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CHAPTER 1

DANICA

Danica Wendell thought that a seven-hour car ride was going to be the worst part of her day, but she was very, very wrong. No, that moment would come later in the afternoon, immediately upon seeing her ex-girlfriend, who she was about to spend an entire week with.

The drive from Denver to Telluride hadn’t been terrible, though her motion sickness had gotten the best of her the entire trip. But any time she could steal her best friend away was worth it, regardless of the fact that she almost threw up whenever they went around a hairpin turn. She’d spent most of the windy mountain drive staring straight ahead, silently chewing ginger candies and white-knuckling the acupressure point on her wrist that helped with motion sickness. Of course, Kiera had offered for her to drive, but Danica knew Kiera would be uneasy being the passenger on the mountain roads, so Danica had tossed her keys to Kiera and popped a Dramamine. Danica would rather be dying from motion sickness than make anyone else even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

A text from Maggie popped up on the SUV’s media screen, drawing both women’s attention. Kiera hit a button to make it read aloud.

“ Text from Maggie: We just got here! The door code isn’t working! ” a robotic woman’s voice announced.

Kiera cursed, reaching toward the backseat and fumbling to find her phone in her purse.

“I’ll get it! You just keep us from falling off the mountain,” Danica said, aware that her voice had a pleading note to it. She turned, her stomach lurching with motion sickness as she reached into her own purse, pulling out her own phone. Eddie — her ex-fiancé as of one month ago — beamed up at her from the lock screen, clad in a tuxedo at some expensive gala for kid’s teeth. They were officially over, but she wasn’t ready to break that news to her friends just yet. One little lie by omission couldn’t hurt for a week. She swiped to unlock her screen, barely registering Eddie’s blindingly white smile.

“I knew I should have bought those stupid motion sickness glasses I saw on Instagram,” Kiera said.

“The big ones with the liquid? I got that same targeted ad,” Danica said. “What’s the door code?”

“8008135.”

Danica blinked, raising an eyebrow. “Are you a pubescent boy?”

“Aunt Jade let me pick whatever I wanted, and it’s memorable enough.” Kiera grinned, a dimple popping in her cheek.

“Memorable is right,” Danica mumbled as she typed the code into the group chat, rolling her eyes.

It had been nearly two years since Danica had seen Kiera. They’d met as college roommates but had become best friends easily. Both Kiera and Danica’s parents lived in Denver, and Kiera visited whenever her family was in town for the holidays or vacations. She was the kind of best friend that could be sending videos on TikTok while simultaneously carrying on a serious conversation about childhood trauma over text. The kind of best friend that didn’t complain when it had been three months since their last phone call. Exactly the kind of best friend that Danica needed these days.

When Kiera had suggested a retreat to Telluride to stay at her aunt’s condo, Danica immediately said yes. Work at the hospital had been grueling lately — they were short-staffed in the NICU where she was a neonatologist, and being the lowest on the seniority ladder meant she spent more time at work than at home in the past few months. Even getting time off for this trip was difficult, and she’d had to cash in a ton of favors to get it covered. As soon as this vacation was over, she wouldn’t see daylight from anywhere but the NICU floor windows for weeks.

She hadn’t quite wanted to admit to the others that things had ended with Eddie. Wedding planning was stressful for even solid couples, but they had been arguing endlessly. They’d called it quits, but she hated the idea of telling her friends that the relationship had ended and having them give her pitying looks. And worse, to admit to a failed relationship in front of Pete… No, it’d be better to tell them all later and let them think she was fine.

That was why this vacation was important. She needed to reconnect with her friends from college — which was depressingly one of the last times she’d truly felt whole — and get away from the job and ex-fiancé that were causing more than a couple of gray hairs to appear.

She’d been wholeheartedly looking forward to the ski trip, but that was before she saw the guest list. Maggie and even Izzy were welcome additions, and she hadn’t seen them since Maggie’s wedding five years before, but then she noticed Pete was added to the group chat.

Petra fucking Pancott.

Kiera’s phone began ringing, and the mental image of Kiera reaching into the back and swerving over the guardrail and the car flying off the mountain flashed in Danica’s mind.

“Let me get it.” Danica’s stomach churned at the thought of turning around again, much less staring at movement on a small screen, but fumbling blindly wasn’t getting her anywhere. She grabbed Kiera’s purse and dug through the carefully organized chaos within, pulling her friend’s phone out of a small child’s diaper. Unused, thankfully. The fact that Kiera had two daughters still weirded her out sometimes — she’d seen Kiera shotgun Miller High Life and scream-sing karaoke and lose her flip flops in a gutter, and now she was a mom. Weird. She swiped the call open, expecting to see Maggie’s flawless, dewy face smiling back at her.

