Frosty Mountain Man (Cold Mountain Nights 2 #2)

CHAPTER ONE

Elle

The road to Harrison Cole’s mountain didn’t so much wind as dare me to keep driving.

Curve after curve with gravel spitting under tires that weren’t made for this.

Pine trees crowded so close to the sides of the road I could’ve reached out and touched them if I’d been stupid enough to roll down the window.

I gripped the wheel of my ten-year-old sedan and told myself, for the fortieth time, that this was just a job.

Get the approval done. Drive back down. Don’t think about the fact that my boss had been acting strange for two weeks. His usually southern gentleman charm was overshadowed by distraction and impatience. And sending me up here himself instead of one of his top executives? Not normal behavior.

I was on my way to see Harrison Cole, Robert’s grandson and the estranged CEO of Cole Industries. I’d only heard the water cooler version of what happened and I took that with a whole shaker full of salt. When people gossiped the truth usually got lost in some overly prosy version of the truth.

Landing a job at Cole Industries had appeared to be a godsend.

Now I wasn’t so certain as my car fought hard to keep my toes warm.

But, I’d taken worse jobs. Jobs that paid less and asked for far more.

Jobs where men twice my age looked at my curves and my secondhand blazer and decided I wasn’t there to be just an assistant.

I’d learned a long time ago, growing up in a singlewide outside Billings with a mother who worked doubles and a father who didn’t work at all, that the world didn’t hand you anything.

You went and got it, and you smiled while you did it so nobody could say you weren’t grateful.

I’d also learned exactly one type of man I couldn’t stomach, and it was the kind who thought a name or a bank balance excused bad manners.

I’d met enough of those at Cole Industries to fill a phone book.

I was hoping Harrison Cole wasn’t going to be one of them.

Robert never talked about his grandson like a man drowning in his own ego — just a man who’d built a wall and didn’t plan on knocking it down for anyone.

So I would be professional. I would get his approval. I would leave.

The cabin, when it finally appeared through the trees, was not a cabin. Maybe a cabin McMansion, but not what any ordinary person would refer to as a cabin. While it blended into the landscape, I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through me. It appeared cold and uninviting.

Which was exactly what I expected from the man I was about to meet.

I parked, smoothed my skirt down, grabbed my briefcase, and walked up to the door. I knocked. Waited the appropriate amount of time, then knocked again. I did not want to sound impatient, even though I really was.

The door opened on the third knock, and my rehearsed greeting died on my lips.

The man standing before me was big. Not gym-big, not trying-too-hard big.

Broad through the shoulders in a way that made the doorway look smaller, dark hair pushed back like he’d stopped noticing it needed cutting, and a mouth built for exactly one expression, and it wasn’t welcome.

Flannel sleeves were shoved up to his forearms with a dusting of dark hair over tanned skin.

I’d been expecting boardroom elegance. Instead, I got this.

He looked at me the way you’d look at something that had wandered onto his porch uninvited. Zero interest. Zero welcome.

Then he shut the door in my face.

I blinked several times, certain that had not just happened.

But the solid oak door in front of me told a different story.

Of course, being the stubborn soul that I was, I knocked again — harder this time. “I’m Elle Marsh, from your grandfather’s office. I should warn you, I am not going to leave until you talk to me.”

I could practically hear him weighing his options on the other side of that door — ignore me, or deal with me. Another gust of wind washed over me, making me shiver in my second-hand heels. I called through the door again.

“I have the—”

The door opened. “No.”

I took a step forward just in case he decided to slam the door in my face again. To be fair, he hadn’t exactly slammed the door, more like closed it with an attitude. “The approval on the Ridgeline project, if you could just… wait. No?”

“No.” He said it like a complete sentence. Which, I was starting to gather, for him it probably was.

“You haven’t even seen what I brought.”

His gaze flicked down my front, quick, like he was calculating how much effort it would take to push me off his doorstep.

“I didn’t read the last one he sent. I’m not reading this one.”

I almost didn’t register his words, a little lost in that dark gaze.

We both knew who the he was in that sentence. His grandfather. My boss. I’d heard rumors at least three other people had been sent up the mountain before me. And came back down the mountain empty-handed.

“Didn’t you listen to the weather report before coming here?

” His eyes did another scan of my body and I barely resisted the urge to suck in my stomach.

But I couldn’t help but catch the fact that his eyes lingered half a second too long on the way my blouse strained across my chest. I cursed the way my nipples hardened and the heat that shot straight between my legs.

Great. Now I was turned on, freezing, and thoroughly annoyed about both.

My ears went hot. The kind of blush I could never hide no matter how many years I’d had to practice. “I’m dressed for a business meeting, which is what I was told this was.”

