They were still laughing as they opened the door to their cabin. The building was smaller than expected, but to Alexandra’s relief, there were two separate bedrooms rather than just two beds in the middle of a larger room. She’d been right about the shared bathroom, though.
“No wi-fi for sure. I wonder if there’s any internet access at all,” she called out as she explored.
“Can’t see any way there would be, and I doubt I’ll find one. It doesn’t even look like we have a TV in here. Got an old radio—not the music kind, though. CB or something. And a fireplace. Looks like there’s food in the cabinets.” He stopped exploring, curiosity satisfied. “There are down pillows and huge down comforters on both beds.” He grinned. “I haven’t curled up in one of those since I was a kid. Hope you’re not allergic to feathers.”
Alexandra was all business. “Knowing Duncan, I expected the Zellez team to beat us to the cabins. I’m surprised.”
“Actually,” Scott said, “I think I hear a motor right now. Maybe it’s them. That was awfully fast, though. Think the snowcat moves that fast?”
They stepped outside and walked a few feet in the direction of the road, but in the near blizzard conditions, all they could see was white. The buzz of a motor echoed through the snowbanks.
Scott’s dark eyebrows drew together. “Sounds more like a snowmobile than the snowcat. Who in the world would be out here now?”
A loud bang, muffled and amplified at the same time by the insulation of all that snow, startled them. Alexandra and Scott looked at each other, both knowing an explosion when they heard one. Two, three, then four more charges roared out in succession, and that’s when they heard an even more menacing sound.
“Get in the cabin. Run!” Scott grabbed Alexandra’s hand and pulled her with him.
The noise started low and then mixed with the crash and snap of breaking tree limbs. Alexandra ran behind Scott, nearly catching up to him until her foot caught on a piece of wood partially buried in the snow, and her legs twisted under her. She looked up to see a wall of pure white coming down at them.
Scott swept her up from the ground and bolted the cabin door behind them. They ran to the back bedroom, trying to get as far from the front of the cabin as possible. The rumble grew deafening as the avalanche collided with the cabin, shaking it like a small earthquake might.
When the noise subsided, they stood and walked into the living room. Though now blocked with snow, the front door had held up against the onslaught. Snow buried the front of the cabin up to the middle of its windows.
Alexandra looked out through a crack in the broken glass. “Looks like most of it headed straight down the roadway. Path of least resistance.” She wondered if they might still have a chance of digging out. But even if they did, where would they go?
“I’ll try to round up some help.”
As Scott examined the radio, Alexandra walked back to her room to see if she might have anything in the way of entertainment in there. At least a book or two might help pass the time until someone came to dig them out, she thought.
Scott dusted the cobwebs off the old radio and called out for help. He reached the desk clerk back at the hotel, and she told him to wait while she looked for the snowcat driver who’d just made it back to the hotel. Scott listened to static come over the radio before the driver’s voice finally broke through.
“You there?” the driver called out.
“I’m still here,” Scott said.
“It’s snowing like mad down here. Had a hard time getting back in the blizzard. Didn’t think it’d hit us that hard.”
“We’ve got an even bigger problem.” The connection on the radio was breaking up.
“A problem? Did you say something about a problem?” The driver must have been yelling into his microphone.
“Yeah. We just about got buried in an avalanche. Can’t even get the cabin door open yet.”
“Avalanche?” the driver yelled back. “You two didn’t get hurt, did you?’
“We’re fine, but can you send some help? Someone to dig us out?”
There was nothing but static for several seconds. “I didn’t quite catch that last part. Hang on a minute. I’ve gotta go check something out.”
Scott waited for a couple minutes listening to the static. Hopefully the blizzard hadn’t knocked out the weak signal altogether.
The snowcat driver came back to his microphone. “Bad news. Dang D.O.T. workers went and blasted by mistake. Set off a controlled avalanche on the wrong week. With the snow coming down the way it is, it was gonna be hard to haul those guys from the other company up to the cabins today anyway. ‘Bout impossible now. Can’t get you two back here either. Better just stay warm and safe inside. We’ll call in tomorrow.”
“You won’t believe it,” Scott announced as Alexandra came around the corner. “The driver says the transportation department made a mistake and set off a planned avalanche at the wrong time. They got their dates crossed and now we’re stuck.”
Alexandra’s ankle had begun to swell a little. “As least finding ice won’t be a problem,” she joked.
“Looks like we’ll just have to get comfortable and wait for someone to get us tomorrow.”
Alexandra elevated her foot while Scott started a blaze in the big stone fireplace. Thankfully, the cabin was well-prepared for guests and had a large pile of dry wood inside. This was their good luck since they didn’t have another source of heat or light. The avalanche had apparently knocked out the electricity somewhere along the line. The sensuous glow from the fire bathed the room, making it surprisingly warm and comfortable.
Alexandra hobbled over to the kitchen cabinets to take inventory. “Here we have aluminum foil and a few potatoes. I’ll just wrap some up and toss them onto the coals—and voilà—dinner.”
With her hair back in a thick ponytail and her oversized plaid shirt, she certainly didn’t look or feel like a high-ranking executive at the moment. Of course, with Scott in his long underwear top and loose jeans, he didn’t look much like one either, she realized.
