And yet she would have had memories, as short as their time together had been, to treasure forever: resting her cheek between his shoulder blades as they sped over fields of glistening white on his snowmobile, watching movies on his couch and winding up on the floor, making love. That spectacular kiss on New Year’s Eve. Even the dreams she’d never have dreamed without Eli.

Now she had a choice to make.

She could garner more treasures, more memories, to store safely in the warmest part of her heart, or she could chicken out on it all, squawking and flapping her wings and declaring to everyone who would listen that the sky was falling.

Well, she knew what her answer would be, what it had to be.

She would stop fretting and throw herself into the game.

Winner take all.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

AFTER THREE FULL weeks in the hospital, Eli was more than ready to leave.

When Sara pulled into his driveway, Brynne was waiting in the backyard, barely restraining Festus, who clearly wanted to break free, leap the fence and tackle Eli the second he got out of his sister’s car.

“Let him go,” he told Brynne, with a smile, because damn he’d missed that dog.

Brynne looked doubtful—and beautiful, standing there in jeans and a sweater that must have been left over from Christmas, given the appliqued reindeer on the front. A powdery snow had fallen the night before, turning the surrounding landscape pristinely white, and the combination made Eli think of one of those glass balls with small, festive figures inside.

He caught his breath, suspended in the moment.

Then, reluctantly, Brynne released the dog.

Festus sailed over the back fence and leaped into Eli’s arms, knocking him backward, laughing, into the soft snow edging the driveway.

They wrestled joyously, man and dog, while Sara fretted and Brynne hovered, nervous but smiling.

For Eli, that canine greeting was the perfect counterbalance to the last time he’d fallen onto snowy ground, and it took the sting out of the memory.

“For heaven’s sake, Eli,” Sara fussed, “get up! Do you want to be back in the hospital?”

Brynne said nothing, but she did lean over and offer Eli a hand.

He took it and rose awkwardly to his feet.

Festus pranced around them, tail wagging, grinning in that way dogs do.

Canine contingent, present and accounted for.

“Eli Garrett, you’ll be the death of me,” Sara complained but, like Brynne, she was smiling. Instead of heading for the house, she opened her car door to get back in. Most likely, she’d left poor, fictional Elliott Starr dangling from the lip of a cliff by his fingertips or fending off an army of bad guys, and needed to get back to her computer.