“Yeah. For sure. So, you want me to take that?” he pointed to her case.
“Oh, yes please. Sorry, just a little discombobulated.” He seemed to like her choice of word and a smile danced in his eyes—his gorgeous, cobalt blue eyes.
“Oh, no problem. I’m always a little out of it when I fly too. Come on, let’s get outta here. This place is insane.” Lucy followed the blond hair and the man attached to it out of the terminal.
There was nothing that could have prepared her for the blast of cold that hit as soon as they walked through the automatic doors—not the boots or woollen coat or leather gloves she was wearing—not even a lifetime of living in the UK.
“Oh, my god,” she gasped.
Will looked over his shoulder and stopped. “You okay?” She stood, stock still, her hands flying to her face as the pain in her lungs intensified. “It’s the cold,” he stated, matter-of-factly. She nodded vaguely. “Let’s get you to the car. Come on.” He took her hand and stepped up the pace to the car park. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to notice the handholding.
A few minutes later, they were ensconced in a four-wheel-drive and Will was blasting the heater. “There are seat warmers too,” he said, flipping a switch on the dash.
As the warm air spewed from the vents in front of her, she started feeling her muscles uncoiling. Her cheeks stopped stinging and she could breathe without it hurting. “It’s really cold here,” she said eventually, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m guessing London doesn’t get like this, huh?” She shot a look across the car. He was watching her, one hand resting on the steering wheel and one on his thigh. His hands were large, strong-looking, and unblemished. Her mind flew to all the things he could do with those hands. Stop it, Lucy, she admonished. He’d asked her a question; manners dictated that she should answer it.
“I suppose. Maybe it does, but just a different kind of cold.”
“It’s fifteen below, right now.” She didn’t even bother doing the conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius; it was ridiculously cold on either scale.
“Well, bollocks,” she replied, her manners eclipsed by the frigid weather.
Will bellowed out a laugh and started the car. “So, hey,” he said, as he pulled out of the parking space, “I know Jules told you we were going to my mom’s place overnight, but if it’s okay with you, I think we should head up the mountain today. There’s a blizzard coming and it could close the pass.”
“Oh.” A blizzard that closed mountain passes sounded worrying, but for all Lucy knew they were a common occurrence in this part of the world. “So, we’re going straight to your family’s cabin?”
“If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. How far is it?”
“It’s about a hundred miles from here. It usually only takes a couple of hours, but it might take a bit longer today.”
“Oh, right.”
“My mom, my stepdad, and my dad are already up there. My aunt and her family aren’t flying in from Seattle ’til tomorrow, so hopefully they’ll be able to make the drive in the morning. Depends on the pass.”
“Sorry, did you say your mum and your stepdad and your dad are all there together?” For some reason, Lucy thought Jules’s dad wouldn’t be there at Christmas. Had Jules mentioned it and she’d forgotten?
“Yeah, it’s a little unconventional, but they’re all good friends.”
“Huh.” Her parents, Max and Susan, popped into her head and she struggled to imagine a third person with them, a stranger who was married to one of them, and all three of them being the best of friends.
It was going to be an interesting Christmas, that was for sure.
*
“Hey, I’m sorry about this.” It was the third time Will had apologised in less than an hour.
“Honestly, it’s not your fault. It’s the weather.”
They were stopped on the mountain pass, surrounded on both sides by snowdrifts, which were growing incrementally with the light snowfall. They’d been creeping along for the past two hours, often stopping for five, ten, or even fifteen minutes at a time. With the blizzard imminent, it seemed the entire population of Denver was trying to get up the mountain before the pass closed.
Lucy hadn’t minded the delay. She and Will had been talking nonstop since they’d left the airport. She’d learnt all about the tech company he’d built from practically nothing. He had started it only a year ago, working from home at night and on weekends. In six months, he’d been able to quit his job as a software consultant, and he now had an office and four employees.
It was a vastly different career path than her own, having worked in the same department at the same law firm since leaving university. Sure, she’d been promoted several times and now managed a team of three, but it was the certainty of the work that she enjoyed most. The laws and regulations she had to adhere to provided her with a sense of stability and she loved knowing that if she did everything exactly right, the numbers would always add up.
And even though Will’s company supported micro-breweries and boutique distilleries, something she knew precisely nothing about other than her love of a good G&T, there were quite a few similarities between their jobs—namely, finances and laws. It was all very impressive what he’d accomplished, especially for someone who was only just coming up on thirty.
“I really didn’t think traffic would be this awful.” Will’s words permeated her thoughts. “It’s just bad timing, I guess. I mean, we could have waited out the storm in Boulder, but then we were risking missing Christmas.”
Lucy indulged the fantasy of being snowed in with Will—just the two of them. There was a roaring fire in the fantasy and those big strong hands. Her cheeks flushed and she chided herself again. She chanced
