Winter's Kiss (17 page)

Or so I thought. But just as I was about to step outside, Josh appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the mudroom. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

I said self-righteously, “I am taking my loyal canine for a w—”

“You’re going to Nick’s, aren’t you?” he whispered. “Do you think that’s a good idea? I heard you yelled at him for no reason at the half-pipe, right before he busted ass.”

I swallowed. Good news traveled fast. “So?”

“So, why are you going over there? Best-case scenario, you make out with him again and then have another fight.”

Good news about
everything
traveled fast. I scowled at Josh. “It’s better than not knowing whether he’s hurt.”

“Is it?” Josh leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms. He’d never looked so much like my father, and it was time to put him in his place.

“Way better, and someday you will be old enough to understand.” I reached forward to pat him on the head. He dodged my hand and came after me across the mudroom, bent on revenge. Doofus and I escaped out the door and ran all the way across the snowy yard. I wouldn’t have put it past Josh to chase me outside in his socks, but behind me the mudroom had turned dark.

Doofus and I headed toward town. The sidewalk was icy as always but not nearly as slippery, now that I wore good walking boots rather than snowboarding boots. And the night was gorgeous, deep purple all around with the lights of downtown glowing from the valley, and a sky full of stars. We skirted the touristy area, with its streets full of happy families and laughing couples in love, and headed up the mountain.

Nick’s street was close to the center of town, but I couldn’t recall ever driving up it in my mom’s car. It allowed access to only ten mansions overlooking the slopes, the homes of nobody I knew except Nick. And somehow I had always resisted driving very slowly back and forth in front of his house. Willpower? No. I figured his front gate was equipped with security cameras and I would just be embarrassing myself. And this street was definitely not on the bus line.

Doofus and I hiked up the sidewalk. Since there was no one around, I dropped Doofus’s leash. He pranced in the snowdrifts and bit the snow and rolled in it until ice clumped and froze in his tail. He promptly trotted back to me, wagging his tail, and whacked me with the ice.

“Ouch! Sweet doggie.” We’d passed two mansions and had reached Nick’s. It was big and beautiful and distant amid the snow falling gently in the night. Through the cold landscape, warm light glowed from a second-story window. If he’d died alone in his big, empty house, at least he hadn’t died in the cold dark.

I couldn’t leave without knowing. With a sigh, I pressed the button on the imposing gate. Doofus and I both jumped at the buzz. I backed up to give the gate room in case it opened out.

It stayed shut.

After a few moments, I pressed the button again. The gate didn’t move, and the lights of the house stared at me across the snowy plain.

“Fine. Come on, Doofus.” I led the way back down the hill to the narrow passage between the Kriegers’ fence and the fence next door. Mistake: The unshoveled snow was knee-deep. I kept right on wading through it. “This is because I’m a good person,” I assured Doofus. “I am going to heaven, though hopefully not by way of the convent.” Doofus pranced happily around me.

Finally I reached the back corner of Nick’s enormous yard, where even the passage between the Kriegers’ fence and their neighbors’ was shut off from the ski slopes by another, higher fence. “Okay, this isn’t good. I’m sorry, Doofus, but I have to leave you out here while I go save the day. I’ll only be a minute.” I looked around for a tree to tie Doofus’s leash to, one that he would not pull out by its roots.

Something moved swiftly in the corner of my eye. Mountain lion! I gasped and whirled around.

It was only Doofus, climbing Nick’s fence. He’d leapt to the top and hooked his front paws over the wood. Now his back legs scrabbled against the smooth planks, searching for a claw-hold to push him over.

“Bad dog,” I sighed. He’d disappeared.

Well, if I’d had any thoughts of chickening out on my mission, they were gone now. I jumped to the top of the fence, hauled myself over, and dropped to the snowy ground.

And froze with horror. The mountain lion was
here
in the fenced yard with us where we couldn’t escape.
Growling
at us. Except for the square rectangular glow of a glass door on the deck, I saw nothing but blackness. But I heard the growl, too close.