“Alex,” he chided, taking a potato out of her hand, “go put that ankle up on a stack of pillows or you won’t be able to stand upright in those high heels of yours for weeks to come. Gym shoes don’t go well with silk suits during a presentation.”
“Suit yourself.” She tossed him another potato and smiled when he caught it. “I’m not one to complain when a man offers to wait on me hand and foot.” And a gorgeous one at that, she thought and then immediately tried to convince herself she hadn’t.
Alexandra snuggled down on the wide couch and watched him heat up soup for her in the fire. She relaxed her head back into a fluffy pillow and moaned. Mary’s voice came to her like the proverbial devil on her left shoulder, “The two of you, trapped alone together in a cabin—think of the possibilities.” Alexandra groaned again.
Scott heard her and called out, “Are you in pain?”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
The angel on her other shoulder chimed in, “Never get involved with a co-worker. Your reputation will be destroyed.”
“Dinner is served,” he announced with a sweeping gesture across the little table.
Alexandra limped over to her chair. Scott had managed to pull together a meal of hot cream of chicken soup, crackers, beef jerky and semi-burnt baked potatoes. She suspected he didn’t often visit his own kitchen, so this was a valiant effort.
They went over presentation strategies again until reading by firelight started to strain their eyes, and then Alexandra retired to her room. She was glad for the retreat to solitude. With every turn of the page, she had watched Scott’s arm muscles play underneath the very masculine long underwear top he had on. More than once she’d had to look away in hopes he hadn’t noticed her intense awareness of him.
She heard Scott stoke the fire once more and then walk back toward his own room. He stopped outside her bedroom door and panicked anticipation rushed through her. At last he tu
rned away, but the situation was no better. He slept just on the other side of a single, thin wall. She ran her hand along the paneling and on a whim, knocked on it lightly with her knuckles. Her hand flew to her mouth in absolute horror.
Scott reappeared in the faint glow of the firelight coming in through her open door. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Just hit the wall by accident,” she called out, pulling the blankets up tighter under her chin. He looked amazing silhouetted in the doorway, tall and rugged as if he belonged in a cabin more than he ever could in an office. She wondered what he slept in at night and then pushed that thought quickly out of her head along with all the rest.
“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?” he asked with a deep, quiet voice that carried to her through the near darkness. He hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“Not if you keep standing there talking to me,” she answered. Heaven help her, even his voice was sexy.
Scott’s hand lingered on the doorframe. “If you object so much to me standing here, I can change that.”
Was his voice huskier than usual? Could he actually be thinking of coming into her bedroom? Her emotions spun, but all that came out of her mouth was, “I was objecting to the talking part.”
Now Alexandra could have slapped herself. She knew her phrasing had opened her up wide for a lowbrow innuendo something to the effect of, “Well, baby, who said we needed to talk.”
But Scott didn’t sink to the occasion. “Good night, Alex.”
His silhouette left the doorway and Alexandra soon heard him snuggle under his own down comforter as the bed frame creaked under his weight. She felt a pang of regret even though she convinced herself she had no real reason to. Someday. Yes, maybe someday she could come back to a cabin like this with a husband and children. Someday when there was more to life than work. Down comforters just weren’t meant to snuggle up in alone. Once again, she was tired all the way to the core.
•
Alexandra hobbled into the living room the next morning to find Scott already up and digging around the cabinets, already thinking of breakfast. She noticed he’d showered, but had apparently decided not to shave—and it suited him. There wasn’t much that didn’t suit him—even stubble and long underwear.
“Mornin’,” he called out. “I’ve got tea, canned peaches and oatmeal. Think you can choke that down?”
“Sounds great,” she said as she eased herself onto a kitchen chair. “I’m going to get spoiled if I don’t watch out.”
“How’s the ankle?”
“Better. Maybe a little more purple, but I’ll definitely live through it.”
He finished putting food in front of her. “I radioed down to the hotel earlier this morning. We’re stuck up here at least another day. They’re not plowing until tomorrow at the soonest.”
“I think we can dig out the front door today. Most of the snow is along the side of cabin and the blizzard stopped, so I’ll bet we can get it open.”
“It would be great to get outside into the fresh air again.” He flashed her a dazzling smile, teeth looking whiter than usual against his dark new stubble.
Alexandra had been right—they could dig out. After breakfast, they put on their gloves and were slowly able to shove away the snow blocking the door until they could push it open just wide enough to slip through. To one side of the cabin and down the road, a bank of snow several feet high stood as testimony to the avalanche from the day before. But on the other side, the snow was shallow enough that they could trudge through it.
“What if Zellez is using this time to seal the deal?” she asked once they were outside.
“It’s beyond our control.”
The sun was bright in a clear blue sky and the trees on the mountains stood still without a breeze when Alexandra and Scott finally squeezed through the door. The day was glorious with the sunlight bouncing off flawless hills of snow, lighting them up like a million tiny diamonds.
“Just think,” he said, “there’s no one around for miles and all of this is ours for a day.” Scott stood with his hands on his hips looking up at the mountains. He wore a thick black ski jacket with blue piping and a heavy pair of boots coordinated to match the jacket. He had definitely packed for the location better than Alexandra had thought to.
