Love Story for a Snow Princess (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Beth D. Carter

  Tears welled in her eyes as the crushing weight of abandonment settled on her shoulders. A small part of her brain told her she was being melodramatic, but that part was quickly drowned out by crashing waves of desolation. She almost wished she could fall into apathy, but even that small measure of sanity eluded her.

  It took quite a bit of effort to change her traveling clothes and make some semblance out of her ravaged hair. And as soon as she brushed it out, she realized the wool hat would have to go right back on.

  So much for hair care.

  Thea marched back downstairs, suddenly wishing she hadn’t accepted Hank’s offer. All she wanted to do was take her pills and sleep.

  But as soon as she saw Hank waiting for her shame flooded through her. This was way she had left Malibu, to start making friends and to start living again. Thea plastered a smile on her face and stepped forward.

  Chapter Two

  “Hank!” greeted a woman who was the feminine version of Hank. As with most of the population here, long black hair and dark eyes complemented her striking facial features. “You just get in?”

  “Just put the plane to bed. Miki, this is Panthea Snow.”

  “It’s so nice to meet you.” Thea held out her hand. “You have a great restaurant.”

  Miki laughed and shook her hand. “Not sure if you could justify having four items on a menu as a restaurant, but I thank you.”

  “I didn’t want her to be alone this evening,” Hank said. “That guy from Illa just checked her into the hotel and left her.”

  “It’s okay, Hank,” Thea said. “I guess I’ll need the rest for tomorrow.”

  Miki cocked her head. “That’s right! Aren’t you getting married?”

  “Loose lips, Miki,” Hark warned.

  Miki quickly looked around. “Sorry, Thea. Though it’s hard keeping something like that a secret here in River Ice. Listen, why don’t you two sit at the end of the bar and relax a little. What’ll you have?”

  “Got any decaf?” Hank asked.

  “Sure do. Thea? I got some great stew made.”

  “That sounds great.”

  Miki placed a coffee in front of Hank then ran into the back. She came back out after a few minutes with a steaming bowl that she placed in front of Thea. Miki leaned over and grabbed some silverware and a saltshaker and placed it by the bowl.

  She listened to Miki and Hank talk as she ate, savoring the hearty stew full of potatoes and carrots. Though the meat was a little tough, Thea chewed slowly to savor every bite.

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, even after she had finished and Miki had whisked away the dirty bowl. The restaurant was warm and cozy and she was loath to leave it.

  Without a watch she couldn’t be sure of the time, but her lids were drooping when the door opened, and a gust of cold wind blew in with it. Thea shivered and looked over her shoulder. A man walked in. Tall and bundled completely from head to toe in winter gear, he pushed back the hood of his parka and lifted his goggles. Thea blinked and found her breath catching in her throat as she locked gazes with the most incredible green eyes she had ever seen, ringed with thick, dark lashes she would give her eyeteeth for. The hard planes and angles of his sculptured face looked like it rarely, if ever, smiled. He was a big man, austere, the boldness of his features only emphasizing his stark masculinity.

  He sported a close-cropped beard and mustache the color of pitch, so black in the overhead lighting that it rippled with a blue sheen. With wide shoulders and a narrow waist, he could have graced the cover of GQ magazine, sheepskin boots and all.

  She shook her head to make sure he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Their eyes met again, and an odd, exhilarating feeling swept through her.

  He neither smiled nor acknowledged her. “Hank, Miki,” he said and his deep voice rumbled through the room.

  Unnerved, Thea hopped off the barstool. “I should be going. Busy day tomorrow.”

  “Of course,” Miki replied. “Hank will escort you back.”

  “He doesn’t have to escort me,” Thea protested. “It’s not that far.”

  “Yeah, but it’s dark and there’s a storm starting.”

  Not wanting to argue, especially in front of the handsome stranger, Thea only nodded. Moments later, bundled up, Hank nodded at the man, called out a good-bye, and led the way outside.

  * * * *

  Later, back in her room, Thea reached into her purse and took out two prescription bottles. Walking into the bathroom, she opened each bottle and shook out a pill. She turned on the water and leaned her head near the stream to grab a mouthful to wash the medication down. Leaving the bottles on the bathroom counter, she collapsed onto the bed, curling tightly in a ball. Hugging her pillow to her chest, the emotions of the day finally burst out and she poured out her grief into the soft plushness. She used the pillow to muffle the sound of her sobs, crying until her exhausted body caved to sleep.

  The dream came again, as it did almost every night. Even the pills couldn’t keep it away.

  Thea sat in the back of the car, her older sister sat on her right and her younger brother on her left. In the front seat, Thea’s dad drove and her mom sat half-turned to talk to her children.

  There was laughter in her dream, as well as a sense of contentment. Thea felt full from the lovely dinner they had just shared, celebrating her parents’ thirtieth anniversary with wine and song. They had driven from their home in Malibu into LA, dining at a small, hole in the wall Italian restaurant located in Miracle Mile, near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the La Brea Tar Pits. It had been the restaurant Thea’s father had taken her mother on their very first date.

