Booked for Christmas

with said snowshoes to demonstrate, wiping the cobwebs off the mesh part.
Wolfe shot her a disbelieving, albeit very on-brand, cynical look. “Are you serious?”
“It’s only two miles,” Sophie said, feeling defensive again. Ugh. Why did she let him get to her like that?
“Right. Only two miles.” He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms, looking like a model in a Pottery Barn catalog. “Have you ever snowshoed that far before? With a bag of books hanging off your shoulder?”
Sophie rolled her eyes at him while she got her snowshoes on. “Uhh, yeah. Of course I have.” She could feel Wolfe’s gaze burning holes into the side of her head. Relenting, she sighed. “Fine, I haven’t. But these are extenuating circumstances. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Standing, she tested her snowshoeing capabilities out gingerly. To be honest, it had been quite a while since she’d snowshoed. Hence the cobwebs. But two miles was nothing. She could run two miles in twenty minutes. She was in good shape. Snowshoeing couldn’t be that much harder.
“I’m sure you will,” Wolfe said, though Sophie didn’t care for his tone. “Is there a reason you can’t wait until the plow’s come through?”
Sophie glared at him in the bright light reflecting off the snow. “What are you, my mom?”
His expression a mask of annoyance, Wolfe held his hands up, turned, and shut the door firmly behind him. Good. She didn’t need the distraction.
Blowing out a plume of cold, white breath, Sophie began to snowshoe her way downhill.

8
Damn. This was a lot harder than she was expecting it to be.
Down the hill and abreast of the forest of pines, the snow was thicker and heavier than Sophie had planned for. She was on the road, she was fairly sure, but it was hard to tell because everything was a sea of blinding white and there was no one else around. Sophie’s calves were burning within fifteen minutes, and she hadn’t gotten very far—maybe a half a mile, tops. The tote bag was not the most convenient setup—why hadn’t she thought to bring a backpack?—and the strap kept sliding off the slippery material of her coat and down her arm, so she was constantly having to readjust it.
She was on the seventh readjustment, her foot in mid-air, preparing to go back down, when something changed. Maybe it was the fact that she was multitasking, something she’d never been good at. Or maybe it was the snowdrift she’d blundered into because she was so focused on the bag of books and not dropping them in the wet snow. Whatever the reason, Sophie found herself tumbling to the ground with a little shriek. In an effort to keep her balance, she twisted her foot to the left and came down on it in just the right way to feel a searing pain jolt through her ankle. “Shit!”
She fell to the ground with an undignified plop, but at least the cloth tote bag landed in her lap instead of in a mound of snow. For a moment, Sophie sat there, staring off into the distance, seeing and feeling nothing except the intense throbbing in her ankle. She tried to move it and felt another small scream leave her throat. Big beads of sweat formed along her hairline, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears at bay.
But then her eyes flew open as a realization hit her: There was no way she was making it another mile and a half—at least—into town with this pain. She couldn’t even backtrack the half a mile to her own cabin. Sophie looked around, her heart thudding with fear. She was alone; well and truly alone. She couldn’t make out a single car or person or sign of human life for as far as the eye could see. Scrabbling in her coat pocket, wincing at the pain as she unwittingly moved her ankle, Sophie pulled out her cell phone. As patchy as the signal could be even in her cabin, it wasn’t surprising that there wasn’t one at all here, not even an emergency one. The forest must be blocking it.
Sophie swallowed, her dry throat clicking in the snow-created woolen silence. The snowplow! she thought desperately. But then she remembered what she’d told Wolfe earlier—the snowplow might not make it out here for a couple of days.
A small sob left Sophie’s throat as she struggled to get up, yelled out in pain, and fell down again. She tried once, twice, three times. Nope. Her ankle wasn’t having any of it. Sitting in the snow, tipping her head back, she screwed her eyes shut, her pulse pounding. What was she going to do? She couldn’t just sit here for hours; she’d freeze to death. What if a mountain lion happened upon her? Her eyes were wide open now as she scanned the forest, her breath coming fast in bright white plumes. She felt exposed, vulnerable in a way she never had. None of her friends knew she was here. Why hadn’t she called Gina to let her know she was coming?
“Sophie!”
She jumped, craning her neck to see who had called out. She heard hurried footsteps, heavy and loud, crunching through the snow toward her. And then she saw him—Wolfe. He moved toward her at an impressive speed considering the amount of snow on the ground, dressed in his heavy coat and plaid scarf.
“What—what are you doing here?” Sophie asked, swiping at her cheeks with gloved hands.
He came to a stop before her, panting slightly, blocking out the too-bright sky. His eyes were narrowed, a deep frown on his face. As if he was disapproving even now, as she lay here in a graceless heap, hurt and alone. “I saw you fall.” He said it gruffly, as if he couldn’t believe what an idiot she was. “I was keeping an eye out the window, just in case…” He trailed off but motioned behind him with one hand.
Of course. The cabin was on a