Page 26 of Lighting Up Christmas

He immediately started walking. Long strides.

You always gotta push.

Riley took one last, longing look around—the valley spread out below, her life, her history, so many familiar landmarks. She felt like she was a part of it all, and the man striding so quickly away was a part of none of it. He didn’t even seem to fully inhabit his property.

“Yeah, like that’s your problem to solve,” she muttered.

Zhang was a puzzle. A fascinating, alienated, tall, inadvertently sexy problem she wanted to solve.

Like a guy who can buy more than five hundred acres and dabble in a vineyard as a hobby needs any advice from you.

And yet money didn’t fix everything.

Sometimes it made it worse.

Sighing, Riley took out her phone—something she should have done before—and snapped a few pictures. She might never get the chance to come up here again. The snow began to fall more heavily.

Riley ran down toward Zhang, a whisper of an idea forming in her brain. As she got closer, she scooped up a handful of snow, quickly packed it, and nailed him in the chest with it. “Got you,” she laughed.

He looked down at his chest and then back up at her as she still raced toward him.

“Why did you do that?”

“It’s fun.” She scooped up another bit of snow and danced away from him like she was a boxer. “Make a snowball.”

“Why do you wish to engage in a game?” he asked drily.

“That right there’s your answer.”

“An answer that is no answer.”

“Fun. You own a beautiful property. You’re healthy. You make what my friends and so many others consider to be the nectar of the gods, and it’s snowing. You need to indulge in some fun.”

“In your opinion.”

“In my esteemed opinion.” She loosed the snowball, and again it splattered against his Patagonia jacket. “See? Fun. Try to catch me.”

“No, thank you.”

Riley huffed and stalked over to him. “You are a hard sell.” She handed him a premade snowball. “It’s hard to believe that you started out designing and selling video games.”

“Ahhhh, you googled me.”

“No,” although she had. “Sophia has nephews. They think you’re a god.” Riley paced away from him and scooped up more snow, careful to check that there were no rocks since it was the beginning of the season. Not a significant snowpack yet, which made her hopeful she and Jake and Davis could dig the trench to bury some of the electrical work. Jake had texted that he’d head out to pick up the equipment; they’d dig this afternoon before more snow arrived. Looked like they were going to race the harbinger of the coming storm.

Riley stood and took a picture just as a snowball nailed her square in her face. She blinked.

“What makes you think I’m not a god?”

Riley spit out a mouthful of snow and laughed.

“You got me good.”

He nodded in acknowledgment and then turned away to stride back to the barn. Riley dropped the snowball and hurried to catch up.

“Seriously, what do you do for fun?” she asked. “Is it computer gaming?”

“I still have a game division,” he said. “But now I have other projects. I have a business partner, Jackson Cooper—he handles sales and marketing and launches with his team. I handle development with mine.”

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