BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The Unforgettable Southern Billionaires: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Young Adult Rich Alpha Male Billionaire Romance)

by Walker, Violet

  “Well, that’s awesome. I’ll have to tell the boys back home that my work’s on display in New York City!”

  “Now we just have to get some more of it out there so I can sell it for you, and you can finish fixing up your Mom’s house with the money.” Henry gave him a pointed look, and Toby’s ears turned red.

  “Oh, I can’t carve except when I’m making it for a certain person,” he demurred.

  Henry sighed. “So pretend they’re all for me then?”

  “Huh.” Toby wrinkled his scarred brow, then nodded. “I could do that! And maybe try selling some of the furniture. You think this table turned out all right?”

  “The table’s beautiful, Toby.” Anna thought about Toby, living with his mom, his life a regimen of medicines and doctor visits, and how the chance to make more money made such a huge difference for him. For James, going home alone to his trailer tonight. And, she realized, that bothered her; should they have asked him to stay? If she wasn’t going to be alone with Henry anyway, there had been no reason not to ask him. But Henry had almost made a point of not doing so. Why?

  Could he be jealous of James flirting with me? No, no, that’s just not possible. The man is out of my league. He probably doesn’t even see me as a woman, at least not in that kind of way.

  Toby excused himself soon after, seeing the few raindrops start to become more than a few. “Gotta hop on my bike and get out of here, Mom gets worried if I’m too late and it’s starting to look messy out there.” He had Henry’s gift of a new wallet in his pocket, along with some investment certificates he didn’t know the value of and his mother would explain to him later--and which would cover the repairs of their house by themselves. Henry was like that: full of generous surprises.

  They lingered together over more coffee, and chatter about the job went quiet soon after Toby left. “I’m keeping you. You must have a big day tomorrow,” he probed gently.

  She looked up at him, then smiled and shook her head.

  His brow furrowed. “You look sad.”

  “I have nothing going on tomorrow,” she replied. “I’m not in touch with my family, and I’m not exactly a social butterfly around here. I...I can stay late, it doesn’t really matter.”

  His face fell. “Nobody?” he asked, disbelieving. “I don’t get it. You’re so sweet….”

  She let out a soft little laugh and looked out the window. “I have some people I volunteer with at the SPCA. I have my brother, but he’s out in Los Angeles. That’s kind of it in my life right now. My apartment won’t even allow pets.”

  A silence dragged between them, his eyes flickering with something soft and sad and unfathomable.

  She looked down, swallowing a lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, I’m being maudlin. Point is, don’t worry about getting me back late.”

  Henry didn’t answer. She blinked and looked up and saw that he was staring past her at the window. She turned her head and saw an almost solid curtain of white flakes falling past the window. It was so thick that it looked like someone was emptying a feather pillow off the roof.

  Chapter 4: The Blizzard

  Henry stood up and immediately ran to the door, pulling it open. She hurried after him--and staggered back as a shockingly icy breeze blew past him into the hallway. “Oh my God!” She came up beside him...and saw that the Cherokee and the ground around it were already blanketed in a foot of snow.

  “What the hell! I only saw the first few flakes a couple of minutes ago--!” He turned and looked at her and then back at the insane tableau outside. “Okay, we’re gonna freeze if I stand here like this.” He pushed the door closed and turned around, dozens of flakes drying in his hair and on his clothes. “What the hell is this?”

  “I think it’s a blizzard,” Anna whispered breathlessly.

  Henry stood there, expression baffled. He was used to making the right calls. If anything, it had made him a bit overconfident. But here, he seemed to realize too late that he was way out of his element, and should have listened to those who weren’t. “Oh holy crap. James was right.” He turned to her, shaking his head slowly, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  She looked out one of the windows and saw that the back pond had vanished and that the snow just kept piling up, almost as if someone had taped a snowfall and was now playing it back at five times normal speed. “We’re trapped here, aren’t we?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  He swallowed and turned to look out the window. “Even with the Cherokee I can’t get out in this, not until the plow comes by. And that won’t happen until the storm’s over and they can, well, dig the plow out.”

  “Oh God.” She was shivering from more than the sudden cold. The well-insulated walls had given them a false sense of how things were outside; they couldn’t hear the wind and a foot-and-a-half of stone and the wood stove had masked the drop in temperature. And now, it looked like they might be stuck. In a house with very little food, no hot water, and only enough firewood to fill the indoor hopper. And the propane. But a twenty-pound container of propane was only good for about seventeen to twenty hours of burn time. Still, it was something.

  Her mind focused on these calculations automatically, taking care of business so fear didn’t take over in the face of something they had been warned about--twice--but not listened to. No wait. I was listening, but didn’t say anything. Henry didn’t listen. She pushed aside a stab of disappointment in him and just shuddered and hugged herself, her eyes blurring a little. Being stuck somewhere with him as company would be welcome if it wasn’t potentially dangerous. As it was, she had no idea what to say or do except to mumble, “Maybe a day and a half of heat, two days of food, no hot water. The windmill will give us electricity but we’ll be running on house batteries a lot of the time, so they’ll run out after about six to eight hours if we keep everything on.” Oh God, we’re going to be trapped here. Oh God, I’m scared.

