by Olivia Noble
“That is so sweet, Mom,” I say honestly.
“Oh, honey!” she exclaims. “I’ve been so worried about your father that I didn’t call you about the storm headed your way. I feel terrible. I hope you didn’t get caught in it!”
“Not… exactly,” I respond. “But I wasn’t totally prepared.”
“I really wish I had remembered to call you yesterday,” she says. “Maybe you could have been on your way and headed home already.”
It is then I realize that maybe I did save Adam’s life. If I hadn’t been here, he might have been too disoriented and injured to make it to shelter. Whether he’s a good or a bad person, I am glad that he’s alive. I smile to myself then, feeling proud of the good deed, even if it’s a little inconvenient and scary to be sharing my home with a complete stranger.
“It’s for the best, Mom,” I tell her gently. “As soon as the storm passes, I’ll be on the first flight home. I promise.”
“I don’t think this storm is going to blow over so quickly, Evie. It looks like a big one on the satellite imaging. And even after it passes, it might take some time to clear the roads if you’ve really got heaps of snow piled up.”
Damn. Just how long is Adam going to be stuck here?
“What about Mary?” I ask her. “Maybe she can fly home to help out until I can make it there.”
“Oh, no, please don’t tell her,” my mom says. “I am scared to let your sisters know what’s happening. They have so much going on, and I don’t want to make them worry and disrupt their lives.”
“But if I can’t leave…” My eyes travel toward the bedroom. I wonder if I should tell my mom about Adam, but I’m not sure that I’m ready to be teased about this. Although—I suppose she would probably tease me far less than my sisters would.
I clear my throat.
“Mom, something weird happened right before the storm. I feel like I should tell you, just in case I get murdered.”
“Murdered, honey?”
“I mean, I probably won’t get murdered. But just in case, I kinda want to let you know what’s going on.”
“Just in case you get murdered?” my mother repeats with confusion.
“A man crashed his plane in my backyard,” I explain awkwardly. “He’s a little injured, and staying with me until the storm passes.”
“Staying with you? A man! Oh, that is wonderful news, Evie. Is he single? Please tell me he’s single!”
“Mom! I didn’t tell you anything about him. He could be 80 years old.”
“You wouldn’t sound so awkward and embarrassed if he were 80, now would you? Tell me about him, dear.”
“I don’t really know what there is to tell. His name is Adam, he’s like 6’3”, makes a lot of stupid jokes, and has a nice suit on? Early to mid-thirties?”
“Sounds perfect, dear! Oh, that is the best news I’ve heard in so long. I’m so glad that you’re shacked up with a nice young man.”
“Mom! I am not shacked up with anyone.”
“Sure you are, sweetie. You are both stuck in a shack, correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then you are shacked up together! I didn’t say you were shacking up with him. Not just yet, anyway. But I’m sure that when you kids are bored enough, after days of endless snow, shacking up won’t seem like such a bad idea.”
“Mom, please! That’s highly unlikely. He’s not my type.”
“So, what is your type, dear?”
“I don’t know. Guys who are too responsible to crash planes?”
“No one’s perfect, sweetie. I always thought your standards were way too high. Give Adam a chance. I thought you would never find someone out there in the middle of Alaska. Gosh! You’ve really cheered me up tonight.”
“There’s nothing to be too excited about, Mom. The only thing that’s going to happen is that I’m going need a bunch of physiotherapy to get rid of massive headaches after sleeping in a chair.”
“Nonsense. You are young and you will be fine! I’m going to be excited if I want to be, because I need something to be excited about. My little girl has met a boy!”
“I didn’t meet him in the traditional sense. He just sort of fell from the sky and happened to land on my property. So now he’s here.”
“It’s snowing men. Hallelujah!” she says, laughing loudly.
“Mom, please. No.” I rub my head, which is beginning to throb already.
“Oh, sweetie. When men land on your roof and come down your chimney, it means they are bringing you a nice surprise package!”
