“You nursing it for me sounds better!”
My lips parted on a huff and I looked back over my shoulder in outrage.
Even from a distance I could see him grinning at me.
“There are children in the vicinity!”
“You’re the one that mentioned it!”
Dammit, I was. Muttering under my breath again I made my way up the slope to the chairlift and looked anywhere but at Hudson Ward.
Well, this trip was going super well so far.
“Hey, sweetheart.” My big brother’s voice was a welcome sound as I sat on the end of my bed and stared out over the miraculous vista.
I was independently wealthy and I hated why.
It did mean, however, being able to afford a stunning suite on the top floor of Winterhaven Inn. My hotel suite not only had a huge four poster bed, a sitting area with a gas fire, and a massive, luxurious bathroom with a roll-top bathtub, it had floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the snow-covered valley all the way down to the town of Copper Cliffs.
Just wow.
Between that and Killian’s voice in my ear I was feeling much, much better than I had been an hour ago.
“You’re home then?” I said.
“Safe and sound. Skylar’s crashed out or I’d let you say hi.”
“No, let her sleep.” I would have liked to say hello but I knew for a fact that my brother’s girlfriend needed rest. The last two years of her life had been crazy, the last few months even more so, and the last week, intense.
Skylar Finch used to be the lead singer of a hugely successful pop-rock band called Tellurian. Skylar became tabloid fodder pretty quickly, mostly because of an on-again off-again relationship she had with her guitarist. She’d hated the fame and she’d hated their toxic relationship. To hide her unhappiness from her mum—the person she loved best in the whole world—because she felt she owed her mum for all the sacrifices she’d made for Skylar, she’d pushed her away. And then her mum and stepdad were victims of a highly publicized burglary that ended in their murder. Skylar left the band and disappeared off the map. Until Killian, my big brother and label executive, found her in our home city of Glasgow. She was busking and homeless. We helped her get her life back together. Because of our own less than idyllic upbringing, Killian was pretty closed off emotionally. At that point the only person he let in was me. So when I saw him and Skylar falling for each other, I was worried he was going to royally screw it up.
He almost did.
But my big brother loves Skylar Finch. And I mean he loves her in a way I didn’t know existed outside of movies and romance novels. And she loves him with the same intensity. I adore that for Sky because she’s special and she deserves happiness after everything she’s been through. But I love it for Killian more.
When the paparazzi found Skylar a few months ago things were crazy. But they settled down somewhat and the three of us had a lovely Christmas together. And then Killian and I accompanied Skylar to Los Angeles to see her ex-bandmates and tie up some professional and financial stuff. We’d then stood by her side when she returned to her hometown of Billings in Colorado so she could visit her mum’s grave.
It had been a tough and extremely emotional time but I was glad we could be there for her.
Afterward, they headed back to Scotland and I travelled to Winterhaven to hang out with Catie and Kyle.
“You get to the inn okay?”
I had. Even though I’d been a little nervous (okay, a lot!) as the commuter bus drove up to the Winterhaven Inn and ski resort. It was well paved and sanded but there were thesetreacherous, narrow hairpin turns that they called switchbacks here and I’d felt my body tense as we wound up the mountain. However, I was not tense enough to miss the view. But when the bus drove into the snow village where the inn was located I realized why Catie and Kyle holidayed at Winterhaven every year.
I could see ski lifts on their climb to the summit, the snow-covered evergreens, a building complex that looked like it housed rental apartments.
There was a ski rental shop and a café, as well as a few little independent stores.
The bus had parked in a lot before a beautiful large building that seemed too big and modern to be an ‘inn’.
As soon as Catie sent me the website link so I could book a room, I fell in love. The inn sat at the base of the ski lifts so guests could shimmy out on their skis and set off right away.
“Yes, and I think this might be what heaven looks like,” I replied.
“I was worried about you going up that mountain.”
I wasn’t going to tell my brother I had been, too. “Well I’m fine. Although decidedly not going to ski.”