“Then you were told wrong.”

“Mr. Cole—”

“Harrison’s fine. Mister makes it sound like I want you here.” The words should have stung, but I had thicker skin than that.

I’d built up a decent immunity to men who thought being unpleasant made them interesting. This one was just better-looking.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll stand out here in the wind and give you the highlights, since apparently you didn’t inherit your grandfather’s manners.”

One of his dark eyebrows rose and a hint of surprise colored his face. He was not a man used to being talked back to. Good, I thought.

The wind chose that moment to pick up, almost knocking me off my feet.

I put out a hand to grab the doorframe...

and missed. My palm landed on a warm, hard chest. Warmer than it made sense for a man standing outside in near-freezing wind.

Immediately, my gaze flew to his face. His eyes were dark and half-lidded, watching me. “Um, sorry.”

His chest was solid under my hand, the kind of solid that made a girl wonder what the rest of him felt like. I should have yanked my hand back like it was on fire. Instead, I just stood there like an idiot, palm flat against all that heat.

Finally, my better sense came to life and I dropped my hand. Dropped it slowly, running it down his chest and over his stomach before I could stop myself.

Bad, bad girl, I told myself. Extremely bad girl. The kind who groped a hostile stranger on his own front porch.

I blamed that lapse in judgement on the long dry spell my love life had been going through, and intended to keep blaming it for as long as it took to stop feeling that handprint on my palm.

Another gust rushed past me, this one filled with tiny ice pellets.

He looked at me, then at the sky, then back at me again.

“You need to leave. Now. The storm’s coming in earlier than expected.”

“What storm?” I looked up at the sky and saw the gray clouds that had gathered.

“There’s a storm coming in tonight. A bad one.”

“Well, it will just have to wait until we finish our business.” I drew out the papers that needed to be reviewed. “This needs to be approved before I can leave. If you would—”

Just as I was about to hand it to him, another gust jerked it out of my hands, sending it down the gravel road.

I gave a very unladylike curse and hurried after it.

I chased it for a few yards before managing to step on it with my shoe.

I would have toppled over if Harrison hadn’t appeared beside me, his big hand wrapping around my waist as he picked up the document.

His hand was huge. It spanned most of my side, fingers pressing into soft flesh. I had the sudden, ridiculous thought that if he wanted to, he could lift me clean off the ground and do whatever he wanted.

I didn’t let go of the thought nearly as fast as I should have.

He dragged me back to the cabin door and basically shoved me over the threshold before shutting the door behind us with a thud.

The silence was almost deafening.

The wind had managed to knock most of my hair out of my neat bun on top of my head. I pushed the strands back with one hand. “I checked. It wasn’t supposed to hit until tomorrow.”

“Mountain weather doesn’t read forecasts.” He studied me for a very long moment.

“If you’ll just read the file, I can be on my way.”

He looked down at the document in his hand. I could see the smudge of my footprint on the blue backing paper. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I beg your pardon?” He’d been adamant about not letting me inside out of the cold and now he was informing me I was staying as if it was a foregone conclusion he’d made without me.

Arrogant bastard.

I thought of the carrot my boss had dangled in front of me. A bonus for getting his grandson’s approval. I thought about my rent, my car insurance due at the end of the month. And the fact that my boss hadn’t been acting like his normal self for a few months.

That more than anything made me take a deep breath and try again. “If you will look that over and literally give your stamp of approval, I’ll be on my way and you can enjoy the snow in peace and quiet.”

He walked over to the fireplace, dropping the document on a large coffee table in front of an even bigger leather couch.

I allowed myself a moment to take in the cabin.

Cabin McMansion. The ceilings were tall, exposed dark beams contrasting with the white walls.

We were standing in a large living area complete with a stone fireplace, oversized furniture and large windows that framed the mountains beyond.

A view that was currently turning white.

“Oh, no,” I murmured moving closer to the windows. “It’s really coming down.”

He didn’t say anything, just poked at the low burning fire until it roared back to life.

“Okay, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s not even technically fall yet.”

“Montana doesn’t do weather by the book, lady.”

“My name is Elle.”

“Yeah, you told me that before.”

I set down my things and told myself, again, that this was just a job even though I didn’t quite believe that anymore. I could still feel the imprint of his big hand as it had splayed across my curves and the way his dark eyes had looked at me on the porch.

Some small, stupid, entirely too-interested part of me wondered what those hands would feel like doing something other than catching falling paperwork. I shoved that thought into a very deep hole and hoped it would stay there.

The snow would soon stop, and I would be on my way.

There was no way I was getting snowed in with this frosty mountain man.