Radiant Desire (A Handmaids Seduction, #1)

by Inara Scott

  Standing back, Megan admired her work. He was the best snowman she’d ever built. Tall. Well proportioned. Handsomely attired. “Now I’m not alone.”

  Inspired, Megan fished a dry pair of blue gloves from the supply pile and collected more snow, beginning again before her brain could assess and refute her pronouncement. She packed, rolled, and lift-grunted until another, somewhat smaller, snow person stood beside the first. Back at the tree, she broke off more branches and gave the second person arms. She slid her soaked-through pink gloves on the end of each stick, then wrapped her own matching pink scarf around the snow woman’s neck. Perfect.

  Hands on her knees, Megan rested and struggled to catch her breath. Her lungs burned with the frigid air, her lips chapped and cracked. Her body ached from the heavy lifting. Definitely the route to a decent night of sleep. God, how she needed that. She plunged into her third creation.

  The temperature dropped and the biting wind picked up. Big, wet snowflakes fell in a heavy blanket, darkening the afternoon sky. Her flagging energy and the deteriorating conditions made the work harder, and this snow person ended up much smaller. On her knees, with wet gloves and cold hands almost too numb to do the job, Megan set its little head in place.

  Breathing hard, she staggered to her feet and studied her afternoon’s labor with her hands on her hips.

  She’d made a snow family.

  A snow family. A snowman, a snow woman, and a snow child.

  A sob tore up her throat and echoed into the stillness. What the hell was she thinking?

  She stumbled, gasping at her own stupidity. The emotional scab ripped open. Hours of effort came undone. Her boot stuck in a deep drift and tripped her. Her body fell hard at the base of the snowman and her breath whooshed out. The sobs choked her as she crawled to her knees and slumped against the man. She yanked off a glove, needing to touch something he’d touched, something that had been his, but her frozen fingers could barely feel the soft cotton of John’s favorite cabin-wear. She buried her face against the worn material. He’d been gone too long to be able to smell him on it, but that didn’t keep her from inhaling deeply to try.

  “Why did you leave me?” she wailed, her tears soaking through the cold shirt. “Why?” Her fists curled into the flannel. “I need you.”

  The wind swallowed her words and carried them away. John was gone. And they’d never have a family of their own. They never even had the chance.

  Chapter Two

  “Merry Christmas,” Megan murmured to the empty bedroom the next morning.

  Gray light filtered through the two windows on either side of the king-sized bed, enough to illuminate the outlines of hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. She’d once remarked offhandedly that her favorite thing about spending time at their cabin was the huge glittered dome of the rural night sky. Up here, no city lights dimmed the stars’ brilliance, so even the smallest, most distant ones beamed and twinkled. The next time they’d visited, John redecorated their bedroom ceiling. Just for her. He wanted her to have her stars, inside and out.

  She didn’t bother wishing on them anymore, though. Not in two years. Two years, today.

  In spite of the circumstances, the holiday filled the air with a special, magical buzz that set her stomach to fluttery anticipation. A ridiculous reaction, of course, since she was alone. No surprise gifts or family-filled dinner awaited. Just a quiet, empty house.

  Wallowing in bed all day sounded appealing, but a burning sensation on her cheek demanded attention. She patted the area. The skin felt rough, like a scab. Lovely. Turning back the cocoon of the thick down comforter, she slipped out of bed. She followed a path from one hooked scatter rug to the next, avoiding the cold, wide-planked wood floors.

  The navy, mahogany, and white color scheme of the bedroom carried into the adjoining bathroom. Megan squinted against the brightness of the mounted light and leaned toward the mirror. Her left cheek bore the deep, dark red of frostnip. Her skin looked almost sunburned, except the angry mark was localized to the cheekbone. The spot where, yesterday, she’d leaned against the snowman, crying until the unceasing flow of her tears froze the wet flannel to her face. At least her nose and other cheek, pink from windburn, didn’t hurt.

