That was better.
That was safer.
He would hate it if she knew.
“I’m going to help you up now, so I’m going to touch you again.” His tone was sharp and edged with disdain, and he knew it would make her angry. “But I’m not making a move on you, so don’t jerk away from me again unless you want to land on your ass again.”
He reached out both his arms to help her up, and she accepted the support, although she was so angry she was practically gnashing her teeth at him. As soon as she was back on her feet, she pulled her hands away from him.
“You’re an asshole,” she snapped, straightening up and turning to face the cabin again.
“I know that. But this asshole is all you have at the moment, so you’re stuck with me.”
“I might be stuck with you, but I don’t have to like it.’
“I never expected you would.”
There was something unexpectedly poignant about the last words as they left his lips. Something he hadn’t expected to hear in his voice.
He was briefly afraid it might reveal something he’d never want Olivia to know, but she was already marching toward the house again, and the words were lost in the snow and wind, blowing away in the frigid air with a flurry of flakes until it was like he’d never spoken them at all.
Three
OLIVIA’S HANDS AND face were numb, and her leggings were soaked when they finally reached the door to the Mistletoe Cottage.
The small cabin was their honeymoon accommodation—a bitter irony right now given that it was Scott Matheson standing beside her, waiting for her to enter the code in the keypad to open the front door.
Scott was the last man in the world she wanted to be sharing a romantic cottage with, but at the moment it was their best option since otherwise they’d be stuck in the car or the snow.
Either one would be worse.
It took her a minute to punch in the master code that opened all the cottages since her hands were trembling and her eyelashes were caked in snow. She got the door open at last and stepped inside, leaving room for Scott behind her.
He shut the door with a loud sound, closing out the snowstorm and leaving them alone in a cottage that was made up of a large living area with a small, upscale kitchen against one wall, a dining area for two, and an oversized couch in front of a stone fireplace. She couldn’t see it from where she stood, but she knew the one bedroom boasted a huge, luxurious bed, and the bathroom was gorgeous with a tub for two and marble countertops.
It was a lovely, comfortable, and romantic setting. She shouldn’t be here with Scott.
Trapped.
Stranded.
Alone.
For who knew how long.
She stood shaking and hugging herself as she tried to process this reality.
“Don’t just stand there in your wet clothes,” Scott muttered from beside her. “You’re going to freeze to death.”
She shot him an annoyed look, but she was too cold and dazed to pair it with any words. She pulled off one of her wet gloves as Scott went to check the thermostat on the wall of the main room.
“I’ll turn it up high until we get warm,” he said. “As long as the power doesn’t go out, we’ll be fine here until the roads clear up some.”
Fine.
He thought they’d be fine here.
Trapped with Scott Matheson in the Mistletoe Cottage in the middle of a snowstorm.
Sure.
It was all just fine.
Nothing could be finer in the world.
“What the hell, Olivia.” He’d come back over and was standing right in front of her now. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay.”
“Then take your clothes off and warm up.” His face was handsome and tense and impatient. For some reason it made her shiver even more than she was already shivering.
“I’ll take my clothes off when I want to take them off. You don’t get to tell me when to do it.”
“For God’s sake, this isn’t the time to be stubborn.” He grabbed one of her hands and started pulling off the glove she hadn’t yet removed. “Shit, your hands are freezing.”
He rubbed them between his much bigger, much warmer ones, and the touch felt good. Really good. It warmed more than her hands. Her breath hitched in her throat at the sensations pulsing out from his hands against hers.
When she realized how good it felt, she yanked her hands away. “I’m capable of warming up my own hands.”
“Then do it. Take your clothes off, or I’ll take them off for you.”
“Asshole.” She said it out of principle because she knew he was right about getting warm. She couldn’t stop shivering.
She took off her coat, hat, and boots and dropped them on the wood floor of the entryway. Then she went over to stand next to one of the heating vents to get as much warm air as possible.
“Your pants and sweater are wet too,” Scott said. He’d removed his coat, boots, and sweater and wore nothing but a T-shirt, wet jeans, and wet socks.
“So? Yours are too. I don’t have anything else to put on, and I’m not going to go around in my underwear, no matter what fantasies you might be indulging.”
She didn’t actually believe Scott had fantasies about her in her underwear. He’d never made any sort of move on her, and she assumed he never would. But it felt like something she should say, so she said it.
He gave her a curious look. “Believe it or not, having sex with a woman who can’t stop shivering isn’t one of my fantasies, no matter how hot she happens to be.”
The words were so dry it took her a minute to realize he’d given her a compliment. Did he really think she was hot?
He added, “Doesn’t this cabin come with amenities like warm blankets? And maybe extra clothes?”
“Oh. There are the bathrobes. They’re really nice and warm. We could put those on and get out of our wet clothes.” Her teeth were chattering, so it took a while to get the words out.
“Good. Let’s do that. But you should take a hot shower first. You’re still shivering, and I don’t like it.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like it, but I can’t help it. Not all of us are so hot-blooded we don’t even get cold in a snowstorm. You don’t have to be rude about it.”
