by J. H. Croix
That Snowy Night
Into The Fire Series
J.H. Croix
Contents
Dedication
That Snowy Night
1. Delilah
2. Alex
3. Delilah
4. Alex
5. Delilah
6. Delilah
7. Alex
8. Delilah
9. Alex
10. Alex
11. Delilah
12. Delilah
13. Alex
14. Delilah
15. Alex
16. Alex
17. Delilah
18. Delilah
19. Alex
20. Delilah
21. Alex
22. Delilah
23. Delilah
24. Alex
25. Delilah
26. Alex
27. Delilah
28. Alex
29. Delilah
30. Alex
31. Alex
32. Delilah
33. Delilah
34. Alex
35. Delilah
36. Alex
37. Delilah
38. Alex
Epilogue
Excerpt: This Crazy Love
Find My Books
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 J.H. Croix
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Cormar Covers
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
A short portion of That Snowy Night originally appeared in Holiday Ever After - an anthology of quick holiday reads available for free for a limited time in December 2019. This is the full-length novel with Alex & Delilah’s complete story. Enjoy!
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Dedication
Never forget it’s worth trying again.
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That Snowy Night
My life is about to become a holiday cliché.
Delilah
I never think I’ll see Alex Blake again. Most certainly not on the side of a snowy Alaskan highway.
Alex is a hazy memory—stolen summer kisses that keep me warm on lonely nights.
Life and geography got in the way. When my car skids off the highway in the darkness in Alaska, I’m plenty bitter and I’ve lost all faith in fantasies.
I didn’t count on Alex, didn’t count on his kisses setting me on fire, and most certainly not on him betting it all on us.
Alex
I never could forget Delilah Carter. She was my fantasy, but I figured that’s all she’d ever be.
Until I find her stranded on a snowy highway a few thousand miles away from where I last saw her. She’s still my fantasy.
But, this time, I get to make it all come true.
Chapter One
Delilah
“I’ve got this,” I said to absolutely no one.
Unless I was counting my rental car and my hastily packed bag sitting in the back seat behind me. Snow was falling steadily outside, and it was already dark. The early darkness was a minor detail I hadn’t considered when I scheduled my flight.
December in Alaska meant the sun made its bow pretty freaking early. It was a bit different from North Carolina in that regard.
“I can totally do this,” I said, trying to inject a hint of confidence into my voice.
A few minutes later, all my internal cheering felt useless when my compact SUV rental hit a patch of ice and skidded down a small embankment off the side of the road.
“Fuck! There’s probably a bear here.”
Maybe I was talking to myself a bit much, but it was a habit. Despite my stated worry about a bear, I was strangely not too shaken. Not just yet.
I eyed the clock on the dashboard. It wasn’t even five in the evening, and it was almost fully dark. Scarcity didn’t capture the state of traffic here. I hadn’t seen more than ten cars since I’d driven beyond the outskirts of Anchorage, a full hour and a half behind me, and my destination, Diamond Creek, was another few hours ahead. My normal can-do attitude wasn’t too helpful this far from home, and a wave of anxiety crested inside me.
Fighting against it—because I was not that kind of girl—I took several deep breaths. I was tough. I could totally handle this. Hell, I threw out drunk men over six feet tall on a weekly basis at the bar where I worked, so surely, I could call for help and potentially even get myself out of this little ditch.
Climbing out, I surveyed the situation with nothing more than the headlights to help me out. Okay, ditch didn’t exactly capture where my rental had landed. The side of the highway dropped off steeply beyond the edge of the road. There wasn’t much of a shoulder at all.
Fortunately, I was only a few feet off the road, but the incline was steep enough I certainly wouldn’t be shoving this car back onto the road by myself.
“Fuck!”
The wind blew my curse away, not even leaving an echo behind. The snow was blowing around, swirling in the darkness. For a woman who liked to think she was usually prepared and smart, I felt woefully unprepared and astonishingly stupid.
Winter in Alaska was a far cry from the winters in the Blue Ridge Mountains where I came from. Oh, we got snow there, and we had plenty of winding, twisty mountain roads that got icy in the blink of an eye on a cold winter night. But it certainly didn’t get dark this early, and even the more rural areas had more traffic than this.
A gust of wind buffeted me, and the cold snow stung my cheeks. With a sigh, I trudged around to the driver’s side of the SUV and climbed in. When the door shut, muting the sound of the wind and blowing snow, my relief was overwhelming.
