by Liz Isaacson
He knew he couldn’t get toast like that from the freezer section of the grocery store, and that meant he needed a cooking lesson. The air smelled like salty chicken stock and buttery garlic, and Colton’s stomach growled.
Annie looked at him, and he thought of her hand in his. His pulse had boomed through his veins, vibrating in his muscles, and he’d been numb to the feel of her skin after only a moment.
She scared him more than anything else, and Colton had needed more space from her after she’d released his hand. He wasn’t sure what kind of air he put off, but Annie had left soon after that. Colton had stayed downstairs for a few minutes, just so it wouldn’t look like he was following her around like a puppy.
Someone came in the back door, and a moment later, a freezing cold gust of air whooshed into the kitchen. Patsy came around the corner, her cheeks and the tip of her nose bright red. “It’s still coming down,” she said. “But the power is back on at my cabin too.”
“Good news,” Celia said. “We’re ready to eat. Do you want to sound the alarm? Or should we just let people graze?”
Colton would’ve voted for grazing, but Patsy said, “I’ll ring the bell.” She stepped back around the corner and a moment later, a ding-dong-dong-ding came through a speaker system in the ceiling.
“Lunch is served in the kitchen from now until one o’clock.” Patsy didn’t beat around the bush, that was for sure. She re-entered the kitchen, and Annie handed her a bowl, then picked up another one and extended it to Colton.
“You don’t pray over lunch?” he asked, taking the bowl.
“Not when it’s come from now until one o’clock,” Patsy said, giving him a smile he would categorize as terse. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to make her life harder, but he sure felt like he had. If anyone had been put out by his arrival, it was Annie, who’d had to clean a room after she’d thought she was done working for the day.
He held back as Patsy went through the line, letting a couple of people get between the two of them. He knew when to make his presence known and when to lay low, and this definitely felt like a time to stay off the radar.
Because of that, he filled his soup bowl, took two pieces of toast, and left the kitchen. He felt like both Annie and Patsy watched him leave, but he couldn’t make himself go back. He wanted to eat, pack his pajamas, get in his truck, and go.
The lodge had huge, picturesque windows in the front, and one look at them, and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere that day.
Maybe tomorrow, he told himself as he settled on the bottom step of the stairs that led up to the second floor. He sipped his hot soup until it was cool enough to take full bites. He enjoyed one piece of toast as-is, and dunked the other in his soup, deciding that with toast like this, soup could absolutely be considered a meal.
Others came into the living room, but he sat around the banister, across from the front door, and they didn’t see him. He heard their voices as they talked about presents, their parents, and their kids.
He deduced the women talking to be sisters, and he wondered if they’d be offended if he stood up and passed by them to go get more soup.
In the end, he wanted to stay out of sight, so he waited until they left, and then he got up and took his empty bowl into the kitchen. He snagged one more piece of bread before he went downstairs to get his coat and gloves.
He wasn’t sure when he and Annie would play cribbage, but he wanted to get outside for a minute. Maybe he’d be able to breathe outside, as the lodge was already starting to smother him.
Back upstairs, he opted to go right instead of left, which led past the kitchen, and he opened the door at the end of that hall to find a garage. Perfect. He slipped outside without anyone noticing him, and he gazed at the four pickup trucks parked in the expansive garage. His was outside in the weather, getting covered with feet of snow. He’d have a lot of work to do to get out of here tomorrow, and something told him he might not be leaving tomorrow either.
A sigh escaped his lips as he opened the door in the back and stepped out into the blowing, white snow of the storm. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, as he’d experienced blizzards in Ivory Peaks. Colorado was the highest state in the country, and he’d survived plenty of heavy snow winters.
But he’d never seen anything like this. The wind here blew the snow sideways, and Colton flipped up his hood as he stepped away from the door. He stopped immediately, because he couldn’t see at all. Not even a little bit, in any direction. He backed into the garage door behind him, relieved it was there.
All at once, the wind died, and Colton could see through the falling snow. It was much more magical now, and the tension in him finally leaked out. The big, fat, fluffy flakes fell slowly, and he stepped away from the garage again.
After walking straight out, Colton could see the tall, majestic pines in front of him, what looked like a barn to his right, and the main backyard to his left. He went that way, because he didn’t want to get too far from the house.
A patio expanded from the back door, and the roof extended for several feet over it. But the wind had blown snow over the patio anyway. It was much less, and Colton stuck close to the house, where a bench sat on the other side of a swing. He bypassed that, because the cushions would be wet, and he took a seat on the bench.
His mind seemed sluggish and slow, and he kept his hands tucked into his coat as he tried to find a string of thought and hold onto it. But he couldn’t. He felt as numb now as he had when Annie had touched his hand, and that sense of not feeling anything had started when Priscilla had sent her father to say she couldn’t go through with the wedding.
Maybe this was just how he had to live now.
The chill had just started to creep through his coat when someone came out onto the patio. Colton looked toward the back door, but the swing was in the way, and he couldn’t see who it was.
“That makes no sense,” a woman said, and Colton recognized the voice. He’d spoken to this woman before, but he couldn’t remember who it was.
