Risking It All for Love (A Christmas in Snow Valley Romance) Read online

  by

  Kimberley Montpetit

  For the “women” of Snow Valley, Montana,

  whose talent and creativity inspires me!

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Risking it all for Love

  COPYRIGHT 2014 by Kimberley Montpetit

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover Art by Christina Dymock

  Interior Design by Sadie Anderson

  Spellbound Books

  Published in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Additional Works

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  I saw him the first time at Snow Valley’s cemetery. Striding across the dead, snow-covered grass. He wore a black wool coat and leather gloves. Not a ski jacket, a man’s long overcoat. His head was uncovered, hair cut just below his ears, a thatch of dark brown tossed across his forehead. My breath caught, and my palms grew clammy despite the fact that I’d forgotten my gloves and the tips of my fingers were turning to ice.

  Was it—no, it couldn’t be. Dread dropped to the pit of my stomach. Because if it was him, I was seeing things. Seeing dead people. Which would mean that the séance at Madame LeBlanc’s parlor back in New Orleans was for real.

  I gulped and narrowed my eyes, burring my chin into my zipped up coat so it didn’t look like I was staring at the guy until my eyes bugged out. Now he was coming toward me. Or was the angle of his body merely an optical illusion in the whiteness of the snowy scene, the skeletal trees, and the dreary gray sky?

  Even though I doubted who I was seeing, my heart still went into overdrive.

  The possible specter coming toward me looked so much like—oh, gosh, I swore I was having palpitations, maybe even a heart attack. A sharp pain thudded against my ribs.

  It couldn’t be him. That was crazy. It meant that I was truly losing my mind. Was I going crazy? I know my mother thought so. She’d been nagging at me ever since the plane landed, wanting confidences about my life, my work with the dance company in New Orleans, my plans for the future, my feelings. This whole trip home was impractical - or maybe it was just being around my mother that brought out all my angst.

  “My feelings are none of your business, Mom,” I’d told her tartly an hour ago as I shoved my feet into a pair of canvas sneakers I’d dug out of my closet.

  “Jessica, you’ll catch cold wearing those shoes in this weather.”

  “Oh, is it snowing again?” Of course, my mother didn’t catch my sarcasm. There was two feet of snow piled up on both sides of the driveway and the yard was a blanket of white.

  “And no socks!” she’d continued, her lips puckered disapprovingly. “Not even laces? They’ll fall off your feet tramping around in this snow. I swear living in the South has touched your head.”

  Of course I should have worn boots, but I didn’t feel like being practical. Coming home for Christmas was probably a mistake on so many levels. I was used to New Orleans now. The mild weather, the humidity, the crazy, life-loving people, the Creole culture, the dripping Spanish moss from the cypress and oak trees, crazy Bourbon Street with the smell of seafood and wine and vodka that lingered in my nose.

  Taking the dance scholarship there had been my wisest decision yet. New Orleans, with its funky architecture and old Civil War history was a great place in which to forget. To forget everything I wanted to run away from. I mean, forget everything I couldn’t stand thinking about any longer before I truly went mad.

  Prickles of cold ran up my neck. Guess Madame LeBlanc was right about that part. I was showing signs of grief-induced insanity.

  So I threw myself into my dance, practicing twelve hours a day, exploring my new city two thousand miles from home.

  Two thousand miles from this—the very thing standing in front of me—Michael’s grave.

  The man in the wool coat—I would have laid a hand on the Bible in Pastor John’s study at the church to swear it was the ghost of Michael—was coming toward me.

  Sucking in a breath, I crouched behind the tombstone, hoping my white down jacket would blend in. Of course, my mother was right. My feet were two blocks of ice now. But pain was good. Penance for that last night of Michael’s life.

  I ran my fingertips along the words etched into the granite:

  Michael Lucas Grant

  beloved son, grandson, and friend to all who knew him.

  Born June 30

  Died December 20

  Michael would stay eighteen forever.

  Forever locked with my memories of senior year, and all the memories of the previous decade stored away in my mind and my heart and my soul.

  I heard myself whimper. My stomach began to hurt. How would I ever get away from the hold he had on me? We’d been best friends since we were eight years old in Mrs. Ross’s third grade class. Our desk was a long table where we sat two at the table to share.

  Michael had bumped my arm and I bumped him back. He made fun of me when I pirouetted in the bark on the playground, when I jumped from my swing. (I was learning how to twirl that year in ballet class.) Michael and I tied for first place in every single recess race.

  We began to share homework and lunches by 5th grade, quizzing each other, taking swimming lessons, and gathering the neighborhood kids for teams of Kick the Can—which melted into hot, lazy summer days when we were sixteen and took a picnic to the river. Skipping stones, eating peanut butter sandwiches, talking about the silly church play, when our parents made us mad, sibling rivalry, who was going out with who among our high school class, and then, finally, finally, sharing our first kiss. I’d been secretly wanting it for months. Maybe years.