He was scowling now. “You can stop shivering by taking a shower.” He strode into the bathroom and was in there for a minute before he came out. Then he walked over to her, put a hand on her back, and pushed her forward. “Get moving. Shower now. Argue with me later.”
“I can argue with you and shower at the same time.” It wasn’t her most clever of comebacks, but it was all she could manage at the moment.
He’d pushed her into the bathroom, and she saw he’d turned the water on in the big, beautifully tiled walk-in shower. “If it helps, I’ll stand right outside the door so you can argue while you get warm. But either way, you’re getting warm right now.”
When he started to pull her sweater off, she swatted his hands away and took it off herself. “Okay. God, you’re a bossy asshole. I’m getting in, so get out.”
“Good. Don’t get out until you’ve stopped shivering.”
She was still scowling at him when he closed the door to the bathroom, and then she quickly stripped and stepped into the shower.
The hot water felt delicious against her chilled skin. She wasn’t so frozen that the heat was painful, and she couldn’t help but sigh in pleasure. Her hair was half-wet and half-icy, so she put her whole head under the water. She stood under the spray for a long time, enjoying the warmth and the strong pounding of the water spray.
She wondered what Scott was doing.
A memory from four years ago hit her just then. Shortly after Laura had discovered in some old paperwork that their father had in fact cheated the Mathesons, Olivia had gone to talk to Scott. Although they’d never been friends, they’d been in the same class all through school. She’d known him all her life, and it felt like her res
ponsibility to apologize to him for her father’s actions.
So she’d steeled her courage and gone to his house one evening. He’d answered the door in sweats and no shirt.
She’d been taken aback by how attractive she found his broad shoulders and toned abs, but she’d stumbled out an apology and rearticulated the offer they’d made him of a share in Holiday Acres.
He’d looked at her coldly as she talked. When she’d finished, he’d asked, “You think I want anything from you?”
Then he’d slammed the door in her face.
She’d driven home in tears, trying to remind herself that his family had been wounded by hers. It still hurt though.
It hurt again now as she remembered it, even though he hadn’t been cold and angry with her like that in more than a year. He remained obnoxious, however.
More obnoxious than anyone else she knew.
He sure had been bossy earlier about her being cold, but maybe he was the kind of guy who snapped into urgency in any sort of crisis—even if the crisis was just a little shivering.
Surely this snowstorm wouldn’t last very long. Most snows in this area lasted only a couple of hours and melted off the next day. She wasn’t going to be stuck with him in the cabin for days.
Probably just a few hours.
She’d be back in her own room and away from his obnoxiousness by the end of the day.
Hopefully.
Please God. Don’t let her be trapped here with him for very long.
She wasn’t sure what she’d end up doing.
When she was warm and relaxed, it began to bother her that she was naked in the shower with just one closed door between her and Scott, so she turned off the water, dried off with one of the big, thick towels folded on the shelf, and then pulled one of the white bathrobes off the hook to put it on.
It might feel a bit weird to wear nothing but a bathrobe around Scott, but she was fully covered from her neck to her ankles, and there was no way in hell she was going to put back on her wet clothes.
She towel dried her hair as much as she could and pulled out a brush from her purse to get the tangles out. Since it would get on her nerves wet and loose this way, she pulled it into two braids.
They made her look girlish, but they’d keep her hair out of her way, and it seemed like a good idea to wear the most unsexy hairstyle she could think of right now.
Not because she needed to persuade Scott.
But because she might need to persuade herself.
There was nothing sexy between them, and there never would be.
Satisfied with her sartorial choices, she left the bathroom.
It was already much warmer in the main room when she stepped out, and she found Scott looking in the refrigerator. “There’s food in here,” he said.
“Yeah. We’d stocked it this morning for the couple who were supposed to have it for the next two nights, but they ended up canceling because of the snow.”
“Well, it might need to be restocked before the next guests arrive if we’re stuck here for too long and we need to eat some—” He broke off midword when he turned around and saw her. His eyes ran up and down her body, from her bare feet to her braided hair.
“What?” she demanded, immediately unsettled by the look. “You bossed me into getting into the shower. You can’t be surprised that I did it.”
“I’m not surprised.” There was a hoarseness in his voice that was strange. Kind of exciting.
She brushed the thought away. “Since you’re still wearing your wet clothes, you should go take a shower yourself. I know you might like to pretend to be some superman, but you’re not, and you’ve got to be cold in those wet jeans.”
“I am. I’ll take a shower.”
“Then do it.”
He stood where he was for another moment, his eyes running up and down over her one more time. Then he made an odd little jerk and turned on his heel to walk into the bathroom.
When he’d closed the door, she went into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator to see what was in it. She knew generally what to expect, so she wasn’t surprised to see the juice, milk, eggs, cheese, butter, strawberries, prepared salads and sandwiches, and a small chocolate cake.
