Page 7 of A Very Titan Christmas (Titan #14)

Well, Bryce’s avoid-Rachel-Porter plan had crashed and burned within two hours of his arrival.

Besides keeping Mrs. Porter safe, his plan to steer clear of Rachel had been his only objective.

And it should have been an easy one. He had quadruple-checked that the Porters did not have family joining them for the holidays.

Not only had Rachel slammed into him, but she had also literally left her mark.

His sticky shirt cooled on his stomach and thighs, and he needed to change.

Roman strode over. “Hey, did you check in with—What the hell happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

Bryce pinched the bridge of his nose. Roman wasn’t wrong. He needed to change and didn’t want to see any of the Porters. Why the hell had he agreed to this job?

“Shit, there’s Eloise Porter,” Roman muttered under his breath.

“Yeah, I already talked to her. Everything is squared away.” Except for whatever Rachel had accused Mrs. Porter of. Bryce hadn’t pressed, and Mrs. Porter chatted on and on as if their odd conversation hadn’t happened. “I need to change.”

Roman eyed him again and laughed. “All right, butterfingers. You do that while I touch base with Mrs. Porter.” He scanned the room. “What is she like?”

Rachel jumped to the forefront of his brain instead of Eloise Porter.

She had grown into herself. Wavy golden hair and a brilliant smile—not that she had offered it to him the same way she had her sharp, assessing gaze.

She and Mrs. Porter still volleyed a conversation back and forth like they had years ago, but now that Rachel was an adult, the conversation probably would have been playful if she hadn’t been blushing and as caught off guard as he was.

At least Bryce had known the possibility existed that his and Rachel’s paths would cross.

And what was that whole thing about dating her?

“Earth to Bryce?” Roman said.

Mrs. Porter. That was what Roman was asking about. Bryce needed to focus. “Chatty. A little irreverent. Do you know anything about her daughter being on site?”

Roman frowned. “She’s not.”

Bryce snorted. Rachel Porter had taken off from the lobby like she couldn’t escape him fast enough. “She is. Trust me.”

“Then I guess the plan will need a rewrite.” Roman gestured with his thumb toward the central meeting space near the giant fireplace. “I’m going to find Mrs. Porter and meet back with you in twenty.”

Bryce grabbed his heavy coat and headed into the blustery morning. The icy wind pulled through the bare branches. Larger-than-life candy canes hung off lampposts. Cheerful holiday music was piped in from speakers in the mulch beds that looked like large rocks. Everything was so holly, jolly happy.

He followed the stone sidewalk toward the cabin where they would stay for the duration of the assignment. The path curved around a patio large enough to seat dozens around an oversized fire pit. Beyond that, a stone wall barrier formed an overlook of the mountains.

Memories rolled over him one by one. He’d spent hours with Rachel sitting on this patio, leaning against that stone wall. The view hadn’t changed over the years, and he wished it would soften his bah-humbug grouchiness.

It didn’t.

Seeing Rachel somehow made it worse.

Bryce blew out a breath that clouded in the cold air. No one was out. He was alone with the evergreens and snow and forced himself to keep walking. After a minute, he departed the course to their cabin as he stepped onto an unshoveled trail marked only by sparse foot traffic.

The icy path led to another overlook tucked just out of view from the main paths. He needed to change clothes but wanted to clear his mind first. Rachel Porter. He should never have taken this job.

His boot steps crunched over the icy snow. Pine trees protected the trail from the rest of the world. He continued as the trail narrowed until he reached the overlook—and wasn’t alone.

There she was.

Rachel Porter dangled her legs over a stone barrier that had seen sturdier days.

Uncomfortable that she loomed close to a sheer drop, he felt his pulse pick up.

She was way too close to the edge. Her head hung as if she couldn’t stomach the breathtakingly deadly view, and she pressed her fingers to her temples.

Bryce could turn around. She didn’t know he was there, and he wasn’t positive it was Rachel. It could be some woman with a headache who had escaped the holiday explosion that had taken over the main lodge.

Oh, who the hell was he kidding? It was Rachel. He knew it was her like he knew the snow was cold, and before he thought of what he might say, his boots crunched over the snow and ice.

She glanced over her shoulder.

“Hey, Rach.”

Her gaze tracked to his torso and pants as if she could see the hot chocolate hidden by his coat. “Hey. I’m really sorry about running into you.”

He wished she would stop apologizing. Bryce shrugged and stopped a few feet away. “I didn’t realize you would be here.”

She shrugged and scanned the snowcapped view. “I like to sit here when I need to think.”

“I meant I didn’t realize you’d be home with your family.

” Bryce cleared his throat. Did Rachel have a family of her own?

Were her partner and kids staying in one of the cabins he’d walked by?

His stomach knotted. What could-have-been tickled the back of his mind, but he caught himself.

He rubbed a hand over his face and realized he should have asked more questions when Boss Man offered him this job.

“I didn’t think I’d be here either.” The corners of her lips curved, but the smile didn’t reach her forest-green eyes. “Surprises all around.”

He should go. He needed to change. Instead, he moved closer. “You don’t have to tell me what was happening earlier, but are you okay?”

She half laughed and shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what had happened.

“My mother has this idea…” She seemed to think twice about sharing and tipped her head back to the frosty morning sun, taking a long breath.

She let it go and tugged her hat farther down.

“Eloise is a lot, but nothing worth complaining about.” Rachel patted the wall next to her side. “Want to sit for a minute?”

He wanted to change out of his wet clothes and be reassigned. Still, he glanced over the barrier and peered down the snowy abyss. “Long way down, Rach.”

“You were always risk averse, weren’t you?”

He snorted. “Depends on who you ask. My career choice would say otherwise, wouldn’t it?”