  “You can’t be Sweet Sixteen and not get kissed,” he’d said hoarsely, nervously, one finger fiddling at the hole in his faded jeans.

  “It’s already too late, my birthday started this morning,” I’d teased him

  “What time were you born?” he’d asked, knowing full well it wasn’t until seven o’clock in the evening.

  “No fair,” I’d said, punching him lightly on the arm.

  He’d grinned at me. “We have a couple hours left before you’re official.”

  I remembered that my stomach rose with anticipation. I’d been hoping he would, at last, attempt to kiss me. I’d been thinking about it for ages, wondering what it would be like to finally kiss a boy, to kiss Michael, who was good and safe. Someone I didn’t have to worry about taking advantage of me, like Ann Davis who left school for her older sister’s house in California to have a baby.

  The press of Michael’s lips against mine had been soft and sweet. He’d tasted like cotton candy or Sprite. I’d loved him since I was eight. Loved and hated as we grew up and fought and made up. We’d ev
en played Romeo and Juliet in a summer school production.

  That particular memory brought a voice from the past echoing in my ears. Someone from the audience during dress rehearsal. Probably some chick who’d wanted the lead role and the chance to kiss Michael Grant. “You know, Mrs. Snow, just because Michael and Jessica have been dating their whole lives doesn’t mean they should get the lead roles. They have no chemistry together. It’s like watching a brother and sister in love.”

  The auditorium had gone stone silent. The words stung, and I’d tried to brush them off, but during every performance of Rome and Juliet from then on I heard those words repeating in my brain. And I realized that every kiss was stale, exactly the same as all the others. No fizzy Sprite bubbling up to my head, or cotton candy taste anymore.

  Was I just shy about kissing Michael in public, for the entire town to watch? Or was it true—that Michael and I were truly only friends, best friends, sharing everything, loving each other—but not in love?

  We started making plans to attend Montana State University in Bozeman. After graduation, we’d get married. I was marrying my best friend! Wasn’t that the best plan? The one most assured to have happiness and comfort?

  But over the next year I realized that even though my heart lit up whenever Michael came into the room, and we still talked for hours every day, we didn’t spend time kissing or making out. It was like we’d already been married fifty years. A peck on the lips, a hug, but nothing in between the daily “hello” and “see you tomorrow.”

  What did it mean? Was this normal? I had no idea. I’d never dated anyone but Michael. I’d never kissed anyone but Michael.

  So we decided to do something really daring and really stupid to see what all the fuss was about with sex. Maybe we’d been putting it off for so long, we’d suppressed our hormones—or something like that. Yeah, our thought processes were pretty inane.

  But we were barely eighteen. And yes, we were stupid.

  We got drunk one night when Michael’s parents were away. Sat on the couch drinking beer, and then put down a couple shots of tequila for good measure.

  We tried to do the deed, but never got past some heavy kissing. And by then I was running to the bathroom to throw up from the alcohol.

  “Aw, hell,” Michael had said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I still felt queasy, I just wanted to go home, but I went with him. To keep him safe, I told myself.

  Michael was solemn and quiet on the ride, his mood growing darker, as we both wondered what our relationship truly was, and what had gone wrong. How could someone get married and never have sexual relations? We wanted a family. I wanted to be with my best friend for the rest of my life.

  “I’m eighteen!” he’d raged. “I shouldn’t need sex counseling!”

  I’d laughed, trying to lighten the mood, reaching for his hand, reaching for assurance because I was so incredibly confused, too.

  I could still see his fists slamming against the steering wheel. I didn’t think he was that drunk. I thought after a person threw up, the alcohol was out of their system. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  The accident itself was innocuous. He underestimated the yellow light, slammed on the gas pedal, and went for it. Something we’d done before, something everyone does occasionally.

  But neither of us saw the other car turning left. The impact spun our car into a light pole. I’d never forget the sounds of metal slamming, crunching, the screaming, and then the silence. Michael slumped over.

  I was sure he’d just been knocked out, but the head injury was worse than it looked.

  The night became a blur of sirens and ambulances and weeping parents.

  The moment my dad told me Michael was gone was imprinted forever on my heart and soul.

  Not dead, but “gone.”

  I spent the summer healing from a lame broken wrist. My mother repeating over and over again, “At least you’ll still be able to dance.”

  Finally, I’d actually yelled at my own mother to shut up. “I guess it’s all okay, because I can still dance? Michael’s dead. He never gets to live again, or go to college or finish growing up or get married, or anything. He’s my best friend, don’t you get it!”

  I’d slammed out of the house and trudged to the church cemetery where I went to go talk to my best friend. I didn’t know what else to do. Every time I’d had the slightest problem about anything I’d talked to Michael.

  All my dreams of our life together, our happy family, disappeared that night. The night we were so brainless I wanted to stick a knife in my chest. The only time we’d ever done anything that stupid.

