Page 24 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)

Mattia concluded later that morning that people who lived in cold climates couldn’t be very religious.

First, he had to fight his way from the car park where that hellish snowmobile had dropped him off, through biting wind and ice particles as sharp as his nonna’s tongue.

After slipping and sliding across the treacherous road – where cars were inexplicably still zooming along, leaving zigzags in the snow from the deep tread – he then had to trudge through a foot of the white stuff to reach the little chapel made of dark slats and wooden roof tiles, a little bell tower on one end.

Once he’d finally stumbled up the steps, throwing the door closed behind him and leaning on it against the wind, his relief lasted only a moment, until he noticed the chapel was also freezing.

If the priest intoned for too long, parishioners would get frostbite.

They’d better hope he’d managed to save their souls first.

Alessandra and Ginny were hard at work, tying bows and unrolling white gauze.

Carla had a pair of tiny scissors, performing keyhole surgery on the enormous floral bower that barely fit in front of the modest wooden altar, and the other member of their party at the chalet, Hugh’s girlfriend Tonya, sloshed wine into glasses and appeared to be speaking without the necessity of breathing.

‘…such a great idea. The hydrangeas give it a boho touch and I love the ivy and the pine cones. Oh look! Your friend is standing under the mistletoe!’

He scooted out from under the little bunch of leaves before anyone got ideas. He’d had enough of kissing today. Well, not enough of the action of kissing, but certainly enough of talking about it.

After flying so high, his thoughts mush and his heart pounding as Kira tugged him into the privacy of the storage room with her, he’d crashed and shattered just as quickly when he’d realised he’d misunderstood.

She could have stopped him before he’d made a complete fool of himself.

Instead, she’d kissed him back just enough to make him question everything, before calmly explaining that it shouldn’t have happened.

The worst part was, she was right; it shouldn’t have happened. His heart simply disagreed – strongly. He was used to listening to his heart.

‘Don’t talk to me about mistletoe,’ Ginny mumbled. ‘I have to go in a minute and collect our haul from Mayrhofen.’

‘You can never have enough mistletoe at a wedding,’ Tonya continued, taking a sip of wine – a large sip.

‘I only wonder that I thought three bunches would be enough,’ Ginny continued.

Mattia thought perhaps she was being sarcastic, but her tone was so even, he couldn’t tell.

‘But don’t worry,’ she said brightly, brushing a strand of hair out of her face with one gloved hand.

‘The church and the chalet will be dripping with it when I’m finished. ’ Definitely sarcastic.

‘Good,’ Alessandra said breezily, ‘since I want to get lots of photos of all the guests kissing under it.’

‘I’ll make sure the photographer knows,’ Ginny said as she eyed the enormous bow of gauze tied around the chair in front of the altar, making minute adjustments. ‘Her flight is delayed, but she’s due in this evening.’

‘Oh? I thought the photographer was that grunting mountain man who came to the ice cave with us?’ Tonya asked, with emphasis on ‘grunting mountain man’ as though it were a compliment.

Ginny laughed. ‘No, he was just here because Beatrice was booked up until yesterday. He’s a nature photographer from our sister agency, Great Heart Adventures, but he doesn’t do weddings. He only agreed to yesterday’s job because it involved an ice cave.’

‘A shame,’ Tonya said with a pout, pouring Mattia a glass of wine. ‘Is this sort of the hen party?’ she asked with a giggle. ‘While the boys are up there drinking – I mean skiing?’

A shiver made its way down Mattia’s spine. Through the window, he saw the fat flakes of snow still falling and wondered what it was like up on the mountain right now. Sidling towards the electric radiator in one corner, he turned the thermostat up as high as it went.

‘Tonya, maybe you could take over from me here?’ Ginny asked so brightly, another person might not have detected the tightness in her tone.

‘We need to hang the gauze just like this along all the pews. And now I’m really sorry, Alessandra, but I have to go get the mistletoe.

Will you be okay here for an hour or so? ’

‘Hmm?’ She looked up from the spray of flowers she was carefully binding onto the end of the pew. Her distraction sent Mattia’s alarm up another few notches.