“Doofus!” I screamed, needlessly. He barreled toward me and hit me in the chest, yelping. I’m not sure whether I dragged him or he dragged me, but somehow we dashed up the wooden steps to the snow-covered deck and headed straight for the door. I didn’t even have time to pray it was unlocked. The sharp claws of the mountain lion nicked my calves above my boots, through my long underwear and jeans. I yanked open the door and picked Doofus up bodily. We collapsed inside in a mound of Polartec and fur and backed against the door until it clicked closed.

We both started away from the door as the mountain lion leaped against it, howling, all fangs and claws and wild eyes.

Very small wild eyes. Four of them.

It wasn’t a mountain lion at all. It was two tabbies.

There were a few seconds of stillness, just Doofus and me panting in the large, quiet room, and bemusement that I had exploded with my wet dog into a filthy-rich family’s grand home. We faced a huge rock fireplace that I recognized from the Krieger Meats and Meat Products TV commercial so many years ago, with Nick giving the camera his winning smile, his mother blinking pleasantly into the camera, and Mr. Krieger inviting the public to taste Krieger Meats, from their family to yours. Happier times for Nick and his parents.

Feeling a pang for all of them, I gave Doofus’s wet, cold fur a stroke. I wasn’t sure what to do now. I still needed to find out whether Nick was okay. And there were still attack cats on the prowl.

I was about to detangle myself from Doofus and survey the damage we’d done to Nick’s palace when I caught another movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone was lying on a leather couch facing away from me. A blond head eased ominously into view. Nick’s father! Oh, no! He would take me for a stalker. Now Nick would
really
think I was chasing him!

Or not. Mr. Krieger took out one earbud. He cackled in a high-pitched witch voice, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog Toto, too!”

“Uh, Doofus,” I corrected him.

He pursed his lips quizzically. “Come on. It wasn’t
that
bad a joke.”

I didn’t bother to explain. I wouldn’t need to get along with Mr. Krieger in the future. Something told me I would never find myself eating Thanksgiving dinner with these people—and wait until the owner of Krieger Meats and Meat Products found out I was a vegetarian! I just wanted to satisfy myself that Nick was okay, and then get out. “Hi, there!” I beamed. “Did you order a redhead and a dog?”

“Hayden O’Malley,” he purred.

“Yes, sir.” He knew who I was? Doofus was licking my face.

Mr. Krieger pulled out his other earbud. “I know all about your challenge with Nick. My money’s on you, literally. Nick’s a quitter.”

I blinked at him, not sure what to say to that. I’d never heard a parent say something so mean about his child—and something so untrue. I reminded myself that his wife had left him the previous weekend, and he was probably not in the best of moods. If Nick had hidden his injury from his dad and hadn’t yet told him the challenge was over, I didn’t want to be the one to clue his dad in and mess things up worse for Nick. I said carefully, “Yeah, the girls at school are always pushing him down on the playground and telling him not to be such a baby.”

Mr. Krieger sat up straighter on the couch and glared at me. Great. I was definitely not getting invited for Thanksgiving now. At least I’d made my point, and I thought he’d heard me.

“Is he in?” I prompted Mr. Krieger.

He swept his hand dramatically toward a wide staircase, then reinserted his earbuds and sank back onto the couch, dismissing me. I supposed this meant I was invited in? Or at least, not thrown out? Doofus and I righted ourselves and walked past the couch and up the stairs. Doofus’s claws clicked on the stone and echoed against the vaulted ceilings.

On the second story, windows overlooking the ski slopes lined one side of the vast hallway. The other side was an endless stretch of doors. I headed toward the open door with light flooding out onto the Navajo rug. But I stopped short when I heard Nick talking inside. There was a pause, and then he talked again. He must be on the phone, which is why my own call had gone straight to his voice mail.

“I love you, too,” I heard him say. “’Bye.”

My heart stopped. Had he been on the phone with Fiona? Or some new snow bunny I hadn’t yet heard about? Whoever his new girlfriend was … it wasn’t me.

shred

(shred)
v
. 1. to tear up the slopes 2. or Hayden’s heart

Before I could react, he called, “Come in.”

I froze like a rabbit, just as I had outside the men’s locker room at the health club yesterday. This time Nick really
had
caught me.

I couldn’t very well run away. Mr. Krieger knew I was there. Finally, I sauntered forward and lounged in the doorway with my arms crossed on my chest. After all,
I’d
caught
Nick
telling someone he loved her. Someone other than me.

