Chapter 12 Greer
Chapter twelve
Greer
I fly up in bed, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. My gaze darts around like I’m a spooked horse, my eyes wide and muscles taut. It’s no longer evening—gray morning light streams through the gauzy curtains covering the window on the left wall.
The gas fireplace is still on, the Christmas tree’s lit, the room lights are on. It’s exactly how everything was when I fell asleep last night. Fell asleep. I was asleep. A laugh of happy disbelief bursts from me at the realization that what happened was, in fact, a nightmare. A night terror.
“I knew it,” I say to nobody but myself.
I rub my face, the quiet of the room encroaching on me. The effect is a little eerie, and for a brief moment, I miss Kai’s company and the sounds of being around the people in my memories—even if said people wanted nothing to do with me nor I them.
I shake my head. It was a nightmare. Kai was not really with me.
I wasn’t really in the past or on some warped A Christmas Carol journey with a half man, half angel.
That would be utterly ridiculous. So ridiculous that if I told anyone about it, they’d ask if I was high or needed to take a trip to a padded room.
Fuck, maybe I do. Maybe the nightmare was my mind’s way of telling me I need a vacation, even if I don’t want to take one. I have work to do, a promotion to get.
Speaking of a promotion, I reach to the side of the bed where I plugged in my phone the night before.
I say a silent prayer, hoping I have reception or at least that the internet is back up so I can get some work done and send the email I wrote up to Mr. Cross.
But when I look at the screen, there’s no such luck.
I tap on different apps, but of course, nothing I do helps my situation. I’m completely cut off from the world.
“Freaking small towns,” I grouse at the same time my stomach growls.
The loud noise reminds me of two things: one, that I didn’t eat much yesterday, and two, the intimate scene in the office I saw on my mission to find food.
The same scene that led me to satiating a different type of hunger before I fell asleep and had the weirdest nightmare of my life.
The one starring the man I not only nearly kissed but also found sandwiched between two other gorgeous men.
The scene appears behind my eyelids, and my skin heats. The moans and the swears. The way they spoke to each other. The demands the other two men made of Kai while they used him like a rag doll. My skin prickles, and my stomach feels hungrier than before.
I flop back on the bed, phone in hand. My mouth tingles when I remember that I kissed Kai in this very room in my weird nightmare.
His lips were soft yet strong, and the whimper he made when I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and tried to taste him was delicious.
God, it felt so real, as real as seeing the three men together.
As real as Kai winking at me when he discovered me staring at them like a perv.
My cheeks flush, and I duck my chin, the reaction annoying me because I’m not one to be embarrassed. I will always own up to my choices. And while I shouldn’t have watched the intimate moment, I did, and I can’t take it back.
I wonder if I’ll run into Kai before I leave town. My chest tightens at the idea because I don’t know how I’ll react. My normal MO would be to just avoid him, but I don’t know if I will be able to, especially if I’m stuck here for multiple days.
My stomach growls again. “Alright, already! I’ll go find some food.”
I glance at my phone again and see it’s just after nine. I’m not one to sleep past seven-thirty. Usually, by this time, I’ve done yoga, had breakfast, and arrived at the office. I was trapped in that godforsaken nightmare for a long time.
But now it doesn’t matter—it’s over. I want to get some food, find a large cup of coffee, and see if I can get the hell out of here to find cell service or an internet connection.
I get out of bed, the wooden floor cool beneath my feet.
I look around for the slippers I fell asleep with and had on in my nightmare, but I can’t find them near the bed.
I stand up and search more closely, nearly giving up until I see a flash of white by the tree skirt.
Finding myself walking toward them without a conscious command to my brain, I pick them up from underneath the tree and study the embroidered angel on them.
My heartbeat quickens as I flip them over. The bottoms are dirty. Not the kind of dirty you get from walking inside with them for a brief period of time but dirty as if I walked outside while wearing them.
Blood roars in my ears as I touch the fabric, and I gasp when I find it damp. The memory of standing in the snow, watching myself as a child telling Past Avery there wasn’t a Santa in these very slippers, fills my mind.
“It wasn’t real,” I say to myself. I drop the slippers on the ground and turn to head to the bathroom, but a glint of something on the tree stops me.
A fractal of light shines in my eye, and I squint, giving my attention to the offending object.
My stomach flips, and it’s as if I’ve been thrown into the snowbank I dropped into last night.
With shaking hands, I lift the ornament off the tree. It’s exactly the same one as the ones on Avery’s tree in my nightmare, the same kind of ornament I made for my mom that she deemed not good enough.
The clear bulb is light against my fingers and cool to the touch. Inside, there’s a picture, and at first, I swear I see the image I put inside for my mom, the one of me and Cooper.
