Chapter 5
WILLOW
“Can you just drive me to Wyatt’s?” Outside of his cabin, I hold up my phone, searching for a signal. Whatever one I had in the cabin to text with Daisy is now a faint memory.
I point to my right. “There’s a snowstorm that’s just crossed the ridge and it’ll be here during the night.
I take you over there and you’re not getting out until middle of next week when Wyatt comes home from seeing his family.
No one plows his drive because he has a four-wheel-drive truck that he doesn’t care about and just plows through mud, snow, whatever. ”
“Then take me to Boone and Daisy’s.”
I can’t be alone with this man. And it’s not that I’m scared of him.
I’m scared of myself.
He grabs my hand. “You’re staying.”
“No. I’m going. I’ll just walk there. It’s what, half a mile?”
“Seven miles.”
“Seven? How deep is that creek? Can I just jump across it?”
“No, feather-feet, you can’t jump the ravine that’s twenty-feet wide.”
My shoulders slump forward. “Are you sure?”
“Willow, I’m not going to let you freeze out here in your car. You can have the bed and I’ll take the couch. Tomorrow I’ll talk to Boone about coming to get you.”
“Can you get my suitcase from the car?”
“Do I look like your butler?”
“I cleaned your house. Do I look like the fucking maid?” I enjoy the banter we have going too much.
“No, but in that teddy, you looked like a doll.”
My boots slide on the slick ground. “What?”
“I’m just saying, I thought you looked… precious.”
I burst out laughing. “No one has ever called me, nor have I ever felt…”
And then I remember being in his arms dancing…
I mumble, “Guess I’m wearing my snowsuit to bed tonight.”
Anything to get him to stop looking at me like that. Those blue eyes sparkle with crystal stars in the floodlight from the front porch.
“Stop looking at me like that!” My head tips and I glare at him, trying to hide how my body is heating up and snowflakes are disintegrating on my lust blasted skin.
“Like what?” He grabs my suitcase out of the back of the car like it’s a piece of lint in his fingers.
“You know how. I’m only staying because my car’s not working. I think I left the dome light on and drained the battery. I’ll have my towing service out here in the morning.”
“Nope. They don’t come out here. There’s not enough room for a tow truck to turn around.”
“Oh.”
“Do you need this bag?” He lifts the bag. “Wow, what’s in here?”
“Gifts for Daisy, Boone and Maverick.”
I found the perfect bag for Daisy’s photography equipment, a leather wallet for Boone, and the softest baby blanket in the world, something called a minky from Minksters.com. I almost kept it for myself, but my godson will have nothing but the best.
“I guess you’re stuck with me, Willow.”
I shiver.
He motions me inside, his hand on the back of my coat. “Let’s get you warm.”
The truth is I’ve never been hotter in my life.
I’m almost boiling inside. This man, with his rolling muscles, long brown beard that hides some of his cherry-red lips, not to mention his smartass attitude that I can tell is covering for something, isn’t who I expected to come next, but maybe…
just maybe… I’m the woman to tame the mountain man.