Chapter 6
SIX
6 Days til Christmas
This idea was definitely becoming one of my more expensive ones.
Sure, Ocean, buy a twelve-foot tree without thinking about the logistics of trimming said tree.
I pushed the ridiculously large ladder out of the way and all the lights shimmered as I moved back.
Maybe a crazy idea, but Agnes was gorgeous.
I’d bought out the ribbon aisle at a local craft store and watched no less than seven YouTube videos about the best way to make the ribbons look good on the tree. Pinterest was evil. It had given me far too many ideas and too little sense about making them happen.
But I was resolute.
This was going to be the most perfect Christmas with my family. And that meant a tree worthy of a Martha Stewart magazine cover.
Okay, so I wasn’t even sure Martha still had a magazine, but this tree could have been on the front cover if there was.
I made a mental note to check on that.
Regardless, the tree was magnificent. I had red plaid ribbon threaded down the tree along with fluffy golden toile stuff that made it a little more upscale like New York City. Soft, warm white lights wrapped nearly every branch until Agnes was glowing.
The red and gold Christmas balls were evenly distributed—except near the wall where no one could see. I’d been running out of the festive, sparkly balls by the end of decorating and the snow outside was not cooperating for yet another trip into the outskirts of Crescent Cove where all the big box stores were.
I’d simply made it work. It was what I did after all.
And the tree was positively fabulous. Next to the tree on the little table were all the individual ornaments I’d bought for my siblings. I wanted them to put their own ornament on the tree.
It was probably silly, but maybe we could make it a little tradition.
I dashed away the moisture at the corners of my eyes and picked up my coffee for a long drink. Which activated my stomach.
I’d been so busy decking out the whole cabin that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I’d been smart this time, and put a grocery stop into the trip after Bells and Kane had delivered my tree. As well as a pitstop to someplace called Jersey Angel’s—a sub shop in Crescent Cove.
Which sounded so good right now.
Cleanup could wait—it was just me. I danced my way to the kitchen with Ray LaMontagne serenading me about holding me tight.
I was unloading the white deli paper goodness from the fridge while I sipped my indulgent Orange Crush soda when a long horn startled me.
Leaving the food, I ran to the window beside the front door.
A red car had spun its way through my yard and the front of the car had smashed into one of the dozens of trees on the property.
Quickly, I stuffed my feet into boots and grabbed my hoodie as I rushed outside. The fat flakes were still coming down in earnest, and I could barely see the stairs. I wiggled into my sweatshirt then I gripped the railing and stumbled my way down, only to find snow up to my thighs at the bottom.
Letting out a yelp, my gaze followed the tracks of the car from the main road around the lake. I wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to get all the way to my place. The winding road up to the cabin was considerable.
The distant rumble of the snowplow made my heart race.
God, had the driver hit the car?
I cursed the fact that I hadn’t grabbed my coat, which had gloves in the pocket. The handle of the shovel was sticking up from a few feet from the stairs and I unearthed it to help me get to the car.
It was still running, the engine revving pathetically as the brake lights glowed hot in the rapidly accumulating snow.
“Don’t be dead,” I mumbled as I dug my way into the yard. The wind, which sounded lovely from the warmth of the cabin, was biting off the water. My hands felt frozen solid by the time I got to the rear bumper of the car.
I pushed away snow from the window and glimpsed a man slumped over the wheel, unmoving.
“Oh, God.” I tried the door, but it was locked. I tried knocking on the window, but he didn’t hear me. Swearing under my breath, I shook my hand out at the abuse while being damn near a block of ice. “Don’t be dead, don’t be dead,” I said again and again as I trudged my way around the car to the driver’s side.
I tried the handle, and it was locked.
“Shit, shit.” I pulled my hand into the sleeve of my hoodie for a little warmth and pounded against the glass.
He moved a little and I let out the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. I resumed the pounding and finally, he sat back in his seat.
Thank God, he was alive.
I yelped at the blood trailing down his face, but he seemed to be coming to.
“Sir! Sir, can you open the door?” I banged again when his head started to slump to the side.
Maybe I should just go in and call 911?
I looked up at the endless clouds and the eerie orange of the sky that said the snow wasn’t stopping anytime soon.
Could they even get to me?
“Sir! Hey! C’mon, just open the door for me. You gotta help me out here, gorgeous.”
Even while blood marred his face, the man was undeniably attractive. I hoped that some super flattery would roust him.
