Chapter 8
EIGHT
5 days til Christmas
The cabin felt massive until I had another person in the space with me. An incredibly attractive someone.
The kind of attractive that makes you a little weak in the knees and too tongue-tied to toss in a second cliché.
I managed to put another butterfly bandage on his cut without getting tongue- tied.
Yay, me.
However, the kitchen had seemed endlessly spacious until he’d come to check on me. Even more impressively, he wanted to help.
His woodsy scent layered with the smells of butter, cinnamon, and syrup was far too intriguing. The intimacy of cooking overlaid by the fact that we were strangers made for a tension I didn’t know what to do with.
He tried to get out of my way as I turned off the burners, but we kept bumping into each other. When I went on my toes for a platter on the top shelf, he came up behind me to help, his thighs brushing along my butt for a moment before he stepped back and handed me the bright red dish.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
His gaze met mine, his eyes so dark that I could barely discern a difference between his pupil and iris. I licked my lips, then I turned away to busy myself with transferring the food.
“Want me to set the…” he trailed off as he noticed that I’d already set the breakfast table of the corner booth. It shared the river rock wall from the fireplace, letting the crackling flames show through both rooms.
There was a larger formal dining room beyond the kitchen at the back of the cabin. Watery gray light spilled over the space with a view of the endless white layered over bare trees. Snow was still coming down with no end in sight.
“You can grab the juice out of the fridge.”
Happy to have something to do, he busied himself with pouring as I brought the bowl of scrambled eggs to the table.
I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or attraction thrumming inside of me. My skin prickled and my clothes felt too tight. Hudson was a stranger, but he didn’t seem like one after last night.
He’d been unaware of most of my tending the night before, but I remembered every bit of his warm skin since I’d had to keep getting up to cover him with the stupid throw blankets. I should have gone upstairs for a larger blanket, but I’d been afraid to leave him for too long.
I was lucky he hadn’t ended up with any other complications with the concussion I was pretty sure he had.
Not that I knew anything beyond the roughhousing my brothers did on the ice while playing hockey. Taking a puck to the skull had been a common occurrence since Rio had been training to be a goalie since he could glide on the ice.
There wasn’t much to do in Rawlings, New York. We were close enough to the Catskills that we weren’t terribly bored, but there wasn’t much to do in the surrounding small towns except duke it out on the ice.
And with the ice came lots of injuries. Which was why I knew Hudson hadn’t been terribly hurt.
At least I’d been reasonably sure.
But his fitful sleep on the couch that was slightly too small for him had left me up and down most of the night, worrying over him. In between the worrying, I’d busied myself with over-decorating even more than I’d planned.
I glanced into the living room as I went back for the food I’d put in the warmer. The cabin looked like Christmas had thrown up on every inch of it. I loved it, but it was definitely overkill now.
It had been a damn long time since I’d been worried about anyone other than my siblings. Traveling non-stop for the last four years had left me with few friends who survived my life on the road.
“Here, let me get that,” he said over my shoulder. He took the large platter of bacon and French toast. “It looks amazing.”
“Thanks. I don’t get much time to cook anymore.”
“Yeah? What do you do?”
I opened my mouth, but the internal protective streak for my famous brother had me hesitating. “I’m a personal assistant. My boss keeps me very busy.”
“Must be a pretty amazing boss if you can afford this place.”
“He is.” I smiled at him, then I grabbed the syrup I’d warmed and the plate of butter. It was easier to just say nothing if Hudson didn’t press.
He seemed satisfied with the answer, so we sat to eat.
“Sounds like both of our bosses are winning medals. You said you got some extra time off?”
“I earned it.” He slid off a pile of bacon and egg-soaked bread at my urging. Then a healthy scoop of fluffy eggs before he poured syrup over all of it. “I swear, I barely took time off this year. I had plenty of available personal time even if Mr. Eden hadn’t shut down the offices.”
I grinned as he cut off a corner of French toast then added butter. “Corporate?”
“Kind of. Eden Advertising based in Chicago.”
“Oh, wow.”
He looked up from his plate, his knife and fork paused. “You know them?”
Hell, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I shrugged. “I know a little bit about a lot of things.”
His brow furrowed.
Ripper Records had used Eden for a number of the festivals Quentin had been a part of for the last two summers.
God, had he worked on Q’s account? Shoot.
“So, your family is in town?”
He lifted his forkful of dripping syrup and French toast then he scraped the tines of the fork with his teeth before chewing slowly. He seemed to have a mini conversation with himself before he allowed the subject change. “Yeah, my parents and my older brother live on the lake. Are you from around here?”
I shook my head. “A friend talked up the town, and I booked it impulsively. I’m originally from the Catskills area.”
“Oh, definitely a bit different. Almost the same snow, though.”
I laughed. “The ski places wish they could get this kind of snow without adding powder. Though these houses are definitely in better shape than the ones in my small town.”
“What’s the name?”
“Rawlings. You probably haven’t heard of it.”
He shook his head. “No, but New York is full of tiny towns all over the damn place.”
“That’s so true. Rawlings is mostly a tourist town, which made me a bit nostalgic shopping around Main Street here.”
He glanced at the big windows that were more than decorated, thanks to me and my Target credit card. “Did this place come done up?”