“It may be all ours, but what do we do with it?” Alexandra peered out from inside the fur-lined hood of her white coat. A snowflake or two settled onto her long lashes and melted. She breathed in deeply of the clean air and started to say something else to Scott.
From out of nowhere, a lump of snow hit her on the side of the head. “Hey!” she yelled, “no fair.” She bent down to pack a snowball of her own when another struck her on the backside. “This is war,” she declared. Alexandra hurled a well-packed ball at Scott, hitting him squarely in the chest.
“You throw like a girl,” he taunted as he threw another snowball at her and missed.
“Oh yeah? At least I have the excuse of actually being a girl—unlike some people I know.” She let two more snowballs sail and watched with great satisfaction as one struck Scott on top of his head and disintegrated into powder, some of which slid down into the neck of his coat.
Scott jumped around trying to shake the freezing snow out of his coat before it melted down his back. “Time out,” he pleaded as another snowball pelted him the face.
Alexandra put her hand over her mouth and hobbled quickly over to him. “Are you all right?”
As she examined him, he swung around with a hidden handful of the white stuff and smeared it solidly in Alexandra’s face.
“Rat,” she started to say and pushed him playfully in the chest with one hand as she wiped the snow away with the other. But her push didn’t move Scott—it only served to propel her own body backward on the slick surface, and with her already injured ankle, she began to lose balance.
As if in slow motion, her feet started to go out from under her. Scott reached out to steady her, but his own feet slid away from him as she grabbed onto his arm and pulled him down with her into the snow.
Alexandra’s hood had fallen back from her face and her skin was rosy from the cold. Her auburn hair flowed freely, framing her face in damp waves. Her pants were miserably soaked through with melting snow, and when Scott sat up in the snow beside her, she noticed his were, too.
“I win,” Alexandra said.
“What do you mean? I got the last point.”
“Point?” she countered. “If we’re talking points here, I got more of them. You missed most of the time.”
“You’re a smaller target,” he argued.
“You used sneak attacks.”
Alexandra’s voice trailed off as she suddenly realized how closely they were sitting together and how intensely Scott was watching her.
His gaze met hers and held it as he removed his gloves and gently brushed a lump of snow out of her damp hair. Slowly he leaned toward her, his lips perilously close to hers. Anticipation glittered in his eyes and Alex knew she must look the same as him.
Her lips, red from the cold, parted as her breath caught. He pressed his lips tentatively against hers in a sweet, soft kiss full of restraint as he waited for some sign of how she might react. Would she slap him? Yell at him? Sue him? She didn’t even know.
This was truly forbidden. If anyone suspected two executives were fooling around, the rumors would tear their careers apart. She hadn’t been able to concentrate on the presentation as it was—her thoughts had been saturated with Scott. If only she could push him away, tell him no, talk to him in that excessively polite way of hers.
Alexandra’s breath caught as Scott’s lips found hers. She felt a current pass between them, erasing all other sensations. She immediately missed the taste of his breath, sweet and warm, as his lips left hers.
Scott rested his forehead against hers. “This is a bad idea.” He breathed. His lips brushed against hers as he spoke. “We shouldn’t even start this.”
Somewhere, his wor
ds reached her. This was no game. This was her career, her reputation, her livelihood on the line. Inspired by self-preservation, a fleeting memory of Duncan and her last bit of self-restraint, Alexandra quickly pulled away.
“You’re right. I can’t get involved with you. And you can’t get involved with me.” She stood and limped as fast as she could back inside the cabin.
They each retreated awkwardly to their rooms without another word. It had only been a kiss, Alexandra rationalized. That was all it was. Nothing for two adults to panic over. No damage done. Alexandra’s senses slowly began to come back to her as the memory of his kiss faded from her lips.
She closed her eyes and relived his lips caressing hers so very briefly. She imagined each of strong features from his straight nose to his heavy eyebrows and back down to his square chin. She couldn’t think of a single thing she would change about his handsome face.
Still wrapped in a bubble of emotion, Alexandra slowly began to change clothes. Her legs were frozen and she’d worn wet clothes for too long in the snow. Her legs looked mottled and pink as she tried to warm herself by jogging in place. She thought she could see her breath in the air inside her bedroom. The blue skies only meant clearer weather, and without a warming cloud cover, the freeze would set in harder. Already the temperature was dropping.
She wrapped her comforter around herself and walked into the living room. Scott was already in front of the fireplace.
“Think we can recover?” he asked as she sat down beside him.
“We’re grownups, right?” She smiled. “I mean, we both know it’s career suicide getting involved with someone on the job.”
“Right. And we just got caught up in the moment. It’s a very romantic place, after all.”
Alexandra let out a breath of relief and they fell silent for several moments. “Are you going to sleep out here tonight?” she asked.
“The bedrooms are freezing. I think we ought to set up camp out here where it’s warm, don’t you?”
“Makes sense. Look, Scott. I worked hard to get where I am. And I haven’t had very good luck in the trust department with men.”
A Cowboy in Disguise Page 4