  He stopped to listen to her, and then heard the shake in her voice and took a step in her direction. Tears brimmed over in her eyes and she looked down, embarrassed by her blubbering.

  “Hey,” said Henry worriedly. “Hey, are you okay?”

  She drew a breath to tell him sure, she was fine, they were caught in a freezing snowstorm without much in the way of resources aside from what James and the stagers had left and their leftovers from dinner, and she was terrified, and why hadn’t he listened, damn it, but she was fine. But her breath drew in with a low, sobbing sound, and his eyes flew open in worry--and then he had hold of her and was pulling her against his chest.

  She froze, the tears and terror startled out of her by the sudden contact. Something in the back of her mind still kept going on about two days, we have two days and then we’re in trouble. Another part wanted to yell why didn’t you listen to James and shove at his chest, but the rest of her was suddenly preoccupied with the warm, solid length of his body against hers. With his arms around her, gently but snugly, and his soft hand on her shoulder.

  She shuddered and then slipped her arms around him as far as they would go. Her fingers caught in the fabric of his sweater, and she gasped, tucking her head against him and nuzzling her face into his throat.

  A shiver went through him. It was probably from the cold. But his grip on her tightened a little, and she felt his heartbeat pick up against her cheek. She closed her eyes. He was so warm, and so big, and his hands on her were so tender. Don’t let go.

  She hung onto him and gasped for air. He must have thought she was panicking, but what she felt was more a desperate hunger for more closeness to him. He didn’t let go, she relaxed against him, and for just a little while, her loneliness was gone.

  “Okay. So let’s go over this again.” They let each other go reluctantly--though she still wondered if she imagined that he had been reluctant--and now sat at Toby’s beautiful table, under the one light they kept on, calculating their resources. Henry bent over the list they had made, speaking as calmly and authoritatively as he could manag
e under the circumstances.

  “We have no communication in or out thanks to the cell tower not being up yet. No Internet. We have a landline but no connection thanks to the service not being ordered yet. So, no calling for help.

  “We have enough food and supplies to last us two days, three if we stretch it. The propane stove isn’t the best heat source, but it can last us about a day off and on. That leaves us with about half a day of wood. Now the problem is, a wood stove has to be fed every few hours, and the fan system that would push the warm air into the bedrooms eats too much electricity to use. Same problem with the propane stove--it will heat the kitchen, not the house. We’ll have to drag a mattress down here to sleep comfortably.”

  “That’s...what I’ve been able to sort out going through everything, yes,” she said in a small voice. Except for the bit about bringing down mattresses.

  Wait, he had said one mattress. Singular.

  She blinked. Do I correct him? There were technically room for two queen sized mattresses on the living room floor, but….

  I think I’ll just let that detail slide and hope he doesn’t notice until bed time.

  He paused. “Your face is very red. Are you alright?”

  She looked down, biting her lip. “You...said...one mattress.” Oh damn. Shut up, Anna!

  He let out an embarrassed scoff, and went quiet a moment. “Well, the stagers only put one comforter apiece on the beds, and um...body heat is about the only heat source we have an unlimited amount of.”

  “O-oh,” she murmured, her cheeks heating up even more.

  It took more work than they had anticipated to drag a mattress and a big pile of bedding down that narrow staircase. He almost fell twice, and at one point she almost tumbled down the stairs herself as the weight of the huge king-size dragged her down. Fortunately, he set his shoulder against it and stopped the slide. But they were both panting by the time they dragged the mattress in front of the stove and plopped the pile of bedding on top of it. She made the bed while he made them cocoa--since one of the burners was on anyway.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said suddenly as they sipped their cocoa. “I really should have listened to James. He’s lived around here all his life. I just...I’m usually not the rich guy who thinks he knows better than people who aren’t as well off as he is. Except, I guess, sometimes I am.”

  It was big of him to admit and took the edge off her urge to smack him. “James knows we were up here pretty late, and Toby knows as well. Between the two of them, someone will think to come looking for us.” She knew that she was just stirring up hope where maybe there was none, but it was better than spending the whole time in terror.

  “If they don’t, and that second day rolls around, I’m going to have to go looking for help. The next house is about a quarter mile down the road. The storm can’t last two days solid. I’ll wait for a clear spot and then break a trail myself if I have to,” he promised quietly.

  She looked up at him. “And if the storm doesn’t stop?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that, and they finished their cocoa in silence.

  Chapter 5: Bleak Christmas

  Anna lay in the darkness of the kitchen, listening to the wind snow spatter against the windowpanes. The single burner had been turned low to conserve fuel and air, and the faint blue glow showed her almost nothing of the room. The air was cool on her cheeks and toasty under the down comforters. Despite that comforting warmth and the soft breathing beside her, she couldn’t sleep a wink.

  It wasn’t fear. The fear she was dealing with. It wasn’t the anger at this avoidable situation, and it wasn’t the cold. It was lying there, down to her slip, nestled in better quality bedding than she had slept on in her life, Henry inches away from her, and still being unable to touch him.