Blushing, I looked down at my plate. “I wanted it to be perfect for my family. We’re kind of scattered these days since my parents sold our childhood house. Said they wanted to travel since the last of us finally moved out.”
“Ah. Yeah, that’s hard. My parents managed to join the empty nesters club for all of two years before my mom had a surprise pregnancy.”
I glanced up. “Pardon?”
“I know. She had us young. Callum and then me and my brothers.”
“How many brothers?”
“I’m one of triplets, then Cal.”
“Triplets?” I squeaked.
“Yep. And no, not because of fertility things.”
“I wouldn’t have asked.”
He mopped up the last of the syrup with his bacon and popped it in his mouth. After he chewed and swallowed, he grinned. “Most people do. Just the luck of the draw on genetics.”
“So where do you land?”
“The youngest by two minutes. Finn is next and then Lennox. And now we’ve got a little sister, Cara. She’s almost three.”
“Whoa.”
He laughed and sat back in his chair. “What my dad said. So instead of the little condo they planned on, they ended up building a house by my brother right on the lake.”
“What does your dad do?”
“Finance guy. He wanted to downsize a bit, and he ended up taking a job at Crescent Cove Trust. Now he happily writes mortgages all day for the fair citizens of the Cove.”
“That sounds kinda nice, actually.”
“They’re happier than I’ve ever seen them, to be honest. Not that I’ve been able to visit all that often.”
“And why you wanted to surprise them with some extra time.”
“Yeah.” He lightly tapped his thumb on the table. “But at least they won’t worry about me yet. I wasn’t due to arrive until Christmas Eve.”
Standing, I took my dish and reached for the platter that was nearly empty.
He stood too. “No, I got it. You cooked.”
“You should be resting.”
He rolled his eyes. “I did plenty of resting last night.”
“That’s not restful sleep. That was on par with drunk sleep.”
“And how would you know?”
“My brothers played hockey and got hurt all the time.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
I grinned and let him take my plate. “Three brothers and a sister.”
“So, kinda like me.”
“Kinda.”
Not that I needed to tell him my middle brother was one of the most famous musicians in the world. Oh, and my baby brother had just been called up to fill in for the goalie on the Chicago Kings who’d been hurt—and he was causing quite the sensation.
So, now I had two idiots to protect.
I followed him to the sink and dried the dishes he washed.
“So, do you play hockey too?”
“Yes.”
He grinned down at me. “Who’s your team?”
“The Kings.”
“Chicago Kings?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
He laughed. “They are terrible this year. At least the last time I managed to watch a game all the way through. By the time I turn on the TV, I’m halfway asleep.”
“Oh, they’re still terrible.”
Though they have had a few wins lately thanks to my little brother and his psychotic guarding of the net, they’d been doing a little better. I knew he had something to prove, but he scared the crap out of me every time he contorted himself to block a puck.
“I wonder if a game is on tonight. Looks like we’re stuck inside.”
“They’re playing Seattle tonight.”
He laughed. “You really are a fan.”
I shrugged. “I like that the games are short, compared to other sports.”
“Like baseball?”
I wrinkled my nose. “No, thanks.”
He chuckled. “I’ll leave it on for background noise when I’m working.”
“Sounds like you’re always working.”
He set the last plate in the drying rack. “You would be right. But I’m still relatively new to Eden, so I guess I’ve been proving myself for a while now.”
“And do they notice?”
He dried his hands. “You know, I think they are. Maybe too much.” He snapped his towel at my hip. “But we are on vacation. Unless you want to talk about work.”
“I definitely do not.”
“Thought so.” He urged me out of the kitchen to the living room. “This place seems uber classy. Is it only first editions on the shelves?”
“A surprising selection, actually. Do you want to read?”
“Not really. Not that I don’t love a good read sometimes, but not right now.”
We moved to the bookcases, and I spotted a familiar colorful deck tucked on a lower shelf. I crouched down and gasped. “No way.”
“What?” He followed me.
I pulled out the old version of Uno Attack with the updated No Mercy deck.
“You looking to start a fight?” he asked.
I laughed. “Maybe. Chicken?”
“Hell no.” He took the card launcher that upped the ante on the already evil game. “My brothers may or may not have made my cousin cry playing this when we were younger.”
“Oh, I definitely made my sister River cry.”
“Ocean and River?”
I laughed. “Us girls got the vacation names.”
“Vacation names?”
“At least that’s what my dad called them. Bonus souvenirs.”
“Oh.” He laughed as we moved the coffee table to the middle of the room.
I grabbed two of the bigger cushions from a couch and threw them on the floor on either side while Hudson set up the game and started shuffling the mound of cards needed for the plastic card launcher.
I held up a finger, then I ran back into the kitchen to fill two water bottles for us. I could still see the tension around Hudson’s eyes, and I was willing to bet he still had a banger of a headache.
Testing the theory, I came back out with the bottle of Tylenol.
He sighed, but he shook out three without complaint, which told me I was right.
He did another shuffle, his long fingers doing a fancy bridge shuffle that made something inside me flutter.
I sat down and dragged my feet under me, settling cross-legged on the pillow. I took my phone out and put on a festive playlist that hummed through the speakers around the room, and then I folded my hands on the table. “Just so you know, I’m relentless and I cheat.”
He threw his head back. “Well, I’m ruthless and love to win. This should be fun.”