He approached Ginny. ‘Go. I’ll make sure everything’s okay here.’

The relief in her expression was easy to read. ‘Great. Can you make sure she eats something?’

‘Of course.’ Trailing Ginny to the door, he tapped her on the shoulder before she could leave. ‘Do you think everything is okay, or should I talk to her?’

‘It’s pretty normal so far,’ Ginny replied. ‘Brides always forget to eat.’

‘And grooms go drinking on ski slopes?’

Ginny peered at him, her smile dimming. ‘Kira will have that in hand.’

He nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right. If anyone can have that group in hand, it’s Kira.’

‘I’m sure they’re all scared of her.’

His gaze snapped to hers. ‘Kira told you about yesterday?—?’

Ginny nodded, giving him a conspiratorial smile. ‘Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.’

His chest expanded, imagining Kira seeking advice from Ginny because her feelings were as mixed up as his. ‘Good, because she was worried and I don’t want to get her into any trouble.’

‘No,’ Ginny said with a chuckle. ‘I’m sure she couldn’t help it that she got an eyeful.’

He drew back in confusion, but Ginny was already sweeping the door open and stepping into the Snowmageddon outside.

* * *

Nothing cleared Kira’s head as thoroughly as biting, high mountain air.

At over three thousand metres of altitude, each breath was a reminder of the tenacity and value of life.

Digging her skis into the fresh powder on top of the glacier, her heart pounded with something that wasn’t joy, but it was a celebration of some kind – of the strength in her body, of the great landscape she had the privilege to be part of for this moment.

If someone had asked her teenage self if she’d ever ski down a mountain, she’d have scoffed.

She wasn’t a preppy city banker. She had no interest in expensive hotels and après-ski.

But then she’d met Willard as an angry nineteen-year-old with some poor decisions and one enormous disappointment behind her and he’d shown her the magic of working with the slope to conquer it – the elation of playing with gravity.

He’d taken her to Chamonix her first winter on the crew, taught her the basics of skiing and left her there for the season.

After five months, she’d pulled thousands of pints in the Irish pub, skied the Vallée Blanche and narrowly passed her first ski instructor’s certificate.

And she’d slowly rebuilt her shattered pride – the pride that still felt fragile every time she thought about seeing Christian tomorrow.

Roaring down a steep, snowy slope was almost as good as reaching the top of a challenging crag and she certainly needed to feel the icy wind in her face the day before the wedding – feel herself again.

And hopefully banish the disturbing suspicion that, down in the valley, Alessandra was manoeuvring Mattia and Carla beneath a bunch of mistletoe.

At least she had to try not to care, if that was the case.

She couldn’t focus only on the euphoria of being alive that day.

She had three clients who, although good skiers, were increasingly erratic as the morning wore on.

Joe vacillated between daring descents with whoops of excitement and almost desperate dips in his temper.

Rav and Hugh seemed to be ignoring his mood, but Kira couldn’t.

The clouds had moved in as well, shrouding the ski fields in fog.

Around lunchtime, as Kira sat in the chairlift with her charges, preparing to raise the bar and disembark, she was alarmed to see Joe pitch forward, mumbling something unintelligible. Something dropped into the snow far below them and a sizzle of panic shot up her spine.

The lift approached the station rapidly. ‘Hold him up!’ she snapped at Rav as she yanked Joe back in his seat so she could shove at the safety bar. ‘Help me get him out! What on earth is going on?’

The second question turned out to be unnecessary. As she hauled him out of the chair, thankful that he stayed on his feet for long enough to slide out of the way, it quickly became clear that the groom was stinking drunk.

‘How much has he had?’ she demanded of Hugh and Rav.

‘I dunno,’ Rav answered, wringing his hands. ‘But he mixed it with a few energy drinks too and I don’t know what he’s eaten today.’

Joe collapsed onto his bottom in the snow at her feet, swaying gently in the wind and singing snatches of Frank Sinatra.

‘How are we going to get him down?’ Hugh asked. He had the nerve to tug out his own hip flask and take a swig. Kira hoped he’d accidentally mixed his with arsenic.

