“You jinxed us!”
“Shit. It looks like I did.”
Now this situation wasn’t quite so comfortable. She was safe but still with Scott. And there wasn’t any heat or light or television.
She had no idea what the hell they were going to do for the rest of the day.
Four
SCOTT SAT FOR A MINUTE after the power went out, waiting breathlessly to see if it might come back on.
They lived in a rural county, and power problems happened fairly often in bad weather. The electricity would sometimes flicker but come back on within the minute.
He and Olivia both sat there on the couch in front of the cold fireplace and the blank television, but the lights didn’t come back on.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Yeah.” Olivia sat up straighter on the couch, letting her blanket fall down to her lap. “I guess it was too much to hope that we’d have power while we were snowed in.”
“We’re not that lucky, I guess.”
“I guess not.”
Scott stood up, feeling underdressed in the robe now that they weren’t just sitting on the couch. “We should make a fire. It’s going to get cold in here pretty quick.” It was already significantly cooler in the room now that the heat pump was no longer blowing out hot air.
“Yeah. I can make the fire. Maybe you could go check the breakers just to be sure it’s not a problem with our box.”
Scott frowned at her. He might not be at his best at the moment in a robe and wet hair, but he was certainly capable of making a fire. “I can make a fire.”
“I’m not saying you can’t. I was just saying I could make it—”
“Why shouldn’t I make it?”
He might not be as outdoorsy as his brothers, but she was acting like he was so incompetent she needed to make the damn fire for him.
It would have been nice if she’d see him as capable, but obviously she didn’t.
A strange succession of emotions flickered across Olivia’s face before she burst out, “Oh, for God’s sake! You men have hardly made it past cavemen.” She pitched her voice low and gruff to add, “Me big man. Me make fire. Me have big dick. Look at big dick and tremble.”
Scott was momentarily torn between annoyance and amusement, and he ended up making a choking sound that might have been both at once.
She rolled her blue eyes. “You be a big man and make the fire. I’ll check the breakers.”
He thought that was a perfectly reasonable decision, so he was confused when she strode over to the entryway and started putting on her boots.
He watched for a moment to confirm what she was doing. When she’d gotten them on, she pulled on her coat, which was still quite damp from the snow.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m checking the breakers. You be a big, strong man and stay inside where it’s safe and warm.”
He watched in astonishment as she swung open the door, letting in a gust of frigid air and a lot of blowing snow. Then she disappeared outside.
He ran over to the door after her, starting to follow until he realized he wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Olivia!” he shouted into the wind. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m checking the breakers! What the hell do you think?”
It was only then that his mind started to work again. The breaker box must be in the storage room, and the only entrance was from outside.
And he—very stupidly—had let Olivia go outside to brave the snowstorm while he stayed safely inside in a robe and bare feet. “Damn it, Olivia!”
He could see she’d made it into the storage room. She left the door hanging open as she went inside. He hung out the front door, his feet freezing in the cold air and blowing snow, and waited until she reappeared.
“It’s not the breakers,” she called out, closing the storage room door and then hurrying clumsily through the snow toward him.
She was moving so quickly that she barreled into him. He caught her and pulled her inside, slamming the door behind them. “Damn it, Olivia,” he said again, this time in a mutter.
She was gasping and shivering, but her eyes were laughing as she gazed up at him. “What? You wanted me to check the breakers.”
“I didn’t know they were outside!”
“Well, they were. You wanted to make the fire like the caveman you are, and you’ve done a pretty pitiful job of it so far, I’m sorry to say.” Despite her light tone, her teeth were chattering as much as they’d been earlier when they’d first gotten to the cottage.
“Damn it, Olivia.” This time the words were stretched and soft, spoken in absolute frustration.
“How many times are you going to say that?”
“As many times as I need to say it. Why the hell did you do that?” He hurried over to the fireplace, which was all prepared with three pretty logs arranged on the grate and more piled up next to the hearth. He grabbed a long match and some torn newspaper left for this purpose in a bowl, lit it, and when the paper was burning, tossed it into the wood.
“I did it because I was capable of doing it, just like you were capable of starting the fire.” She’d come over to join him, rubbing her trembling hands in front of what was barely a flame.
Scott poked at the wood until the flame began to spread. “Just because you’re capable of it doesn’t mean you should have done it. You were wearing a bathrobe!”
“I had boots on. And a coat.” There was the slightest quiver in her voice that proved she was tempted to laugh.
Ridiculously, Scott was tempted to laugh too. “But no hat and gloves. You’re shivering like crazy.”
“Well, it’s cold out there. And snowing like we’re in Alaska instead of central Virginia.”
“And I guess you would have gone out like that if we’d been in Alaska too.”
“Maybe.” She was slanting him the most delicious, shining look. It was making his heart do all kinds of flip-flops and making other parts of his body do gyrations of a different kind.
