by Elle Casey
“No, I’m not anxious to get rid of you.” Time to lie. “I just wanted to know how many of my logs will get split before you go.”
He smiles and picks the axe up, eyeing his next chop. “Ah, I see. So you’re using me for my wood-splitting skills, eh?”
“Something like that.” I walk over, happier now that we’re talking and he hasn’t taken offense to my rude comments. I think I was starting to have one of those Jack Nicolson all-work-and-no-play moments or something. I’m usually better at casual conversation than this.
I’m bent over, arranging awkwardly-shaped, split logs in my arms, when a giant pile of ice-cold snow lands on the back of my neck and somehow finds its way down into my jacket to my bare skin.
I screech and drop the logs, jumping back and bending over left, right, backward, and forward, trying to dislodge the snowball from my body. It melts before I can get any of it off, dripping down my spine to rest in my underpants.
Jeremy is laughing so hard, he’s bent over, holding his stomach, his axe forgotten at his side.
“You!” I scream, pointing at him. I cannot believe he had the gall to dump a snowball on me. How rude! We don’t even have a fire going yet! How am I going to warm up?! I could get frostbite! On my butt of all places!
He points at his chest. “Me? Why me?” He’s still laughing.
“You did this!” Without thinking, I grab a glob of snow from a pile next to my foot and wing it at him, instantly triumphant when it splats right in his face. A surge of pure happiness fills me from head to toe. “Yeah, baby! Take that! Right in yo’ face! Woo hoo!” I pump my fist a few times for good measure.
His laugh cuts off instantly, the moment the snow makes impact, and he stands there frozen in place. Then he spits out a mouthful of snow. He blinks and his eyelashes carry lumps of the cold white flakes with them, up and down, up and down. His ultra-zen facade is pretty damn intimidating. My hilarity quickly turns to dread.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” he says calmly.
“I was just getting you back.” I’m whining. Why do I feel so guilty? He started this!
“Getting me back for what? Not letting you use the axe?”
“No, Stupid, for throwing that snowball down into my jacket.”
He tilts his head sideways like a confused canine and then reaches up to wipe the rest of the snow off his face and out of his hair. “What snowball?”
I’m getting nervous. He’s too calm. I know there’s something boiling just beneath the surface of that unaffected facade of his. The question is, what’s he going to do? Ignore my anti-social behavior or come for revenge?
“Don’t play stupid, Jeremy, you know very well you threw a snowball at me.”
He points to the tree above me. As soon as I look up, a clump of snow from one of the branches slides off and hits me on the shoulder.
“There’s your snowball thrower,” he says.
I look back at him and cringe. “Oops.” Holy crap! I can’t believe I attacked an innocent man and did a victory dance too! An innocent man who’s spent the last hour chopping logs for me! “Sorry about that.”
His axe falls to the ground next to his leg and he leans over to the nearest drift, pulling up two hands full of snow.
“What are you doing?” I ask, backing away.
“Forming the perfect snowball.” He pushes his hands together, creating a ball, packing it tighter and tighter, his elbows jutting out to the sides. His grin goes decidedly evil as he adds more snow to it.
“You’d better not be planning to throw that at me.” I continue to back away slowly, worried if I flat-out run, he’ll tackle me and make me eat that thing. He’s that bear from nightmare again, and my forest survival guide says that if you see a bear, you shouldn’t run; you’re supposed to curl up in a ball and pretend to be dead. But I can’t be that easy, can I? Or maybe I can. With this bear, anyway.
“And why wouldn’t I be planning to throw this at you?” he asks, an evil grin making him look ten times sexier than he already did. “Seems only fair, since you started this war.” He takes a step in my direction.
“War? Jeremy, no. I’m not kidding. I’m already freezing cold.” I wrap my arms around myself and fake a really big shiver. Truth be told, I’m not really feeling the sub-zero temperature. As he slowly advances on me with that feral look in his eye, I’m anything but cold. Hot is more like it.
