Page 121 of Famous for a Living

He looks a little skittish as he sets his backpack on the ground. “It’s not important.”

I raise my brow. Wait.

“There’s a slight chance she called me up.”

“What exactly did she say?”

“Well. To be entirely honest, she said you had lost your glow and she tried everything in the book to get it back but nothing was working and so it was of vital importance that I come here and ask you out to dinner.”

I hesitate.

A rebuttal is on my lips, but the fact is, I’m too happy to see him to be embarrassed by her intervention, or to attempt to deny the fact that I haven’t been myself since I left Kannery.

My chest is fluttering madly as I look at his weather-beaten but bright eyes.

So he didn’t just want me to leave and get on with life. Here he stands, the mountain man trekking thousands of miles for me after all.

“Apparently, I have been propositioned to recharge you,” he says.

“You know, you could’ve just told her no. I know she is small and terrifying, but you’ve got a whole country between you—”

“She knows where I live. And the more I learn of her, the more I’m convinced she would find me no matter what, anywhere I went. Besides, I did say no.”

My brows shoot up.

As they do, I see the smallest shadow of a smile on his face.

“Did you now?” I say. “No interest in dinner.”

“Yup. I’m here because I took what you said to heart and decided it was time to do some of those things I’ve never tried before. I’m on my way to see those big mountains you spoke of in Switzerland. See if they really can compare, though I doubt it, to mine. And I was hoping”—he pauses, pulls a couple tickets from his backpack—“I was hoping you might be able to spare the time to be my plus one.”

I look down at the airline tickets in his hand.

Sure enough, there is one in my name: Catherine Cranwell, printed in typewriter font across the front. Leaving today.

My stomach seizes.

I barely have breath left in me when I look back in his eyes. “You’re serious?”

“If you want to.”

He blinks as I slowly take the ticket from his hand, processing.

As the seconds tick by, his confidence starts to crack.

“I won’t take it personally if you don’t, Cat. I—I know who I am. I know what I have to offer, and it’s not much compared to all of this. It’s just, when Serena called me and told me how you were feeling lately, I hoped that—”

“I’ll go.” I pull the ticket to my chest, looking up at his face. “I don’t know how this could work,” I say, referencing him and me, “but I’m willing to try.”

His beard breaks apart and his temples crease, revealing the widest smile I’ve seen yet.

I raise a finger. “But on one condition. You have to be the one to tell Serena to reschedule everything I’ve got for the next”—I look down—“two weeks.”

But even as I say the words, I know what he’s going to say.

“She already has, hasn’t she?” I say just as he says, “Done.”

I laugh a little, and he continues. “I’ve already been tasked with picking up a ski jacket for you from Stöckli. She also wants to know if you’d be opposed to a swimsuit skiing shot.”