He paused, his gaze sliding along the length of the conifer. Briefly, she imagined how it might feel to have that attention focused on her, but she pushed the thought away. She’d expected someone older, more Monk-like. Liam had caught her off guard. She doubted there was a woman alive who could look at him without entertaining at least some of those thoughts. He was young, and definitely hot. He was…
She blinked him into focus.
Holy crap.
It was him. Hot HVAC Guy.
Slowly, the pieces clicked into place. Fusion Air…she’d thought it sounded familiar because her friend who had given her the recommendation must have mentioned them before. That might be still be the case, but she’d definitely heard of him elsewhere.
He was a freaking meme.
But then again, so was she.
And he was still staring.
He rested his gaze on her, those green eyes like lasers seeing way too much. “You were going to show me…something?” He glanced up at the towering lodge—actually only two floors with a huge attic—and she swallowed what felt like a rock in her throat. She’d fantasized about this man. Hell, she’d even fantasized about him in bed. And now those fantasies were stupidly real. Or at least the man was. God, did he smell like soap? Soap and forest and—
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I mean, I can show you inside.”
He nodded. “I’ll just leave my work gear here, since I won’t need it at the B&B,” he said as she stepped over her tree. How had she ever expected to get that thing inside by herself? She really hadn’t thought that through. She’d just come running back here, running being a thing she now did, and had blindly reached for the only thing that she thought would bring her any comfort. That Christmas tree of her childhood dreams, back in her family lodge.
Everyone was gone now. There’d be no one to see it but her, but the way her life was going, she didn’t need witnesses. She just needed that small place of comfort to crawl back to. Maybe forever.
Realistically, she knew she’d find her way back to the city. She’d loved her job before she became a joke there, but she welcomed the extended vacation. Everything back home seemed to have a bad memory attached, from her favorite coffee shop where things had blown up with the blogger to the elevator of her high-rise, where fiancé number two had fumbled his way through a proposal that had been meant for the rooftop, only a storm had blown in and thwarted his plans.
An elevator proposal. She should have known right then.
But she hadn’t.
Trust was a mistake. Not just trusting someone else, but trusting herself. Her judgement clearly sucked.
The beauty of Dry Mountain Lodge took her breath, as it always had. It was far from its glory days, back when it had been booked to capacity during ski season, but the memories she associated with it were some of her favorites. Her uncle had owned the place, but around the holidays, it had always belonged to the entire family as well as any paying guests. Her parents brought her up for an extended ski vacation every winter until their deaths several years before.
Well, skiing for them. She wasn’t that coordinated, but she had loved the old fireplace and the crisp mountain air and the way snow seemed to settle like it had been painted just so. She’d been back one Christmas since, but the lodge had been silent. Only her and her uncle, who was by then in failing health and had closed the lodge to guests.
Until that point, she’d never seen the place without the decorations that shaped her childhood. To find her uncle sick and feeling the absence of her parents had left a dull ache in her chest. Her uncle had moved to an assisted living facility soon after, and she’d visited him there. The lodge remained empty. Even after his death, when she inherited it from him, she’d avoided returning.
Until she’d become the most blogged-about runaway bride in history.
By then, the ghost of her past was no longer empty and sad. It was more like a set of wide, welcoming arms that offered respite from being the punchline of every comedian and talking head in New York City. But still, there was a certain emptiness in the building that hollowed deep in her heart. Something she wasn’t sure she’d ever get back.
Liam had already stepped inside and stood with his head tipped back, his appreciation of the architecture apparent. “This place is pretty amazing,” he said. “Are you going to open it again to the public?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted after she joined him, with a glance toward old reception desk built into the front corner of the main room. “It used to stay packed. There’s a resort fifteen minutes away, in town, and in addition to the downhill runs, there are miles of cross-country trails right out its back door. Do you ski?”
“Mostly snowboard,” he said. “But anything that gets me out there on the slopes is fair game. I might have to check out the resort if I finish up here before my truck is ready.”
Yeah, that. “I’m really sorry,” she said again.
“Don’t worry about it.” He shot her a crooked grin. “If nothing else, it makes for a good story. Hybrid truck crushed by tree. Full story at eleven.”
Her breath caught. Standard, stupid joke, but she was no standard listener. She was the Runaway Bride. The one from his local news. And that crack couldn’t have been a coincidence, only nothing in his expression indicated it had been anything but. She drew a somewhat shaky breath. “I’ll show you around inside,” she said. “So you can get to work.”
“I doubt I’m in any hurry,” he told her. “Your buddy Monk said there’s a storm coming. Have you heard the weather? I didn’t check on the road.”
She frowned and withdrew her phone. The day was sunny and pleasant, still evident as she stood in the threshold of the lodge, and she’d avoided her phone because the majority of messages and notifications reminded her of why she’d left the city. She thought of that enough without the visuals, so she’d focused on finding pieces of familiarity in the old place and comfort in the work of making it home again.