“Freezing, huh? Try taking a snowball to the face.” He comes three steps closer to me, spinning the now perfectly round weapon in his gloved palm.
“I told you I was sorry!” I take two slow steps backward, but when his tongue comes out and strokes the corner of his mouth, giving the impression of a sex fiend on the attack, I abandon all hope of reasoning with him and turn to run.
“Jeremy, no! Stay away from me!”
“Ah ha!!!” he yells from behind me.
My breath comes in gasps as I race as fast as I can across the snow towards the cabin. The drifts are up to my knees, making me flash back to a nightmare I had once where I was running in ocean waves that wouldn’t let me go. In my dream it had been some unknown, dark force coming for me that I couldn’t escape. Here, it’s Jeremy with a snowball, but it’s no less frightening. I scream again, the sound coming out a half-screech, half-laugh.
I’m halfway to the front steps when a streak of matted gray and brown hair comes flying across the snow from my left. Angry shouts and ferocious growls soon follow.
I turn around in time to see Jeremy launch his snowball at Jaws, who’s put himself between my attacker and me. The little guy is trying to be tough, but he keeps falling through the snow and getting buried in it. The giant snowball hitting his back does not help his situation.
“Call off your attack dog!” Jeremy shouts, throwing up big piles of snow on top of Jaws in an effort to keep from being bitten.
“Jaws!” It’s hard to discipline the dog when I’m laughing so hard.
“You’re laughing while he’s trying to kill me? Perfect.” Jeremy’s face and beard are totally white from his snow cannon imitation.
Jaws is being kept busy, biting all the snow that’s thrown in his face, snapping at it as he tries to get through to Jeremy.
“Jaws, come here!” I say in a more serious tone.
The dog pauses to look back at me, and Jeremy takes advantage of the situation by burying his little, furry body again. This time I lose sight of him completely.
“Stop that, you big bully,” I scold, walking back to join them. I have to lift my legs really high to go fast enough. I get there just in time, as Jaws’s nose pops out of the snow and he eyes his victim with malice. I snag the little mutt and hook him under my arm at my waist.
He starts to growl, burps, and then stops abruptly, going silent.
“That’s better,” I say. Then I move closer to Jeremy and reach up to wipe his face off, clearing most of the snow from his beard with a few rough strokes. He stands perfectly still, suffering my ministrations in silence. “All clean. All better. See?”
He has his eyes closed during the clean-up, but as I speak, he opens them up. I’m startled by how blue they are. His daughter inherited that gorgeous shade. Why did I not notice that before? And when is this guy going to show his ugly side? Because as far as I’ve seen so far, he doesn’t really have one. But every guy has one. I’m guessing his comes from the bottom of a bottle.
“Are you finished yet?” he asks.
My hand drops away from his face and I rest it on Jaws’s snout, just in case he gets it in his head to try to bite Jeremy again.
“Yes, I’m finished.”
“Do you mind if I go back to splitting logs?”
“Do whatever you want.” Just don’t leave.
Ack! I just said that to myself! What the hell! I need to stop this nonsense right this second. Get your brain back on track, Sarah, or you’ll never paint another canvas for as long as you live!
“But you need to go before it starts to
get dark.” I nod my head once really big to prove my dedication to the idea of him disappearing forever from my life.
“It’s only eleven in the morning,” he says wryly.
“Oh. Well. It feels later than that.” I glance over at all the wood that was delivered yesterday, still sitting in a giant mound under several inches of snow.
He turns around and walks back to the tree stump and the snow-ball throwing pine, through the trail he already made coming after me. It makes me kind of sad to see the back of him getting smaller.
Holy shit I need to get a grip.
“I’m going make some hot chocolate,” I say, turning towards the house. “You want some?”
“Nope.”
“Of course you don’t,” I say, shaking my head. He’s going to starve to death out here, but it’s not going to be my fault. Stupid jerk. Rejecting all my peace offerings.