“I mean you’re way too attractive to die out here in the snow, right? It would be a shame.” The adrenaline high I’d been on was lagging a bit as my teeth chattered.
Save the flattery until you’ve shoveled out the car.
I spun around looking for the shovel I’d discarded when I reached his car.
Maybe the plastic handle would make enough noise to wake him up.
It was a little easier to get back around the car since he’d effectively plowed through the snow on his way into the stupid tree. I tucked my hands inside the sleeves of my hoodie and used the car to slip my way around. The red handle was sticking up out of the snow. I grabbed it and scrambled back around to his side of the car.
Even if I could break the window, how the hell could I get this guy out of the car?
I looked at the cabin, which seemed damn far away, then to the stranger.
“Wake up!” I banged at the door. “You gotta wake up, Hottie McOrange,” I shouted. He was wearing an SU sweatshirt with a very old demonic-looking orange mascot on the front.
“MacGregor,” he mumbled.
“MacGregor! Okay, hi. Open the door, MacGregor.”
“So loud,” he said softly.
“I can get louder.” I banged on the window.
Finally, the click of a lock had me fumbling with the handle. I swung open the door and the warmth inside made me want to weep.
I was freaking freezing.
I tucked my hands inside my sleeves for a second and then I blew on them to try and get some feeling into them, but it was a lesson in futility. He flinched when I touched his face with my frigid hands.
“Hi.”
Blurry brown eyes opened as he frowned. “Hi.”
I grinned. “You crashed your car.”
“Are you an angel?”
“Hardly.”
He reached out to touch my wet hair. “You look like an angel.”
“It’s probably the concussion talking.” I reached past him to turn on one of the lights over the display console. It didn’t help much, but at least I could see how bad he was and if I should move him.
He leaned back and heaved out a breath then he touched his forehead, bringing away fingers smeared with red. “Blood.”
“Quite a bit of it.” I wiggled my way back out around the airbag that had probably saved his life. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
He hissed as he moved his legs. “No. I wasn’t going too fast.”
“Not what the front of your car says.” I glanced through the windshield, which was surprisingly not broken. The front of the car was not so lucky, but he was probably right. The fact that he hadn’t been going too fast meant it was mostly the car with the damage.
I turned his face to me and winced. “Good thing chicks dig scars.”
He moaned. “That bad.”
I grinned. “Nah. It’ll be one of those little Harrison Ford ones. Like the hot one on his chin.”
“Harrison could be your grandfather.”
“Still hot,” I said back. Thankfully, it seemed as if he was coming around. The blood was hella concerning, but I remembered reading somewhere that head wounds were bleeders, not necessarily life threatening. “Okay, MacGregor?—”
“Hudson.”
“Of course you are,” I mumbled. “Hot guy with a hot name.”
He turned blurry eyes on me. “You think I’m hot?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’d be hotter in my warm cabin.” I paused. He was a stranger. I wasn’t sure about dragging him into my cabin, but I couldn’t exactly leave him outside.
“I would love to be in your warm cabin,” he said drunkenly.
Suddenly, I straightened. “You weren’t drinking, were you?”
“No.” He turned those big dark eyes on me. “I would never.”
I let out a relieved breath. “Let’s get you inside and you can tell me all about why you crash landed on my lawn like a runaway bobsledder.” I reached in to release his belt. “If you think you can move. How’s your head?”
He rolled his head on his shoulders. “Still attached.”
“Neck?”
“Undetermined.”
“Fair.” I snaked my hand in to turn off the car and pocketed the keys. “Okay, Hudson, think we can get you out of here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we’re going to give it a try.”
“Okay, Angel.”
“Ocean.”
He frowned. “What about the ocean?”
“No, my name is Ocean.” I laughed. I reached behind his back to ease him forward. “Those are some long legs, Hudson.”
“This car sucks.”
I laughed. “Not gonna lie, I gotta agree.”
I helped him swing his legs out before I backed up and put my hands on my hips. He really was freaking tall. Not like Kane tall, but the kind that did not belong in a tiny tin can of a car. “Is this your car?”
“God, no. Rental.”
“Hope you got the extra insurance.”
He snickered. “You know, I did, actually.”
“Good call.” I pushed my wet hair out of my face. “There’s a massive bit of snow out here. Just want to warn you.”
I glanced over to the tunneling steps I’d shoveled out that were rapidly filling up. I didn’t know how I was going to get him back into the house without his help.
I turned back to him. “You ready?”
“No.”
