by L. Nicole
I stomp hard on the brakes, the car slides and skids, but doesn’t slow down at all. I’m careening towards the deer way too fast, and I realize all I can do is turn or hit the deer.
The image of being impaled on the deer’s massive horns flashes in my head, so I wrench the wheel to the side, sending the car flying off the road.
I hit the brakes, but nothing happens.
“Fuck!” I shout, pumping the breaks as hard as I can. The car keeps going, and I quickly survey my surroundings.
I see two things.
A huge tree. And a small glass greenhouse next to it.
The tree looks hard. Too hard. Unforgiving.
The greenhouse might stop me and once I realize it’s my only chance at staying alive, I steer straight into it.
I have the distinct thought that I could die, and I’m horrified that this stupid car will be both the death of me, and my coffin, all at the same time.
I brace myself as the car crashes right through the side of the greenhouse. The sound it makes tears through the darkness and I put my arms over my head to shield myself when the airbag inflates.
The car stops just on the other side of the structure after barreling through it completely, sending shards of glass flying through the air, along with flowers, dirt, flowerpots and who-knows-what-else, which all pummel the car as they rain back down on me.
Breathless, I sit frozen in my seat, my eyes wide as reality sets in.
I whip my head around behind me, searching for the deer.
I spot it, still standing on the road—it gazes calmly over at me, blinks a few times, then joyfully leaps away and down the road out of sight.
“You bastard!” I shout, slamming my fist into the door of the car.
“Mr. Holt? Mr. Holt? Are you okay?” Charlene’s faint voice fills the car, drifting up from my phone on the floorboard.
KRISSY
SNOWFLAKES DRIFT over my shoulders as I stand in complete shock, gazing at the mess in front of me.
My flowers. My precious flowers…
I know my mouth is open.
My eyes must be wide as saucers, because flakes keep dropping in them, but I don’t even register it, not really.
I shine the flashlight over it all, and all I can see is shattered glass, broken flower stems, piles of soil and shattered pots amid a colorful menagerie of my dead and demolished babies.
It takes me a good minute to drink it all in, and when the door of the tiny car that has barreled its way into my pride and joy opens, my attention is gobbled up by the behemoth that crawls out of it.
First, his face pokes out as he looks around, his head whipping around angrily, then he pulls his arms out of the car. They’re long and muscular, his hands gripping the side of the vehicle to pull himself out. He steps right into a pot of what used to be a breathtakingly gorgeous white amaryllis that I nurtured from a bulb and growls as he shakes it off his foot violently.
My heart physically hurts as his heel smashes right into the petals themselves, grinding them into the ground.
Silently, I watch as he pulls himself to his feet, my head sliding back slowly as he keeps stretching upwards, like a sunflower reaching for the sun. His body seems to endlessly unfold, made even more prominent by the minuscule size of the little electric smart car he is emerging from. Finally, he stands beside it, his large frame towering over the mess as he finally looks at me.
“What the fuck?” He growls, his voice a deep, rumbling roar.
All words have left me. All I seem to be capable of doing is standing frozen in shock.
“Oh, Jesus, I didn’t hit you, did I?” he asks, when he sees my condition.
Slowly, I shake my head.
“For fuck’s sake, at least that’s one good thing that happened today,” he mutters, beginning to step towards me. His foot lands in another pot and he slips and catches himself on the car, before lifting his leg and searching for a blank space to place his foot.
That’s the thing, though.
There isn’t one.
Every inch of ground is covered in debris. His car went right through my greenhouse like a bowling ball and he definitely bowled a strike.
Tears spring to my eyes as I think about all the work it took to build the greenhouse, let alone the immense amount of time I spent nurturing my flowers from seeds. I thought I’d done everything I could to protect them by building the greenhouse in the first place, just like a good flower mama. I protected them from wind, rain, snow, bugs, deer, rabbits, raccoons, harsh sunlight, overwatering, even shielding them from curious guests.
