by Whitley Gray
He sat back in the seat. “Ah. Mystery lady. I get it. So if your parents are in Florida, what’re you doing in the Catskills?”
I ground my teeth. “My mother has OCD. They left yesterday, and she called this morning, asking me to come up and check the stove. She thinks she left a burner on after breakfast.”
He paused. “Seriously? Did she know it would snow today?”
“Yes, but apparently the house not burning down was more important than my immediate safety.”
He nodded. “Well, when you put it that way, it makes perfect sense.”
I laughed. I didn’t know where it came from. Until the moment before, my simmering resentment of being my mom’s lackey had started bubbling again. Instead he made me laugh. It felt good. “Yeah, you know, I’m pretty sure my dad turns the propane off before they leave, but she got it in her head. Dad said she didn’t sleep all night. She was in tears when I finally caved in. It’s probably a miracle she didn’t call me at three in the morning.”
He patted my hand. “You’re being a good daughter.”
Even through the glove, my circuits fried at his touch, cutting through the tension beginning to knot up my nervous system all over again. “Maybe it’ll translate into a nice little inheritance. They just bought an RV the size of Long Island, though, so I have my doubts.” The air in the car instantly changed, and Aaron went still. Maybe even stiff. Feeling the change, I shifted in my seat. “I mean, I’m not like that. I’m not waiting for my parents to die so I can get their money or their house or anything. My sister lives closer than I do, but she has two little kids. She can’t exactly jump in the car on no notice.”
“I didn’t take it that way.” He said it so flatly that pancakes would be jealous.
I gave the silence between us a little while. I don’t know which felt more awkward. “Do you know a lot of people like that? People who’re only around you for what they can get from you?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him look out the side window. “You read too many gossip magazines.”
I clenched my jaw rather than sigh from frustration. Okay, whatever. He wanted to be quiet. That worked fine with me.
I turned left for the road up the hill. Another turn at the boat-shaped mailbox. Right at the empty tow trailer. Ahead on the left sat a pine stump with a burgundy mailbox on it. Guilt crept through me. I hadn’t been here in a while, and now my parents were in Florida. I wouldn’t see them again until April unless I dropped money on airfare. I’d rather get a crown at the dentist’s, but they were my parents. Obligations weren’t always fun. That was why they were called obligations.
Aaron whistled. “Wow. It looks like something out of a movie.”
“Coming from you, that means something.” The chalet-style house sat at the back of four acres, all wood shingles and pristine garden with a built-on two-car garage that kept Dad out of Mom’s hair. The first coating of white on the green pine branches gave it a Christmas-card look.
“I suppose you’re right. How long have they lived here?”
I pulled up the gravel driveway, the sound of tires crunching on stone oddly comforting. “It was a weekend place when Dad first retired about five years ago. Mom retired two years later, and they moved up here full time. The first winter they were here, they decided it was too much for Dad, so they bought the trailer.”
“Where in Florida?”
“Outside St. Pete. Dad likes the beaches. Mom likes the shopping.”
He nodded. “Good place for both.”
I stopped the car on the concrete apron in front of the house. “Well, it’s still standing, so I’d bet the stove isn’t on.”
“I’ll take that bet.” His hand lay on the door handle. “How long were you planning on staying? I mean, I don’t want to put you out or anything if you were going to go right back home. I’m sure there’s a motel or something…somewhere.”
“There’s one a couple miles up the road. I stayed there when we had a family reunion a few years ago. I still haven’t gotten the knots out of my back.” I got out of the car and went to the trunk for my bag. “I was planning to stay at least overnight. Maybe head home tomorrow, maybe Tuesday. I figured it’d depend on how I felt.” I looked into the last remnants of daylight. Snowflakes danced down to meet me, kissing my face.
“Weren’t planning on the snow, were you?” he said from alongside the car.
I dug my keys from my pocket. “No one was planning on this snow. Where the house is located, it’s usually shielded by that mountain up there. Most times, they predict heavy snow, but this part of the area gets the least of it.”
“That’s good to know. Need a hand?”
I slung the bag over my shoulder. “Not a problem,” I said. “I can carry my own luggage.”
He shrugged those lovely broad shoulders. He looked like he was about to say something, but instead he stayed silent and followed me to the door.
I unlocked the beveled-glass door, stepped in, and was not greeted by the usual warmth, the sounds of the radio singing oldies, or the smell of Mom’s chili on the stove. It felt empty and lifeless. I walked into the living room and dropped my bag on the couch. “I didn’t plan on using the beds upstairs. Figured I’d sleep on the couch. I didn’t want my Mom to have to do any laundry first thing when they got back. You can sleep on the recliner, or there should be a sleeping bag upstairs if you’d rather sleep on the floor. I’m going to get a fire started.”
He dropped his things on the floor and grabbed my arm. “Hey, that’s fine, but let me do something here, okay?”
“Like what?”
Did his shoulders get broader? “I can carry firewood.”
“Okay. Where is it?”
He deflated. “You don’t know?”
I let him squirm a moment, but that’s all my grin would allow. “I do. I wanted to see if you did.”
“And I would know that how?”
“Ease up. I was playing around.” I walked out into the snow.
