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Chapter One
Lake Tahoe, California
As the chair lift clinore the way her heart beat faster and faster with every foot the lift cleared If only she could find a way to stop thinking about how long a fall it would be if the chain holding up the chair lift snapped and she and her best friend plummeted to the snow below
"Earth to Colbie"
Mia Sullivan’s voice finally h to her brain, as did the fact that her friend’s legs swinging back and forth werethe whole chair rock
"Sorry, I’ll stop," Mia said, clearly reading her hts I should never have let you ride the lift"
"You know I had to do this" At the moment Colbie could barely re the chair lift, just that it had so her fears down one by one In any case, it didn’t really et off now, could she? "I’ okay up here," she lied
Her friend looked down at her white knuckles where she was gripping the arm rest for dear life with both hands "No, you’re not Tell me what I can do to help and I’ll do it"
Before Colbie could answer, the lift ca? Is it broken? Are they going to have to airlift us off of here?"
Mia couldn’t keep fro a little extra ti on or off"
But Colbie barely heard her friend’s answer, because she was having trouble breathing and all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears Even though she knew better than to look down, she couldn’t stop herself froet her attention "Stop freaking out"
The uncharacteristically stern tone of her friend’s voice h the scene-by-scene playback of her life flashing before her eyes
"Right" Colbie gasped in a lungful of air "Good idea"
Mia grinned "Pretty good dominatrix voice, don’t you think?"
Colbie’s eyebroent up "Is that what that was?"
Her friend nodded, looking trereat doreed with her first real s on the lift No one else could have done as good a job of distracting her Only her best friend
As the only girl in a family with four boys, Mia Sullivan had learned to speak up early in life to et lost in the shuffle of fists and stinky socks and football helrow up only a block away fro Craftston She’d spent half her childhood with the Sullivans, and ht even have had a teeny-tiny crush on each of Mia’s brothers growing up
Then again, who hadn’t?
Other people hts, but not the woman she’d been friends with for more than twenty years She still remembered the first time she’d seen Mia They’d been five years old and brand-new kindergarteners Everyone else in Mrs Till away fro to sit still on the braided rug in a circle and follow instructions and practice writing their names But worst of all had been recess, because what if she never round had been full of kids, not only the ones froer ones frorades, too She was just about to turn and bolt back into the relative safety of the classroom and Mrs Tillman, when Mia Sullivan stepped in front of her
Where Colbie’s mother had brushed her hair until it shone and had carefully laid out a new skirt and sweater for the first day of school, Mia’s long hair was tied into two tails and her misirl was rin seemed even wider for it
"Hi, I’m Mia I like your name Colbie is cool Want to be friends?"
A dozen siht fro but s across the playground, off on the first of ould be hundreds of adventures together over the years
"Oooh, look at that," Mia said as she pointed at a tall, broad-shouldered guy skiing down thecozy by the fire with hiirls’ weekend do you think he’d like better?" Colbie teased "Thesession? Orkit Janet brought"
For the past five years, on the first weekend in February, Colbie and her three closest friends met somewhere in the US This year, they’d rented a house in Lake Tahoe, California, for their girls-only weekend There was only one hard and fast rule: no men were allowed, not even hot hookups
"If he likes any of those things," Mia said with a grimace, "I’m out Besides, he probably wouldn’t want to sit around ads, either"