With the sky blue and the sun making the snow glitter, she hadn’t thought twice about the weather, but when she pulled her phone out to check, sure enough, in the last few minutes, she’d gotten a winter storm warning via text. “Winter Storm Goliath. Looks like it’ll hit the city hard—they’re calling for a couple feet to hit Manhattan. Several inches here tonight, which isn’t anything the locals can’t handle, but the ice might be a problem. Looks like we have a couple hours before it moves in.”
“Are you staying here for the duration?”
She hadn’t realized he was looking over her shoulder at her phone screen until he spoke, his voice caressing her ear and shooting shivers through her that had nothing to do with the falling temperatures. “I could use some supplies. Two hours should allow time to get to town and back, so staying here shouldn’t be a problem.”
He looked at her, and she just happened to be looking back, and only eight inches separated them. She was falling headfirst into swoon territory when he spoke. “Since you have to pick up some stuff anyway, can you give me a ride to my B&B? I have reservations through the weekend and an unexpected lack of transportation. I’d like to scope out a rental car situation, but need a few minutes before we leave to check out what’s going on with the furnace, so I’ll know what else to grab off my truck.”
She cringed inwardly, being the reason he was stranded, but didn’t sense any anger in his tone. “S-sure,” she practically stammered. One syllable, and she couldn’t get it out with a hot guy a few inches from her. Nice. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”
Thirty minutes later, she was beginning to think the radar had a glitch. Or a delay, if that was such a thing with the hit or miss reception on the mountain. Either way, the sunny day had turned dark and ominous, clouds low and hampering visibility even before the snow settled in. Stray flurries tickled her nose, an oddly light precursor to what was to come.
She and Liam exchanged glances when the wind kicked up in a single blast that n
early bent the evergreens in half. “Are you comfortable driving in this?” he asked.
With a tight smile that probably exuded more confidence than she felt, she said, “More so than I am staying here without supplies. I might spend the night in town, though. The lodge has been sitting vacant for years. Another couple of days won’t hurt it, and the sooner we hit the road the better.”
He nodded his agreement, lending another worried look at the sky as the wind kicked and curled around the sides of the lodge. He stowed his stuff in her truck and climbed in, surprising her by not commenting on a city girl driving in this mess. He glanced at his phone screen again and swore. “I refreshed this, and it looks the same, which means it’s not updating. I’m guessing we have a fast-moving storm and outdated radar.”
“Nice combination,” she said tersely. Snow smacked the windshield in the growing fervor, and she wasn’t sure if the flakes were blown out of the trees or part of the upcoming storm. She hesitated in against a gust of wind, then eased ahead.
Two twists of the road later, through thwacking wipers, a burst of green interrupted the gray icy road. She hit the brakes, steering through a brief loss of traction, and stopped, nosed up to a tree.
Lying across the path, completely blocking it.
She and Liam were stuck. Together.
Freaking perfect.
Chapter Four
Their plight sinking in, Claire shot a glance at Liam.
“Karma,” he said under his breath.
She didn’t know if he was joking—or how, under the circumstances, he could be—but nevertheless, she looked for that hint of a smile that always seemed so close to his lips.
There wasn’t one.
Instead, he frowned as he pushed the door open against the wind and stepped outside. After a brief inspection of the tree, he came back to the truck. “It’s still attached to the trunk,” he said. “And the top half fell sandwiched between two trees, so there’s no moving it.”
“Should we get the chainsaw?” Privately, she just wanted to go back to the lodge and deal with whatever came, but that would mean staying with him, and she wasn’t sure she could do that without drooling or otherwise embarrassing herself. Like bringing up the chainsaw hadn’t already accomplished the latter.
He gave her a sideways look. “Probably not worth it. There are miles of this road ahead, and as bulky as these evergreens are, this probably won’t be the only one to fall in that wind. Apparently I’m a magnet for that kind of thing,” he said.
She forced an unsteady smile. Was he joking about the tree on his truck? “We really need supplies to weather this at the lodge.”
He shrugged. “It’s shelter. We’ll figure it out.”
Her stomach churned, but she nodded her agreement anyway. An hour ago, the day had been sunny and almost pleasant, temperature-wise. As quickly as the weather turned, this clearly wasn’t a storm they should fight.
She shifted into reverse. “I don’t want to risk going off the side with visibility this bad, so we’re going up backward. Help me watch for the turns.” Switchbacks in reverse weren’t going to be her favorite things, but it beat plummeting off the edge trying to do a three-point turn on the narrow road. Her heart was already in her throat, and she was almost certain it had less to do with weather than it did a certain green-eyed passenger who seemed to have no problem trusting her to navigate in a blizzard, his life in her hands.
The storm seemed to worsen by the minute, and it took nearly an hour at a crawling pace to reverse their tracks back to the lodge. She parked next to the building, where the wall and the trees offered some shelter from the wind. After she cut the engine and removed the key, she looked at Liam and couldn’t help noticing how bright his eyes were against a backdrop of sheeting snow. “Well,” she said. “I suppose I should officially welcome you to Dry Mountain Lodge, seeing as how you’re the first guest in years.”
He shot her a look. “Dry mountain?”
