again.
It wasn’t exactly a master plan, but it was better than Tyler’s backup idea of trying to charm the pretty front desk attendant into telling them if a Grant Carter was staying at the hotel.
Tyler had a tendency to forget he was only twelve.
Plus, everyone, well obviously not Tyler, knew that it was against hotel policy to give out information like that.
“You know,” Tyler said as they approached the lodge, “if Mom ever finds out we spent half our vacation discussing how to meet our father secretly, she’s going to lose her mind.”
Trevor laughed, though his brother wasn’t wrong. He could only imagine her reaction.
The large wooden lodge came into view ahead of them, bustling with skiers and snowboarders escaping the cold for lunch.
His stomach growled. “Please tell me they have chicken tenders here.”
“Dude, you are going to turn into a chicken,” Tyler laughed.
Trevor opened his mouth to respond only to freeze as he happened to glance through one of the large front windows.
Tyler took two more steps before realizing Trevor had anchored himself to the spot.
“What?” Tyler asked, but Trevor didn’t answer. He just pointed. Tyler followed his gaze, and he froze too. “Oh,” Tyler whispered. The single word carried far more weight than it should have, because sitting near the back of the lodge, surrounded by three other men, was Grant Carter.
There was no photograph this time, no uncertainty, and no brief hallway encounter to second-guess. It was him, their dad. He had the same broad shoulders and the same dark hair. Even from across the crowded room, Trevor recognized him instantly.
One of the men sitting at the table said something that made Grant laugh. The sound couldn’t be heard through the thick glass, but Trevor recognized the smile because he had seen it captured in pictures their mom would show them.
For a moment, neither twin moved, spoke, or seemed entirely sure what to do.
Finally, Trevor quietly broke the silence. “What do we do?” he asked.
Tyler looked at him like he had lost his mind. “What do you mean? What do we do? We go talk to him.”
Just hearing those words made Trevor’s stomach twist into a knot. It sounded so simple when Tyler laid it out. They walk over, start talking, introduce themselves, and casually mention they were his kids. Easy.
Except it wasn’t easy. It was terrifying.
“What if we’re wrong?” Trevor asked.
Tyler gave him a firm look. “We’re not wrong.”
The physical resemblance alone would have been enough to raise their suspicions, but seeing his green eyes in person had erased any remaining doubt. Still, his pulse was beating erratically.
Trevor swallowed hard and voiced the real fear that had been lingering in the back of his mind. “What if he doesn’t want to talk to us?”
The heavy question hung in the air between them, and neither boy liked it. Despite everything their mom had told them over the years, there was still a small, quiet part of Trevor that worried about being rejected.
“If we don’t do it now, when are we going to do it?” Tyler asked quietly, shifting his snowboard beneath his arm. “What if we never get another chance?”
That was the argument that finally broke Trevor’s hesitation. For their entire lives, they had imagined this moment.
Now, here they were standing in Switzerland, staring through a window at the man who had unknowingly missed every birthday, every Christmas, and every major milestone of their lives.
Maybe fate had handed them a second chance, or maybe it hadn’t. But Trevor suddenly knew he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life wondering what would have happened if they were to walk away.
Trevor nodded. “Okay,” he said.
Tyler grinned. “Okay?”
Trevor took a deep breath to steady his racing heart. “Let’s do this.”
Together, they pushed open the door and started walking toward the table where their father sat completely unaware that his world was about to change forever.
◆◆◆
Grant was halfway through a story about one of the more ridiculous training exercises he had endured during BUD/S when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.
At first, he didn’t think much of it. The lodge was crowded with people coming in for lunch, and people had been moving past their table nonstop for the last hour.
It wasn’t until he looked up and recognized the two boys from the hotel that his attention fully shifted.
They stood just inside the lodge's entrance, holding their snowboards, as if they had paused in the middle of a conversation. Grant watched as one of them said something to the other. The second twin responded. Then both looked toward his table.
“What are you staring at?” Mac asked, noticing Grant’s attention had completely drifted away from their conversation.
Grant nodded toward the entrance, and Mac followed his gaze.
“Do you know those kids?” he asked.
Grant hesitated. “Sort of.”
Rafe quirked an eyebrow. “Sort of?”
“I ran into them in the hallway last night before I met you guys for dinner.”
Grant’s gaze returned to the boys who were now walking toward him. Neither of them looked nearly as confident as they had during their hallway encounter. In fact, both appeared nervous, and the closer they got, the more Grant found himself sitting a little straighter.
When the boys reached the table, they stopped and leaned their snowboards against the wall. A familiar look passed between them before they both looked back at him.
The slightly taller twin shifted his feet.
“Um, do you remember us?” he asked.
Grant grinned. “Of course, your brother almost ran me over in the hallway.”
The other twin grinned. “I said I was sorry.”
“You did,” Grant laughed and then looked between the two boys. “What can I do for you boys?”
“We wanted to come and introduce ourselves to you. Officially, that is,” the first twin said.
“Yeah, I’m Tyler, and this is Trevor,” the other boy said.
Grant’s eyebrows rose, but he smiled and extended his hand. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Tyler and Trevor, officially.” After shaking their hands, Grant gestured to his buddies. “These are my friends: Mac, Nico, and Rafe.”
The guys all shook the boys’ hands as well.
Grant looked toward the snowboards, then back to the boys.
“Have you guys been up on the slopes?”
“Oh, yeah. For about three hours,” Tyler stated.
“Yeah, the runs here are epic,” Trevor said.
“Do you snowboard?” Tyler asked Grant.
Grant smiled. “I do. In fact, we just finished up not too long ago.”
“Cool,” Tyler said, then looked at his brother and nodded like he was telling him to say or do something.
Finally, Trevor cleared his throat. “Can we ask you something?”
Grant’s smile faded slightly. “Sure.”
The boy took a deep breath. “Do you know Amelie DuPont?”
“Or you might know her as Amelie Cross,” Tyler added.
The name hit him like a punch to his stomach. Across the table, Mac, Rafe, and Nico all looked stunned, looking between the boys and Grant.
“Yes,” he finally managed. His voice sounded rough even to his own ears. “I know Amelie. I haven’t seen her in years, though I swore I saw her last night getting on the elevator with the two of you. But I convinced myself that it couldn’t be her.”
Grant ignored the curious looks he was getting from Mac, Nico, and Rafe. But at least now they knew what had grabbed his attention last night after dinner.
Tyler’s eyes widened. “You saw her?”
Grant smiled softly. “Like I said, I thought I did.”
The boys glanced at each other again.
“What if we told you that it was her?” Trevor asked.
He held Trevor’s gaze for a long moment before answering. “Then I’d tell you that would make this the best Christmas surprise I’ve gotten in a very long time.”
A small smile tugged at his lips, though it felt shaky.
“I’ve spent twelve years wondering what happened to her. If she’s really here...” He trailed off and shook his head. “I would just like to know that she’s okay.”
Grant’s pulse was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.
His mind raced as pieces he had been trying not to examine too closely since yesterday began falling into place.
The green eyes. Their ages. The way they had looked at him in the hallway was as though they already knew him.
The way they kept exchanging those silent glances whenever Amelie’s name came up.
He found himself studying the boys again, searching their faces for something he had somehow missed before. A dozen explanations ran through his head, but only one of them made any sense, and it was so impossible that he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
His gaze moved from Tyler to Trevor before settling on both of them.
“How do you boys know Amelie?” he asked.