by Sophia Gray
Bastard, I thought, not sure it was Shane, but willing to pick a fight with him over it anyway. If fingers were going to be pointed, they would probably be at him.
“Hotel?” I ground out. Now that I’d noticed my ribs, I noticed that it hurt to take deep breaths.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Let’s check over here.”
We headed to what looked like a main office. It was rustic like everything else and looked to be pieced together just as well. We stumbled through the door. It wasn’t warm inside, but at least it wasn’t snowing and there wasn’t any biting wind. Not that my feverish body could really be convinced it cared about that right now.
“Hello?” she called out.
I didn’t have the energy to look around, but when we went to the front counter, I allowed myself to slump there. Though there was a chair beside us, it appeared that neither of us were willing to risk putting me down in it given I would likely pass out and not get back up. Even slumped over the counter, just barely on my feet, I felt my eyes tug themselves closed. I heard rustling and then a jangling noise.
The woman let out a victorious, “Ah-ha!” then came back around to me. “C’mon. Let’s see if this cabin is in any sort of shape.”
She pulled me along and somehow managed to get me up three steps to the porch of one of the log cabins. She fiddled with the key that she must have retrieved from the office and after a moment, I heard a click. She pushed the door open.
“Thank God,” she breathed. “C’mon.”
Once again, she threw my arm around her shoulders and ushered me inside. After that, I couldn’t say exactly what happened. I remembered collapsing. It was either on a bed or a couch, the padding beneath me soft and smelling slightly of musk. There were sounds. Shuffling and quiet cursing. Scraping noises. Finally, I heard the distinct sound of a spark and that got my eyes open just long enough to see the ember flames jumping on a neat stack of logs. Sitting beside the fireplace was the beautiful woman, her features aglow in the firelight, making her look just as ethereal as the first moment I’d seen her.
I mumbled something, then dozed off again.
I awoke on and off through the night. Each time I would catch sight of her. She’d be pacing or she’d be cursing, or she’d be kneeling by the fire, stoking it and making sure it stayed strong and bright. Sometimes she’d be checking her cellphone, holding it up towards the ceiling as though trying to get service, only to bring it back down a second later and curse.
The night was both incredibly short and very long for me. My sleep was fitful, full of half-waking dreams and nightmares mixing in with reality. I dreamt of the woman sliding her petite body on top of me and running her hands over my chest. I dreamt of her grinding against my hips until I felt like bursting beneath her. And then I dreamt of her sweetly brushing the damp hair away from my forehead or singing sweetly until the dream shifted again to something else.
All the while, I knew the snow continued outside. I sensed it, the quiet as it fell, the cold as it wrapped over and across everything until the powdery white was like the tip of an eraser, sweeping away all the mistakes of the world.
And beneath that sense was another one, far more urgent.
The sense that I had to get out of here, because my being here was putting this woman in direct and very real danger.
Chapter 3
Elle
The snow wouldn’t stop. We were stuck in that damn little cabin until it did, and even then I wasn’t sure if I could dig my car out—or if it would even start after sitting there freezing all night.
I felt a twinge of guilt knowing we were staying here without permission and without paying. I promised myself I would leave this place twice as clean as I found it, and if I ever made it big, I’d send them a boatload of money.
I’m sure they’ll totally be grateful for an IOU from an aspiring singer, I thought dryly. Fact was, I was probably never going to make it. I was going to be a nobody forever. But I reminded myself I had to try.
Just like now. I had to try to keep both myself and my tall, dark, and handsome stranger over there warm. It wasn’t an easy task, made harder by the fact that every time I found a blanket to throw over him, he’d just shuck it off. I knew it was because he was feverish, but I also had decided it didn’t matter. I had to keep him warm. So I spent half the night staying near him and soothing him as best I could, making sure he stayed warm and covered. The rest I spent searching the place for extra blankets, clothing, and more firewood.
Thankfully, there had been a sizeable stack of wood beside the fireplace there in the main room, which was where we were holed up. It might have been easier to get and keep one of the other rooms warm since they were so much smaller, but I didn’t have time to think that far ahead when we first got through the door. The man was too big for me to carry unless he was conscious, and he had been losing that since I’d gotten into the main office and stolen that key.
I can’t believe I stole something and then broke in to a cabin! I’m going to hell for this.
As soon as I’d gotten that door open, he all but stumbled inside. Even with my support, I wasn’t getting him any farther than the deep red colored couch in the living room. I was hopeful that the padding of it would at least make him comfortable and help to keep him warm.
I threw another log onto the fire and picked at it with the poker. It hadn’t taken long to get the fire going, thankfully, since the wood was dry and old, too. The older and drier the wood, the quicker it burned. I remembered that from all the times I used to go camping with my brother and his bozo friends in high school. It had been their excuse to go out and drink, but I’d taken it as the time to learn useful skills for later in life.
