Page 114 of Merry Me
Her breath hitched faintly, but she didn’t look away.
“I mean it, Nat,” I said, sliding my hand over hers, holding it tight. “You’re mine. You always were. But now? Now you know it, too. And I’m not letting you forget it.”
She didn’t speak for a second. Just looked down at our joined hands like she was memorizing the shape of us.
Finally, she snorted. “You sound like a caveman who got hit in the head with a Hallmark movie.”
“Only for you,” I said, dead serious.
And it wasn’t a line. It was a vow.
As the soft lights of the rehearsal dinner got closer, I glanced at Natalie again, suddenly unable to look away. Her face was flushed with cold, eyes sparkling in the moonlight. Snowflakes clung to her hair, and when she smiled softly, I felt something inside me shift completely.
I couldn’t help but stare—she was beautiful. Breathtakingly, infuriatingly beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that made you forget where you were. Who you were.
“Easton?” she asked, her voice soft and amused, an eyebrow lifting in that signature Natalie way that always told me she knew exactly what I was thinking. “Eyes on the road, Hollywood.”
“Technically, there’s no road,” I replied, dazed and very much not paying attention. I was too busy memorizing every line of her face. Like I could look at her a thousand times and still find something new to want.
“Easton,” she said again, more urgently now. “I think?—”
That was the exact moment the right runner of the sleigh caught the edge of a hidden snowdrift. Everything that happened next seemed to unfold in slow-motion chaos.
The sleigh tipped sideways, the horse let out a startled snort, and Natalie gave a surprised squeal as we both toppled over theedge. Snow exploded upward around us in a cold, glittering cloud. One second I was warm and romantic and deeply philosophical…the next, I was lying flat on my back, buried in a drift, staring up at the winter sky.
“Natalie?” I asked frantically, pushing myself upright, heart hammering in panic. “Fuck. Nat! Are you okay?”
I heard her laugh before I saw her.
Sharp, surprised, and absolutely not the sound of someone mortally wounded.
Still, my heart slammed against my ribs as I scrambled through the snow, slipping once like an idiot before I spotted her—flat on her back in a snowbank, laughing so hard her whole body shook.
“Nat?” I blurted, half panicked, half confused.
She sat up slowly, hair tousled and face dusted in white like some unhinged snow nymph, and the second she caught sight of my face—apparently frozen somewhere betweenI think I killed youandShould I call an ambulance—she absolutely lost it.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she doubled over laughing, wheezing like she’d just witnessed the single funniest thing in recorded history.
I gaped at her, half relieved, half mortified. “Are you laughing right now? I thought I killed you!”
“You should—see your face!” she wheezed between giggles, brushing snowflakes from her eyes. “You look like you’d single-handedly destroyed Christmas.”
“Not funny,” I grumbled, even as my lips twitched.
“Extremely funny,” she gasped, still breathless. “You crashed a sleigh because I was too pretty. That’s, like, top-tier flattery. I’m putting it on my résumé.”
I shook my head, slowly starting to grin myself as I helped her sit up. “You realize you look like a yeti, right?”
She gasped dramatically, then pointed at my own snow-covered hair. “And you look like Frosty’s long-lost cousin.”
“Touché.” I chuckled softly, finally relaxing enough to laugh fully. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she assured me, her eyes warm and dancing. “But your driving privileges are permanently revoked.”
“I can’t even argue with you on that,” I said sheepishly, brushing snow off my coat. “Okay, full disclosure—there may have been a professional driver just off-camera during that sleigh commercial. I mostly just held the reins and looked emotionally available.”