“I’ll take some bacon and eggs, though,” he says a bit louder.
“Oh no you won’t,” I yell back. As if I’d make him a fresh plate after he rejected my first breakfast.
His laughter follows me as I walk into the house and head to the kitchen. My heart is pounding away, and my spirits are soaring once more. I cannot believe how pitiful I am right now. I’m falling in lust over a guy who plays head games over breakfast? Holy crap. I need to get a life.
Bacon and eggs, coming right up.
Chapter Sixteen
INSTEAD OF STANDING IN THE kitchen, hovering over Jeremy and waiting at his feet like a pitiful dog for some sort of attention or comments about my cooking, I leave him to his bacon and eggs for my soon-to-be painting alcove. There are a few boxes stacked on the floor and supplies piled in the corner that are begging to be organized and set up. I can already feel the creative juices starting to flow.
Jaws settles himself into the corner of the alcove nearest the fireplace, smart little dog that he is. Now that Jeremy has the fireplace working and a raging fire going inside it, the cabin’s temperature is actually somewhat pleasant. I’m wearing just a shirt, two sweaters, and gloves with the fingertips cut off instead of everything I own.
In the first box I find various tubes of paint, brushes both new and old, some palette knives mixed in with pastels, watercolors, and a small table-sized easel. Other boxes hold junk I probably could have left behind but was worried I might need. Extra palettes? Three Exacto knives? Turpentine? A pack of fifty cleaning rags? I must have been fantasizing about how much painting I’d be doing while drinking copious amounts of wine.
As I’m battling my large easel that doesn’t want to go up, I glance over at my houseguest and catch him pouring something into his coffee from a bottle I hadn’t seen before.
“What’s that?” I ask, straightening up.
“Irish coffee. Want one?” He holds up a brand new bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey.
“No.” I glance at the clock in the kitchen. “It’s only 12:30.”
“There’s no bad time for an Irish coffee in my book.” He slugs the whole thing down and then cringes. “Haah, ooooh, damn, that was hot.”
“It’s coffee, Stupid, what did you expect?” I go back to my easel, determined to ignore the annoyance I feel building inside me at his drinking. Even so, I watch him out of the corner of my eye.
He gets up from his stool without answering and takes a clear glass from the cupboard. Into that he pours straight whiskey and drinks the entire thing in one gulp.
It takes everything I have not to comment. Just keep your head down and get your work done, Sarah. He’s not worth it.
I wish I believed myself. I glance over and find him staring out at the snow in the front yard through the kitchen window. He looks angry. Another shot of whiskey goes down just as fast as the first and second.
“You didn’t have to eat the eggs and bacon,” I say, wondering if I’m right about the reason for his emotions getting away from him.
“I know that.” He doesn’t look over, but he does pour another glass of whiskey, this time a much bigger one.
The easel is finally standing, so I open up the last box I brought — a small build-it-yourself table from IKEA — and pull out the directions.
“What’s that?” he asks me, wandering over.
“It’s a table.” I’m not paying him any attention any more, too busy reading the directions and trying to decide if I’m going to be able to put this thing together by myself.
I don’t want to ask his probably drunk ass to help me any more today. Splitting all those logs was more than enough. Plus, I’m disappointed in him for being such a mess, and I know that’s not really fair, seeing as how I don’t even know him. So, since I can’t seem to control my judgment-o-meter and we have to be together for at least another couple hours, I decide not to engage in conversation with him if I can help it.
“Need a hand?” he asks.
“Not from you.”
He takes a smaller sip of whiskey this time. “That sounded kind of harsh.”
“Did it?” I turn around to search for my toolbox. I saw it here somewhere earlier, I know I did.
“So it wasn’t an accident.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I shove packing papers and garbage out of my way, searching for the red metal box I keep screwdrivers and my one hammer in.
“It was no accident that you’re being short with me.”