“Maybe in the summer.”
He shook his head, laughing quietly. “I’m guessing I won’t get through to the B&B where I have reservations. I prepaid, so they won’t be out anything, but if someone needs the room, I’d hate for the front desk to hold it for me.”
“Try a text if all else fails,” she suggested. “They usually keep spinning and eventually go through even when the reception is bad.” She was surprised by how calm she sounded. Because now, somehow, he was going to spend the night. With her.
She’d fantasized about the man. She could not sleep with him. Near him, she quickly corrected. The fireplace might be massive, but so was the room it was in. Without working heat, the only comfortable spot was right near the fire. The two of them, near the fire, in a snowstorm.
Her and the only guy she’d actually thought about since her latest ex, because the previously unnamed Liam Chase was safely in her head. Just an obscenely gorgeous man, a little sweat-soaked, a little dirty, who’d stared at her from that meme and promised to make all those unspoken fantasies come true with zero chance that he’d mock her or talk to the press.
Talk about a dream shattered.
Not that seeing him in person was anything less than dream-worthy, but her body hadn’t gotten the memo about how bad of an idea that attraction had suddenly become. Her body remembered orgasms and was wretchedly excited to see a potential catalyst for them in the flesh.
“I’m sorry you’re stuck here,” she said. “I didn’t expect this.”
“Believe me,” he muttered. “I didn’t either. I sleep naked.”
Her jaw may have unhinged slightly. He couldn’t have thought his statement innocuous, but he didn’t seem to have meant anything by it. Nevertheless, her heart rate kicked up a notch while her stupendously misdirected brain tried to piece together Naked Liam from Hot HVAC Guy.
“You’ll be…cold.” Oh, that was just brilliant. They were sitting there her truck in an actual blizzard, and she felt the need to inform him that his underwear would have been to key to staying warm.
He blinked. For a long time. More like he closed his eyes and couldn’t look at her, but at any rate, when he did meet her gaze, he looked almost as embarrassed as she felt. “I’m not going to sleep naked now,” he said.
“Oh.” She could have kicked herself. She prided herself on handling live interviews with aplomb, and here she was with him stammering like a pre-teen staring down her favorite celebrity. “When you sleep later, I mean.”
“I’m just generally not going to sleep naked,” he said. “Not like this. I didn’t mean you needed to worry.”
“I wasn’t worried. I was…concerned. Frostbite, you know.”
He gave her a serious look that led her to believe he might share her concerns. Then he said, “Which appendage had you concerned?”
Oh, dear God. She must have turned ten shades of red. And he didn’t look the least bit like he was flirting. Instead, he seemed bewildered by the words coming out of his mouth, which totally clashed with the smooth-talking, sexy charmer she had expected would go with that perfect face. He still looked the part, at least. Like that was a good thing. “We should go in,” she said.
“Good idea.” He started to gather his stuff.
“Can I help?” she asked.
He glanced at her in surprise. “Sure. Thanks.”
She took the bag he offered and pushed open the truck door, then made a run for the front porch. She was closer, but he got there at the same time, which was impressive considering he was carrying a snowboard in that wind. They burst inside the lodge together, snow swirling in their wake. He shut the door against the wind. “Hell of a storm,” he said.
“Yeah. Some day you’re having.” She immediately regretted the words. How many times was she going to remind him of that stupid tree?
If he shared similar thoughts, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he pushed back the hair that had fallen in her face, shocking her so much with the light contact that she took a step back.
“Sorry,�
� he said. “I didn’t mean anything. You had a branch…” He tugged, extracting a small bough from her hair.
“Save it for the fire,” she half-joked. Inside, she was experiencing total meltdown. He’d touched her. He’d touched her, and he was spending the night, and she’d had sex dreams about him.
Holy awkward hell.
She realized she’d been staring when he cleared his throat and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I actually have reception, I think. I’m going to try to make a couple phone calls.”
She didn’t object, or even give a solid reply. Just a sort of half nod that had her wishing she’d blink and wake up. So what if he was pretty much the hottest guy she’d ever laid eyes on? He was still the worst idea she’d ever had. The worst idea she was still having. Runaway Bride hooking up with Hot HVAC Guy was not a headline she needed in her life.
And who said anything about hooking up?
This was going to be a long night. A long, cold night spent thinking about appendages and green eyes and really, really bad ideas.
She watched him walk to the far side of the room to stand by the window as he made his call. The last she heard of his soft-spoken words were stuck here and she has a chainsaw.
Great.
She headed to the whimpering pile of ashes left in the fireplace and tried not to salivate while imagining him sleeping naked. He still wore a thick coat, but she didn’t need him to strip down to fuel her imagination.
She’d seen the picture circling the Internet. He’d worn a shirt. A white, dirt-smudged, soaking wet shirt. His presumably sweat-darkened hair made those eyes pop like crazy, but it was the fabric clinging to every ridge of defined muscle that had made the man a star. Now, despite the number of times she’s seen that image, she realized what little justice it did to the man in the flesh.
The 48 Hour Hookup (Chase Brothers) Page 3