Olive slept through the announcements and nuzzled into my shoulder more; her tiny arms wrapped around mine, and she squeezed my bicep with one hand. I bit back a big grin. I didn’t have huge muscles, but I got plenty of exercise from working out in my spare time, and I certainly did not hear many complaints from women.

When I first boarded this plane, I had no intentions of offering to be Olive's pretend date while she was in town; quite frankly, I had no plans on seeing her after we landed. But hearing her go on and on about how overrated Christmas was, I felt compelled to change her mind.

Of course, someone living in Florida would hate Christmas. Maybe she just forgot what holidays were like in Colorado. With the lights shining everywhere and snow falling, Aspen was North Pole status. With no plans for the next couple of weeks, the opportunity to charm a stubborn and beautiful girl sounded like a good time. She would be gone by the new year, and I would return to my regular schedule, which seemed like a good idea to me. But, there was the fact that she seemed almost…disgusted at the thought of spending time with me. That was new, and I was not a fan. This left me no choice but to pull out the big guns—if she was going to be stubborn, so was I.

The airplane was about to land, and the petite flight attendant walked by and tapped me on the shoulder. “You'll need to put your seatbelts on, sir.” I flashed my bright grin and nodded my head.

Straightening my back, I slightly moved my shoulder to wake Olive up. She raised her head slowly; her once perfectly brushed golden hair was now more of a bird's nest, and she had a combo of smeared mascara and a tiny amount of drool on her cheeks. She looked adorable, like a puppy who just woke up from a food coma.

Olive realized her hands were still on my arm and pulled them away. She yawned and groaned what sounded like “sorry,” but it came out more like “sooahhheee” in her deep exhaling tone. I smirked over at her, and she looked out the window. It was still dark outside, but with the few lights sprinkled around, you could see the blanket of snow that sat on top of Colorado.

“Are we almost there?” She rubbed her eyes and looked innocent as can be. I wanted to remember how sweet she was when she woke up compared to the cranky girl I first boarded with.

“Yeah, they're telling us to put our seatbelts on.”

She stretched out her arms with a low rumble in her throat but placed the seatbelt over her lap.

As she woke more, her body tensed. It was comical, like seeing a cat back away into their corner of the room.