Except for one small problem. I was alone on the side of a dark highway in Alaska, and it was freezing cold outside.
Christmas was a mere week away. I just hoped I survived the night to see it. I didn’t even want to contemplate the potential headlines if I froze to death in my little SUV. Idiotic tourist who thought she could handle winter driving would be a good start.
I burrowed into my down jacket and adjusted the angle in my seat so I could see any headlights approaching on the highway. After a solid twenty minutes without a single passing car, a humming sense of panic started to churn in my stomach. I couldn’t exactly climb out and hike because I had nowhere to go here. As far as I knew, miles of highway stretched between towns in this area, and it was well below zero with the wind howling louder by the second.
On the heels of a gust of wind, which rattled the SUV, I saw two distinct beams of light illuminating the highway. Thank you, Jesus. I really should’ve prayed more than I did. I’d been raised better, but I’d slipped.
Just as I was debating whether I should climb out or hope they saw my headlights in the darkness, I saw those two friendly beams shine straight into the back of my vehicle as what appeared to be a truck came t
o a stop.
“Yes, yes, yes!” I chanted to myself.
Scrambling out, I looked up to see a tall man stepping down the incline off the side of the highway.
God, I hope he’s not an ax murderer.
The gruff chuckle I heard through the wind cued me to the fact that my inside thought wasn’t so inside. My thoughts just strolled out of my mouth sometimes.
“Sorry about that. Perils of being a woman and all,” I explained as I stopped in front of the man and looked up.
My mouth nearly fell open when I got a good look. I knew this man.
“Alex Blake?”
“Delilah?”
“Oh, my God.”
My heart leaped into a tumbling routine that would’ve done a gymnast proud. Holy shit.
“What are you doing here? Come on, let’s get in my truck,” Alex said without giving me time to answer.
While my mind was skidding sideways at this strange turn of events, a boy who I’d once had a wild crush on and was now very clearly all man reached for me as I got closer, curling his hand around my elbow.
“This is crazy,” I murmured over the howl of the wind.
Alex’s chuckle sent a shiver chasing down my spine. “Crazy is one way to put it,” he replied, his voice barely audible as a bracing gust of wind hit us.
“Hang on, let me get my bag,” I called over the wind.
Alex angled us toward the driver’s side door of my rental SUV. I grabbed my purse from the front while he tugged my bag out of the back where I directed him to when he asked.
I simply followed along as Alex kept a firm grip on me with one hand and my bag with the other. I barely noticed the snow striking in stinging spikes against my cheeks as my mind stumbled at the shock of encountering this man.
My pulse had taken off like a rocket, and I was acutely aware of his easy strength as he basically towed me through the knee-deep snow. In short order, we were beside his truck, and he was opening the door.
I managed to almost fall just trying to climb in. With the road icy under my feet and being completely flustered, coordination wasn’t my friend.
Alex, being the gentleman he was, or, rather the gentleman I recalled, helped me in and waited until I was fully seated before he closed the passenger door. I watched as he ducked his head to lean into the snow and rounded the front of his truck.
Another blast of wind followed him into the truck. Blessedly, the thud of the door closing muffled the sound and cut off the biting cold outside.
I held my hands in front of the heater vents and glanced over at Alex. The shock of seeing him provoked a visceral reaction from my body. My heart felt as if it had been jumpstarted, and my belly plummeted, falling and spinning as I stared into his rich brown gaze.
The last time I saw Alex Blake—a man I had never forgotten—had been at a summer camp in the mountains in Colorado. My presence there was almost as wildly unlikely as me encountering him here in Alaska. Alex had been oh, so handsome with dark amber hair and espresso eyes; a strong, square jaw; and a lean, rangy body.
I liked Alex so, so much back then. Crushes at summer camp were as close to a mirage as anything could be. He should’ve been nothing but a footnote in my life, yet I had never forgotten him. Looking at his mouth, strong and bold, I still recalled the feel of his lips moving over mine and the slow, sensual tease of his tongue.
“What the hell are you doing on the side of the road in Alaska a week before Christmas, Delilah?”
Chapter Two
Alex
Delilah Carter eyed me carefully. “That’s a good question,” she finally said.
“I assume you have an answer,” I countered.
Delilah bit the corner of her bottom lip—her tempting, plump lip with a dimple in the center.
“Well, it’s kind of a fluke,” she finally said.
