Ivy Madison has never seen snow before. Or driven up a mountain. Or driven up a mountain in a blinding snowstorm. But as one of the country’s premiere interior stagers, she has a job to do and no mere blizzard is going to stop her from turning Bear Mountain Ski Lodge into a winter wonderland this holiday season. Then again, she’s never met anyone like Maya before, and what a blizzard couldn’t do, the sexy ski instructor just might!
Maya Carlton can’t believe anyone made it up the summit before the mountain patrol shut down the pass for the holidays, but if anyone could, it’s sexy Ivy, emerging from her tiny little rental car shaken but unbowed. Maya is the sole caretaker of the Lodge until the roads are cleared for travel after Christmas, and Ivy is her responsibility now, and one the young ski instructor can’t help but take personally.
As the blinding snowstorm seals them off from the rest of the world, the two can’t help but fall for each other, and by the time the roads clear after the holidays, love will make parting after the New Year harder than ever.
Unless they decide to make Bear Mountain their happily ever after.
Their eyes met in the dim kitchen light. “Well, like I said, it’s usually the busiest time of the year around here, everyone flocking to Bear Mountain for a guaranteed White Christmas and all ...”
Ivy traded out her beer bottle for a fresh one, smirking playfully at Maya in the small space between them. “But not this year, right?”
Maya nodded. She had a point. “No, I suppose you’re right.”
“And I’ll be here, stringing lights and putting up trees and plumping throw pillows and, well, maybe you’ll fall in love with Christmas all over again, huh?”
Maya gave a wry, too cool for school tongue cluck. “I mean, you’d have to love Christmas in the first place, so ...”
Ivy seemed, suddenly, personally offended. She stiffened with righteous indignation, but Maya ignored the rush of color to her pale cheeks in favor or her ever stiffening nipples instead. “I mean, not even as a little kid? Did you love Christmas then?”
“Hard to remember, with all the fighting and drinking and fighting, you know?”
Ivy stood gently back, as if personally offended that Maya hadn’t grown up smack dab in the middle of a Normal Rockwell Christmas card. Then she softened, pale blue eyes widening beneath almost translucent lashes. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean ... is this, I mean ... am I triggering you right now?”
Maya snorted, shaking her head. “No, no, nothing like that, it’s just ... let’s just say my Christmas spirit isn’t dialed up quite as high as yours is, Ivy.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Ivy promised cheerfully, making Maya wonder what Christmas at Ivy’s house might look like. Sound like. Feel like. She glanced down at her guest’s fingers, finding a variety of hip, cute, silver rings, but no wedding rings.
“Won’t your family miss you?” Maya hedged, watching Ivy’s soft, pale face for some kind of reaction.
Rather than beam with stories of her sexy, loving, ruggedly handsome husband or 2.5 perfect little rugrats back home, Ivy’s cheerful holiday façade faltered at last. “Hardly. My folks are back in Sacramento and I’m all the way across the country down in Orlando and it’s my busiest time of the year, so I’m not sure why I’m such a Christmas nut either, come to think of it.”
Maya thought of the almost daily deliveries of Christmas accessories that had been arriving nonstop in advance of Ivy’s arrival: trees and lights and snowmen and throws and pillows galore. “Isn’t that your job?”
“I don’t only do Christmas, no, but it’s definitely a busy time of year, for sure.”
“So why come up here?” Ivy blinked her big blue eyes curiously in response. Maya kept pressing. “I mean, Orlando, theme parks, hotels, millionaires, snowbirds, they must keep you hopping this time of year. Why get on a plane and drive up a mountain for some gig?”
“Honestly? I just needed a change of pace. Plus, I’ve never had a white Christmas.”
Maya snorted with glee. “You? Mrs. Claus? Has never had a snowy holiday before?”
“Believe it or not. So I thought it would be a win-win.”
Maya squirmed, all this talk of holiday sweetness and family making her itch for a change of scenery. And outfits. “And now? After driving straight up a mountain in a snowstorm? You still want a white Christmas?”
“I mean, it’ll be different if I stay off the road, right?”
Maya grinned. “Listen, I’ve been through a few of these storms by now and they usually blow over pretty quickly. Who knows? By Christmas day, we might even be skiing.”
Ivy wrinkled her nose predictably. “I mean, obviously I’ve never done that before, either, so ...”
“Well, no time like the present.” Maya put down her beer with a resounding thud on the uneven butcher block between them. Ivy looked vaguely, adorably, threatened.
She glanced out the small window at their back, snow swirling like fairy dust in the subdued grey of a late December afternoon. “What? Out there? I ... I don’t think I want to go out there ever again!”
“No, not out there, Silly. We have a full gym here, and state of the art ski simulators, so if you want to get freshened up I can find you some ski gear and give you a quick lesson.”
“Now?” Ivy’s tone said “never in a million years am I doing this stupid thing with you, Maya” but the way she set her beer bottle down and stood abruptly gave Maya hope nonetheless.
“Sure, I mean, unless you’re chicken or something?”
Ivy chuckled. “Wow, does that ever work?”
Maya inched toward the alcove door, nodding for Ivy to follow. “I guess we’ll find out, huh Ivy?”
But the way Ivy followed her, closely, dutifully, told Maya it had already worked. She wondered, idly, winding down the hall toward the staff rooms, what else Maya might be able to talk Ivy into over the holidays.