  She gently prodded the mark with her fingers again. Last night, it had been cold to the touch, but now it was hot, chafed. So stupid. She slathered moisturizer over her face and smoothed ChapStick over her dry lips, and brushed and clipped her loose blonde curls on top of her head in a messy pile. What did her looks matter?

  Megan slipped a pink fleece robe on over her flannel pajamas and threaded her way across the large great room, past the grouping of buttery leather couches and the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, to the open kitchen. Coffee was a must. She tapped her fingers on the counter as she waited for it to brew. Giving up, she walked around the long breakfast bar to the one concession she made to Christmas.

  There, next to the raised stone hearth, a small potted Douglas fir stood in darkness. She reached behind and found the plug. A rainbow of colored lights shimmered to life, brightening the dim gray that still dominated the room despite the number of large windows. She stepped back and gazed at the small tree. Plain balls of every color mirrored the riot of lights, but the basic ornaments also spread an impersonal cast over the tree. She hadn’t unpacked their collection of ornaments—where every one had meaning or told a story—since her last Christmas with John.

  She turned away, sucked in a deep breath, and promised herself she wasn’t going to think about that. Not until she had to. And she had almost eleven hours.

  She curled into a wide armchair with a warm chenille throw and a mug of strong coffee. The ringing phone startled her and she almost spilled it in her lap. “Oh, hell,” she murmured as she unburied herself and rushed for the cordless.

  She knew who it would be before she answered.

  “Merry Christmas, dear.”

  “Hey, Mom. Merry Christmas.” She settled on the edge of her seat and dragged the blanket over her lap.

  “How are you doing up there? The weather looks bad.”

  Her mom wasn’t really worried about weather, today of all days, but Megan permitted her the ruse. “I’m just fine. It’s been snowing steady. We’ve got well over two feet, I’d guess.” An earlier peek out the front window revealed the storm had undone all her hard work from yesterday, reburying the stone sidewalk she’d shoveled. The snow family still stood there, though.

  “I wish you weren’t up there alone. You should be with us. Especially today. I mean, who’s going to keep your father and brother from sneaking bites of ham and stealing cookies while I’m trying to cook?” Her chuckle sounded forced.

  Restraining her emotions made Megan’s throat tight. “I just…I’m not ready.” Not ready to walk away from the annual holiday tradition of a cabin getaway she and John had created, even before they were married. Not ready to be around people actually happy it was Christmas. Not ready to pretend so others could be comfortable.

  Her mother’s sigh made its way down the line. “I know. I know you have to grieve, and I know how hard this has been. But, damn it, it’s been two years. You’re twenty-nine, Megan, so young, so much life ahead of you, so much to offer. You can’t spend the rest of your life mourning John.” She paused. “Nor would he want you to.”

  Megan forced her eyes to the ceiling to pinch off the threatening tears. “I’m trying, Mom. I am. But, please, I can’t do this. Not today.”

  “I’m sorry. I told myself I wasn’t going to say anything. I’m just so worried about you.”

  Megan nodded and swallowed around the lump in her throat, unable to do much more in the face of her mother’s emotional outpouring.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What happened?”

  “That was uncharitable, wasn’t it? Mrs. Cooke is tottering her way up the front sidewalk, annual fruitcake in hand.”

  “You need to go?” Their neighbor had been dropping by the inedib
le bricks since Megan was a kid, though this was probably the first time Megan felt grateful for it—Mrs. Cooke’s timing provided the perfect distraction from this line of conversation.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, dear. Let me go help her. Your father hasn’t been out to shovel yet, and God help me if she falls and breaks a hip on Christmas morning.”

  “Okay. Enjoy your fruitcake.”

  “Keep it up, smarty. I’ll save you some.”

  Megan managed a small smile. “No, please. Don’t do me any favors.”

  “I’ll be thinking about you, Megan. I’ll have Dad give you a call later.” The squeak of her mom’s front door sounded in the background. “Hello there, Mrs. Cooke.”