  They were a tight family. Thea’s sister, Hera, was three years older and still lived at home. She had just graduated college and had decided to work with their father at the law firm. Thea attended UCLA, studying education, but she came home every weekend. And her little brother, Jason, stood a little over six feet and wasn’t quite so little, attended Malibu high school. They were all proud of him because he played water polo and had just gotten a full scholarship.

  The open windows allowed the cool night air to filter through the car. Thea leaned her head on her brother’s shoulder as the night air blew over her, lulling her into a light doze. Traffic was thick, as usual, for the ride home. Tourist season was in full swing, and crowds flocked to Santa Monica for the beach, though Thea thought the beaches there sucked. She really loved her Malibu home, which had a magnificent view over the water.

  Thea’s mother was telling a joke. She couldn’t remember it now, but it must have been funny because she felt her brother’s shoulder shake as he laughed. She remembered her sister’s phone ringing.

  And then she heard her sister screaming. The car jolted as another vehicle sideswiped them. The crunch of metal, the shattering of glass, and the piercing sound of sirens screamed through the night.

  Thea struggled to wake herself from the nightmare. Twisting and turning in the blankets, she couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating, mentally trapped in the realm of death. Behind her closed eyes she saw nothing but blood, rivers of it flowing over her face, dripping into her eyes and mouth as she screamed herself awake. With a Herculean effort, she pushed through the mound of material that covered her and she sat upright.

  She ran her shaking hands over her face, making sure there wasn’t any blood, though the rational part of her mind knew the accident was a million years behind her. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t erase the metallic taste of blood from her mouth.

  Her hands shook as she turned on the bedside light. She pushed back the covers and padded to the bathroom, where she grabbed one of her prescription bottles, opened it, and shook out another pill. She didn’t even make a face as she chewed it up and swallowed it without water.

  Chapter Three

  Thea sat alone at the table in the hotel’s small dining area waiting for her destiny to show up. Mr. Caleb Tasker. Her future husband.

  M
rs. Tasker.

  Panthea Tasker.

  Thea Tasker.

  She wished she liked the sound of that, but truth be told she didn’t. Actually, she was scared as hell for what she was about to do. Marry a stranger. Be his wife. Share a bed with him. Start a family.

  She needed a family as soon as possible. She needed…something.

  One month ago she had seen an advertisement on the computer asking for women to meet potential husbands in areas where the ratio of men to women was extremely high. At first she ignored it, but something in the back of her mind kept nagging at her, so she had returned to reread the article. That night the nightmare struck with a vengeance. The squeal of tires, the smell of burning fuel, and the blood going drip, drip, drip all had her sitting up in bed, screaming. Right then she’d realized she couldn’t go on. There wasn’t enough therapy in the world that could erase the pain from her heart or the memories from her mind. She needed to start over. She needed something to force her to get up in the mornings, because she was fast losing the will to even do that.

  And so she had applied to the advertisement to be a potential mail-order bride. Everything became a whirlwind from that moment, which had been a good thing because it took her mind off the accident, starting from the time she had hit send on her computer to the moment she had flown out of Los Angeles. The first order of business had been going to her lawyer to make sure the advertisement was legit.

  The lawyer reported that it had been done through a match-making service for the men who lived in remote parts of Alaska and were unable to leave their posts to find wives. They included logger men, oil men, fishermen, men who braved the frigid weather of the state to live. She had been given a sizeable book on every man available through the service, including their pictures, lifestyles, their backgrounds and history, medical records, income records, and a written synopsis by each man on their five-year plan. Truth be told, that impressed Thea the most since she hadn’t even thought about the coming year let alone the next five.

  Her own evaluation and physical had been just as intense and somehow she had pulled through without letting on how emotionally wrecked she was.

  Through her answers, the computer had chosen three potential men, and it was her job to pick one. At first, she’d judged each man on their photo. How could she not? But as she started reading about each of them, it became less and less about what they looked like. Somewhere in-between the background notes and the history given, these men had become real to her, not simply random photos in a white binder.

  So she had signed on the bottom line. Since there wasn’t an agent stationed in the town of River Ice, Alaska, trying to set up a video conferencing chat had proven a little tricky. The company had offered to send her in the spring, once the winter months were over to set everything up properly, but she had been impatient. So she had gone shopping for the right clothes, had researched what it was like to actually live in Alaska, moved all her personal possessions into storage, and sold off almost everything else. There were probably a million other things she should have done or could have learned, but there simply wasn’t any time left.

  Because she felt like she was running out of time.

  “Panthea?”

  The sudden sound of her full name jerked her from her uncomfortable musings. She jumped and knocked over her water glass with her elbow, which managed to splash half on the floor and half in her lap.

  “Crap,” she muttered, rising and blotting her dress with a paper napkin.