But there she was. Pete, her dark brown curls perfectly mussed. The kind of perfectly mussed hair you somehow only get after rolling out of bed and leaving someone else behind, satisfied. Danica fought to banish the memory of Pete in bed that suddenly appeared in her mind. Pete laughed, always so unbothered. “It’s a no-go on the boobies,” Pete said brightly.

Danica nearly dropped the phone. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, hey Wendell. We called Kiera, right? Anyway, the door code. It’s not working.” Pete smiled in her classic unintentionally charming way.

Kiera furrowed her brow when Danica glanced her way. “That’s what I had her set it as. Our ETA is ten minutes, can you wait outside?” she said toward the phone, chewing on her lower lip.

They turned off the highway onto a smaller, snow packed road that twisted up toward Mountain Village, a neighborhood of mansions and expensive condos flanked by towering, snowcapped mountains and bare aspen groves.

“Yeah, of course,” Pete said, talking over Maggie and Izzy in the background. The three had flown into the small Telluride airport, since they weren’t local to Denver. Kiera technically wasn’t either, but she’d offered to fly into Denver and drive with Danica. The planes that flew into Telluride were tiny death traps, and Danica had very quickly refused that option. Though now, as she held the phone in one hand and stuffed another ginger chew in her mouth, she was regretting the driving part, too.

“We’ll be there shortly,” Danica said around a mouthful of ginger, the candy nearly burning her tongue with its intensity.

Pete cocked her head to the side, giving her a nod. “Can’t wait,” Pete said before ending the call — and was it Danica’s imagination or did her voice drop an octave, softening into barely more than a low whisper?

A wave of nausea accompanied by a hot flash washed over Danica.

“Air conditioning,” Danica said, dropping Kiera’s phone into the cup holder before cranking the temperature dial on her side. She leaned forward to one of the vents, letting the cool air blast her heated cheeks. The car sickness sweats were the worst. That’s why she was flushed. Car sickness. It had nothing to do with the fact that seeing Pete had thrown her out of sorts.

“Jeez, you okay?” Kiera said, adjusting the vents on her side of the car toward Danica.

Danica nodded. “I’m taking even more Dramamine on the way back. Or maybe I’ll just never go back. Maybe I live in Telluride now.”

“Seriously. I can pull over if you’re going to throw up.”

“I’ll be fine,” Danica said, leaning on the cool window as the air conditioning made her hair tickle her cheek. “Just hot.”

“Are you pregnant?”

Danica groaned. “No, of course not.”

“Aren’t you a little young to be going through the change ?” Kiera teased.

“You shut your mouth,” Danica said with mock-affront. They were both 37, which meant perimenopause wasn’t totally out of the question, but wow, she was not looking forward to that chapter.

Pete fucking Pancott. The last time she’d seen Pete was on the night of their college graduation, when they’d had a screaming match on the quad, drunk and crying and upset. It hadn’t been Danica’s best moment, and it played over in her mind on nights that she couldn’t sleep. Pete hadn’t shown up to Kiera or Maggie’s weddings, but no one seemed to be holding her absence against her. Apparently, Izzy had flown to Croatia last year to see her, but Danica hadn’t asked for details.

She’d known Pete would be on this trip. She’d prepared for it. She’d even assured her therapist that she’d be perfectly fine seeing Pete again. She took a deep breath, tamping down her discomfort. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, suddenly unable to get comfortable.

It had been fifteen years since she and Pete had ended their casual… whatever it was, on the night of graduation. Sometimes it had just been a hookup or a long make out, while avoiding any talk of feelings or the future. Danica had moved on. She’d had a serious relationship, even been engaged. She had a meaningful career, dinner at her parent’s house every month or two, and a relatively stable life, broken engagement notwithstanding. She was happy.

Pete had clearly moved on, too. She hadn’t reached out even once. She’d always been aimless, uncertain about the future, unable to commit, and had dreams of traveling the world instead of finding a career or settling down. Maybe she’d finally grown up. People were usually idiots at 22, and then reality helped them become real, contributing members of society. Had the same happened to Pete?

The week would be fine, Danica assured herself again. She was only feeling uncomfortable because she didn’t know what to expect when it came to Pete, and she liked knowing the plan. That was all. They’d ski during the day, drink good wine and eat good food in the evenings, and generally relax. And she needed that, a relaxing vacation away from the hospital and her life.

