Chapter 9
A loud noise brought Tripp up out of a deep sleep.
His first thought was that Endora had gone into labor in the middle of a blizzard.
He rushed down the hallway in his bare feet and threw open the door to find what looked like the abominable snowman standing in front of him.
Whoever it was rushed into the house without saying a word.
When she removed her heavy coat and shook the snow from her dark hair, he realized that Willa Rose was throwing cold, wet snow everywhere.
“Hold on and let me get you a towel.” He hurried to the bathroom without waiting to ask what she was doing out in this weather at nearly midnight.
Her teeth were chattering when he returned with a couple of big towels. “Take off your coat and hang it on the rack. I’ll put a towel under it to catch the water. Here’s an extra one for your hair. What are you doing out in this messy weather?”
“I came to watch a movie with Daddy,” she answered.
“I thought I could make it home, but the SUV started sliding and I wound up in your front yard. I couldn’t get any traction at all, so I got out and tried to push.
It didn’t take but a couple of minutes before I was covered in this wet stuff, and how am I going to get home? ”
“You aren’t,” Tripp told her. “You are going to stay in my guest room. You need to take a hot shower to warm up. There’s a bathroom right off the bedroom.
You can sleep in one of my sweatshirts and a pair of my boxers, but there’s no way we can get your vehicle out tonight and possibly not even tomorrow. You are stuck right here.”
Willa Rose left wet footprints across the room. “I’m ruining this lovely hardwood.”
“It’s vinyl planks and will wipe up. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got to get you warmed up or you’ll have pneumonia.”
He opened a door and pointed. “I’ll put some dry things on the bed for you and make some hot tea or chocolate. If you had stayed out there much longer, you would have gotten hypothermia for sure.”
“Do you think we can take me home tomorrow?”
“Not if this doesn’t let up,” he answered.
“The news tonight says it’s going to outdo the Texas snowstorm of 2010, when Dallas got more than a foot of snow in twenty-four hours.
And that was just snow on dry ground, not snow on top of ice.
Roads are closed everywhere from here to south of Fort Worth. ”
“Bernie isn’t going to be happy about me spending the night here,” she said.
“Nope,” Tripp agreed. “I don’t reckon she will.”
He closed the door to the guest room, heard the phone ring, and ran back down the hall. He barely got out “hello” when Hank started apologizing for calling him in the middle of the night.
“I’m worried about Willa Rose. She left half an hour ago in this storm and was supposed to call me when she got home. I hated to call you this late, but…”
“She’s here,” Tripp said. “Her SUV started sliding and wound up in my yard. By the time she got to the door, she was half-frozen, so she is taking a hot shower to warm up. She can stay in my guest room until the blizzard passes.”
“That’s great. If you can make it across the yards, I’ll see you in the morning, and thank you, Tripp, for letting her stay.
” His chuckle held both humor and relief.
“Bernie ain’t goin’ to like this. I’ve got a twenty ridin’ on Willa Rose stayin’ right here in Spanish Fort, but when it comes to women, a man never knows what they’ll do. ”
“You are very welcome, and it’s no problem. I’ve got lots of room, and Hank, you are right about women. I might be a little late tomorrow morning, but I’ll do my best to get over there.”
He ended the call, fished a pair of boxer shorts from a drawer, decided against them, and took out a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. When he’d added a sweatshirt, he went back to the guest room and laid them on the bed.
“It’s not time for breakfast,” he muttered when his stomach growled.
He got into bed and tried to ignore the hunger pains, but nothing worked. Finally, he pushed back the covers, put on a shirt, and headed to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal.
He grabbed the fruity kind and found nothing in the box.
Same with three others. “Damn you, Knox. The grocery list is right there on the refrigerator. When you empty it, you write down what kind it is and throw the box away.” He opened the refrigerator and removed everything to make an omelet, and there were even a couple of bags of frozen biscuits in the freezer.
“What’s going on in here?” Willa Rose asked from the doorway.
“Hunger pains,” he answered as he turned on the oven.
“Me too.”
“Omelets or biscuits and gravy?”
“Both, and I’ll help,” she answered. “And thanks again, Tripp. I never knew a warm shower and a dry sweatshirt could feel so good.”
Tripp cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl and handed it to her. “You can make the omelets while I do the biscuits and gravy.”
When he and Knox designed the house, they hadn’t figured on more than one person being in the kitchen.