  Now I stared down at Michael’s grave covered in snow and told him, “It’s not fair. So many other people get away with stupid stuff all the time. Why us? Why did God take you away from me?”

  I plugged my ears, hearing my mother’s platitudes in my head, “Sometimes the good die young,” or “We don’t know God’s plan.”

  She was right about that. I had no idea what to do with my life. So I did the only thing I could think of. I ran away from my home town. Staying in Snow Valley was claustrophobic and cloying. My heart ached with a hundred pound weight every time I drove past any place in town; the gas station, the library, Mr. C’s burger joint, the creek, the high school, movie theatre, Michael’s parents’ house where his banged up car sat dark and solitary in the side yard. His father couldn’t bear to part with any of his son’s possessions.

  I couldn’t stand to be here any longer. Because Michael was tied to everything in my life. How could I ever move on?

  So I went crazy again. According to my parents.

  I cancelled my scholarship to Montana University, applied to a dance company in New Orleans, and moved two thousand miles away to a place that was so different it would help erase Michael’s face haunting my dreams.

  After just a few months, New Orleans’s dark under-life of spiritualism called to me and I found myself wanting to call up Michael’s spirit. I needed to know that he didn’t blame me for that night. For getting him drunk. For not taking care of him in so many ways. For being so very stupid.

  I hadn’t had a meaningful date in three years. And there had only been two of those.

  I kept myself aloof, danced every day, ate barely enough to sustain life—until my muscles were hard and my body almost broke. But I was being rewarded. I moved up the ranks in the ballet company corps de ballet to demi-soloist.

  Unfortunately, Michael didn’t find me in New Orleans. His ghost never appeared or spoke to me; no matter how much I paid Madame LeBlanc.

  And then I was angry because he didn’t talk to me. “I thought you loved me,” I’d whisper angrily to my apartment window overlooking the row of pink and blue shotgun houses of the city.

  An old newspaper blew down the dirty street.

  Michael’s grave was dead and silent, too.

  I felt nothing.

  And that made me angry. I missed him. I wanted assurances that he didn’t blame me. That he forgave me for that terrible night.

  And then my anger made me guilty all over again.

  “Did I truly love you?” I whispered into the icy Montana winter. It was so quiet a chill crawled up my neck, like cold fingers.

  “Hey!” a voice suddenly called out.

  My chin jerked as I rose to my feet. It was the man in the wool overcoat. Close now. Too close. I could see his eyes staring hard at me, as if he was trying to figure out if we knew each other. His brow furrowed when he ran his fingers through that thick brown hair.

  I blinked away the memory of Michael. It wasn’t Michael. Of course it wasn’t. Michael was dead. Forever.

  “I’m sorry,” the young man said. “Gates are closing now, it’s after four-thirty.” His gaze swept over me. Taking in the black striped leggings, my oversized baggy button-down shirt under the dirty-white jacket, bright red scarf thrown carelessly over my shoulder, sneakers untied, laces dangling. Dangling like me on a precipice.

  His
expression grew concerned as he took a step forward. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  It was probably my frost encrusted wild hair that made him worried. My eyes cut away to gaze off into the woods. My heart was thrumming, my muscles tense. All the nerves in my body vibrated with the need to disappear.

  “You don’t look so well. Your face is turning blue—”

  A whimper sounded in my throat. Gulping it down, my eyes burned. I was mortified that a stranger had caught me here, vulnerable, red-eyed with grief.

  And then I did the only thing a sane girl could do. I jumped to my feet and took off running.

  Chapter Two

  I may have been small-boned and super skinny, but I was a dancer, which meant I had muscles of steel. Which also meant that I had a huge head start before the man behind me gave a cry and took chase.

  Of course, I wasn’t a long distance runner and even dancing had its limits for stamina—and speed. Besides, his legs were a whole lot longer than mine.

  He was fast closing in on me. Despite the fact that he was wearing a long wool coat and black dress shoes. Who wears dress shoes in the middle of the week anyway? In a snow-filled cemetery?

  I picked up my pace. Clouds of white huffed from my panting mouth. Just as he was about to descend on me, I whirled around and stuck my finger out like I was a schoolteacher reprimanding him. “What? Are you a stalker?” I practically yelled, waving my hands around. “Or some kind of crazy in your slacks and polished wingtips?”

  He was so calm it was infuriating. A tiny wrinkle of a frown formed between his eyes. As in blue. Really blue. Not pale or weak, but a deep blue like the clearest ocean. Sparkling like cut glass.

  Which made me realize just how close he was standing to me. And how I wanted to smooth away the funny little wrinkle between his ocean eyes.

  Immediately, I felt totally stupid. It must be this place, the graveyard. The spirits under the earth reaching out and making me crazy. Someone else had blue eyes, too, and the memories were flooding me, taking over the last sliver of the sane part of my brain.