I waited while she stared at me, her green eyes as stunning as I recalled. The lighting in my truck cab might’ve been low, but it was nearly impossible to dim Delilah’s unique, striking beauty.
Uncertainty flickered in her eyes, and she took a deep breath. Letting it out with a gusty sigh, she finally broke away from my gaze as she leaned her head against the seat. “Crazy as it may sound, I’m here for an all-expense-paid ski vacation in Diamond Creek. An old friend gave it to me. It’s a place called Last Frontier Lodge.”
“Seriously?”
She rolled her head to the side, nodding. “Seriously,” she replied, a tinge of pink cresting on her cheeks.
I felt my lips curling into a smile, shaking my head as I absorbed the ramifications of our situation. “Well, I’ll be damned. That’s exactly where I’m going.”
Delilah’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head. “Definitely not.”
As we sat there with the wind howling outside my truck and the sound of the snow striking the windshield, sparks filled the air as a humming electricity spun to life around us. It had been just a few kisses years ago.
Yet I’d never forgotten Delilah. I had wanted her so fiercely those hazy weeks one summer when we were both too young, but a memory was a tricky thing. Some things got blown up to cartoonish proportions, and others slid off into nothing. It was hard to trust and know what was accurate.
“I tried to find you,” I said, my words surprising me.
Delilah angled toward me. I wanted to trace along the curve of her cheek and smooth her mussed dark hair, damp from the snow outside. Her brows hitched up at my comment, and her breath came out in a startled little puff.
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip again, nibbling it lightly and drawing my eyes to her mouth. Fuck me. She had a mouth made for sin with plump and inviting lips. I could even remember what she tasted like—sweet with a hint of vanilla.
“Oh,” she said softly, her word catching slightly in her throat. She swallowed, the sound audible in the small space.
Before either of us spoke again, a truck passed by, sending a splash of icy slush against mine. The abrupt sound reminded me of where we were.
“We should get going. In this weather, it might take longer than usual to get there. We have at least two more hours of driving.”
Delilah straightened in her seat. “Of course. You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Giving you a ride?” I asked as I put my truck into gear.
“Yeah. I’m not sure what I’ll do about that SUV. It’s a rental.”
“Well, it’s safe where it is for now,” I said as I slowly pulled off the side of the highway. “In case you didn’t notice, there’s not much traffic. It’s far enough off the road that it should be fine. I suggest you call the rental place and leave a message. They can probably arrange for a tow truck from Anchorage to pick it up tomorrow. You can either get a rental in Diamond Creek, or I’ll give you a ride back.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll call the rental company right now.”
“Go right ahead,” I replied as I slowly picked up speed.
Delilah made the quick call. As expected, they told her to leave the vehicle where it was, and they would arrange for a tow.
After she ended the call, only the sound of the heater blowing at full force filled the truck cab. I drove through the darkness, my body tight and a strange sense falling over me. I didn’t know why Delilah’s path had collided with mine again, but I intended to grab the chance with both hands.
A few hours later, I rolled to a stop in the parking lot at Last Frontier Lodge, a premier ski resort in Diamond Creek where the feet of the mountains kissed the shoreline of the ocean. For now, the darkness and blowing snow cloaked the spectacular view.
Glancing at Delilah, I said, “Here we are.”
Delilah peered ahead through the windshield at the beckoning lights of the lodge. It was lit up with the ski slopes curving into the darkness and the lights glittering through the snow.
When she turned to me, and her smile stretched wider, my heart gave a funny little tumble. Just like before, Deli
lah had this strange effect on me, as if she tapped into a part of me only available to her. I recalled wanting to really get to know her that summer and how much we talked and teased. I also recalled being a little mystified by how much I wanted her. But damn, every time I’d kissed her, I felt alive in a way I’d never experienced since.
A gust of wind rattled the windshield, nudging me out of my memories. “Let’s go on in,” I said.
She got a little prickly when I insisted on carrying her bag, but I ignored her. Though she gave off a sense of steely vulnerability, I wanted to know the woman underneath her sharp-edged exterior.
As I pushed through the heavy wooden front door into the lodge, the wind and snow blew in with us, the rushing sound muting once the door fell shut. The enveloping warmth was a relief from the icy temperature outside. Glancing around, I absorbed the space. I’d been to Last Frontier Lodge a number of times. It was an easy getaway for me from Willow Brook, and I had a few friends in Diamond Creek.