Never Been Snow Lucky (Snowed Inn Romance)

Chapter 2

2

JACK

“ H ey, Jack.”

Kicking the snow off my boots, I lifted my chin in greeting at the new kid who was trudging along the path to the ski lift. At only nineteen years old, Steven was as green as could be since this was his first real job. He made me feel old as hell, but at least he wasn’t a gaper since he grew up a few towns over and had gotten the job since his park rat.

He always had a big grin, which I got because he was living the ski bum dream as a liftie. Going into work each day wasn’t a hardship for me, either.

As the second-in-command of the Snowed Inn ski patrol, I had the best job in the world. I was one of the first skiers on the slopes each morning, getting first tracks and spending most of my time there. And as the team’s lead explosive gunner, there were times when I got to use explosives for avalanche control.

It also didn’t hurt that my boss had to make most of the tough decisions. Plus, I got to have more fun than Gavin since he was stuck with more paperwork than me, too.

“Speaking of the devil,” I drawled when I spotted him at his desk. “Or thinking since I didn’t actually say your name.”

Gavin swiveled his chair to cock a brow at me. “Has hell frozen over, then?”

I snorted and shook my head. “Too bad it’s just a saying, and you don’t have the ability to heat things up around here.”

“Yeah, this storm looks like it’s gonna be a motherfucker.” He tapped his finger against one of the screens we used to monitor the weather. “These wind speeds are worrying me.”

“You should have told Gabrielle to ask Santa for better weather this year,” I joked as I removed my fleece beanie and raked my fingers through my hair.

Gavin shook his head with a laugh. “My baby girl loves the snow so damn much, she probably would’ve told him the opposite instead.”

“Fair point,” I agreed, scraping my palm over my beard. “Tyler’s young enough. You coulda used him to put in the request to the big man in the North Pole.”

“Only if I got Tory to ask. That boy would do anything for his mommy.”

“You taught him well,” I murmured, well aware that my boss was beyond head over heels for his wife. He’d do just about anything for her, something that I enjoyed giving him shit about, even though a part of me was jealous as fuck. Not because I had any interest in Tory—which was good since Gavin would kill me if that were the case—but I had been wishing lately that I’d found the woman who I wanted to call my own.

It’d been years since anyone had caught my interest, and it got lonely sometimes being one of the few of my friends who were still flying solo. And it would be great if my mom stopped asking me when I was finally going to get married and give her some grandbabies. When I hit my thirties a couple of years ago, she’d gotten even more hard-core on the questions about my love life. But I refused to be rushed into a relationship until I found what Gavin had with Tory. That kind of happiness was more than worth the wait.

“You okay?”

Gavin’s question pulled me out of my head, and I beamed a grin at him. “Dude, if we get dumped on like the forecast is predicting, odds are good that I’ll be able to blow shit up soon, and you know how much I love when we get to put our explosives to good use.”

“Not gonna argue with you about that.” He heaved a deep sigh, his lips pressed into a flat line. “But I can’t shake the feeling that this one will be particularly gnarly.”

I walked over and patted him on the back. “Trust your gut, man. That’s what you’re always telling me.”

“We prepare for the worst and hope for the best, like always.” He pushed his chair away from his desk and got to his feet. “Can you head over to the inn and grab some food from Raven? I want the warming shacks stocked with extra supplies, just in case anyone gets stranded out there. We should already be good on snacks like granola bars and trail mix, but I’d like a meal option or two as well.”

“You got it, boss.”

After bundling up again, I headed back outside to walk over to the lodge. This early in the morning, Raven was bound to be in her office, especially with a blizzard headed our way. She ran the inn and ski lodge with her business partner. She’d taken over from her parents when she was only twenty-two, and Colin had bought into the place about seven years ago when Raven’s current father-in-law had been trying to buy it out from under her. He’d been underhanded about the whole thing, but it had ended very happily since she never would’ve met her husband if Caleb’s dad hadn’t sent him to Winter Falls to scout the situation for him.

Glancing up at the sky, I curved my lips into a grin as I realized the impending storm reminded me a lot of the blizzard that had hit us back then. We’d gotten so much snow…and sooner than when it had been expected. The close quarters had led to strange bedfellows, and about a dozen happy marriages followed in the months after the snow had been cleared. Gavin and Tory were one of them. So were Raven and Caleb.

Winter Falls had weathered plenty of storms since then, and I was sure there would be a ton more in our future. I tended to be a practical guy, but I couldn’t help but think that maybe one of them would bring me good luck like that one had done for so many of my friends.

As I approached the rustic log-cabin style building that housed the ski lodge, my smile widened. I grew up in a mountain town in Upstate New York, but the small resort in my hometown paled compared to The Snowed Inn and Lodge. It’d taken a little getting used to how it felt as though we were celebrating the holiday season all year round when I moved here, but I barely noticed the snowman decorations that Raven loved anymore.

Except as I entered the lodge, it was impossible to miss that she added more recently. Which wasn’t unusual since we were only three days away from Christmas Day.

Rapping my knuckles against the door of her office, I poked my head inside and asked, “Where do you even find all this stuff? Snowmen R Us?”

“Ha, ha,” she fake laughed, rolling her eyes. “As if I haven’t heard that one a thousand times before.”

Leaning against the doorframe, I shrugged. “Guess I won’t be throwing away my ski patrol career anytime soon to try my hand at being a stand-up comic.”

“Good call.” Her expression turned serious as she asked, “How can I help you?”

“I hate to add anything to your to-do list this close to the storm, but you know how it goes.” I explained what we needed to stock up the warming shacks, and she nodded.

“That’s doable.”

I followed her to the entrance that connected the lodge to the inn but came to an abrupt stop only a few steps through the door. My attention was snagged by a gorgeous brunette who had just walked into the lobby. Her long, wavy hair tumbled down her back, topped by a maroon knit cap. She blinked away the snow from the long lashes of her dark brown eyes, a pretty pink blush from the cold coloring her pale cheeks. She unzipped her ski jacket, and my gaze dropped to take in the delicious curves she revealed. My palms itched to cup her sweet tits, which appeared to be the perfect handful. And when she turned and bent over to mess with the lace on one of her boots, I got the perfect view of her luscious ass.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do a good job of hiding my interest in her because Raven realized who I was staring at and elbowed me in the side. “You should go talk to her.”

“What?” I asked, forcing my gaze away from the woman who had brought my long-dormant libido raging back to life.

“I recognize that gleam in your eyes,” she explained. “I saw it in Caleb’s when we first met and every day since then. So I said that you should go talk to her.”

“Her?” I echoed, even though I knew damn well who she was talking about. But unfortunately, the woman in question was nowhere in sight. I’d missed my chance for now. If I got another one, I vowed not to let it go to waste.