I laughed, then I tipped his chin up so I could look into his eyes—and check his wound, of course. The lights from the cabin didn’t quite make it out here, but it bounced off the snow enough to show off his ridiculously high cheekbones and trim beard.
His eyes were heavy-lidded, and I was pretty sure he had a concussion, but the wound wasn’t actually that big. I sure hoped the cabin had a first aid kit.
He tried to stand and collapsed back into the car. “Shit.”
“This is gonna get real personal, isn’t it?” I leaned in to wrap my arms around his middle.
He sighed. “I’m sorry if I smell. I’ve been in an airport for a whole day.”
I laughed. “You smell like my cedar chest with some spice. You’re fine.” And snow. He smelled of spiced snow.
I was very sure I’d never forget it.
“Okay, let’s go one-two-three.”
He reached out to grip the top of the doorway.
“One.” I gripped his sweatshirt, and my fingers found skin. He hissed. “Sorry, my fingers are ice.”
“It’s okay.” His face was close to mine, and his eyes were so sleepy and unfocused. Would he look like that if he was doing something else?
I was officially a creep. Thinking about him like that when he was hurt.
“Two,” I said, my voice way huskier than it should be.
We both said, “Three.”
I pulled and he levered up and we both made it out the door, our legs tangling. Hudson grabbed the open door just before both of us toppled into the two feet of snow beside the car.
I yelped and he caught me in a bear hug with his other arm. My head fit right under his chin, and I got a deep, drugging whiff of his cologne. His beard brushed along my wet hair, and he felt far too good.
Especially in an emergency situation.
I’d careened from creep into full-on perv at this point.
I stepped back, but then I grabbed for him again when he swayed. “You good?”
He shook his head, and his nose scrunched up adorably before he looked up at the sky at the boatload of flakes still coming down. “God, is it getting worse?”
“Sure is.” I pointed to the cabin.” Now the real test is going to be getting you inside the house.”
He followed my arm and sagged against me some. “That looks really far away.”
“I bet it will feel like it too.” I wedged myself against him, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders as easily as if we’d always done this.
I definitely didn’t need to think of that right now.
After I kicked the car door shut, we staggered around the vehicle to drunkenly slog our way through the snow. It was definitely thigh-high for me, but it only reached a bit over his knees, which actually helped us quite a bit.
It was slow-going, but not nearly as bad as it could have been since he was upright.
When we got to the stairs, I leaned him against the railing. “Be right back.”
He craned his neck and swayed.
I rushed back and righted him. “I’ll be right back.” The I took off back through the snow to find the shovel. Quickly, I darted back to dig a skinny path up the steps so there would be no additional head wounds for either of us.
I didn’t want to rescue this guy only to break my neck getting into the house.
The door was still ajar, but the fireplace was crackling and felt amazing as we rushed inside as fast as we could, injuries aside. My fingers were little more than pins and needles when I dumped Hudson on the couch nearest the fire.
I hurried back to close the front door and kick off my frozen boots.
Hudson must have used up the last of his strength getting up the stairs, because his face was slack with exhaustion.
I knelt in front of him and the firelight was even kinder to his stunning face. My fingers didn’t work quite right, but I was able to get his sneakers off.
Rolling my shoulders, I leaned back. Should I take off his jeans?
They were wet up to the thigh and caked in snow crystals.
Mine too, to be fair.
But I wasn’t the one with the head wound.
“This is not exactly how I thought tonight was going to go.” His body was heavy and unhelpful as I wrestled him out of the wet denim.
I tried not to look—truly.
But the soft red boxer briefs had little Santa gnomes all over them. And I do mean all over. Even the impressive parts that had to be chilly.
Quickly, I pulled the throw off the back of the couch and covered him up. I got him out of his wet sweatshirt and found a wrinkled black tank under it. Before I could check him out any further, I pulled another blanket out of the basket of them and covered him the rest of the way up.
Thankfully, he mostly fit on the long, luxe couch made for this high-end cabin.
I collapsed on the floor to catch my breath, but I couldn’t help reaching out to push away a lock of deep chestnut hair away from his face. The blood had already stopped, but his face was a mess.
Relatively speaking.
I used the last of my own energy to clean him up and to make a butterfly bandage to close up the little cut. He had a heck of a knot on his forehead from where he’d probably hit the dash or the windshield, but all in all, he was going to be okay.
Giving in to my urge to touch, I stroked my hand down his face. He sighed and pushed his cheek into my hand.
“Definitely not how I thought today was going to end,” I whispered.