  Their quick good-byes overlapped their neighbor’s high-pitched chatter. Megan could so easily imagine the scene unfolding at her parents’ house. Christmas there was comfortably predictable. An enormous real tree filled the living room with the scent of fresh-cut pine. More decorations than a Hallmark store. Mrs. Cooke’s visit. Her dad’s buttermilk pancakes for anyone who had stayed the night before. The savory aroma of baking ham. A small army of visitors—Megan’s older brother and sister with their spouses and kids, occasional aunts and uncles with their families, and even a few neighbors without other plans. Enough food to feed said army, and then some. A mountain of presents. More food. An evening of games around the big farmhouse table.

  Much as she had always loved it, she couldn’t face it. Not yet.

  By ten in the morning, she’d talked to her sister Susan, amazed to learn her two nieces had been done opening presents for hours already, and her brother Aaron, who quickly handed her off to his wife. She liked Nora well enough and enjoyed talking to her, but knew her brother’s cursory greeting stemmed from his continued discomfort around her. He didn’t know how to make things better for her, and his instinct, as a man, as the big brother, was to fix it. Not being able to help her put him at a complete loss. Megan didn’t hold it against him.

  As noon approached, Megan talked herself into getting dressed and having a bite to eat. She was about to dig into a bowl of chili and homemade cornbread when the phone rang again.

  “Megs! Merry Christmas!” came her best friend’s voice.

  Megan smiled. Kate always did that for her. “Merry Christmas to you, too. You just wake up?”

  “Damn straight. Well, Ryan woke me up with some yuletide cheer earlier, but we fell back to sleep after.” Kate snorted.

  “Aw, too much information, woman. I don’t need to know about his little yuletide cheer.”

  “Who said it was little?”

  “Argh. La-la-la, so not listening.”

  “All right, all right,” Kate said. “So, how are you? The truth.”

  “Meh.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Oh, Megs, what the hell are you doin’ way up there by yourself?”

  “Honestly? I couldn’t face Christmas at my parents’. I know they want me there, but I hate feeling like the elephant in the room. Everyone tiptoeing around me. It sucks.”

  “Big hairy balls.”

  “Exactly.” Kate’s goofy side had often been a lifesaver, but not today. Megan sighed. “I can’t believe it’s been two years.”

  “Me neither. It’s so hard to imagine.”

  “They say the first year is the worst, because every sunrise represents the first time you experience that date without the person you lost.” The first Valentine’s without him, the first birthday without him, the first summer alone, the first Thanksgiving without him to be thankful for. The first Christmas. Megan stirred her cooling chili and struggled to put her thoughts into words. “But, honestly, the only thing different about the second year is you feel like you can’t talk about it anymore. Everyone expects you to move on.”

  “You can always talk to me. You know that, right?”

  “I do. Thanks.” She huffed. “Jesus, I’m sorry to be so damn morose. Maybe we should talk about Ryan’s yule log again.”

  Kate barked out a laugh. “Hmm…yes, that is a big, happy subject.”

  “Shit, on second thought.”

  They hung up with promises to talk later in the day. After.

  Despite their joking, the honesty of the conversation chased away Megan’s appetite. She wrapped the bread and chili for later and wandered around the cabin, relocating from one seat to another without any real purpose. A lull in the storm brightened the afternoon. Needing fresh air and a little distraction, Megan bundled up and shoveled the sidewalk for the second time, estimating perhaps ten new inches covered it.

  She was officially snowed in.

  As she stomped back up the cleared path, her eyes looked where her mind told them not to. The snow family remained, though the constant snow had weighed so heavily upon the woman’s arms that they’d collapsed to her sides, her pink gloves presumably buried somewhere beneath the new snowfall. Megan frowned when she looked at the man. Both his hat and eyes were gone. Blown away or, like the gloves, buried.

  Back inside, her eyes drifted where she didn’t really want them to go, to the clock on the microwave. Little after four. Her stomach clenched. About two and a half hours until the anniversary came and went, until John had officially been gone for two years. She found herself glad she hadn’t eaten that chili.