“Maybe.” He was still poking at the fire, pleased that it was finally starting to blaze. “She tells me maybe.”
“I’ll tell you maybe when I want to.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He shook his head, trying not to smile. “Leave it to me to get stuck in a snowstorm with Olivia Holiday.”
She frowned, some of her shining growing dim. “You could get stuck with a lot worse.”
“You think I don’t know that too?” Suddenly aware that he must be gazing at her like a sappy fool, he straightened up and turned his eyes away from her. “I’ve got the fire going.”
“I see that.” She was holding her hands out over the flames. She was still visibly shivering. “I’m going to see if my socks are still wet.”
“Well, do it quick. Your hair is still wet, and you just stupidly ran out into the storm. You’re going to catch pneumonia unless you warm up. I don’t care how pretty you are. You can’t go around doing things so stupid.”
He felt more on solid ground now as he put down the poker. He picked up the blankets they’d been using from the floor and tossed them onto the couch.
After a minute, he looked over toward the entryway to see what Olivia was doing. She was still crouching down beside the wet socks she’d laid out near the heating vent earlier.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. Something seemed different about her, although he could only see her back and so didn’t know what it was.
“Nothing.”
Her voice sounded like her posture. Something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” he asked, walking around the couch so he could see her face.
She turned her face away from him. “Nothing. I just told you. What’s your problem?”
His heart was racing again but for a different reason now. Something had happened in the past two minutes. “My problem is that I know something is wrong, and you’re not telling me what it is.”
She made an impatient s
ound and stood up, whirling around to face him and meeting his eyes with an expression that was clearly a challenge. “And this is the third time I’m telling you that nothing is wrong.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe.” Her eyes were narrow with resentment, but he could also see something else in her face. All her shining was gone.
It had disappeared. In two minutes.
And he had no idea why.
“Shit, Olivia, tell me.” He reached out for her instinctively.
She jerked away from his hand like she’d been burned, and it told him something. She couldn’t stand for him to touch her, and it was a lot more than her normal avoidance of him.
She was acting wounded.
Her shining was gone because of him. He was the one who had done it.
He’d done it to her before. He vividly remembered one evening four years ago when she’d come to his house to apologize for her father. He’d been hurt and angry and convinced she was just going through the motions, but he couldn’t forget her face as he was slamming the door on her.
He’d wounded her. He still cringed when he recalled it.
No amount of hurt could justify it.
He wasn’t going to do it again.
“Did I do something?” he demanded, sounding so urgent it was almost embarrassing. “I didn’t mean to. Tell me so I can fix it.”
“Would you shut the hell up?”
“I’m not going to shut the hell up until you tell me what I did. What’s wrong?”
“The only thing wrong is that my socks are still wet!” She was completely in control of herself, her jaw tense and her spine perfectly straight.
But she wasn’t shining anymore.
“Well, put them in front of the fire so they’ll get dry,” he growled, feeling so helpless and frustrated he sounded grumpy.
She walked stiffly over to the fire, laying her socks out on the hearth.
As he followed her, Scott searched his mind for what he’d said over the past five minutes. He’d been complaining about her going out into the snow, but it had just been their normal banter. He’d thought she was responding in kind.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said, coming to stand beside her. “I was worried about you going out in the snow like that.”
“I don’t care if you yell at me.”
That seemed to be the truth. He searched his memory even more. “And I really wasn’t complaining about being stuck here with you. I was—”
“I know that.” She sounded impatient.
“Then what the hell did I say? I didn’t say anything except—”
“Except I was pretty,” she burst out, as if she’d finally reached the limits of her control.
He stared at her in bewilderment. “But you are pretty.” That was so self-evident that it hardly needed saying. Anyone with eyes in their head could see it.
“I’m not just a pretty face. I’m not stupid.”
Her voice broke on the last word, so he knew it went deep. He was drowning in confusion. “Of course you’re not stupid. I never said you were stupid.”
“You said I was pretty, making it sound like I was nothing but pretty. You said I was stupid for going out—”
“I did not say you were stupid!” He was outraged by the very idea. How could she possibly believe he would ever say or think something like that about her. “I’d never have said you were stupid. I said it was stupid to go out in the snowstorm in your bathrobe. I wasn’t saying you were stupid. Am I crazy? I know how smart you are.”
A tear slipped out of her eye that just about tore his heart out.
“Jesus Christ, Olivia, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. When I said I didn’t care how pretty you are, I didn’t mean because being pretty means you’re stupid. I meant because you’ve probably always gotten your way, so you just do whatever you want, even going out in the snow without clothes on.”
His embarrassingly earnest ramblings must have been getting through to her because the tension in her shoulders relaxed and her face softened. “I had a robe on. And a coat. And boots.”
He let out a rough sigh. “I know you did. Shit, Olivia, I’m really sorry. I just thought we were doing our normal thing.”
