He skidded down a small, icy incline near a frozen creek bed, and paused to gather his bearings. Finding a landmark on Main Street through the trees, he altered his course so he would arrive close to his house. He tapped the excess snow off his boots and started trekking upward again when his phone rang.
For one hopeful second, he thought of Rachel. But his caller ID showed it was his coach. He scrambled to answer, hoping it wasn’t bad news.
“Hey, John,” he greeted him. “Everything okay?”
It must be three in the morning in Austria, well past team curfew in a competition week.
“Everyone is fine.” His coach, a former competitor who’d been training the U.S. teams for over a decade, sounded tired. “Just seeing what I can do to get you on a plane and over here where you belong.”
John knew him well. From the time he was a kid, nothing motivated Gavin like the promise of belonging. He didn’t dare refuse outright. If his coach was calling with renewed efforts to get Gavin to Austria, he wanted to hear him out.
“I appreciate the call,” he said carefully, reaching the top of the incline as the sound of a hand bell choir drifted through the trees. “But I asked about this week a long time ago. My buddy getting married here is a close friend.”
Even though Luke hadn’t made any effort to welcome Rachel home. The last few days would have gone a lot more smoothly for her if Luke had lent his support.
“I know that.” John’s voice sounded so close he could have been in one of the nearby elf houses. The guy had been a good mentor and teacher over the years, so Gavin hated disappointing him. “But I’m missing the voice of a veteran over here. Someone to help these kids figure out how to deal with the pressure.”
Trudging toward Main Street through the dense pines, Gavin relaxed a bit, figuring the coach was just worn out dealing with the exuberance of youth.
“I learned that stuff from you. They will too.”
“The idea was if I kept a couple of veterans on the team, you’d pay it forward.” John cursed softly. “Or is that paying it back?”
“I promise I’ll educate the young guns when I get over there on Sunday.” He broke through the trees a few buildings down from his house and headed toward the sidewalk.
“You’re not going to back out on me and stay put?” John grumbled. “A trip home can make a man all kinds of nostalgic. You see the old mates. Hook up with an old flame—”
“Not happening.” Gavin cut him off, unwilling to think of Rachel in those terms. She wasn’t a hook-up.
She was different. Special. And yeah, Gavin had spent a whole lot of time thinking about her this week.
The line went quiet for a moment, making Gavin think the call had dropped until John said, “Are you sure, son?”
The “son” thing got to him. No one but Rachel’s dad had ever called him that. Certainly not his own father who would travel around the globe to watch a Formula One race, but it had never occurred to him to cheer on his own kid.
The only person who would make Gavin think twice about staying in Yuletide had just told him in no uncertain terms she wouldn’t be sticking around. She had a life to go back to and so did he. Gavin didn’t like the idea of ignoring the attraction and all the feelings that went with it. But what choice did he have when he was the only one curious about exploring it?
“I’m sure,” he told his coach. His mentor and friend. “I’ll be there on Sunday, ready to race.”
“Good man.” John disconnected the call as Gavin reached his empty house with just a few red and green lights to connect it to the rest of the Alpine-themed homes on Main Street.
An outcast, just like him.
Maybe he was trying too damn hard to make a life for himself in Yuletide. He wasn’t retired yet. And he might find a more welcoming home somewhere else if he gave it a chance.
But as he opened the door to the Jingle Elf house, his gaze slid sideways to Teeny Elf’s. The home he’d always associated with Rachel, even if she’d been gone until recently.
Leaving Yuletide wasn’t going to be easy.
Chapter Eight
Rachel tiptoed up the stairs to the second floor of her mother’s house after the bachelorette party that night. She hadn’t been the last one to leave, but she’d had more fun than she thought she would, remaining until midnight to dance and reminisce with Kiersten about happier times. Diana and Heidi, two of the bridesmaids, seemed to warm up to her a little. Especially when she offered to show them all how to waltz, a ballroom trick she’d learned from her Broadway dancer friend.
With the wedding just days away, everyone had been curious about it and they’d had fun practicing with each other indoors and then—in a crazy idea of Kiersten’s—outside in the snow. Spending time with her friend helped distract her from thoughts of Gavin and what that kiss had meant. At least, it had until the walk home when she’d been once again alone with her thoughts.
What if I don’t want you to leave?
She’d dismissed his question quickly enough when he’d posed it, focusing on her need to be away from Yuletide. But that didn’t address the personal component—the implication that he wanted to be with her.
“Hello? Rachel?” her mother called to her from the far end of the house as Rachel reached the landing. “Honey, is that you?”
Rachel froze for a moment. Because even though she was a grown adult, sneaking into the house late still felt vaguely forbidden. Shaking off the return to adolescence, she called, “Yes, Mom. I didn’t know you’d still be awake.”
Putting aside unsettling thoughts about Gavin, Rachel hung her cape on a peg near the stairs and then headed toward the living room. Her mother sat in front of a lively blaze in the fireplace, her pink sock feet on the coffee table while she worked on a piece of embroidery, her reading glasses low on her nose.
For an instant, Molly Chambers looked just like Rachel’s grandmother—a thought she didn’t share since she wasn’t sure how her mother would receive the news. Molly had had a distant relationship with her mother, which was one of the reasons she’d bought into her husband’s ideas for Yuletide. For as long as Rachel could remember, her mother had done all she could to create a sense of warmth and community here. And, perhaps, the sense of family she’d never found in her own home.
“How was the bachelorette party?” her mother asked, poking the needle with yellow thread onto a blue line from an iron-on pattern. The tiny sound of the thread sliding through the cotton pillowcase brought with it memories of childhood.
How often had Rachel worked on her homework right here in this room while her mom sewed? It had never occurred to Rachel how much of her love of design—and the day-to-day reality of sewing—she’d inherited from her mother.
“I hadn’t planned on going, but Kiersten called to talk me into it and I had fun.” Rachel dropped down into the chair near her mom’s end of the couch.
“And how are the allergies?” she asked, peering over her reading glasses to study her.