Page 13 of A Bear Ski Instructor Christmas

“So, you want me to tell her to her face…?”

“I’m not telling you what to do, Michael. You know best. All I’m saying is, Elena’s not going to like to see you chasing after some other woman.”

Michael frowned at his friend. “I’m not chasing after her.”

Are you sure about that?asked a tiny voice in the back of his mind.

“Right now, I’m just going to focus on these skis,” he said. “Christmas is on the way. We’ve already got plans. Some woman appearing on Frost Mountain and claiming to know me shouldn’t cause so much of a problem, right?”

“Right.” Andrew’s smirk widened. “Any plans for later?”

Michael shrugged. “I might go skiing again.”

It was just what he needed to clear his head.

Chapter Five

“My Mum Kicked Saddam Hussein’s Butt”

Snow, snow, so much snow…

Rachel thought Melinor looked like something out of a Hallmark movie. Then again, Rachel hadn’t seen many Hallmark movies. She’d always found them too cheesy for her liking. But as she and Reba walked through the village, she found herself falling more and more in love with the place. It wasn’t anything like a regular, modern village, but it was certainly a breath of fresh air compared to her two-day struggle alone on the mountain.

She couldn’t help noticing more little details about Reba, like the tiny wrinkles around the edges of her brilliant eyes and the corners of her mouth or the older woman’s stature, which, though agile, had some rigidity to it. The way she walked made Rachel wonder if the woman hadn’t been in the military in the past.

“Good job over there!” Reba called to a bunch of kids thirty feet to their left who were building a large snowman. “He looks lovely!”

The children looked up from their work and saluted in response, little grins on their faces.

Yep. Definitely military.

“Bless their precious hearts,” Reba muttered as they continued walking. “Sometimes I forget I used to be one of them, you know?” The woman shifted her gaze to Rachel and grinned. “I’m sure you have plenty of questions.”

Yes. Where am I? How did I get here? Why’s there a village on a mountain like this? And when do I get to see Michael?

Be patient,she told herself.

What would Diane say?

Remember to breathe.

Rachel almost scoffed. When she thought about it, it sounded pretty dumb to be paying hundreds of dollars to a shrink just to teach you how to respire, not that the5-7-3 technique in which youinhale for a count of five, exhale for a count of seven, and pause after the exhale for a count of three,hadn’t been helpful to her in the past.

She decided to take her time. “Where is this place? This mountain, I mean. I’ve never heard of it.”

The mirth slowly drained out of Reba’s smile. “That’s no surprise. Frost Mountain isn’t a part of your world—well, the world you come from. You arrived here by accident.”

“Yeah, actually. Our plane crashed.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you survived.”

“Barely.” Rachel frowned. “Wait, what do you mean this place isn’t part of my world? I don’t—”

“Frost Mountain isn’t just a mountain. It’s a dimension separate from the world you know. I’m sure you already noticed something wasn’t right about this place, right? Like the fact that you got here all of a sudden. How does a mountain appear out of nowhere?”

“A dimension.” Reba had to be bullshitting her. That was the sort of stuff you heard about on TV. And yet… “You mean…I’m not on Earth anymore?”

The look on the woman’s face gave her all the answers she needed.

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