“My, my, how things have changed.”

Her side-eye and pursed lips were a none-too-gentle reminder that he’d broken up with her to avoid the heartache of a long-distance relationship between teenagers.

If he recalled correctly, he’d said it wasn’t worth the risk.

Uttering those words was the hardest thing he’d ever done—until he actually left Vermont.

Once his family moved and he didn’t see her at school every day, even if she refused to look his direction or acknowledge he existed, it had killed him.

“Fair shot.” He stepped closer. “You going to push me off the cliff if I join you?”

“Now that you’ve planted the idea…” She smirked but laughed. “It’s been a long time. Almost twenty years. I don’t even know how that’s possible.”

He whistled. “When you say it out loud like that, yeah.”

“I never went to our high school reunions. You?”

“I didn’t graduate with you all.” He hadn’t started with their class as a freshman either.

His family moved whenever Dad announced he’d had enough.

That usually meant he’d been fired. Mom just packed their van, and the adventure would begin again.

He hated every second of that life. The instability.

The inability. Rachel had been the one good thing in high school.

Then Bryce had to leave her so that his dad could have more rounds of “bad luck” in West Virginia, Kansas, and Colorado before Bryce had set off on his own, right into the hands of the US Army.

“Ah. That makes sense.”

He sat down next to her with enough of a buffer between them that it shouldn’t feel weird. It still did. Sitting alone on the side of a mountain with Rachel Porter. How the hell did that happen?

His phone buzzed with a text message. As Rachel’s phone rang, Bryce shifted to pull the device from his pocket.

“It’s my mom,” she said, then answered with a cheery hello.

He swiped the message from Roman open.

Roman: Where are you? Snow Queen wants to go off schedule.

Snow Queen referred to Mrs. Porter. Senator Porter was the Sleigh King. No one had planned for Rachel. He wondered what headquarters would call her.

“That’s not how I planned my day.” Rachel checked the time on her watch. “I hadn’t—Well, yeah, I’d planned to visit—Mom…” She closed her eyes in defeat. “Okay. Okay. Fine. I’ll go with you.”

Bryce threw his legs back over the fence and returned to the path.

I have to go, he mouthed as Rachel glanced over her shoulder.

He had to change and focus on the job. Another text message buzzed with a warning that they would attend a Christmas market.

Open air and open to the public. Parker Black, their tech guru based in Boston, was pulling security information and sending it out within five minutes.

Rachel pushed her phone into her pocket. “I have to meet up with my mom.”

“You’re going to the Christmas market?” he asked, having a vague idea of tables with handcrafted ornaments and crocheted scarves for sale.

Bryce offered her a hand as she crawled off the stone fence.

Her warm touch was familiar. That was impossible.

So much time had passed. Yet he could suddenly recall how his hand would wrap around her smaller one.

She made sure of her footing and followed him onto the trail. “You got it.”

The path wasn’t made for two people to walk side by side. Bryce tromped through the heavier snow and stayed by her side. He studied her expression. “You don’t like it?”

“No, I do. Actually, I love it.” She smiled. “It’s fun. Crafty but with lots of vendors who have homemade snacks. Toasted candy nuts. Maple syrup cookies. Apple cider doughnuts. Apple pie with cheddar cheese. And don’t get me started on the snacks from the sugarhouses.”

“You sound hungry.”

She laughed. “Guess I do. But I’m here for work, too, and getting excited for different angles to write about.”

“What do you do?”

“I write for The American Stay magazine.”

Rachel was a writer. He could imagine seventeen-year-old Rachel being thrilled about her future career.

She’d written for their school newspaper, forcing him to give her quotes that she attributed to anonymous sources as he critiqued the lunch menu or acted as a Monday morning quarterback for the county-wide Trivia Bowl.

“The American Stay magazine.” He tried to place it but wasn’t much of a magazine reader.

Maybe she reviewed hotels or cruises. That didn’t sound like a bad gig. “This is a working trip?”

She nodded. “I’m here all month, taking in everything that makes Silverberry Ridge magical for the holidays.”

All month. That meant through the security summit—for as long as he’d be in Silverberry Ridge.

Until this moment, Bryce hadn’t thought about how long Rachel might be in town.

A panic over being too close to an old flame grew inside him, and his chest prickled like he’d choked on a ball of mistletoe.

Bryce cleared his throat and tried to tell himself he could handle the length of time they would be in the same vicinity.

But depending on whether or not she still harbored a grudge from high school, a weekend with her might have been ideal.

They could have caught up. Maybe even flirted.

Everything about her made her his type. Smart.

Hard-working. Pretty blond hair and bright, sharp eyes.

Spending a week with Rachel would be pushing his luck. More than seven days together would be a problem for two significant reasons: she might still hate him, and she was the kind of hot that could melt all the snow off the mountains.

He scrubbed a cocoa-scented hand over his face. Jared Westin was going to kick his ass once he learned of their connection. “I have to change before we head out. See you in a bit.”

He extended his stride as he set out on his escape. Snow crept into his boots. He hadn’t dressed to go off trail. The parts of his clothes covered in her hot chocolate were cold and sticking to his skin. Nothing was going as expected. Bryce grumbled as his phone buzzed with another text message.

Bryce expected an update from Roman but saw it was from Parker instead.

Parker: Addition to the entourage: Daughter Rachel Porter. Security name: Sugar Plum. She’ll need to be written into the security plan. Stay tuned for an update.

Sugar Plum. Bryce groaned. Sugar Plum made her sound far too enticing. He scoffed at himself. A code name wouldn’t be the reason he wondered if her lips still tasted sweet. That had everything to do with how he wished he could’ve changed the past.