Chapter 2
Joel
"My car broke down," she says. It's Lainey Stevens from town, shivering in a snow drift, with flakes crusting her clothes. Her teeth clack together.
I swear before I can stop myself, and sink my ax into a log. I stalk forward, watching her closely, but she never flinches. Other people in town give me a wide berth, but not Lainey. She works the register at her aunt Gemma’s grocery store. I see her every time I drive down to buy supplies.
“Jesus, it’s freezing out here.” My voice sounds harsh, unused. Not many people to talk to up here. Not many people want to talk to me when I'm in town. Only Gemma Stevens… and Lainey. “Where are your gloves?"
She stares up at me, her wide eyes fringed with black lashes. Her lips are tinged with blue.
I jerk my head towards my cabin. “Get inside.”
She stumbles and I reach for her, stopping myself at the last moment. No reason to put my hands on her.
“Sorry,” she squeaks, and my soul wilts a little. She’s intimidated by me, even though I've been as gentle and considerate as I can be. But of course she is. Everyone knows I'm an ex-con. A felon.
And now she’s on my mountain, fifteen feet from my home. Alone. Any woman would be nervous.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I growl. I sound like a psycho.
“I know.” She stops and stares up at me, and a line appears between her brows. Is she glaring at me? “You would never hurt me, Joel Adler.”
She’s scolding me.
“All right.” I can’t stop my smile, and I’m glad it’s hidden behind my beard. I’ve never been berated by someone a foot smaller and a hundred pounds lighter than me. “As long as we’re clear.”
I take her hand. If she’s not afraid of me, she won't mind a gentle touch.
Her fingers are little icicles in mine. I suck in a breath.
“Sorry,” she says again.
“Don’t apologize.” I propel her forward, practically hauling her off her feet in my haste to bustle her inside. When she staggers again, I scoop her up into my arms and carry her across the cabin threshold like a groom with his fairytale bride.
I kick the heavy door hard so it swings open without sticking. Snow spills off the roof, narrowly missing us. I duck inside and carry my precious bundle straight to my butt-ugly orange couch in front of the fireplace.
“Stay here,” I order, and rise to shut the door and knock snow off my boots. I return and tug hers off, tossing them to dry by the fire. I’ll mop up the piles of melting snow later.
I help her out of her coat and hang it up close to the hearth. “What were you thinking, hiking up here?”
“I couldn’t get cell service on the road.”
I bite back another curse. I need to watch my foul mouth. “Why were you even driving in this?”
“It wasn’t so bad in town.” Her gaze is fixed on the floorboards at her socked feet.
She’s like that when I visit her aunt’s shop, peeking out from behind the books she reads in between dealing with customers.
She’s shy, and looks young for her age. I’d think she was in her teens if I didn’t know she was only a few years behind me in high school.
We were in a junior English class together, because she was advanced and I was a senior with straight Ds in every class, barely scraping by.
That was Lainey—smarter than the whole school, and better than me by a mile.
Ten years, and not much has changed.
“Let's get you warm.” I can't think when she’s shivering. I pull an old quilt off the couch and wrap it around her, then crouch to rub her hands.
“I’m okay,” she whispers.
“You could’ve fucking died,” I growl.
She has nothing to say to that. We sit in silence, her on the ugliest couch ever made, me on the floor.
My hands are battered and scarred, marred with the blue tattoo ink I got in prison. More of my bad decisions, written on my skin.
Her fingers are perfect—small, and tipped with glossy nails filed to neat crescents.
I can’t stand the contrast between her hands and mine, so I leave her side to throw more logs on the fire.
When I turn back to her, she’s pulled off her snow-dusted hat, releasing a waterfall of silky dark hair.
Her cheeks are pink under the black crescents of her eyelashes.
In the firelight, Lainey glows like a jewel.
My breath saws in my chest. Next to her angelic perfection, my home is worn and dingy, one step away from decrepit.
I spent the last year renovating it, fixing sections of rotten wood.