Never in a million years did I think that I should prepare for the possibility of a herculean brute in a clown car to come barreling through and destroy everything in sight.
“There was a damned deer!” The man throws up his hands, clearly exasperated. I notice he’s got a cut on his forehead and a small ribbon of blood is sliding down his forehead. “Ran right out in front of me, like it had a death wish!”
I nod, understanding slowly dawning on me.
“And then, this fucking car!” He was growling again, his brown eyes flashing with rage. “It’s not even a car! It’s a—a—a fucking sardine can!” He turns and kicks the tire, causing the frame of the car to move six inches.
I open my mouth to try to say something—anything—but my eyes are glued to his face, crawling over his strong jawbones and peering into his deep warm eyes.
“Mr. Holt? Mr. Holt? Mr. Holt?!?”
A faint voice cracks through the silence and he turns back to the car, crawling back into it headfirst, which provides me with a clear view of his backside. Even through his dark jeans, I can see the outline of his muscular frame. His ass appears hard as a rock. I swallow hard, gripping my fingers in a fist at my side and resisting the urge to see if I’m right.
“Charlene!” He roars as he backs out of the car again, the phone held to his ear as he yells into it. “Goddammit, Charlene, you made me crash!”
MADDOX
I HANG up the phone and shove it into my pocket.
Shouting at Charlene can wait till later. Right now, I have another problem to deal with.
I try to survey the damage, but apparently the only things not damaged in this scenario seem to be me and the girl that has been staring at me wordlessly for way too long. The only communication I’ve received thus far is a slight shake of her head when I asked if I’d hit her.
Not that I’ve given her an opportunity to speak much, but with the way she’s looking at this mess like it’s her beloved dead dog I’ve just run over or something, I’m guessing this is probably her greenhouse.
“I’ll pay for all this,” I assure her, with a wave, trying to take it all in. It looks like a few thousand dollars’ worth of damage, with the exception of the stupid car. “Sorry,” I mutter.
I fucking hate apologizing. ‘Sorry’ isn’t really a word I’m comfortable with, but I know it’s necessary in a situation like this. This poor girl isn’t some schmuck I’m doing business with—where it’s necessary to be a hard-ass if I’m going to get anything done.
In fact, she appears to be a far cry from a schmuck.
She's breathtakingly beautiful, actually. At least from what I can see in the dark. She has long, golden, flowing hair and I suddenly want to turn that flashlight she’s wielding like a weapon on her so I can see what color her eyes are.
Unfortunately, I’m quickly suspecting she might be mute.
I shuffle towards her, my shoes scraping through the mess of pots and dirt and flowers, my hand held out.
“Maddox,” I say, with a firm nod. “Maddox Holt.”
She stares down at my hand like I’m offering her a snake. Quickly, I pull it back to my side.
I’ll admit, I’m not used to being rejected, but I did just crash into her world. She’s probably a little upset.
“I apologize,” I say again, swallowing my pride a second time, which makes me cringe, because I hate repeating myself.
&n
bsp; Her eyes rake over me, slowly traveling down my body, until she gets to my crotch, then she stops completely and just blatantly stares and cocks her head to the side.
My gaze shoots down and I’m appalled to see my crotch is very noticeably drenched. That fucking car…
“The uh, the top to the damn car is torn,” I explain. “The damned snow. Hell, it’s not even a real car…”
I yammer on, coming up short when she continues to stare silently.
“Well, do you talk or what?” I finally say, cringing at my abruptness, but I have no idea what else to do.
Finally, she meets my gaze again, blinking.
To my surprise, she steps forward and reaches up, sliding a thumb over my forehead, pulling away a bloody fingertip and sending a jolt of electricity shooting through me.
I reach up and wipe my forehead. “It’s just a scratch,” I murmur, reeling. What was that feeling? Nothing surprises me these days, but her touch sends a flash of energy straight to the center of my gut. And that definitely surprises me.