“Mom!” I nearly shout, amidst her giggles. But I smile, glad that this has cheered her up and distracted her from her troubles. “I’m going to try to get some rest, okay? Take care of Dad for me.”
“I will, sweetie. Goodnight.”
Hanging up, I place my phone on the table beside me. I sigh, tucking the blankets in around my legs as I try to find a comfortable sleeping position. My mom still teased me, after all. I guess it wasn’t that bad. If my sisters find out about this, they will surely torture me with jokes for as long as I live. Especially if they find out that my surprise visitor’s name is Adam. But I definitely don’t need any surprise packages stuffed down my chimney.
Chapter Four
I wake up to the smell of something delicious cooking.
For a second, I’m not sure exactly where I am. I feel like maybe I’m at home, and my mother has whipped up a delicious omelet or frittata. I smile and stretch at the memory, but then, I am assaulted by a stabbing pain in the right side of my neck, and I wince.
Grabbing the tender spot, I pry my eyes open, and immediately stretch them open even further. My new houseguest is cooking.
Shirtless.
I sit up and pull the blanket around myself a little tighter for modesty, although this stranger obviously seems to have none. But what he does have? Pecs. And a rippling back that looks divine as he moves his arm to shake the mixture in the frying pan.
“Adam?” I say with a tired voice. “What are you doing?”
“I thought I would thank you for your hospitality with a spectacular breakfast,” he says, turning around and giving me a wink.
Yes, he actually winks.
“Where is your shirt?” I ask him, rubbing my neck absentmindedly.
“Oh, it’s kind of an expensive shirt—and it’s a little warm in here, with the fireplace roaring. I figured I would take it off so I didn’t get dirty while cooking. I hope you don’t mind.”
“You can cook things?” I ask him tiredly.
He laughs as he moves over toward me, and then I see that he has an apron wrapped around his waist to protect his pants, and that he is still slightly limping. He places a plate down in front of me, and it looks and smells so good that I forget all about his naked chest.
“Wow. Are you a chef or something?” I ask suspiciously.
“It’s possible,” he responds, and I swear that there is a twinkle of mirth in his eye. “You’ll just have to keep guessing, Eve. Also, don’t just eat it with your eyes. you have to actually take a bite. I tried to do what I could with the ingredients you had in the fridge.”
When he grows impatient for me to try his masterpiece, he reaches down and cuts a piece off with his fork, and feeds it to me.
I chew carefully for a moment, somewhat concerned that I didn’t watch his whole cooking process. He could have slipped something poisonous into the eggs as his method of murdering me.
But then I remember that he’s still a really big dude, and if he really wanted to murder me, there would be dozens of easier and faster ways to accomplish that task.
Also, I haven’t really upset anyone, that I know of, so I really doubt I am on anyone’s hit list. I’m not important enough for someone to send a hitman over to murder me, so I probably shouldn’t worry too much.
“It’s incredible,” I tell him, nodding, once I’m convinced that I don’t taste any poison. I take the fork from him and begin to shovel more bites i
nto my face. “Mmm, this is insanely good. You must be a chef.”
“Perhaps,” he responds, and he stands there, staring at me for a minute.
I don’t look up at him, because I’m afraid to be blinded by his chiseled bare chest. Instead, I stare at the Christmas tree on his apron. Which happens to be positioned around his crotch, so that isn’t much better. I try to keep my focus on the delicious meal he has prepared for me.
“Is something wrong with your neck?” Adam asks me with concern.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him, realizing I was rubbing it while eating. The pain radiates all the way to my shoulder and jaw, and sometimes it even hurts to chew. “Just sore from work.”
“You don’t have another bedroom, right?” he asks me softly. “I am sorry that I took your bed and made you sleep in the chair. I didn’t realize. That was super rude of me.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” I tell him, waving my hand. “You were injured.”
“Still, that wasn’t very gentlemanly of me,” Adam says. “I promise that I’m going to make it up to you somehow.”
“You don’t have to do that. As long as you’re not a murderer or a hitman, I’m perfectly happy offering you shelter from the storm.”