I swallow hard and blink. When I open them, the picture has changed to that of an angel, one with dark hair and chubby cheeks.
I let out a string of cackles. “I’m really losing it.”
I put the ornament back on the tree and leave the slippers. I have no idea how they got wet—maybe I’m stressed enough that I started sleepwalking. Do I have a history of that? No. But I’m not going to try to explain it.
There’s no way what happened last night was real. It was a very vivid nightmare, one I’m going to spend the rest of today trying to forget. Food and coffee should help. And maybe, just maybe, luck will be on my side, and I can get out of here today.
Luck was not on my side.
I didn’t find anyone at the inn to speak to about the internet or if the roads were going to be cleared enough to drive on soon, not even the woman, Sophia, who checked me in last night.
The only thing I did find was a pot of coffee and blueberry scones.
I was nearly tempted to take what was provided, but I dislike blueberry scones and never drink black coffee.
I may have a bitter personality, but I prefer my coffee in the form of a double shot oat milk latte with two pumps of peppermint.
For food, I like something with protein, like a shake or a hearty egg sandwich or omelet.
After finding no one downstairs, I went back up to my room and put on my coat, scarf, and designer boots and grabbed my purse, deciding to head out into the cold to find the bakery I remember seeing on my GPS as I came into town.
Hopefully the Sugar Plum Bakehouse has more than black coffee and pastries, maybe even internet or cell reception.
I walk through the lobby, my cheeks heating as I pass the front desk and the door to the office.
It’s wide open, and the light is on, but there’s nobody sitting at the desk inside.
My clit pulses, and I scold myself for getting turned on just by walking past the door.
I have more important things to take care of than remembering the illicit show I peeped in on last night.
I take my phone from my pocket and check it for reception just in case but find nothing. I huff and stick my face into my scarf, opening the front door. I’m met with a blast of wind that makes my freshly showered and dried hair blow around my face and my eyes sting.
“Fuck,” I mutter, “that’s cold.” I squint and look to the left through the bit of snow still coming down. If I remember correctly, the bakery is up the street a bit.
I take a few steps toward the parking lot to get my car but only make it a foot before I stop. Where the parking lot should be is a mountain of snow. Okay, not a mountain, but it’s a lot of fucking snow.
My SUV has at least a foot on its roof, and the lot is covered. No way can I drive it to the bakery, much less home.
I glance around and find the only way of travel is a sidewalk that looks as if it’s been freshly plowed. A light dusting of snow covers the concrete, but it’s walkable.
I groan, spinning around in a circle to take in more of the area. The sky is gray with peeks of sunlight attempting to come through. The snow that was lightly falling has mostly stopped now. Thank god. Because as far as my eye can see, there are only mounds of white.
Yeah, I’m definitely not getting out of here today.
Maybe not for a few days. I booked the room through Christmas, but I was hoping I wouldn’t need it that long, especially after that nightmare.
But like I said, luck’s not exactly on my side.
I bet if it were Avery stuck here instead of me, the roads would’ve magically cleared by now, and she’d be halfway home.
I scowl. My brain hasn’t gotten the memo that I want to stop thinking about my nightmare.
I stomp through the snow and to the sidewalk, hoping I was correct and I’m going the right direction. The wind gusts at my back as if to shove me forward, almost like it’s telling me I am going the right way. But that’s stupid. It’s not like the wind is suddenly alive.
I shake my head at myself and continue walking, careful not to slip. I may be wearing boots, but they’re designer—not exactly made for a trek in winter weather.
I keep trudging away from the inn, taking in the town. There aren’t many people out, just two clearing snow off the pathways leading to their businesses—one a toy shop and the second a small clothing store—while another walks with a coffee in their hand.
When I look ahead of me, I’m not far from the massive Christmas tree I saw last night. The storefronts and buildings I pass still have all their holiday lights turned on, and the closer I edge to the tree, I hear singing.
I glance around to see if there’s a speaker somewhere, but I spot a group of four people singing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” across the street next to a business with a plum-colored awning.
Before I even spot the sign or take in the smell of coffee and sweets, I know it’s got to be the Sugar Plum Bakehouse.
I curse under my breath. “Of course there are freaking carolers outside the bakery. Why wouldn’t there be?”
“What’s wrong with carolers, love?”
I jolt in surprise, spinning around to face the owner of the deep masculine voice, one that sounds like every inappropriate Mr. Darcy fantasy I had when I was a teenager after watching Bridget Jones one too many times. And did he call me love?
I spin around to face him as I respond. “It’s not the carolers, it’s Christmas—” The last word dies on my lips as I come eye-to-chest with a very large man, one who has a familiar pair of stunning evergreen eyes.
Oh, god. Of course it’s him.
Remi, the man from the restaurant, aka Daddy.