His Little Christmas Miracle. Emily Forbes

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      ‘So what begins?’ Jess asked as she tied off her plaits and pulled a red knitted hat over her white-blonde hair. She picked up her sunglasses and ski gloves and followed her cousin out of their family’s five-star apartment.

      ‘Operation Find Jess a Boyfriend,’ Kristie replied.

      ‘What! Why?’

      ‘Because you’re almost eighteen and you have no idea what you’ve been missing. It’s time to find you a gorgeous boy. One you won’t be able to resist, someone who can kiss their way into that ivory tower of yours and sweep you off your feet. We’ve talked about this.’

      They had but Kristie was always talking about boys in one way or another and Jess mostly ignored her. Kristie was boy crazy—she fell in love every couple of weeks—but Jess was different. Most boys Jess met seemed immature and silly. She didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Seventeen- and eighteen-year-old boys were just that. Boys. And Jess wanted Prince Charming. And Prince Charming would arrive in his own time. She didn’t think Kristie was going to be able to conjure him up.

      ‘I think you’re forgetting something,’ Jess said as they dropped their skis onto the snow and clicked their boots into the bindings, ready to tackle their first day on the slopes of the Moose River Alpine Resort.

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘I’d never be allowed to find my own boyfriend. Everyone I’ve ever dated has been a friend of the family.’

      ‘You’re not going to find him, I’m going to find him for you,’ Kristie explained. ‘And let’s be honest, you’ll never get laid if you only date guys your dad picks out. For one they’d be too terrified of what he’d do to them if he found out and, two, I’m sure your dad deliberately picks guys who are potentially gay.’

      ‘That’s not true,’ Jess retorted even as she wondered whether maybe it was.

      But surely not? Some of those boys had kissed her and while the experiences certainly hadn’t been anything to rave about she’d always thought that was her fault. The boys had been cute enough, polite and polished in a typical trust-fund, private-school, country-club way, but not one of them had ever set her heart racing or made her feel breathless or excited or any of the things she’d expected to feel or wanted to feel, and she’d decided she was prepared to wait for the right one.

      ‘Maybe I don’t want a boyfriend,’ she added.

      ‘Maybe not, but you definitely need to get laid.’

      ‘Kristie!’ Jess was horrified.

      ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. That’s going to be my eighteenth birthday present to you. I’m going to find you a gorgeous boy and you’re going to get laid.’

      Kristie laughed but Jess suspected she wasn’t joking. Kristie didn’t see anything wrong with advertising the fact that she wanted to hook up with a boy but Jess could think of nothing more embarrassing. Despite the fact that they spent so much time together their personalities were poles apart. Less than three months separated them in age but Kristie was far savvier than Jess, not to mention more forthright and confident.

      ‘This is your chance,’ Kristie continued. ‘We have one week before your parents arrive. One week with just my parents, who are nowhere near as strict. That’s seven days to check out all the hot guys who’ll just be hanging around the resort. You’ll never get a better opportunity to hook up with someone.’

      ‘Maybe I don’t want to hook up with anyone. Promise me you won’t set me up,’ Jess begged. Kristie’s seven-day deadline coincided with Jess’s eighteenth birthday. Her parents were coming up to the resort to celebrate it with her and once they arrived Jess knew she wouldn’t have a chance to be alone with a boy. Surely not even Kristie could make this happen in such a short time even if Jess was a willing participant. And while she wasn’t averse to the idea of the experience, she wanted it her way. She wanted the romance. She wanted to fall in love. She wanted to be seduced and made love to. Getting laid did not have the same ring. Getting laid was not the experience she was after.

      But then she relaxed. She might get a chance to kiss a boy but even though Kristie’s parents were far more lenient than her own she still doubted that she would get an opportunity to lose her virginity.

      ‘We won’t be allowed out at night,’ she said when Kristie didn’t answer.

      Kristie laughed again. ‘Do you think you’re only allowed to have sex after midnight?’ she called back over her shoulder as she skied over to join the lift line for the village quad chair. ‘No one is keeping tabs on us during the day. We could sneak off whenever we wanted.’

      Sex during the day! Jess hadn’t considered that possibility. But it still wasn’t going to happen. As much as Kristie wanted her project to get off the ground, Jess couldn’t imagine getting naked in the middle of the day. In her fantasy she imagined soft lighting, perfumed candles, the right music and a comfortable bed. Preferably her own bed. With clean sheets and a man who adored her. A quick fumble in the middle of the day with some random guy from the resort, no matter how cute, just wasn’t the same thing.

      ‘Today is the beginning of the rest of your life. It’s time you had some fun,’ Kristie told her as she joined the line. ‘This place will be crawling with good-looking boys. We’ll be able to take our pick.’

      Getting a boy’s attention was never a problem. Jess knew she was pretty enough. She was petite, only one hundred and sixty centimetres tall, and cheerleader pretty with a heart-shaped face, a chin she thought was maybe a bit too pointy, platinum-blonde hair, green eyes and porcelain skin. Finding a boy who ticked all her boxes was the tricky part. And if one did measure up then getting a chance to be alone was another challenge entirely.

      Kristie’s joke about Jess’s ivory tower wasn’t completely inaccurate. Jess did have dreams of being swept off her feet, falling madly in love and being rescued from her privileged but restricted life. It seemed to be her best chance of escaping the rules and boundaries her parents imposed on her. She couldn’t imagine gaining her freedom any other way. She wasn’t rebellious enough to go against their wishes without very good reason.

      But she couldn’t imagine falling in love at the age of seventeen and she wasn’t about to leap into bed with the first cute guy who presented her with the opportunity. That didn’t fit with her romantic notions at all. But although Jess could protest vigorously, it didn’t mean Kristie would give up. And she proved it with her next comment.

      ‘What about him?’ she asked as they waited for the quad chair.

      Jess looked at the other skiers around them. It was just after nine in the morning. The girls had risen early, keen to enjoy their first morning on the slopes, but everyone else in the line was ten years younger or twenty years older than them. They were surrounded by families with young children. All the other teenagers were still in bed, and Jess couldn’t work out who Kristie was talking about.

      Her cousin nudged her in the side. ‘There.’ She used her ski pole to point to the front of the line and Jess realised she meant the towies.

      Two young men, who she guessed to be a year or two older than she was, worked the lift together. They both wore the uniform of the mountain resort, bright blue ski jackets with a band of fluorescent yellow around the upper arm and matching blue pants with another yellow band around the bottom of the legs. A row of white, СКАЧАТЬ