  Mismatched picture frames drew her to the mantle. Smiling faces shined out from the past. A candid of her whole family. Her and Susan kissing Aaron’s cheeks at his wedding. Mom and Dad’s portrait from their twentieth anniversary. And half a dozen shots of her and John—their wedding, skiing, her sitting on his lap. Happy and healthy. Alive. She turned away, but he was everywhere. In the rustic moose throw pillows he insisted they had to have, despite the fact no moose resided in these mountains. In the beautiful Mission lamps they found at an antique store outside D.C. In the stars on the bedroom ceiling, in the closet full of his clothes.

  By five o’clock, the snowstorm returned with a vengeance, dumping more white fluff while the wind whipped through the surrounding trees. When the lights flickered for the first time, Megan groaned. No way the electricity would hold against the storm’s relentless onslaught. At least she’d stocked the firewood rack when she first arrived. She built a strong fire, providing a blazing source of illumination should the lights fail completely.

  The flickering continued at uneven intervals. She’d never seen the electricity falter so much without simply failing altogether. Despite the crackling heat of the fire, the great room air chilled. She tugged on a fleece hoodie and checked the thermostat. The LED screen flashed. She frowned as she reset the program, but the screen just kept flashing. Jeez. First the Freon leak in the air conditioning unit and now the heat was on the fritz. Not much she could do about it with this storm, though. She’d have to schedule a repairman before she headed back to D.C.

  A fresh pot of coffee would ward off the chill. She wandered to the kitchen and froze. “What the hell?” All the LED screens—on the microwave, the oven, the coffeemaker, the digital alarm clock on the counter—blinked. Odd. Especially since the clock had a battery backup and, like the thermostat, the coffeemaker wouldn’t reset.

  A high-pitched tinkling, like a small ringing bell, sounded from somewhere outside. Goose bumps erupted over her arms. She didn’t have a wind chime, and the next nearest house was over a half mile through the stand of trees to the west.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

  She dashed to the entryway and peered through the glass panes on both sides of the door. Without light, her effort was useless. A wall of darkness swirled beyond the glass. She reached to the side and tripped the light switches, then turned back to the window.

  A strangled scream stuck in her throat.

  Chapter Three

  Out of the darkness, from the heart of the howling snowstorm, a hunched-over man staggered up Megan’s front steps. She wrenched back from the door, her heart pounding in her chest. Panicked, she skittered be
hind a couch.

  Who the hell could he be? Nobody could have walked or driven here in this weather. Her breath came in fast rasps. The lights flickered again, then again. Her eyes trailed to the fireplace tools on the hearth. Maybe she should grab the iron poker. Just in case.

  The lights wavered, struggled to hold on. From outside, a solid, deadweight thump startled a gasp from Megan.

  Help him.

  The words were so quiet they might’ve been a thought, but in her current state she still whirled, fully expecting the impossible—that someone else was crouched next to her behind the sofa. Of course, she was alone. She peeked around the corner of the couch, her panic subsiding into a feeling of absurdity.

  Help who? The man. Just a regular, ordinary man. Who must be in trouble. She remembered how he seemed to stumble on the steps and the thump. He’d fallen. She rushed from her hiding place like a sprinter at the sound of the gun. Peering through the sidelight, she whispered, “Oh, shit.” She was right.

  She tore open the door. Jesus, he was big. No one she knew from the neighborhood, though there were always tourists renting surrounding cabins to take advantage of Deep Creek Lake and the Wisp Ski Resort. God, he wasn’t dressed to be out in this weather. No coat. No shoes. What the hell was she going to do with him?

  Cold wind buffeted her and nipped at her skin, making her nearly frostbitten cheek tingle uncomfortably. Her hesitation wavered, then dropped away completely. What choice did she have? She couldn’t leave him out in this blizzard.

  The bitter wind sank into her bones as she stepped shoeless and coatless—like him—onto the porch. She didn’t have to check for a pulse. Each shallow breath sent up a small fog from his mouth. Megan crouched behind his shoulders and wedged her hands underneath. Two fistfuls of red plaid flannel in hand, she pulled. He barely budged as she grunted and tugged. She tried two more times.