Adam chuckles. “First, I’m a criminal smuggling drugs, then I’m a chef, and now I’m a murderer or a hitman? I can’t wait to hear your next guess, Eve. I never realized I was so interesting.”
Glancing up at his bare chest, and annoyingly perfect abs, I place another forkful of eggs in my mouth. “Male stripper,” I say instantly. “No one has a body like that unless he’s a stripper. Or an underwear model.”
Adam laughs even harder. “Well, I’m flattered. I guess there’s only one way to test your hypothesis. I should put on some music and dance for you. My leg’s still a little messed up, but I’m sure I can manage some Magic Mike moves for you.”
“No, thank you,” I say awkwardly, finishing the food and moving to the kitchen. I am pleasantly surprised to see he has washed last night’s dishes.
“Oh, there’s something else I made for you,” he says, darting ahead of me to open the fridge. He pulls out the tray of cake pops I had left to chill for more experimenting, and reveals that he has finished them.
He’s made a whole tray of little snowmen, covered in iridescent sprinkles, with adorable little faces and dashing top hats.
“Adam,” I say in wonder, breathless at the wonderful job he did.
“Not quite as charming as your reindeer, but I thought I would attempt some decorating of my own.” He picks up a pop and holds it to my lips. “Have a bite, Eve.”
I don’t think I’ve ever had a man feed me this much. I actually find it incredibly sexy. When I lean forward slightly to take a bite, my eyes close with pleasure. “Mmmmm,” I say happily. It’s way better than my reindeer. Dammit, Adam is full of surprises. He seems skilled at everything—other than keeping planes in the sky.
“You must be a pastry chef,” I tell him, taking the cake pop away from him to finish it off. Then, glancing down at his abs, and arms, and everything, I add with disappointment, “And you’re probably gay.”
Adam has just picked up a cake pop of his own, and taken a bite, and he nearly chokes on it when I say this. “Excuse me, but I am insulted. Is it not possible for a man to be an excellent cook and decorate delicious sparkly desserts without being gay?”
“It’s possible, but not likely,” I tell him, walking away, and tossing the stick of my cake pop in the trash. “You’re a pastry chef who works in a bakery by day, and a gay male stripper by night. I’m absolutely certain.”
Adam laughs at this, but he follows me as I move into my office. “I can assure you that I’m not a stripper, Eve. If you saw me dance, you would see that I’m so dreadful at it that people would pay me to stop stripping. They would throw money at me to get off the stage. I don’t know how to convince you that I’m not a murderer or serial killer, but I think I know how to convince you that I’m not gay.”
“How?” I say, as I sit at my computer and pull up my word processor to begin writing.
“Like this,” he says softly, placing his hands on my shoulders.
I am a little startled when his warm, large hands connect with my skin, and I am about to protest, but I find myself exhaling with relief as his fingers begin kneading my tense muscles. His hands are strong, and they seem to find all the sore spots, and gently work away my tension.
“Wow,” Adam remarks. “You are really knotted up. Your muscles are so stiff and tight—just how many hours have you been working in this cramped office?”
“Just… a lot…” I say, sighing in pleasure as his thumbs knead circles across my shoulder blades. “Okay, fine,” I respond. “Maybe you’re not a chef. Maybe you’re a massage therapist.”
“Maybe,” he says, as he stands behind my office chair, working on my neck and shoulders for several minutes. He even lets his fingers travel up into my hair, to knead my scalp.
It’s nothing short of heavenly, and I just want to sink back into his magical hands.
“So, as you can see,” Adam points out, as he kneads my shoulders some more. “I’m clearly not gay, because I know my way around a woman’s body, and know how to make a woman feel really good.”
This snaps me out of my reverie. “Hey, being able to give me a good massage doesn’t mean you’re not gay. This massage would feel just as wonderful if I were a man.”
“I wouldn’t have suggested we get married if I were gay,” Adam points out as he massages my upper arms.