“We were.”
“I didn’t know you’d...”
“I’d what?”
“You’d get hurt.”
She gave a little sniff and hugged her arms to her chest. “I wasn’t really hurt. But I don’t like to be called stupid and treated like I’m nothing but how I look.”
“I didn’t call you stupid. I’d never call you stupid. And I’m really sorry that I said anything that made you think I was.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” The tightness in his chest was finally loosened as he realized he might have fixed things.
“Yes. I said okay. How many times do I have to say it?” Her tone was tart now, and her eyes were glinting a little, her shining finally starting to reappear.
“One more time.” He couldn’t stop the little smile curling on his lips.
She narrowed her eyes. “Okay.”
His smile widened. “Good. I’m glad you’re okay. I didn’t think you’d ever get so emotional with me.”
She stiffened. “I was not emotional. I was cold. I went out in the snow in my bathrobe.”
Scott laughed out loud—in relief and genuine amusement and a new sort of excitement. “Well, if you’re cold, then cover up and get warm.”
He poked at the fire a few more times as Olivia climbed on the couch and cuddled up under the same blanket she’d been using before.
When he turned around, he grew still, staring down at her bundled body and beautiful, flushed face. Her hair was still damp and pulled into those ridiculous braids. Her eyes were way too big for her face. Maybe that was why she looked so vulnerable. Lonely.
“What?” she demanded, her teeth still chattering.
“Damn it, Olivia.” He lowered himself onto the couch, and he simply couldn’t help it. He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her and pulling the blanket up over both of them.
She didn’t pull away. Just asked, “What are you doing?”
“You said you were cold, so I’m trying to get you warm. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No. I’d like to be warm again.”
“Okay then.”
She was soft and small and shivering against him, and she burrowed into his chest. He adjusted to get more comfortable, and she adjusted with him.
That sat like that, tangled up together in their bathrobes under the blanket until Olivia stopped trembling. She was relaxing now. He could feel it in her body.
It made him relax too. That might soon get dangerous, but he wasn’t ready to let her go yet, and she wasn’t pulling away.
“I’m really sorry, Olivia,” he said after a long time. It was still late afternoon, but the snowstorm had hid the sun, and the room was dark except for the flickering light of the fire.
“You already said that.”
“I want to say it again. I’m sorry enough to say it again.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’m glad you weren’t calling me stupid.”
“I’d never even think such a thing. I know how smart you are.”
“I’m not that smart.”
“Yes, you are. You got good grades all through school, didn’t you?”
“I did okay. Except in Algebra. You had to help me with that.”
His hand was moving just a little of its own accord, making circles on her back. “I didn’t mind. You did just fine. And you did well at UVA, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not an easy school. There’s no way anyone could think you were stupid. Why would you even think that?”
“I’m not smart like Laura or talented like Penny or able to take care of everything like Rebecca. I’ve always just been... the pretty one.”
“That’s r
idiculous. You can be pretty and incredibly smart at the same time.”
He couldn’t see her face since it was pressed against his shoulder, but it sounded like she was smiling. “I’m not incredibly smart. Don’t get carried away with trying to make me feel better.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel better. When have I ever tried to make you feel better?”
“Never.”
“So there. It’s true. I think you’re incredibly smart. You think I haven’t seen what you’ve done for Holiday Acres since you’ve taken over the marketing and advertising?”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Of course I’ve seen it. I know it’s because of you. You’re amazing.” His hand was moving even more now—stroking up and down her back. He simply couldn’t stop it. “Who the hell ever treated you like you were stupid and nothing but a pretty face?”
The question was a real one. He wanted an answer so he could strangle whomever it was with his hands.
It took a while for Olivia to respond. “Whenever I did something silly as a kid, my dad would shake his head and say, ‘She’s definitely the pretty one.’”
Scott had to hold back a growl with nothing more than the strength of his will. Their family history was too complicated and too fraught for him to put into words what he thought of her father. So he didn’t. He thought it though.
“He didn’t think I should even go to college. He’d always say a rich man was going to snap me up so why bother.”
He couldn’t hold back the growl any longer.
“I know,” she said with a sigh, nestling against him in way that sent his head spinning. “He could be a real jerk. In all kinds of ways. But he loved me—as well as he knew how. And he was my dad, so I loved him.”
“I know.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You do?”
He was gazing down at her, a pulsing growing in his chest, his ears, his groin. “Of course I know. I know all about having a jerk of a father but still loving him.”
She swallowed visibly. “I guess you probably do.”
“At least you know your father loved you,” he murmured thickly. “I have absolutely no way of knowing if mine ever did.”
“Oh, Scott.” She raised her hand to cup his cheek. “Of course he loved you. Your dad was raised hard, and he drank too much. He didn’t treat you right. But of course he loved you.”
Snowed in for Christmas Page 4