Now Tripp wished he had made it into a big room like they had at the Paradise—where six or seven women could all be working at once.
It seemed like no matter which way he turned, he brushed against Willa Rose’s hip or shoulder.
“Shall we just eat on the bar?” Willa Rose asked.
“Yes,” Tripp answered.
“You aren’t one much for words, are you?”
“Other than my brothers, I’ve probably talked more to you than anyone else in a long time.”
She slipped one omelet onto her plate and handed the other one to Tripp. “Why is that?”
“You argue with me.”
“So, you like the banter?” she asked.
“It does make things interesting,” he admitted.
“And the kisses?”
“Yep, that too,” he said and then filled his mouth with food.
“There’s no banter if there’s nothing but three- or four-word answers,” she snapped.
“I’m hungry, and it’s almost two o’clock in the morning. My alarm is set for eight so I can be at work at nine. I need sleep more than I need flirting.”
“Oh!” She cocked her head to one side. “What makes you think I was flirting?”
“I’m not dumb.” He turned and looked her in the eye.
“Well, you must be, because I was not flirting.”
“And I don’t flirt with women when I’m hungry and losing sleep,” Tripp said and went back to his food.
***
Willa Rose was ready to scream when she crawled into the back side of the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. All men, including her father, could be so infuriating sometimes. That’s when she remembered she was supposed to call Hank when she made it home. She sat straight up and moaned.
“Are you all right?” Tripp’s voice floated down the hall.
“I’m fine,” she called out. “I was supposed to call my dad when I got home.”
“He called here. Everything is good.”
She fell back on the pillow and bit back a second groan.
She fell asleep and dreamed of Tripp kissing her.
The warmth of his broad chest against her body when he held her close created a ball of fire in her body.
She leaned in even closer and laid her head on his shoulder.
Then she woke up snuggled up to Tripp—for real.
“What the hell!” she squealed and moved to her side of the bed.
“Holy…” He rolled over, blinked a couple of times, jumped out of bed, and grabbed a pillow to cover his nakedness.
Only it was not Tripp who had slept with her. It was his twin brother, Knox. Thank God they weren’t identical twins—or maybe that wasn’t even the right thought.
“What are you doing!” she yelled.
Knox rubbed sleep from his eyes. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Tripp was suddenly standing—bare-chested—in the doorway. “Knox? Willa Rose?”
Her eyes flipped so fast from one half-naked man to the one holding the pillow that it made her dizzy. Finally, she pointed at Knox. “He owes both of us an explanation.”
Knox grabbed his pants off the floor, turned around, and put them on. “I didn’t know…” He picked up the rest of his things and ran out of the room.
Tripp followed him, and Willa Rose jumped out of bed and trailed along behind them. “I was right there. How could you not see me?”
“It was dark,” Knox said as he pulled a knit shirt over his head. “I didn’t want to wake Tripp, so I used my key and…”
“Just got into bed with me? Didn’t you see my SUV by the porch?” Willa Rose’s tone was less inquiring and more demanding.
“Woman, I saw a big snowdrift. How was I to know it was a vehicle?” Knox countered.
“Why are you here, anyway?” Tripp asked.
“The electricity blinked several times over at my place and then went out completely. I figured there was heat here and a warm bed.” Knox backed up to the wall and flipped on the light switch.
“No!” Willa Rose wailed when no lights came on. “This place is out of power too. Now what are we going to do?”
Tripp’s phone rang and the little red bar at the top right told him the battery would be dead within an hour. “Hello, Mary Jane. Is your power out too?”
“No, and that’s why I’m calling. It looks like the north side of town is all dark, but we’ve got four extra bedrooms here at the Paradise. If you can get here, we’ll be glad to share our heat.”
“We’ll make it somehow, and thank you,” he said.
“Be safe. Ivy and I are making breakfast for everyone,” she said and ended the call.
“Make it where?” Knox asked.
“The Paradise,” Tripp answered. “Willa Rose, call Hank and tell him that we’ll come get him soon as we are loaded. We’re all going to the Paradise until we have power again. We’ll shovel what we can off your vehicle, Knox, and you can drive.”
“All I have is what I wore in here last night,” Willa Rose muttered.
“You and Mary Jane are about the same size, and you can do laundry there. It’s only until the storm blows over,” Tripp assured her.
“What if we get bogged down or slide off in a ditch?” Her whole body shivered at the thought of being as cold as she was the night before.
“Then Knox can warm you up,” Tripp said.