“Lots of gay men get married to women,” I argue. “Sometimes they’re in denial. You could be in denial. You might be longing for Adam and Steve instead of Adam and Eve.”
He chuckles. “You’re hilarious. I can assure you that I am not in denial, and I like women very, very much. In fact, I think I like you very, very much. I’m curious about this strange girl who lives all by herself in the middle of endless snow. Did something happen to make you want to escape from society?”
I lift my eyebrows and swivel around in my chair. “I hardly know you, and I don’t even know what you do for a living. I’m not going to go spilling my deepest, darkest secrets to a stranger.”
“Well, I’m hardly a stranger anymore,” Adam says, looking around at the different posters in my office. He moves over to a bookshelf and begins scanning the titles. “Are these books you’ve written? Eve Frost? Historical romance?”
“That’s me,” I say with a weak smile. “But you probably wouldn’t like them. They are very girly and sappy. Lots of people getting into ridiculous situations and falling in love. I don’t have many, if any, male readers.”
“Well, I want to learn more about you,” Adam says, taking about a dozen of my books off the shelf. “I’m going to study these carefully to learn all about your deepest, darkest desires and how to woo you.”
“How to woo me?” I repeat with amusement. “What if I’m not wooable?”
“I think you’re wooable,” Adam says confidently. “You seemed pretty impressed with the snowman cake pops, and with my expert masseuse skills. I’m sure that after I read these books, I’ll discover the key to your heart, and we’ll be a little closer to being Adam and Eve, Alaskan power couple.”
“I don’t think I’ll be staying in Alaska for much longer,” I tell him. “My family needs me, and I might be moving back home to help out. I already hired a contractor a few months back, to set up an office in the basement of my parents’ home, so I could stay for a while—but I spoke to my mom last night, and it looks like my father’s memory is getting worse really quickly. So, I might just never come back.”
“You’re a good daughter to take care of him like that,” Adam says. “And I wouldn’t blame you for leaving this place. There isn’t much to do way out here. I can’t even invite you out to dinner and a movie, because there are no restaurants or movie theatres. Certainly no nightclubs to take you dancing. And even if there were, we would have no
way of getting there.”
“Yeah, so there’s no chance of us becoming an Alaskan power couple,” I tell him with a shrug, before turning back to my work. Even as I shrug, I notice that there is less pain in my shoulders. Damn, that man has magical hands.
“It wasn’t the ‘Alaskan’ part that I really cared about,” Adam says. “I think we could be a power couple anywhere, Eve. How about the moon? Or Mars? Would you like to be Adam and Eve, the first man and woman to live on Mars, and start a whole new civilization together?”
I turn to glare at him slightly.
“Can’t be much harder than living in Alaska!” he says with a grin, balancing my books in one hand. “Or I could just come home with you, wherever home is. I could give you shoulder rubs when you’re working too hard in that basement office of yours. I could help you take care of your family, and we could be Adam and Eve, the power couple of—wherever you’re from.”
“I… I could be from somewhere awful,” I tell him. “I could be from… a very unpleasant place.”
Adam nods. “Except there isn’t any place on the planet more awful than the place where we currently are. And somehow, being here with you doesn’t seem so bad. You even made me thankful for crashing my plane. Like maybe something positive came out of a very unpleasant and dangerous situation. So, I can’t help thinking that being anywhere at all with you would be rather nice and cozy.”
With that, he leaves my office and shuts the door behind him to let me work in peace. I find myself staring at my computer screen, but not quite seeing the words. A faint blush tints my cheeks as I think about Adam.
That man is just way too handsome.
It doesn’t help that he has a way with words.
Who the heck is this guy, and where on earth did he come from?
Chapter Five
Sighing, I close my laptop. I’ve spent several hours working, with only a few breaks to take a shower and grab a few snacks. Every time I left my home office, I saw Adam sitting in my green armchair and reading one of my books. He must be a speedy reader, because he has managed to get through two whole books in the space of a day. And they aren’t small books.