Proof that I’m definitely the smart sibling, I thought triumphantly as the fire blazed, giving me precious warmth.
I held my hands out to the fire for a moment longer, then went to look around again. I’d managed to find a couple of blankets—one was thrown over my lovely mystery man and I had the other draped across my shoulders—as well as some sweaters that might fit him and were huge on me. I’d been hoping that there might be some canned goods or something stashed away in case the snowstorm didn’t let up, but I hadn’t found much yet. Just what looked to be a nest of some kind, probably for mice, and some extra matches. Not a whole hell of a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I was grateful for the matches.
I wandered into the kitchen again, planning on checking the other half of the cabinets. There were two reasons I wasn’t lingering in the kitchen long enough to check them all at once. The first was that the fire was in the room next to it, sealed off deliberately by a door so I could keep just that room warm easily. The second was that every so often I’d hear the man moan and I’d rush back hopefully to see if he’d awoken. I was really worried that he was in rough shape and he might not pull through.
“I really need to find some food or water or something,” I muttered to myself, my voice loud in the silence.
I began to go through the cabinets again, searching for any cans or sealed packaged goods that might still be okay, like bottled water. If push came to shove, I could melt snow from outside, but I really didn’t want to have to do that. It made me think to check that the water was running, that the pipes hadn’t frozen.
Crossing my fingers, I tried the kitchen sink. I was surprised when a trickle of water came out. Which meant the cabin wasn’t all that deserted. Maybe the people who owned it were out of town or something, but the place had clearly been set up properly to withstand a serious winter.
Which means there really might be food here!
With renewed hope, I began going through the higher cabinets until I finally found something. Yes! I thought, silently doing a victory dance. There, filling the shelf in nice little rows, were several canned goods. I saw some stews, some potatoes and corn, and even some spam, though I shied away from that one.
“Only if we’re snowed in for, like, weeks,” I muttered aloud, eyeing
the can suspiciously.
I pulled several of the stew cans out and then closed the cabinet. I wasn’t necessarily starving—though I was a starving artist technically, so when there was food, it was a big deal—but I figured stew would help warm up the man in the living room.
Pulling the blanket closer to me, I huffed out a breath that turned to fog in front of my face, then went back to the living room. I half opened the can so it wouldn’t be under pressure, then put it over the fire to heat up. Since the place had running water, but no electricity, the water had to have been gravity fed. It meant there wouldn’t be any warm water, but I was grateful that I wouldn’t be without water at all.
Especially the toilet, I thought. That would be just gross. I could rough it if I had to, but that didn’t mean I wanted to.
As the stew cooked, I went over to check on the man. I stared down at him curiously, studying him as he lay there unconscious. I might have felt like a bit of a stalker, but I was too curious about him and what the hell he’d been doing out there to really think too much on it.
His skin was pink with his fever and slick with sweat. I mopped his dark hair to the side gently, the strands thick and silky beneath my fingers, despite being damp. My fingers lingered in his hair longer than they needed to as I stared down at his masculine, rugged face.
His eyes had been beautiful, startlingly green, what little I’d seen of them, and I found myself longing to see them again.
More than that, I wanted to actually talk to him. I wanted to hear the deep gravel of his voice again—it had sent a thrill through me when he forced it out earlier, echoing through my very bones. I couldn’t say what it was about him, but I was drawn in a way that I’d never been to a man before.
Probably just been too long, I thought mildly.
I wasn’t one of those women who believed in marriage before sex or anything like that. If that were the case, I’d be a twenty-eight-year-old virgin, and I just wasn’t okay with that. Life was about experience and I wanted to embrace as much of it as I could before I ran out of time and youth to do the things I wanted to. Still, that didn’t mean I went around sleeping with every Dick and Tom who wanted to put it in me. I never went home with guys from the bar—because you just never knew—and I didn’t like to have sex outside of relationships, though I had from time to time. It wasn’t that I was morally opposed. A girl had needs, and sometimes those needs had to be met without the strings attached. But I admitted to myself that I was the kind of girl that needed more than a physical connection. I needed emotional fulfillment, too, and I didn’t get that from one-night stands or friends with benefits. Maybe that worked for some people, but not me.
As I realized I had been staring down at him for several long minutes, I felt my cheeks heat up. Not that he could tell; he was still unconscious. Still, I felt suddenly weird for staring for so long—and for thinking about things like sex and relationships and the strange, yearning attraction I felt for him.
Shaking my head, I moved away from him and back to the fire. I took the can of stew out of the fire. I had to go and find a bowl from the kitchen, which left me freezing all over again, then I tested the temperature of it and the taste. When I was satisfied that it at least wouldn’t kill him, I went back to the side of the couch. I tried to get him to sit up enough that I could feed him the stew. It was difficult and he didn’t take more than a few bites, but at least I managed to get something warm into him.
