She braces one hand on the door, the other on the frame, and hauls herself to her feet in the ditch, slipping on the uneven ground. I instinctively reach out, fingers brushing her elbow, steadying her before she goes down.
And then she looks up.
Green eyes. Wide and shining, ringed with smeared makeup. A dusting of freckles across her nose, a little fainter under the layer of foundation but still there if you know where to look. Her lips, painted some soft pink that doesn’t belong in this cold, part on a shaky breath.
The snow around us seems to pause in mid-air.
The years fall away in an instant. Nights on Old Mill Road, passing a contraband flask back and forth. Afternoons at Buckhorn Lake, her laughter ringing across the water. The smell of vanilla and pine every time she hugged me goodbye at the end of a long day.
There’s no way.
But there she is.
In my driveway. In a wedding dress. On Christmas Eve.
“Faith?” I hear myself say.
Her fingers tighten on my arm. She’s not sure if I’m real either. Her throat works, and when she speaks, her tone is hoarse.
“Hi, Dallas,” she whispers.
And just like that, my whole world tilts.
CHAPTER THREE
Faith
December 24th
My brain refusesto do the math.
Cold. Pain. The sting of snow on my cheeks. The smell of exhaust and metal. My heart pounding way too fast, tripping over itself. And then…
Blue eyes.
Not Evan’s cool blue, nor my father’s hard steel. Softer. Warmer. Familiar in a way that hits me somewhere below my ribs.
“Faith?”
I blink up at him, eyelashes wet and heavy. For a heartbeat, I’m sure I’ve imagined him out of sheer desperation. Of course I did. It’s the worst day of my life, and my brain has finally cracked.
But he’s still there when I blink again.
Dallas McCoy.
He’s taller than I remember, or maybe it’s just the angle. The man in front of me is broader across the shoulders, his jaw sharper, his throat roughened by a dark line of scruff. There’sa beanie pulled low over his dark hair, snow dusting it like powdered sugar. The beam of a flashlight cuts across his face, throws his eyes into shadow, then catches them again.
“Hi, Dallas,” I hear myself say, except my voice comes out thin and reedy.
His hand tightens around my elbow, a point of gravity in a world that’s spinning too fast. His gaze skims quickly over me, my dress, my bare shoulders, the ridiculous swath of tulle and lace melting into the snow, and his mouth flattens into a line.
“Can you walk?” he asks. That gruff tone is new. “Anything hurt? Neck? Head?”
I frown, trying to do a quick body inventory. Everything aches, but nothing screams. My heart, maybe, but that’s not from the crash.
“I… I don’t think so,” I say. My teeth chatter around the words. “I just sort of slid. I was trying to slow down, but the road just… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was just trying to get to my mom’s, and the snow, and the ditch came out of nowhere, and…”
“Hey.” His voice slices clean through my babbling. “Stop.”