  She wanted so much to reach out that her fingers and toes curled. Couldn’t she just move a little closer? Would he notice if she lay her head on his chest while he was sleeping? Would he feel her hand if she stroked his hair? Would he know, in spite of her doing everything she could to hide it for months, that she loved him more than she could stand and couldn’t stop herself from touching him now that he was so near?

  She watched the dark fluff of his hair silhouetted against the slightly paler wall and tears stung her eyes. So close and yet so far.

  Eventually exhaustion claimed her, though she had no idea how many hours she lay there gazing at him before it did. As she finally closed her eyes and drifted, she thought she heard him sigh, and felt him roll over, as if finally settling in to sleep himself.

  The blizzard was still going strong when they woke, sliding awkwardly from beneath the comforters and standing beside each other as they blinked blearily at the whited-out windows. Somehow it was even worse than before. Anna carried a small, cold stone of fear in her stomach as she puttered around making coffee, while he scrambled some eggs and browned toast one side at a time in a skillet.

  “You know,” he said, after his second cup of coffee had taken the glaze from his eyes, “I don’t actually know that much about you and I’d like to fix that. So tell me--how is it that you don’t have anyone to celebrate Christmas with?”

  “I’m just...shy,” she said inadequately. “I never know how in the heck to start conversations, especially with men. I don’t know how to flirt either. Around here, people are pretty direct and they expect you to be direct, and I...I’m just the quiet type. I don’t know how to be in people’s faces. And making friends here...I was shy in Delaware. Here I feel like a social cripple, especially in the big city.”

  “You do all right. Most people who meet you seem to like you. I certainly do.”

  She looked up at him, and her smile was very tentative. “How...come you asked me if James and I had something going?”

  He coughed awkwardly and poked at his eggs. “Well, he hits on you all the time, and it makes you smile.”

  She swallowed more coffee and then said sadly, “Of course it does. I don’t exactly get much attention from men, and even if he doesn’t mean it--”

  “He means it.” And there was such a tone of resentment and jealousy in Henry’s voice that she looked at him in shock.

  He busied himself with his breakfast. “Well...that explains why you don’t date. You’re too shy to show interest, and when someone else does you figure they can’t be serious.”

  She reddened and said defensively, “Oh well, then, why don’t you date?”

  He blinked at her around a mouthful of eggs, chewed and swallowed. “Bad breakup. Couple years back.”

  She softened slightly. “...Oh. How bad?”

  He looked at her matter-of-factly. “Gold digging, private eye hiring, fake pregnancy bad. Stalked me afterward, too.”

  She sat back, blinking rapidly. “...That’s bad.”

  “Technically I don’t not date. I’m just very picky after...what happened.” He took another few bites, his expression only slightly troubled.

  Well, that’s that then. If he’s super picky and he can date anyone he wants, I’m definitely out of the running.

  “So...you’re really not interested in James?”

  She almost dropped her fork. No, I’m interested in you. I just can’t say a damn thing about it. “Why are you asking me that again now?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what your type is.”

  “Of men?”

  He gazed at her steadily. “Yes.”

  She blushed furiously and stared at her plate, unable to answer him until he let her off the hook by changing the subject.

  The storm lasted until that night . They ate warmed over leftovers by candlelight, using the last of the propane, and stayed in the kitchen until the temperature dropped too much. Then they dragged their makeshift bed to the living room and laid it down in front of the wood stove, which Henry filled and lit.

  When the white-out at the windows faded, and the clouds started to roll away, Anna went to the back door and opened it, stepping out quickly into
the snow to keep the heat inside the house. She sank in to her hips, soaking her leggings, and stared around at the rolling white snow mounds under the moon. It was as beautiful as it was freezing and treacherous: white moonlight painting everything, stars glittering, a few rags of cloud retreating west. Tomorrow they would be running low on supplies, but at least they would have a chance in hell of going for help if no one came for them by afternoon.

  She turned and pushed her way back inside--and the temperature change hit her like an oven. Her legs stung, and she realized that she was chilled through when her numb legs almost buckled under her.

  Henry hurried over with a blanket and wrapped it around them both. “Come here. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I had to see for myself--”

  “I get that, but now you’re half frozen.” He helped her into the living room, sat her down on the mattress in front of the fire, and kept an arm wrapped around her as she gradually warmed. She realized that he was holding her against his side, and that his heat was soaking into her as much as the stove’s was. His arm around her did more for her than any of it.

  Eventually her tights dried, and she stopped shivering. But she stayed curled against him for a good while longer, eyes at half mast, heart beating a little quickly, and neither one of them seemed willing to break the intimate silence.

  There was no propane to heat water for cocoa, so he tried putting the kettle on the wood stove, which actually worked. As they sipped their drinks, she said quietly, “Storm’s all the way gone. It’s even colder out, but you might actually be able to head for the next house over. It’s not going to be easy, though. It’s hip deep on me.”

  “Well, we’ll have to see. Maybe we’ll get lucky. I mean--maybe someone will come for us before that.”

  She kept blushing at the slightest things. Maybe it was nerves.