My grandfather used it as a hunting cabin.
There’s no mention of the structure on the land deed he willed to me—either he’d forgotten it, or thought it had rotted away.
I furnished the place with castoffs I found at the dump.
I knew it was no palace, but I see it now through Lainey’s eyes, and I’m ashamed.
No one’s been up here for years, no one but me. The closest anyone’s come was Lainey, six months ago, in summer.
Shame makes me snap. “You shouldn’t have been on the road tonight.”
“I was going to see Aunt Gemma,” she stammers. “It’s Christmas.”
“You're from here. You know what the storms are like,” I chastise her.
She bites her lip and looks to the window. The glass panes are choked with white, but there’s a small dark center that shows white flakes flurrying through the night.
I want to do a lot more than scold her so I force myself to head for the door.
“I’m getting more wood,” I say without turning. “Stay by the fire. It's snowing like crazy, and there’s no way a truck can get up here before they plow the road. Looks like you're here for the night.”
Lainey
Ten minutes in Joel’s house and I’ve already screwed up. He scowls as he tells me to stay, as if the thought of sharing his home with me for the night disgusts him. The door slams behind him.
I palm my cheeks. Am I so repulsive? Such awful company?
My hair is tangled and the ends are wet from melting snow.
I push the mass back and adjust the old quilt he threw over me.
I’m wearing my nicest sweater and favorite pair of jeans.
The fuzzy wool and denim are buttery soft and fall nicely over my curves, highlighting the swell of my breasts and butt, hiding the rest.
In high school, Joel was a chick magnet.
He didn't have to chase girls, they flocked to him. Blondes or brunettes, pink-haired emo goth wannabes or the most prissy cheerleaders—he didn’t seem to have a preference.
He didn’t care if you had a boyfriend or were flirting with him to make your crush jealous.
He’d be down for a quickie in his old Corvette, the one he bought at auction and pieced back together with parts he scavenged from the junkyard.
It had different colored doors but was still an awesome ride.
No one was surprised when he got busted for jacking cars. What was more surprising was that after he did his time for grand larceny, he came back to our little town.
“Where else would he go?” my aunt Gemma snorted when a customer gossiped about this in front of her. “He always liked the woods.”
I’d always had a crush on Joel Adler, the coolest boy in school.
But that was the first time I saw him for more than his facade, the sexy charm boy who was always down for a fuck or a fight.
I remembered how he created works of art in shop class: birdhouses and stools and even a cradle, made with honey-stained wood.
The next time he came into Aunt Gemma’s store, I summoned my courage and gave him a smile.
The cabin door swings open, letting in a blast of frozen air. I summon my habitual smile but it falters in the frozen stare of my host. He comes in, blowing smoke and glowering at me like a frost giant who’s found an intruder in his lair.
His cold stare doesn’t cool his hotness one degree. If Joel was gorgeous as a boy, he’s breathtaking as a man. Tall, with lean muscles, and thick brown hair striated with red and blond like rare wood. Eyes a striking, crystalline blue.
He stomps past, carrying a stack of wood that looks like it weighs more than I do. The only sounds are the crackle of the flame-eaten logs, and his harsh breathing.
I knot my fingers together. I’ve messed up and I don't know how to make it right. So I sit in silence and watch Joel stack wood. Once he’s done, he strips off his coat and toes off his boots, and my own breaths grow heavy.
He’s got a flannel shirt on, and while I watch, he loosens the button and rolls up his sleeves.
He’s not bulky, but he’s strong. Sleek as a mountain lion.
Even the indigo smudges of his prison tattoos lurking under the crisp, gold-tinted hairs on his powerful forearms are sexy.
Another layer to the enigma that is Joel Adler.
I’ve always liked puzzles. Mystery novels, or romances with anti-heroes. Chapters with layer upon layer of intrigue my intellect can sink into. The blessing and curse of the voracious bookworm: a life lived sitting in corners, hiding between the pages, reading instead of living life.