Kiera pulled into a parking area and the car slid ever-so-slightly on the snow-packed ground. Danica’s stomach lurched right along with it, sending a new wave of nausea through her.

“This is it,” Kiera said, coming to a full stop as she pointed to a monstrosity of a building, the gabled metal roof glowing in the late afternoon sun. Massive windows and spacious balconies, many with hot tubs, punctuated the wood and stone facade.

“How many condos are in this place?” Danica asked.

“Oh, this is all Aunt Jade’s,” Kiera said casually, waving her hand toward the entire building. Danica’s eyes widened in shock and Kiera laughed. “No, I’m joking. I think there’s four. The condo at the end is hers.”

Danica shook her head, opening the door to take a few breaths of cold air. January was a frigid time to be in the mountains, and the cold stung Danica’s cheeks as she sent a quick reply text to her colleague, replying to a question about a patient she’d been closely working with before the trip. Text sent, she shuffled to grab her suitcase out of the back of the SUV.

“Careful, it’s icy as hell,” Kiera said, holding onto the side of the car as her sneakers slipped. She regained her footing and laughed. “We should have changed into our snow boots just for the ten-foot walk.”

Danica stepped carefully, her own white dad-mowing-the-lawn sneakers staying firmly put as she shifted her weight. “Maybe you shouldn’t have worn soccer shoes,” she pointed to Kiera’s low-profile Adidas.

“It’s called fashion, Dani. Look it up,” Kiera said, dramatically pushing her sunglasses up her nose.

Danica grinned, happy to be out of the car and breathing the fresh mountain air. She expected pine, but all she smelled was... the muskiness of dirty ice and the smoke from wood-burning fireplaces. A slight breeze slipped under the collar of her coat and she shivered, hurrying after Kiera.

“You made it!” Maggie announced. Danica saw that Maggie, Izzy, and Pete were all standing just outside of a tall wooden door that must have sacrificed at least three trees in its origin. Well, Maggie and Izzy were standing outside of the door. Pete was standing on the edge of a planter of tiny evergreens, her arms high in greeting as if she were about to leap into the sky. Ah, still as weird as ever.

“We made it!” Kiera called back, taking quick, small steps up to the condo door to give the three women hugs.

“Damn, Wendell, you okay? You look white as a ghost,” Pete said, and Danica paused in horror.

The first post-breakup run-in with an ex is something every woman has envisioned. Preferably while wearing a Princess Di Revenge Dress. Lacking a suitable reason to wear such an outfit during a road trip, Danica opted for something casual yet stylish, her brown hair styled perfectly, and her lips subtly glossed.

In all of her daydreams of running into Pete again, she’d never imagined the first words she’d hear would be that she resembled the spirit of a dead person.

Danica paused suddenly in her surprise about the ghost comment, and her feet slipped on ice as she stopped. The suitcase fell, abandoning her at a very crucial moment, and she wildly flailed her arms in a vaudeville-style dance, the kind usually accompanied by tap shoes and frantic arm and leg movements.

Suddenly, Pete was beside her, grabbing around her waist.

That somehow made the entire situation worse. Pete was so close. She was warm, and smelled like coconut and sweet apricot, and her face was so close.

“You good?” Pete asked, her warm breath warming Danica’s cheeks.

No, Danica Wendell was not good. Because somewhere between the car sickness, the intense flailing, and the arm tight around her waist, the nausea floodgates had swung wide open. Her quick reflexes were her only saving grace as she turned to throw up into the planter. Behind her, Kiera made noises of concern and patted her back, Maggie and Izzy groaned in disgust, and Pete laughed her ass off.

“Does anyone have a shovel? I’d like to be hit over the head with it,” Danica said, wiping at her mouth with a tissue Kiera passed to her. She sniffled, mentally noting where in her suitcase she could find her toiletries bag and her toothbrush.

“What about wine-induced amnesia?” Kiera offered, typing into the keypad on the door. It beeped and opened, and Maggie made a weak argument about not knowing she had to press both the asterisk and the pound sign after putting in the code.

“That sounds terrible, honestly,” Danica said, taking her roller bag from Pete, who had picked it up off the ground for her. She thanked Pete while covering her mouth and scrambled inside to find a bathroom, or any room that had a door with a lock where she could sequester herself for the next thousand years and avoid both her immediate embarrassment and any further run-ins with Pete.

This was going to be a long week, and she’d only just arrived.