I felt his presence behind me. I didn’t look back to find out how close he was. “Again, and how would I know that? I’ve known you for all of twenty minutes.”
“Because I have a sense of humor and apparently you don’t.” I took the wood carrier off the top of the pile and shook it out, hopefully displacing any spiders that might have sought shelter there.
He yanked the piece of canvas out of my hands. “I’ll have you know I have great comic timing. I—”
“Yeah, I saw that bachelor party movie.”
He spun on me. “What’s that supposed to mean?” His breath warmed my face. He really did smell like cookies. Chocolate chip, possibly homemade. With butter. My stomach growled while a more primitive female urge inside me yawned pleasantly to life, reminding me, almost uncomfortably, what arousal felt like.
“It means most critics didn’t think too much of your comic timing.”
“Oh yeah? What did you think?”
I might have squirmed or backed away, but he was in my territory. I was the one doing him the favor. The least he could do was to let me have the upper hand. “It was cute.”
He threw the carrier down like a gauntlet. “Cute? That’s all? Cute? I’ll have you know I worked my ass off to get that timing right. Comedy is damned hard.”
I met his eyes. At least, as well as I could considering I was four inches shorter. “Want to know what else is hard?”
His gaze narrowed. “What?”
I held up my ungloved hands. “My fingers, because in two minutes my hands are going to be frozen solid if we don’t get back in the house and get a fire started. Can we discuss the finer points of your Oscar-worthy performances later? That is, if you don’t mind.”
He opened his mouth, ready to respond. It took him a moment to shut it again. He turned to the wood and started piling wedges onto the canvas.
Chapter Two
Ten minutes later, after I called Mom to reassure her that all was indeed well, the first of the logs caugh
t. The fire was slow to catch, but I held my palms close by anyway, hoping to regain some sensation in my fingers. The nails were slightly blue, and I hadn’t worn nail polish in a decade.
Aaron knelt on the floor beside me. He pulled my hands away from the fireplace and rubbed them between his own. His grip was firm but gentle enough that I started to get my feeling back. I assured myself that the shiver that rippled through me had more to do with the cold than his touch.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice as soft as the crackle from the fireplace.
“For what? I baited you.”
He kept his eyes on our hands, leaning forward and blowing on them. Warm, moist air wafted between my fingers. I started feeling again and then some. “Yes, but I didn’t have to take it. That’s part of why I’m here. I had a fight with Gisele.”
I blinked a few times, my brain swirling as the name sank in. The lingerie model turned actress? “You’re seeing Gisele Everett?”
“You didn’t know?”
I tugged my hands back. He let go without hesitation. “I don’t have a lot of time for gossip columns.”
A tiny light flickered in those eyes. “What do you do?”
I tucked my hands under my armpits. Maybe only one of two places on my body that were warm. Sitting this close to him, however, private parts of me were getting warmer by the minute. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
He sat back on the floor, his eyes still on me. “Well, I know you know cars, so maybe you’re an auto mechanic?”
I licked my fingertip and drew a line in the air. “And with that, the game is tied.”
“No shit? You really are?” He laughed. There was that smile I saw on the big screen. “You don’t see that a lot. What made you go into that line of work?”
I shrugged. “I liked putting things together, taking them apart, and seeing how they work. And it was the only way I could get any time with my dad. Common ground, you know?”
He shook his head. “Not really, but I hear you.”
I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard those last three words from anyone, put together that way. Or maybe it was the depth of his voice. It sounded better than when I saw him on a movie screen or on my little TV at home. No wonder he had charmed the likes of Gisele Everett into a horizontal position.
He looked at the fireplace and smiled. “Looks like we got a good fire going here. Got marshmallows?”
Good thinking, and I could use some space between us. I got to my feet. “I’m not sure they leave much of anything around here in the way of food.” In the kitchen, I flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. “Great.”
He walked up behind me. Dammit, he wasn’t an actor. He was a ninja, and I’d do well to remember that when I went to sleep. “Power’s out?”
“No, they leave enough power on to keep the pipes from freezing, but I guess Dad turns off a few of the circuits.” I laid a hand on the refrigerator. “It’s still on. Must be on a different line.”
“Where’s the circuit breaker?”
I shrugged. “Damned if I know.”
He walked up beside me. “Well, okay. What can we cook on the fireplace?”
“Without killing ourselves or making a mess out of the fireplace? Nothing I can think of.” I pulled open a cabinet door. “Mom might have some cans, maybe.”
He pulled open the refrigerator door. “Well, there’s…wow, it’s bare bones in here.”
“No point in leaving milk and butter if no one will be here for four months.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t smell too good when they got back. Wait. What have we here?” He bent down and then stood again, holding up a wine bottle. “How long has it been since you raided your dad’s liquor cabinet?”
I gasped. “Never. They’ve been holding out on me. Every time I come up, I bring another bottle of wine. They don’t open it, and I never see it again. I assumed they were giving it to their neighbors.”
“They won’t miss it, will they?”
“I’ll replace it.” I dug through the utensil drawer, if only to get out of Aaron’s charged magnetic orbit. “We should really eat something with this, you know. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“It’s not like we’re driving anywhere. Not me, at least. I’ll show you how to play ‘I Never.’”
