Free Love on the Lifts by Rachel Hawthorne

through the mountains, but it’s not the same thing.”
    â€œNo, it’s not. When we were walking through town, I noticed that a little theater is showing Touching the Void . Have you seen it?”
    I remembered hearing something about the movie. The Last Buck Theater—which did, in fact, have a stuffed deer standing outside the entrance and only charged a dollar—usually showed movies that had already done their time on prime cable channels. The more obscure the movie, the more likely it would make an appearance at the Last Buck.
    â€œWasn’t that a documentary about those two English guys who almost died on a mountain?” I asked.
    â€œYeah, one had to cut the other guy’s rope when he was dangling over a crevasse. It’s really incredible that either of them survived.” He hesitated. “Don’t suppose you’d want to go see it?”
    â€œWhat? The movie?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSure. Why not? Maybe tomorrow night, since we have the party tonight. I’ll check with Allie and Leah and see if they’re up for it.”
    He pressed his lips together into this funny shape like he was trying to stop himself from saying something.
    â€œRight,” he finally said. “Yeah, let’s see if everyone wants to go.”
    Oh, gosh, sometimes I’m as clueless as my brother.
    â€œYou weren’t asking me out on a date, were you?”
    â€œHeck, no. I just wanted to see the movie and thought it might be fun to not see it alone. The more the merrier.” He stood and tapped the bag against his leg. “So I guess—”
    Whatever he was going to say was lost as a crowd of people came through the door. Snow Angel Valley’s version of the rush hour traffic had just descended upon us.

Chapter 9
    J oe surprised the heck out of me by not heading out the door as soon as it was clear of customers stampeding inside. Instead he shucked off his ski jacket, hung it on the coat rack in the corner, shoved up the sleeves on his sweatshirt, revealing those amazing forearms, and said, “Tell me what to do.”
    The task that required the least amount of instruction was taking orders, so I gave him a pad of paper and a pencil and set him off to find out what kind of brew the people wanted. Aunt Sue and Paige joined us.
    I was mixing chocolate with warm milk—Aunt Sue’s secret ingredient. Real whole milk, which was a total surprise coming from someone who thought nothing of tossing freshly squeezedasparagus juice into her morning shake. I’d have thought she’d go with skim milk, but nope—whole all the way. And she definitely doesn’t believe in using those hot chocolate mixes that require water.
    â€œHot chocolate should be sinful, and I don’t believe in sinning in half measures.” Her words, not mine.
    So I stood at the back of the counter adding two scoops of chocolate powder and eight ounces of whole milk—warmed on a burner, not in a microwave. I stirred until the powder was dissolved—hand-stirring was another secret—dropped in mini-marshmallows, and set the mug on the proper tile that identified the type of hot chocolate inside. A section of the back counter was comprised of rows of blue tiles, etched with the name of the chocolate that went there. Aunt Sue had efficiency down to an art form.
    Joe grabbed the mugs and took them to the appropriate customers. Clockwork. We were in complete sync. I was amazed.
    During one brief lull, he leaned over to me and whispered, “I meant to ask you earlier.Paige Turner? That can’t be her real name.”
    I peered over my shoulder at Paige before looking back at Joe and shaking my head. “No. My theory is that she’s in the witness protection program. Maybe she got to pick her own name and said, ‘I want to be Paige Turner working in a bookstore at a small ski resort.’”
    Joe chuckled. “I guess that’s a better