“Maybe you should come inside,” she murmurs, finally speaking. Her voice is soft and lyrical and tinged with sadness as she looks around. “It’s very cold.”
“Inside?”
She gestures behind her. “Up to the house. It’s a Bed and Breakfast, actually. I can get you a band-aid…” Her voice trails off as she looks over the damage again before looking back at me.
Her eyes shine bright up at me, a brilliant green, I see now—and my breath catches, despite the fact that I’m standing in the middle of an absolute mess. I force myself to inhale, nodding politely.
“Yes, thank you,” I nod.
She musters a faint smile and scans her flashlight over the destruction around us.
“I think we’re going to need a lot more than a band-aid,” she says, her eyes wide, a cyclical smirk spreading across her face.
I groan, running a hand through my hair with frustration. I want to shout and yell, but not at her. At Charlene’s incompetence, at the stupid snow, at my reluctant client, the damned car—the deer—but definitely not at her.
Whatever her name is…
I see the sadness in her pretty green eyes, and I feel terrible. She’s obviously very upset by what I’ve done. I don’t like it. I vow to make sure Charlene sends her a very generous check to replace everything right away.
She turns and starts walking away, and I follow her up a slippery trail towards a huge house a few hundred yards away, and I can’t help but appreciate the sway of her curvy ass as I do so.
It’s then that I realize crashing into her greenhouse might just be the best thing that’s happened to me all day.
KRISSY
I FEEL the heat of his gaze on me with every step as I climb the steep trail back up to the house. I can hear him breathing faintly and I use the few moments it takes to get to the front door to compose myself. I try my hardest to hide the pure grief I’m feeling at the loss of my plants, because it was obviously an accident and he didn’t mean to do it.
“Lovely house,” he says as we approach the front porch.
“Thank you,” I reply, my voice cracking with emotion. I blink away tears as I think about the ruined fruits of my labors and turn away to hide them from him as I stomp the snow off my boots outside of the front door and step inside.
The warmth from the fire spreads over us as soon as the door closes, and I shrug off my coat and hang it up on the coat tree near the door. I turn to look at him and see that his clothes are soaked even more so after our walk up the trail in the snow, only adding to the huge wet spot on his crotch.
“Why don’t you warm up by the fire?” I suggest. “I’ll get you a towel.”
“Thank you,” he replies, his voice a deep growl in the quiet of the house. All the guests are probably fast asleep upstairs by now and the fact that I’m all alone with this strange, angry man with nothing but Snowflake to protect me is not lost on me.
I fetch a fluffy white towel from the linen closet and take it back to him. He rubs it against his wet hair, smirking sheepishly at me, just as his phone rings. It’s the first time he’s smiled. It makes his eyes light up like twinkling Christmas lights, taking my breath away.
“I need to take this, excuse me,” he says.
I nod and turn away, heading to the kitchen as his voice booms through the house. I cringe, hoping the guests can’t hear him, but since the crash didn’t wake them, I guess it’s safe.
“Charlene, slow down!” He pauses, listening before lighting into her. “Of course the meeting is still on! Yes, I crashed, but that doesn’t matter. I’m fine, I’m fine! Charlene, dammit — stop crying — no, I know it wasn’t your fault…”
My eyes widen at his anger. He's obviously a very high-strung guy, and if it wasn’t for that faint smile he flashed me, I might be a little afraid of him.
Instead, I realize that I’m actually a little bit excited.
Nothing has happened around here in a long time, if I’m being honest, and despite the huge disappointment of losing my greenhouse and everything in it, having a strange man ranting and raving like this in my living room is more action than this house has seen in a long while.
Our guests tend to be on their best manners during their stays—which, I mean, is a good thing, but also boring.
Maddox Holt doesn’t seem to be big on politeness. And whoever this poor Charlene girl is, I feel sorry for her. His voice drifts all the way into the kitchen as he continues to shout into his phone.