“What’s that?” I kept my attention on opening and closing the cabinets. Mom knew not to leave any dry goods or the mice would find it, move in, and multiply, so we wouldn’t find any chips, bread, or cereal. The staples of the single woman’s lifestyle.
“It’s a game. I say ‘I never’ did something, and if you did, you have to take a shot. If you didn’t, then I have to take a shot.”
“It’s wine, not vodka.”
“Whatever. You make it work with what you got. C’mon.” He tugged me toward the living room, made warmer by the crackling fire and Aaron’s contact.
“We don’t have shot glasses.”
He unfurled a corkscrew from a Swiss army knife. Authentic too. Not the knockoff kind in my glove compartment. “Again, we’ll make do. I don’t have cooties, do you?”
I shot him a dubious look. He shot one back. “I’m pretty sure you’ve kissed a hell of a lot more women than I’ve kissed men.”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“I’ve seen your movies, remember? I can’t think of one where you didn’t get at least one girl in your bed. Sometimes more than one.”
He yanked the cork from the bottle. “Those are movies. The kisses don’t count. They’re not real.”
I sat back on my butt, giving us a little distance. “They looked real enough to me.”
“They’re supposed to,” he said. “But they’re not.”
“Regardless.” I took the bottle from his hand and knocked back as much wine as I could without waterboarding myself with it. Cabernet. Not my favorite. “Dammit, Dad.” I wiped a droplet from the corner of my mouth.
“What? Bad?”
“Not really,” I said. “But not one of the ones I’ve brought up.”
He took the bottle back. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” After a sip, he shrugged. “Yeah, not my choice either.”
A warm little tickle danced around my lower belly. “Oh, well. It’ll do.”
He faced me again. “That it will. So, about that game. I never—”
“I didn’t say I was going to play.”
“Do you have something better to do?”
I pursed my lips, looking into the fire. “No.”
“Great. We already discussed the rules. It’s pretty simple. Here goes. I never…” He looked at me, into me. I could tell he was trying to read me, trying to get me to drink. To what end, I didn’t know. We’d only just met, but I already knew his voice and his eyes made me feel things that scared me and made me want to do things. Things I shouldn’t do with a near stranger.
I put on my best poker face. It was a skill I’d honed after years of breaking bad repair bill news to customers, all while internally celebrating the credit I’d get for bringing in more revenue for the shop. It was why I had six weeks of unused vacation time coming to me.
“I never kissed a man.”
I laughed. “Bullshit. I saw that summer camp movie you did.”
His smile should be a registered lethal weapon, the way it shot through me hot and fast. “Crap, you weren’t supposed to know about that.” With a resigned sigh, he tipped the bottle back for a moment. “God, that sucks. Your dad has lousy taste in wine.”
“Tell me about it. I like something sweeter.” I took the bottle he handed me. “Okay. I never…” I sized him up. Between his movies and what I saw on the covers of magazines in the waiting room, I didn’t think there was much he’d never done. It looked like my sobriety was up to me. “I never jumped out of an airplane.” I held the bottle out to him.
He held his hand up to block me. “Wait, hold on. It doesn’t count if I fell out of an airplane, does it
?”
“What?”
“In For Love and Honor. The bomb blows a hole in the plane, and my seat gets sucked out.”
My brow shot up at his choice of words. “Are you playing the game or are your characters?” Thoughtless, I took another swig of the wine. It didn’t taste all that bad, and it was warming me up pretty nicely.
“Does it matter?” His eyes gleamed as he took the bottle back.
“How did it feel, falling out of an airplane?”
He took a sip. “I don’t know. It was green screened.”
“Jerk.” I shoved his shoulder. It was firm, strong, and warm, and touching him stole my breath.
The twinkle faded. “Do you think I’m a jerk?”
I looked at the bottle in his hand and considered taking it back. I wasn’t sure I needed it. My palms tingled, and my belly felt comfortable.
“I don’t know you well enough to say. Maybe you are. Maybe not.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Should I ask you in the morning?”
Okay, so the wine must’ve gotten to my brain, because it took me a moment to understand what he was saying. Oh, right. He was staying over. Like a slumber party, only instead of a bunch of girls giggling over movie stars, it was me, and I had the real thing right here. Aaron Elias, Hollywood hottie. In the flesh. Holy shit.
I took the bottle out of his hand and downed a good, solid gulp.
“Hey! Ease up there, or the game’ll be over too soon.”
I swallowed, my gaze on him as I dried my lips on the back of my hand. “Sorry.”
“Did you need some liquid courage? Relax. I don’t bite.” A moment of silence fell between us while my fantasies all popped like water balloons. “Okay, ask me anything. Whatever you’ve ever wanted to know about me. Anything. I promise I’ll answer honestly.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing…”
He shifted, taking my hand and pressing my palm to his before covering it with his other hand. Heat spread up my arm like fire through dry leaves. I credited the wine and fought the urge to pull back.
“C’mon. I’m a celebrity. I hate the word, but there it is. Everybody wants something from me. Tell me what you want.”