One more semester, and I’ll graduate with my Masters in Library Science. I’ll move out of my parents’ summer home, find a job, wear frumpy sweaters and pencil skirts, adopt a succulent and a cat. Become a cliche.
The only blip on my horizon, the only piece that doesn’t fit, is Joel Adler. Another woman would know exactly what to say to him. She’d be cuddled right up with him on the couch.
“Are you cold?” he asks, staring at the fire as if it’ll give him the answers.
“I’m good.” My voice is soft.
Coming here was a mistake. I know that now. Some adventures are best left to heroines in books.
I shift on the couch, and a paperback flops from the quilt’s folds to the floor. The cover’s torn off, but I recognize the font.
I slide off the couch to my knees to rescue the book, a familiar friend. “Secrets of a Summer Night.” I pick it up and smooth the pages. “I love Lisa Kleypas. Were you reading this?”
From my position kneeling on the floor, Joel looms even taller. His blue eyes burn and his nostrils flare.
“Get up.” He motions me back to the couch.
I catch my apology before it escapes and obey, but he’s already moved away to another part of the cabin. This place is one open room. He can’t escape me, not unless he goes back out to chop wood. And he’s already used that excuse.
He stands in the kitchen area of the cabin, as far away from me as he can get without heading into the cold. I’ve made him upset. How? Why?
I clutch the book to my heart. Books are easy. Books, I understand. “I love this book. I reread it all the time.”
“I know,” he says, his back still to me. “I’ve seen you read it. You gave me that copy, remember?”
“Oh…” I do remember. I keep a stack of paperbacks by the register to read and reread. Sometimes I give them to customers. Why didn’t I remember I gave this to Joel?
I’m so flustered, I open the book and read a few lines. I don’t look up until Joel’s shadow falls over me.
His voice echoes in my ears and I realize he’s been calling my name.
“Sorry—”
“No apologizing,” he corrects me gently, and plucks the paperback from my hands. I would protest and clutch it to my chest like a safety blanket, but he replaces it with my second favorite thing in the world: a mug of tea.
So that’s what he was doing in the kitchen corner of the cabin. Making me tea. Loose-leaf Earl Grey, from the smell of it, in a carefully knotted teabag. I bury my face in the fragrant steam.
Joel remains standing, cradling the book in his palms. His fingers are long and elegant, even rough with scars and tattoos. A craftsman's hands. “And yes. To answer your question. I was reading this.”
“Really? I mean…” I stammer. “I didn’t mean to imply I didn’t think you’d read it.”
“It’s okay. I didn't used to read like I do now. Picked it up in prison.” He glances at me then, checking for a reaction. Does he expect me to shy away from the reminder he did time?
“If you like that book, you’d like the whole series. I have a whole list of favorites.”
“A whole list?” There’s a hint of a smile under his beard. He’s teasing me.
“She’s good,” I defend. “Everyone loves A Devil in Winter. But my favorite is Marrying Winterborne.”
“I’ll check it out. Drink your tea.”
I sip the hot liquid. It occurs to me that he keeps issuing orders and I obey without thinking.
“This tea is really good.” The kitchen takes up one corner of the cabin, to the right of the door.
The fireplace and couch are opposite. In the middle of the room is a wooden table with a single chair.
Beyond that, in the far right corner, is a big bed.
I snap my gaze back to the fire and meet Joel’s ice-blue eyes. My cheeks burn, knowing he watched me snoop.
Awkward girl is awkward. Why did I think tonight would be any different? It would take a lot of Christmas magic to fix my dorkiness.
“I've never been here before,” I mumble to my tea.
“No one has.” Joel sets the paperback on the mantle. “Kinda the point of living alone on a mountain. The privacy.”
I set my mug on the floor, feeling ill. “You’re angry with me. I shouldn’t have come.”
“No, Lainey.” He crouches in front of me and closes his hands around mine. “I’m an asshole.”