“Okay, okay, will you hush it for a minute? Listen, Charlene, it’s fine. Just try to find me another rental car and do not cancel the meeting, do you understand?”
I laugh to myself. There’s no way he’s going to find another rental car anywhere near here. Everything’s been booked for months.
After warming up two mugs of apple cider, I grate fresh cinnamon into them and head back to the living room. He’s just hanging up the phone and as I hand him a steaming mug, I’m gifted with another flash of that smile. My heart skips a beat, and I can barely breathe. He’s really hot when he’s not yelling.
I mean, he’s gruff, but intriguing, and I have the sudden urge to ask him a million questions, but instead I keep quiet, letting him be the first to talk. He takes a sip and looks at it with surprise.
“This is incredible,” he says. I know that already, of course. The apples were harvested from our own apple trees and I brewed this batch myself, adding oranges, maple syrup, nutmeg, all-spice, fresh ginger, and cloves. Then, I slowly simmered it over several hours.
“Thank you,” I say, humbly. He doesn’t need to know I made it from scratch. He probably wouldn’t even care. But, he takes several sips before talking again, which lets me know he really does like it.
He looks at me, slowly letting his gaze rake over me, making my stomach quiver from the heat that simmers in his dark eyes. It competes with the heat of the fire.
“I didn’t get your name.” His voice is low and deep, and I want to crawl into it and never crawl out.
“Krissy,” I reply.
“Krissy,” he nods, my name rolling off his tongue like liquid velvet. “Krissy, please allow me to apologize once again for quite literally barreling into your space like this.”
“It’s okay,” I reply, pushing away the vision of my trampled babies outside and replacing it with this beautiful man warming himself in front of my fire with wet hair and passionate blue eyes.
What was I saying about being lonely earlier? Maddox standing in my living room was like receiving my very own Christmas present that I didn’t realize I had asked for.
“As I said, I promise you’ll have a check in your hands as soon as possible for the damages.”
I nod, silently blinking away tears again as I wonder how I’ll ever replace everything. Some things money can’t buy. But this rollercoaster of emotion is threatening to overwhelm me, so I push my grief away and vow to deal with all of that later. Right now, I have this giant of a m
an to deal with.
“In the meantime, if you could just point me in the direction of the nearest rental car agency, I’ll give them a call and be on my way. I’ll have that sorry excuse for a vehicle towed away as soon as the sun comes up.”
I shake my head, afraid to be the one to tell him how out of luck he is.
“The closest one is over two hours away.”
“Really? Well, they’ll just have to send someone to pick me up,” he replies.
I shake my head again and he raises a brow.
“My guest told me yesterday they were all booked. Any other time of the year, and you wouldn’t have a problem at all, but well—tis the season, and all…” I laugh nervously, as the smile fades from his eyes like a little boy who woke up on Christmas morning with no presents under his tree.
He nods, his mouth now setting into a firm line. “Is that right?”
“Sorry,” I say, shrugging, even though it’s obviously not my fault. I mean, what is he even doing up here? And in a car like that?
“I see,” he nods again, and I can see his wheels are spinning. “Well, there must be something I can do to—”
“Nope,” I interrupt, sounding like a grinch.
“Well, I’ll just get a room somewhere until I can figure this all out, I suppose.”
I shake my head again and he looks at me with exasperation. “What?”
“Every hotel within sixty miles has been booked since June.”
“June! Of course they have!” He says, throwing up his hands with frustration. “Dammit.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his wet hair, a stray lock falling over his eye. I swallow hard, my insides melting.
It must be the fire, I think. It’s way too hot in here. I haven’t felt like this in…well, forever. I consider this must be how gingerbread men feel right before coming out of the oven and I wonder if he would think I was crazy if I flung open the front door, snow be damned.
It’s obvious that Maddox is a man’s man. One of those silver foxes that looks like he could sell you anything and convince you to pay three times as much as you know you should. He’s got a face I can’t seem to stop staring at, and just to prove to myself that I can’t stop, I try to look away.