I brushed a little of the stew that had been left behind from his lips, finding them to be surprisingly soft and supple. I had the sudden, visceral vision of leaning down to kiss him and quickly jerked my hand back in response.
He’s unconscious! I scolded myself, but I couldn’t help my gaze going over to him time and again, even when I tried not to look at him.
The night passed slowly and the snow outside refused to let up. I wanted to brave the storm and go to my car to dig out my guitar, but resisted the urge. It wasn’t worth being freezing and it wasn’t worth the risk of leaving him alone unattended. So I settled for sitting by the fire and singing softly to myself. I didn’t want to wake him, but singing was how I dealt with things.
It’s why I want so badly to make it.
I hummed and sang a few bars to myself, taking solace from the sound as I did so. I didn’t think I was being very loud, but I heard a groan come from the couch. My head jerked in that direction as the music died on my lips.
“Are you awake?” I whispered, quiet as though there was someone else that might be asleep in the room.
When he groaned again, I hurried over to him and found just enough space on the couch to sit beside him. I leaned over slightly to look down at his face, my hand smoothing across his forehead to find that he was definitely still feverish, and caught my breath when his eyelids fluttered. Half lidded still, I saw that beautiful green color shimmer through. “Oh,” I whispered, my heart stuttering.
“Am I dead?” he asked in a low, deep voice that sent a thrill through me just like the first time.
I cleared my throat. “Um, what?”
He repeated his question, sounding just a little delirious. “Am I dead?”
“No, you’re not. You’re going to be fine,” I reassured him, brushing back his hair again. I smiled softly, wanting to make him feel at ease and definitely to make him know that he wasn’t dead or dying. I didn’t know if that was strictly true or not, after all, people did die from fever and I didn’t know how long he’d been out there, but I didn’t want him to be worried or in pain. And I really didn’t want him to die either.
Half of his mouth lifted up in a small smile, drawing my gaze back to his full lips. I remembered how I’d slid my thumb across them and found myself wishing I could do it again—or maybe something more. “I should have known,” he murmured in a voice as warm as the fire. It drew me back to him. “Because there’s no way I’d have ended up in heaven.”
My eyes widened at his words, but his closed as he finished. His lips relaxed, the smile fading, though his features seemed more at ease than I’d seen them yet. He looked almost at peace.
I tried to make sense of what he was trying to say. Who would mistake this place as heaven? I glanced around at the log cabin and admitted that it was nice, but only nice. No way would I mistake this as heaven or even a five-star resort. So maybe it was a testament to his life or something that he thought this place was heaven.
But I didn’t think so.
A blush feathered across my cheeks, only to dip down the column of my neck and disappear within the layers of sweaters I had on. I thought he was talking about me; I was what made this place heaven. Did he think I was an angel?
Don’t be stupid! I told myself firmly, not wanting to get all romantic and overly invested in some guy who was probably going to go home to his girlfriend or wife or something. Or was just flat out not going to be interested in me. I wasn’t ugly or anything, but I wasn’t automatically every man’s type either.
And why do I want him to think I’m an angel anyway? I lingered on the couch, watching as his breathing was even and calm. I told myself it was because I was waiting to see if he’d wake up again, but secretly it was because I wanted an excuse to watch him. He really was ruggedly good looking, despite the bruises on his face and his split lip. I could only imagine how good he looked when he wasn’t overcome with fever and whatever the hell had happened to leave him buried in a snowdrift out there.
I let myself watch him a while longer before I finally pushed myself away, telling myself not to get too attached to a man I knew absolutely nothing about.
Chapter 4
Ciaran
I spent much of that night dreaming. Some were pleasant. Some were not.
This was not a pleasant one. In the way of some dreams, I was aware I was dreaming. Lucid, was the term I thought, but even as I walked through my dream as though I knew it wasn’t real, I felt a trickle of apprehension run down my spine, a shiver of morbid anticipation. There was a part
of me that knew what was coming, but that didn’t matter. The rest of me was walking with trepidation, like this was the first in a series of steps into the unknown.
My boots were steel toed and heavy. They weighed a ton it seemed like and as I walked it felt as though I was moving through molasses, even when they made that heavy clomping sound of rubber soles on solid pavement. It took all of my strength to lift one and put it down, following with the next, but I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t even rest. I had to keep moving forward.
Even though I didn’t want to.
But what I wanted was of little consequence it would seem, because my feet kept pulling me forward. I was drawn to something, and once I realized that, I started to pay more attention to my surroundings. I noticed that I was walking down the street. Rain was quickly turning into sleet and it was dark outside. This was my little city, my home since I was a child, and I could see the exact neighborhood I was living in. There was a bakery around the corner that hadn’t switched hands since the first owner died fifty years ago and it had never gone anywhere but in the family. The shops to my life were comprised of a laundromat that was open twenty-four hours, a convenience store that was robbed just shy of nightly, and two competing delis run by batty old ladies who played bridge on Wednesdays.