“I’m not being short with you. I’m just busy.” I catch a flash of red under a box top and move it out of the way, locating my tools. A quick inventory tells me I have what I need to get the job done.
“I may be out of practice, but I’m pretty sure I can recognize when a woman’s pissed at me.”
I stand up straight, abandoning the toolbox for a minute for some bare honesty. Maybe it’ll help him leave sooner.
“Listen, Jeremy, I appreciate all your help, I really do, but I don’t want any more of it, especially when you’re drinking whiskey in the middle of the day like it’s water.”
He frowns first at me and then at his glass. “My whiskey is what’s bothering you?”
“No, it’s you that’s bothering me. When I came in here yesterday, this place was covered in beer bottles. Covered. It took me hours to clean it all up. What kind of person does that? Who lives surrounded by a mess like that?”
He shrugs. “I dunno.”’
I point at his glass. “I’ll tell you what kind of person. An alcoholic on his way to the bottom of the barrel.”
He frowns at me. “I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Said every alcoholic since the dawn of time.”
“Yeah, but I’m not an alcoholic.”
I shake my head, even madder now than I was when I started being so rudely honest. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day when you drive around drunk off your ass you’ll just kill yourself and not some innocent person in another car or walking across the street.”
His face goes white and so do his fingers as the grip on his glass tightens. “I would never drink and drive.”
It’s then that I remember the story about how his wife died, and I feel instantly terrible, like the worst asshole in the history of all assholes ever.
My face falls. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I think you did.” He turns around and goes back to the kitchen, ditching the glass for the bottle. He drinks straight out of it, tipping his head back so far he looks like he’s about to do a backbend.
“Are you deliberately trying to piss me off?” I ask, hands on hips.
I swallows an entire mouthful of whiskey and answers with a hoarse voice. “Nope.” He walks over to the couch and drops down onto it, taking another sip from the bottle.
“You say you don’t drive after drinking, but you’re supposed to be leaving here as soon as the roads are open.”
He says nothing.
“Were you just saying that to shut me up?”
“Nope.”
“You’re not planning on staying here are you?
”
“Nope.”
I’m so ready to wring his neck. “Are you going to say anything other than Nope to me?”
“Nope.”
I grit my teeth hard to keep from saying anything worse than I already have. Instead, I throw myself into my organizing and arranging.
Two hours later, I’m finally finished. Standing at the entrance to the alcove I smile, taking in the view of my easel in the corner with a fresh canvas ready to go, already gessoed and begging for a sketch and some paint. My little IKEA table is set up, put together by the most awesome woman in the house — me —, and my water and brush cans are all resting on top of it with the paints on the shelves below. Now all I need is some inspiration.
A snore over my shoulder interrupts my thoughts and my beautiful visions. I turn around to find Jeremy passed out on the couch with almost half the bottle of whiskey gone.
Angry at his bad choices and at the world for forcing him into the bottle he’s drowning in, I storm over, grab the whiskey from his limp hand, and go right out the front door. I stand there shivering in the cold air as the liquid pours out into the snow over the side of the railing.
After I go back inside, I search through his bag in the bedroom and find two more bottles of Jack Daniels and a six-pack of beer. All of that goes out into the snow too, along with the bottles of wine I have in the fridge. If I’m going to be stuck in this place with him for another day while we wait for the snow to be plowed, I’m not going to watch him get drunk and stupid or, God forbid, see him drive away under the influence. No. When those roads are clear, he’s outta here sober, no excuses.
Chapter Seventeen
JEREMY WAKES UP FROM HIS drunken stupor as the chicken-fried steak I have on the stove starts to sizzle. I hate to admit it, because of what it says about my feelings towards this man, but I chose this particular frozen cut of meat to thaw because I’ve gotten so many compliments on it over the years. I know it’s really just greasy-spoon-diner-type fare, but I have to take the cooking compliments where I can get them. I’m no Julia Child.