‘Under no circumstances are we getting him down ourselves. You and Rav can go and I’ll see you in the car park, but Joe is about to meet the ski patrol.’ She pulled out her phone to dial the resort number, berating herself for not noticing what he’d been sipping all morning.

‘We’ll wait with you,’ Rav offered, but she only spared him a glance as she spoke to the office.

She wished she’d firmly ordered them to meet her in the car park fifteen minutes later when she loaded Joe onto the back of the snowmobile while Hugh filmed everything. The thought of Alessandra seeing that video made her stomach turn.

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said to the laid-back patroller as she climbed on behind Joe, holding him steady with one arm while she clutched their skis with her other.

‘Bachelor party?’ he asked.

‘How did you guess?’ she responded drily.

‘Didn’t have a real bachelor party!’ Joe piped up. His dark mood had returned.

Kira ignored him and turned to the groomsmen. ‘You two, go straight back down to the Sommerbergalm and get the gondola to the car park from there. Straight down! I don’t want to have to come back up here and dig either of you out of the snow.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rav said with a smile that did not cheer her.

She lost sight of them amongst the throng of skiers as the engine of the snowmobile sprang to life.

She hoped Joe might sober up with the wind in his face, but the snow pelted them, visibility so poor, she would have been uneasy continuing even if Joe had been sober.

The powerful headlights of the snowmobile created eerie figures out of the skiers, hurtling down the slope in star-shaped silhouettes.

In the queue for the gondola, Joe propped up next to her, but mercifully steady on his feet, she glanced at him and asked, ‘Why didn’t you have a bachelor party? It would have been safer – and more fun – than getting drunk on skis.’ And ruining my chance to clear my head.

‘You say that now, but drinking sounded good this morning,’ he slurred. ‘I didn’t think I wanted the usual sort of bachelor party,’ he continued. ‘Strippers would only make me think of Alessandra. Her body is a fucking dream. And none of my friends are married yet, so they’d all be mocking me.’

‘That’s… insightful,’ Kira replied, ‘apart from the bit in the middle.’ She ushered him through the turnstile and wrapped an arm around his waist to help him step into the moving gondola. Thankfully, there was space on the padded bench.

Joe leaned his head back on the glass, eyes closed, face drawn and ashen. He looked ten years older than he had two days ago.

‘But maybe I should have done it, had a huge bender – licked a stripper, got high.’

Kira studied him for a moment and then laughed, heartily enough that the couple across from them glanced up.

‘That would have saved me some trouble, but do you think that would have made you feel better? That’s a real question,’ she qualified.

‘I don’t have any answers for you and I’m the last person to guide you in any direction except safely down. ’

‘I appreciate that, Kira,’ he said softly and she wished she’d separated him from his friends sooner to discover the person underneath his false bravado.

‘I don’t know if I would have felt better, but at least I wouldn’t be wondering.

It’s like trying out a different life so you can see you have the right one. ’

Kira’s heart thumped in her chest as his words brought Christian to mind – again. But there was a difference this time. She hadn’t had the chance to try out a different life, but what if the one she had was the right one? What did that mean for what Christian had put her through?

She still couldn’t bear the thought of the same happening to Alessandra.

‘Joe, do you think you’re going to remember this tomorrow?’

‘God, I hope not,’ he said with a grimace, clutching his stomach.

‘Well, I’ll tell you again when you’ve sobered up. Whatever this was today, whatever is going on in your mind, if you don’t show up tomorrow and sign on the dotted line, I’m going to throw you off a cliff.’

A smile twitched on his lips. ‘I didn’t think adventure guides were supposed to do that.’

‘Adventure guides who are also wedding planners can, and I most definitely will do it. Don’t even think of abandoning Alessandra there, after everything she’s put into the arrangements. Divorce later if you have to, but do not leave her standing there.’

He cracked an eye open and she bit her lip, afraid she’d said too much, too strongly. ‘“Go through with it now, divorce later” is your pep talk? You’re not a very good wedding planner, you know.’

Joe was joking, she suspected, but his words still hit right on target. ‘No, I’m not,’ she agreed tightly.