In the wine cooler were white wine, champagne, bottled iced coffee, and several bottles of sparkling water, and in the cupboard were bread, cereal, crackers, cookies, chocolates, and two bottles of red wine.
All part of the amenities of the cottage.
If she was here for more than two hours with Scott, she was definitely breaking into the wine and chocolate.
She pulled her phone out of her purse and called Laura.
“Hey,” Laura said, answering on the second ring. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. Did you make it back home?”
“No. I’m at the Candy Cane Cottage.”
“Is Tommy with you?”
“No. I didn’t make it that far. But I just called and he’s fine. He’s going to stay with Mae in town until morning.” Mae was the woman who gave Tommy piano lessons.
“So you’re all by yourself?”
“No. Russ is here.”
Olivia arched her eyebrows. “Russ is? What is he doing there?”
“I got stuck. In the snow. He came to help, but then we couldn’t get back. We’re fine. It’s all fine.” Laura sounded a little flustered, which wasn’t at all like her.
“Well, we’re in the same boat since I’m stuck here at the Mistletoe Cottage with Scott.” Olivia made a face to the empty room. “At least you like Russ.”
“Y-yeah.”
Olivia was intrigued by the slight stammer over the word, but she could hardly grill Laura about what was going on with Russ right now when Scott might come back into the room at any moment. “What about Penny?” she asked.
“I tried calling her but couldn’t reach her.”
Olivia immediately forgot about her own minor frustrations. “Oh shit. Do you think she’s okay?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we need to panic yet. She’s not really as scatterbrained as she acts. She can take care of herself.”
“But she was trying to drive in this snow.”
“If she needed to stop, she’d stop. Let’s give it a few minutes and try her again.”
“Okay. Let me know the minute you hear anything.”
Scott came out of the bathroom just then, wearing a white robe that matched hers and looking relaxed and far too sexy with his damp hair, bare feet, and slight five-o’clock shadow.
At least Olivia would have thought he was far too sexy if she hadn’t been so worried about Penny.
“What’s wrong?” Scott asked.
“It’s Penny. She left before we did, and we can’t get in touch with her.”
Scott frowned as he came closer to her. “She was only a few minutes ahead of us. If she’d run off the road, we should have seen her.”
Olivia let out a breath as she realized he was right. “That’s true. But she could have gotten farther and then run off the road. What if—”
He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t imagine the worst yet. She’s probably just somewhere she can’t answer the phone. If you haven’t heard from her in an hour or two, then you can worry.”
Despite the flurry of anxiety in her mind, his calm voice did make her feel better. So did the weight of his hand on her shoulder.
She met his eyes and was momentarily trapped by them.
Then she remembered this was Scott—Scott—and she stepped backward, pulling away from his hand. “Okay. I’ll wait an hour or two before I start to panic.” She looked around, searching for something to do. When she saw the big couch, she went over to it, pulling down a cashmere throw from where it was folded to wrap it around herself.
She turned on the television. “I guess we can just hang out and watch TV until we can get out of here. At least there’s food if we need it.”
Scott went into the kitchen and opened the cooler. “
Do you want some water?”
“Yeah. Sure. Great.”
He brought two bottles of water over, and she accepted one of them, keeping everything but her hand under the blanket.
“You’re not going to share that blanket?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “No, I’m not going to share it. Are you crazy?” She nodded to the shelf behind the couch. “Get your own.”
He was smiling a little as he reached over her to grab another blanket, and the two of them decided on a show about historical mysteries on television to pass the time.
After about twenty minutes, Olivia checked her phone for the fifteenth time, murmuring, “I hope Penny is okay.”
“I’m sure she’s—” He broke off when a phone rang in the room.
Olivia scrambled for hers, but it wasn’t the one that was ringing.
It was Scott’s. “It’s Kent,” he said, looking surprised as he answered the call. “Hey, what’s up?”
He listened to whatever his older brother was saying for a minute. Then he met Olivia’s eyes and said, “Penny is okay. She’s at Kent’s. She lost her phone in the snow.”
“Oh, thank God.” Olivia was almost slumping in relief as she hurriedly texted Laura and Rebecca to let them know.
Scott listened to his brother some more and then was almost smiling as he said, “Well, it’s not her fault she’s stuck there, so try to be nice. Let us know how you’re doing.” After another pause, he must have been answering a question from Kent when he said, “Olivia... Yes. ... Shut up. ... Be nice to Penny.”
He hung up then.
“What was he saying?” Olivia asked, curious about the end of the conversation that seemed to be about her.
“He was complaining about getting stuck with company. He’s been a hermit lately.”
“I know he has. I’m sure Penny can handle it though.”
“Yeah. I’m sure she can.” Scott sighed. “Well, it could be worse. We’ve got heat and food and a television, so at least—”
His words were cut off when there was a weird crackle in the air. The lights all went off.
So did the heat.
“Shit,” Scott said.
“You jinxed us.”
“I was just saying—”
Snowed in for Christmas Page 3