“Okay, so you’re telling me that we’ve been dating for six months, and I don’t know your real name?”
Colton did not want to hear this, but he felt trapped just like he had on the steps. He really just needed to stay in the basement until the roads were safe enough to travel. His heart pounded in his ears, but he could still hear the woman—Bree! Her name was Bree—when she said, “I don’t know what to think, but I do know one thing, this relationship, or whatever it was, is over.”
With that, Bree marched out into the snow just as a gust of wind picked up. Colton couldn’t see super clearly, but he knew Bree wasn’t wearing a coat.
A scream rent the air, and he flinched. His heartbeat accelerated. He jumped to his feet and watched as Bree stumbled and slipped in the snow, righted herself, and turned as if she’d go down to the barn.
“Bree,” Colton called, because it was not safe for her to be out in this storm. As if on cue, the wind swooped down from the sky again with a mighty roar, and he lost sight of Bree for a moment.
He didn’t hesitate as he took off after her. He couldn’t let her wander in the Wyoming wilderness in this weather, that was for dang sure.
“Bree,” he called again, passing the spot where she’d slipped and fallen.
She’d heard him, and she turned back to him. “I’m fine,” she called back to him.
“You can’t be out here,” he said. “You don’t even have a coat on.”
“My house is just down there.”
“Then let me walk with you.” Colton reached her and took her arm in his hand. Not a single spark moved through him, and he hadn’t expected any to. But with Annie, he had felt something. So maybe he wasn’t completely dead inside.
They walked in silence, and Colton’s feet felt like bricks of ice by the time Bree said, “It’s right there. I can make it.”
Colton wasn’t an expert, but he knew what code she’d just spoken. I’m fine now. You can’t come in.
>
He walked her all the way to the front door, and she went inside with a “Thank you, Colton.”
Colton stayed on the porch for a minute, trying to stomp some warmth back into his feet. He’d walked for ten minutes to get here, and he figured he might as well get started on the way back. He kept his eyes on the ground, because the wind hadn’t swept away the footprints yet, and he needed them to get back to the lodge.
When he finally arrived at the back door, pure relief filled him. He released his tension with a sigh as he entered the warmth of the lodge. After shedding his soaking wet coat and boots, all he wanted to do was shower. He made his way downstairs, where he found Annie sitting on the couch with her daughters.
“There you are,” she said, perking up. Her eyes scanned him from top to bottom and returned to his face. “You’re—where have you been?”
“I had to….” Colton didn’t want to tell anyone what Bree had said on the patio. “I went outside for a little bit.”
Alarm crossed Annie’s face. “Did you still want to play cribbage?”
“Can I shower first?” he asked, his hands starting to shake with cold.
“Sure.” Annie watched him though, and Colton had the very real feeling that she saw and knew more than she let on. He couldn’t speculate on what she saw in him right then, and he nodded and went to get some clean clothes to change into after his shower.
He didn’t want to lie to Annie, but it really wasn’t his place to give away Bree’s secrets. On his way out of the room, he grabbed his phone, which he’d plugged in once the power had come back on.
Wes had texted, and Colton’s chest filled with a heartbeat. His oldest brother ran Hammond Manufacturing, and he’d been kind when Colton had said he needed some time away from the city, the company, his job. He’d said to take the time he needed, and Colton had been gone from HMC for seven weeks now.
Once he’d locked himself in the bathroom, he checked the text, and all Wes had said was Call me when you can please.
At least he’d said please, but Colton didn’t want to deal with family things or business things right now. He didn’t want to deal with anything right now, and he wondered when that would wear off.
He decided his brother could wait. Colton needed to get his core body temperature back to normal, and then he was going to play cribbage with Annie. He wasn’t sure when a shower and a card game he’d never heard of had become the things he was most looking forward to, or what that said about him.
He’d once known who he was and what his life was going to be. But now, Colton Hammond had no idea who he was, or where his life would take him.
Chapter Seven
Breeann Richards shed her shoes, then her jeans, which had heavy, wet cuffs. She peeled the soaking wet sweater off and let it fall to the floor as she entered the kitchen. She shivered, because the power had only been on for a couple of hours or so, and the cabin had grown cold while the furnace hadn’t been running.
She’d made it from the lodge to her cabin without breaking down, but that was mostly because Colton Hammond had come out of nowhere to escort her.
She supposed it wasn’t smart for her to rush out into a Wyoming blizzard without her coat. But Jay had called, and she’d been giddy to see his name on the screen after issuing an invitation for him to come up to the lodge as soon as the roads were cleared. She’d been bold in sending the text, and she’d fretted about it for several hours before he’d called.
She’d been dating him for six months, and she really wanted to see if they were ready to take their relationship to the next level. Bree was, she knew that.
Tears leaked down her face, and Bree went into the small kitchen in the cabin. This place belonged to Laney, and it actually sat on her property. But since Graham had married Laney, the fence between the two properties wasn’t enforced.