  “I’m sorry,” said the same masculine voice that had called her name. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Thea looked up and saw the man she had picked from the photo book, Caleb Tasker. Her first impression was that the photo didn’t do him justice. He was a large man, heavily muscled, with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore dark pants and a brown flannel shirt tucked in, with a red wool cap over his head. He actually looked like the Brawny man on the paper towels.

  For a moment, the man from the night before flashed through her mind and she couldn’t help comparing the two. While that stranger had set her nerves on edge, this stranger just…didn’t.

  The thought did not settle well. She gave a dismissive wave to the wet stain on her dress.

  “Oh, it’s just water. It’ll dry.” She held out her hand. “Caleb, correct?”

  The man nodded and took her hand. “It’s nice to meet you finally.”

  Whether or not they unconsciously planned it, both held hands while studying each other. Thea liked that he didn’t act coy or overly flirtatious, thus allowing her to get an honest first impression.

  His light-blue eyes reminded her of spring time in Malibu, with the sky crystal clear and stretching for miles over the water. But they weren’t happy eyes. She could see shadows in them, the hint of sadness mimicked her own. Clearly he was hurting but trying very hard to ignore the pain.

  “Please sit down, Caleb,” she said, breaking from his grip. He helped her sit, pushing in her chair like a true gentleman. He seemed so out of place, as if the room was a tad too small for his frame.

  For a long minute neither of them spoke, nor did they even look at each other as the waitress placed an assortment of breakfast pastries in front of them. When she retreated, the dining area fell silent as a tomb. Thea finally looked at Caleb only to see him staring at her.

  “I suppose we should ask each other questions,” he said. “Get to know one another.”

  “All right. What would you like to know?”

  He cleared his throat. “Um…how did you get your name? It’s unusual.”

  “It’s Greek,” she said. “Refers to all the Gods, a Pantheon. My mother absolutely adored mythology, hence the horrendous name.”

  “Not so horrendous,” he murmured. “What made you decide to respond to Illa Partnership Services?”

  “Oh, nothing quite so surprising,” she replied. “I want to start my own family.”

  His lips thinned a bit as he frowned. “You want children?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Of course not. I guess I just didn’t think about...well, about—”

  “Sex?” she supplied.

  He let out a large breath of air and gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, well, now I guess that’s in the open. I didn’t realize how nervous I’d be. For all intents and purposes, you’re a stranger to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I hope you don’t mind me saying that you’re a very lovely woman, Panthea, so I don’t quite get why you don’t find a normal boy in your hometown, date, and do the traditional thing.”

  “I’m from Malibu, California so there’s not really a traditional thing there.” She shrugged, trying to turn her statement into a joke, but it fell flat.

  “Malibu, huh? You gonna be able to live in a place where snow tends to fall at least once a month?”

  She was silent for a long moment. “I, ah, I needed something completely different. I’m not saying that I probably won’t complain about the freezing cold, but I can’t go back there, Caleb. That’s not my home anymore.”

  He cocked his head. “Why not?”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped into the bland tone she used when telling people about the accident the year before. “My family died in a car accident. I was the only survivor.”

  He couldn’t hold her gaze. He blinked a few times and then turned his head away. She knew he had to be thinking of Claire.

  “I lost my wife,” he said, in a tone almost too low for her to hear. “I lost her last year.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Thea softly. “I read you were a widower in your bio.”

  He snorted. “My bio. What a joke. I was told to write a biography of myself in two hundred words or less. And I couldn’t even find fifty to fill up that damn questionnaire.”

  “I thought it was hard, too.”

  He looked back at her, one eyebrow raised. “You did?”

  “Y
es.”

  “I signed up with Illa Partnership Services because I…I was lonely.” He ran a hand over his face. “River Ice isn’t a normal place to socialize, there’s no movie theater or snazzy dance club. There’s nothing here but tourist season and perpetual twilight half of the year. I never thought Illa would come through and send me a bride.”

  “I never thought I’d be a bride meeting her fiancé the day before her wedding.”

  That made him smile.

  “Caleb, are you sure you want to get married?”

  “I honestly thought I’d never be married to anyone other than…her.”

  “You still love her.”

  Caleb didn’t say anything for a long moment. A mixture of emotions crossed his face, frustration, pain, and grief all jumbling around. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “I wake up every morning with her name on my lips. I sit at my kitchen table every night staring at the stove because she was always cooking. My heart hurts so bad I don’t know what to do. So I thought if I married again, got over her, then it wouldn’t be awful waking every morning and not seeing her.”

  He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. Tears gathered in Thea’s eyes as she watched him, not because she knew that she could never marry him, but because she could never help him heal like he needed to be healed. Not when she, herself, was still broken.

  “One day,” she said, “it will be easy to wake up and face the day. One day you won’t look at the stove. One day you’ll realize that you’ve gone an hour without thinking of her. Then that hour will stretch to two and before you know it, you’ll be able to look at her photos and say her name. But that day is a long way away, Caleb.”

  He reached and took her hand in his. His eyes were red from unshed tears. “What about you? Can you get through the day normally yet?”