Page 53 of American Royals

“There’s the Beatrice I know.” He gave a wry smile, then let out a breath. “But I am scared. I’m scared of losing you, of somehow hurting you. Most of all I’m afraid of failing you.”

Beatrice shifted her weight so that she could look into his eyes. “I’m scared, too,” she admitted. “At least we can be scared together.”

The fire burned on before them, untended.

SAMANTHA

Samantha was at the chairlift’s loading station with Teddy and Jeff, humming a disjointed melody under her breath, when Jeff’s phone fell out of his pocket.

“Sorry!” he exclaimed, ducking off to one side to collect it. Before Sam could react, the chair had whirled around the central rotary toward them—leaving her no choice but to ride up with Teddy.

He turned toward her as if to say something, but Sam angled deliberately away from him. It wasn’t her job to entertain him just because his real date hadn’t yet arrived. She kept staring out at the mountain, onto which she couldn’t wait to be set loose.

Sam had woken that morning to a world of drifting white: white clouds shivering into snow, white wind whipping everything around them. She’d hurried into her snow gear and headed downstairs, where a few family members were already gathered.

Jeff jumped to his feet at her arrival. “We’ve gone interlodge! Both highways are closed, 145 and the pass from Red Mountain.”

“Which means that Beatrice is still stuck in Montrose.” The queen’s eyes drifted uncomfortably to Teddy, who was at the kitchen table, eating a homemade breakfast sandwich on a bagel. “If the roads aren’t open again by the afternoon, she’ll miss the party.”

Sam wasn’t particularly worried about whether Beatrice made it to the New Year’s Eve celebration. Her eyes met Jeff’s; they were both grinning with a complicit excitement.

Interlodge was every skier or snowboarder’s dream condition: when it had snowed so much that the roads closed, but the mountain remained open. Snowfall in itself wasn’t enough to shut down a ski resort, only severe winds, which made chairlifts unsafe to operate. Interlodge therefore meant unbelievable snow, plus having the mountain mostly to yourself—because the road closures kept anyone else from skiing, except the people already in town.

“In that case, we’d better get going.” Sam headed toward the mudroom to pull on her boots and jacket, then grabbed her snowboard, which was covered in stickers and decals. “Who’s coming?”

Sam’s eyes were on her dad, who normally lived for days like this, but he just shook his head. “I’ll let you kids have the mountain to yourselves this morning.”

He said it cheerfully, but Sam couldn’t help noticing how completely tired he looked. There were fine lines crinkling around his eyes, and a new slump to his shoulders.

She glanced over at Nina, who gave an apologetic smile and held up a thick fantasy novel. “I might stay home. Besides, I’ll only slow you down on a day like today.”

Then, to Sam’s horror, Teddy jumped in. “I’d love to come, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” she said, after a beat. She couldn’t think of any reasonable way to get rid of him.

They’d started on the Gold Hill chutes, making their way steadily across the mountain. Sam had to grudgingly admit that Teddy was a very good skier. She couldn’t shake him off her tail even if she tried—and she had been trying, all morning.

“We’re heading to the Revelation Bowl, right?” Teddy attempted now.

“Jeff and I are,” Sam said stiffly. “You can rip-cord out on some easier blacks before the hike. Otherwise you’ll have to walk along the ridge for the last five hundred meters carrying your board. Or in your case, skis,” she added pointedly. She’d always found skiers so … conventional.

“I can handle it.” Teddy gave a bold smile. “Unlike you, I learned to ski on terrain that’s actually difficult. The icy, unforgiving, set-an-edge-and-hope-you-don’t-die runs at Stowe.”

Sam winced in mock sympathy. “East Coast skiing? I’m sorry you had to suffer through that.”

“Sam!” Jeff hollered from the chair behind them. “Revelation, right?”

Sam twisted around; her brother was sprawled out on the chair, one leg kicked up onto the seat while the other dangled below, still fixed to his board.

“Absolutely. Race?” she called out in reply.

“Dare?”

“You’re on.”

Teddy glanced back and forth between them. “Have you and Jeff always used that kind of twin-speak?”

“You think that was twin-speak?” Sam scoffed. “That’s just lazy ski-lift talk. When we were kids Jeff and I communicated in complete gibberish. It drove our nanny nuts.”