If I stop, I could miss Jack.
And if I miss Jack, that’s it. Next stop: LAX, where I’ll be the pathetic woman camped outside his celebrity compound, begging for him to talk to me like one of those reality TV reruns that make me cringe.
Blurry movement stirs behind the frosted glass—the driver.
They wouldn’t be moving if they were hurt. Right? And while I have no faith in that truck’s tires—as evidenced bytheir ice-skating demonstration—I’m sure he can reverse out of that ditch and be on his way without me.
Right?
I grip the wheel tighter and consider just driving past.
But then the pine above the truck shrugs off its load, dumping an avalanche of snow over the cab, burying the thing like a frosted cupcake.
“Son of a…”
With a sigh heavier than a snowbank, I throw the gearshift into Park, grab the ice scraper off the passenger seat, and shove the door open with a curse about vintage trucks and their drivers. Cold slaps me in the face, the kind that instantly chaps your lips and stings your nose.
One step and my Crocs sink into the snow, socks soaked through immediately.
I can’t. I just can’t.
But I do.
Stomping up to the half-entombed truck, I flip the scraper and use it like a shovel, attacking the driver’s side door with all the vehemence of someone who was just personally wronged by snow. Which, frankly, I feel like I was.
My arms burn, my forehead beads with sweat, and my mouth mutters words that would’ve gotten me grounded for weeks as a teenager. A flash of plaid appears through the ice-crusted window, a shoulder shoving against the door until the hinges give way with a groan—like even the metal knows this is a bad idea.
I step back, breathless, snow dripping down my wrist, Croc charms sacrificed to the snow gods.
The door swings wider.
And then—because fate has a wicked sense of humor—Jack unfolds himself from the cab. Except it can’t be Jack. Jack doesn’t wear oversized flannel button-downs, worn Levi’s, or boots scuffed like he’s worked with something other than movie stars and subsidy clauses.
“Audrey?” Jack blinks at me, confusion knotting his features.
Holy crap.
I stumble back, right into a pile of slush. Cold seeps through my Crocs, but I barely feel it. Because it’s him.
The man I’ve been chasing down the mountain, desperate to catch before his plane left. The man I pushed away when I should’ve pulled him close. The man I swore I could live without—only to find every day since hollow and aching.
His coat is dusted with snow, his hair mussed like he’s fought the same storm I have. But it’s his eyes that undo me. Steady. Searching. Like I’m the thing he came here for all along.
My throat tightens, my breath snagging in the icy air. My heart slams against my ribs, louder than the ticking engine, louder than the scrape of snow slipping from the branches above. Louder than the voice in my head that still whispers I don’t deserve him after sending him away.
I toss the ice scraper—and every bit of caution in my body—aside, then launch myself at him, lips crashing onto his.
THAT'S A WRAP
Jack
The impact knocks the breath out of me, not from her weight but from the fact that Audrey Nouel just threw herself at me in the middle of a snowbank like we’re reenacting a holiday rom-com stunt gone wrong.
Her lips are on mine—hot, frantic, desperate—and I don’t care that I’m half-buried in a ditch with a truck older than disco. I kiss her back, one hand cupping her frozen cheek, the other anchoring around her waist like she might slip away if I don’t hold tight.
When we finally break for air, she’s panting, eyes wild, hair stuck to her damp cheeks. “You idiot,” she breathes, voice muffled against my collar. “You absolute, flannel-wearing idiot.”
I huff out a laugh, forehead against hers. “That’s fair. Butfor the record, I’m only in flannel because I thought you wanted a lumberjack.”