He lay with his legs on his king-size bed and his body folded forward off the edge, toward the floor, in what looked suspiciously like a cockamamy approximation of a Downward-Facing Dog. The football players in the huge posters all around the room seemed to rush toward him, taunting him, while he lay helpless in the center of the circle and tried in vain to stretch his back.

I’d discovered so many new sides of Nick in the past few days, and now I was seeing another. His dark hair had been long the whole time I’d known him. I’d never glimpsed the nape of his neck, but here it was, bare to me as his hair touched the floor. Doofus sauntered over and licked Nick’s face. Squinting against the dog slobber, Nick grumbled, “You may be a lot of things, Hayden, but quiet isn’t one of them.”

I sniffed. “Oh, yeah? You weren’t very quiet on the phone just now, either.”

He eyed me. Even from his upside-down viewpoint, he must have been able to see I was jealous. “That was my mom,” he explained.

My heart started beating again, painfully. I kept my face carefully neutral, hiding how freaking relieved I felt that he hadn’t given up on us and moved along to another girl. Not yet, anyway.

“She’s staying with my grandmother in Phoenix.” Nick sat up on his bed with a groan, looking hurt and adorable in a tight T-shirt and track pants, his hair a disaster. “What are you doing here?”

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood, walking my dog …” This was sounding lame. “… several miles from my home, in the middle of the night, in the snow. And I found myself in your backyard.”

His eyes flew wide open. “With the cats?”

“If that’s what you call them.”

“You came over because you feel guilty for yelling at me at the half-pipe.”

I did. He didn’t have to sound so smug about it, though. “I do feel sort of guilty for yelling at you at the half-pipe,” I admitted, “but—”

“But—,” he broke in sarcastically.

“But,” I continued over him, “I’ve had good reason in the past to think you’d called me a name like that to your friends.”

“What’s your good reason? That I
didn’t
call you a fire-crotch last week in the lunchroom?”

He had me there, but I wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Nick was just as guilty as I was. “You’re one to talk. You walked around mad at me for something
I
didn’t mean to do for a whole day, until I persuaded you otherwise.”

“And then
I
apologized,” he pointed out. One side of his mouth cocked up in a mischievous grin. “And then I slipped you the tongue.”

We both cracked up then, with spontaneous exclamations of “The tongue!” I was glad we’d broken the ice. At the same time, it seemed like we were laughing about a relationship we’d had long ago, rather than last night. Maybe we had nothing in common now that the bet was off.

I hoped not. To show him that a sequel to “the tongue” was not out of the question, I crossed his room, shedding layers of outerwear as I went, and sat beside him on the bed. “Seriously, I came over to make sure you’re okay. Did you go to the doctor?”

“I’m not hurt,” he said flatly.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “I was there this afternoon, Nick. I saw you fall. You were lying immobile in the snow.”

“Yeah. I didn’t get enough—”

“—rotation in the 540,” we said simultaneously.

We paused, watching each other. All our problems fell away. Just for a moment we were friends, fellow snowboarders, discussing a mistake we’d both made a million times. This was not my imagination. Nick felt it, too. He looked deep into my eyes. His own eyes were impossibly dark with the lights of his room reflecting as little halos.

And then he looked away, flicking his hair out of his face with his pinkie. “So anyway, after I busted ass, I’m lying there in the snow. My life flashed before my eyes.”

“Why?” I asked, horrified, scooting closer.

“Not my whole life, I guess. My personal life. I’ve been kind of down about my parents, and I was mad at you for yelling at me, and then I wondered why we’re doing this stupid comp anyway. Gavin’s been breathing down my neck about winning him Poser tickets and putting Chloe in her place. All I ever wanted to do this winter break was have fun and board and relax.”

“Amen.” I sighed. Thank God the comp was over. “I was worried about you. I called your cell and rang the bell at the gate. You didn’t hear it?”

“It rings downstairs, and my dad …” Nick stared into space, and his voice trailed off.

I could have finished this sentence for him.
My dad … is lying on the couch, listening to the middle-aged person’s equivalent of emo songs on his iPod, because my mother left him.
Journey, or something. Duran Duran.