Free Snow in Love by Claire Ray Page B

girls you were broken up with?
    I thought for a moment about asking Will this question, but decided not to. Abby was holding my dress up for him and he was telling her that my skirt looked like he could ski down it.

Chapter 8
    I

had awoken the next morning with every intention of confronting Jake about what Madison had said and about the accidental kiss. But for the next three days, I couldn’t get him alone. Every time I “ran into” him on the mountain, he was with Madison or one of Evie’s blond sisters, and pretended that he didn’t have time to talk to me. During the times he wasn’t skiing, Abby and I would linger in the lobby with Erin, but between Erin’s grumpy moods and Mean Agnes chasing us out of there, we didn’t have much luck. The only time I saw him inside, he ran into the gift shop to avoid me.
    When I wasn’t at the resort, I’d taken to hiking along the trail in the woods behind the cabins. I normally walked this route even when Jake wasn’t in town, because the track wound through a gorgeous section of woods. You could hear the birds sing and see ice glistening on the branches. But now that I was hoping for “run-ins,” I made these walks because the trail passed his house. I must have walked by the Reid cabin ten times, and only once did Jake magically appear. He stood on their porch, drinking what was probably a cup of coffee. He was bundled up in baggy ski pants and a huge, fur-lined jacket; it was these kinds of clothes that made my father think he was soft. I called his name. He put his hand in the air, not a wave really but definitely an acknowledgment that I was there, and then hightailed it back into his cabin.
    The only time he didn’t run when he saw me was when he came into Snow Cones. Evie, it turned out, liked herself some ice cream. The first time the two of them came into the shop, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I would think that my family’s shop would be off-limits for their daytime rendezvous, but apparently Evie’s desire for sweets trumped his desire for avoidance. Each time, she’d order vanilla peppermint and he’d have strawberry. The first visit, I put whipped cream on his in the shape of a heart. He shook his head at me, and I raised my shoulders as if to say, “Whoops!” After that he specifically ordered his with no whipped cream.
    After three days of this, I decided that I’d had enough. I couldn’t keep living like this, hoping that his kiss had meant something but knowing by all the evidence, especially the “you broke up with her” comment, that it probably hadn’t. The problem was that while I had even a shred of hope, I had hope.
    On the fourth day, I was determined to cut work and find Jake, and if I couldn’t, then I’d have to show up outside his window again that night.
    Unfortunately my mother didn’t seem too thrilled with my plan of ditching work. It was either Snow Cones or babysitting. I chose babysitting, something normally on the bottom of the list of things I’d agree to do for my parents. But Brian was desperate to visit Mr. Winter’s new litter of puppies, and if we had anything in common, it was our love of animals. I wanted to see them too.
    And honestly I needed a break from Snow Cones. I was eating too much ice cream and I needed to fit into Abby’s dress. Also, I couldn’t take any more Evie sightings.
    “Hey, kids!” Mr. Winter called out to me and Brian as we walked around the side of his barn to the pen at the back. He was a big bear of a man, not quite as huge as my dad but big enough that you knew he was born here. He wore overalls with suspenders over a thermal undershirt. He had a red plaid cap on his head and was bending at the waist, petting six small yipping bundles of fur.
    Brian broke out into a run and hopped over the pen fence in one fluid motion.
    “Easy, big guy!”
    “Can I hold ’em? Please? Please? Please?”
    Mr. Winter handed him a red-coated little furball and said, “Be gentle now, they’re