She shared the cabin with Elise Murphy, the full-time groundskeeper and animal specialist, but Bree didn’t expect to see her roommate for a while. A movie had just started in the basement theater room, and Elise loved Celia’s caramel corn more than almost anything else the woman made.
So when a sob erupted from her throat, Bree didn’t try to swallow it back down. “Jay,” she said, her voice much too high. She hated that this man had reduced her to a blubbering mess, leaning over the sink in the kitchen.
“What a stupid name,” she said, and she could say it because Jay wasn’t the real name of the man she’d been dating for half a year. That was why he’d called, not to accept her invitation to the lodge.
But to say, “Listen, Bree….”
She still didn’t know the man’s name. How embarrassing. What was she supposed to tell people? Oh, I ended things with…Jay, Kay, El, because I didn’t know the guy’s name?
She cried harder, finally reaching for a clean glass next to the sink that she’d washed that morning before going to the lodge, where they had a fireplace blazing with heat.
“Okay, enough,” she told herself, straightening. She hiccupped as she filled the glass with water and took a sip. It went down ice cold, stinging her throat, but Bree didn’t mind. She needed the shock to bring her back to reality.
And the reality was, she no longer had a boyfriend. It wasn’t the first time she’d broken up with someone or been broken up with. In fact, in the past decade, she’d had ten boyfriends that hadn’t worked out.
“Maybe it’s just not meant to be,” she said to herself. Maybe she should be content with what she had. She had a great place to live, with a woman she got along well with. She had a great job, with a family she loved. They loved her too. And she knew all of their real names.
Bree stepped over to the fridge and opened it, though she’d eaten lunch only an hour ago. She often turned to a snack to help her through hard times, and she saw no reason to deviate from that now.
She pulled out a container of vegetables and the ranch dip that went with them and retreated to her bedroom. Elise wouldn’t bother her there, no matter what time she came home. Bree couldn’t stomach the thought of going back to the lodge for dinner, but she also had no desire to cook in the cabin either.
She didn’t have to think about that right now. After setting her favorite rerun on her computer, she sat on the end of the bed and snacked her way through an entire episode.
Then she crawled beneath the comforter and pulled it all the way to her chin. She let the TV show run, and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
She had no idea how long she napped, but she woke when Elise said, “Bree? Are you okay?”
Light shone into the dark bedroom from the hallway, and Bree’s TV show had stopped playing at some point. She groaned as she rolled over, and Elise sat on the bed.
“I found your clothes.”
“I’m sorry,” Bree said, her voice right on the edge of breaking. “I got wet on the way here, and I just had to get them off.”
“I get it,” she said. “I did the same thing.” Her unsaid words were, But I picked mine up. Elise knew she wasn’t okay, and Bree appreciated that she reached out and stroked her hair off her forehead. “What happened?”
Bree’s tears came instantly, and she hated them. “I broke up with Jay.” Technically, if Bree had been thinking clearly, she’d say that Jay had ended things with her. When a man called and started the conversation with the word, “Listen,” he was breaking up with the woman on the other end of the line.
“Oh, no.” Elise leaned down and hugged her. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t pry for more details, which Bree appreciated. Of course, they’d been living together for about a year and a half now, and Elise knew that Bree would tell her eventually. She’d heard all about Martin, whom Bree had been dating when Elise had first been hired at the lodge. She’d been around when Bree started dating David—and when she’d broken up with him. Now, this thing with Jay had started and stopped too.
“When am I going to meet a good guy?” Bree asked, though she knew Elise didn’t have the answer.
“Y
ou will,” Elise said, because she was a good friend. She peered at Bree with a special intensity in her green eyes. “You really will, Bree.”
She reached up and hugged Elise again, saying, “Thank you, Elise.”
“Of course. Colton sent me down here to make sure you were okay. I’m glad he did.”
“Colton did?” Bree pulled back and looked at Elise. She was a petite kind of beautiful, with soft, wavy blonde hair and those bright green eyes. The first time she’d met Elise, the word fairy had come to Bree’s mind. She was just so cute, and so tiny, with such a sweet voice.
Bree had thought she wasn’t real, but she actually was. What she’d always seen from Elise was exactly who she was. Bree had learned a lot from her about being herself, and Bree had been trying to do exactly that with everyone she met.
“Yes,” Elise said. “He was really worried about you.” She stood up and extended her hand toward Bree. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you up and get you dressed for dinner. It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.”
Bree groaned as she got up, letting her whole head roll instead of just her eyes. “Maybe I’ll just put a pizza in here,” she said.
“Nope,” Elise said. “Celia made the meatloaf you love just for you.” She smiled and drew Bree into another hug. “No one’s going to ask you any questions.”
“Okay,” Bree said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Elise left her alone to get dressed into dry, fresh clothes, and Bree did just that. She wasn’t going to let Jay ruin her holidays. He didn’t want to come up to the lodge, where he would be fed three meals a day, have access to all the snacks he wanted, and have multiple activities to choose from every day?
No problem.
She and Elise linked arms and walked back to the lodge. The snow had stopped, thankfully, and the storm had blown out during the afternoon. The dark sky was clear, and that meant the temperatures had dropped considerably in a short time.