Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Emma
I wake to the steady sound of his heartbeat under my ear.
It’s Christmas morning, and Owen is in bed with me.
Merry Christmas to me.
One arm is around my back, the other slung over me. The sheets are tangled between our legs. My cheek’s pressed to warm skin—his skin—and I don’t move.
I can’t. I won’t.
If I could freeze time, I would stop the clocks right here. Right now.
It smells like cookies. Like cinnamon. Like sugar and spice and everything nice.
My stomach growls, and I bite back a laugh.
He doesn’t stir. Still half-asleep, one hand slides up, anchoring me closer, like he knows I’m about to move.
I close my eyes again. Five more minutes.
Then I kiss his chest and slip out, padding into the kitchen wearing his flannel, hearing him stir behind me. I turn toward the living room.
And stop.
Because holy shit.
The entire cabin is transformed.
Twinkle lights are everywhere. Pine garland hangs over the windows. The real tree in the corner is now covered in gold and red ornaments, candy canes, and tiny carved figures I don’t recognize but know he picked with me in mind.
There’s Christmas music playing low. Bing Crosby, for fuck’s sake.
And under the tree?
Presents… wrapped in festive paper with tacky bows and little tags that say, “For Her,” and “For Em,” and “Don’t open until I say.”
When I finally look up, he’s leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee, wearing nothing but joggers and a smug grin.
“Merry Christmas, lass.”
“You did all this?”
His eyes drag over me, hungry. “Had to make it special. First one you’re mine.”
My throat catches.
“You’re crazy,” I whisper. Something flickers in his eyes. “And I love it.”
“Come, open your gifts.”
I sit cross-legged in front of the tree. He kneels beside me and reaches under the tree for the first one.
It’s a black, leather-bound notebook, embossed with my initials and a snowflake.
“For your stories,” he says. “The dark ones you’re too scared to say out loud.”
My heart twists.
Next, a necklace—the charm a tiny silver compass.
“So you always find your way back to me.”
The third is a photo in a slim black frame. It’s the two of us, teenagers, sitting on the cabin steps. I don’t remember it being taken.
“I kept it,” he says. “Even when I wasn’t allowed to keep anything else.”
I’m crying now.
“You like it?”
“I love it.”
He pulls me into his lap and kisses the tears away.
“Merry Christmas, baby.”
I wrap my arms around him.
“Merry Christmas, Owen.”
The snow is still falling. I stand by the window with my fingers wrapped around a green mug with a pine tree painted on the side. It’s warm against my palms, the cocoa thick and sweet—real cocoa, real cream, not powder from a tin. It smells like Christmas.
The fire crackles as he moves around in the kitchen. The floorboards creak as he goes from cabinet to sink, and he hums a low tune when he thinks no one’s listening. I smile to myself. I’m listening. Is it a Christmas one? I can’t quite place it.
“You used to sing in the shower,” I say with a smile. “Still do?”
“Aye,” he says with a wink. I take a big chug of cocoa to hide the way my face heats when he winks at me.
“Breakfast, lass?” He sets a plate on the table. Two slices of toast, golden and buttered, and thick-cut bacon still sizzling at the edges.
“I love that you learned how to cook.”
“I love that you learned not to run.”
I look up at him and blink, surprised. “Run?”
“Aye,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, Em. Every time I got too close, you ran like a spooked little bird, didn’t you?”
I nibble a corner of the toast and shrug. “Suppose I did.”
“I get it,” he says, placing a plate on the table with easily four times as much food as mine.
“I suppose a recluse, giant-sized Irish lumberjack needs to keep up his energy.”
He quirks a brow that makes my stomach flutter deliciously. “Recluse, giant-sized Irish lumberjack?” His snort makes me giggle. “Don’t change the subject, young lady,” he says in that stern way I crave. “Why did you always run from me, Em?”
I shrug. How do I put this into words? “I… I was embarrassed, I guess. You made me feel things that were unfamiliar and scary.” My voice lowers. “Things my mother made me feel were wrong and shameful.”
“Aye,” he says. “That I get.”
We eat in silence for a bit. Something in his face eases when I chew, when I swallow… when I let him take care of me. Did it before? Or have the years changed him?
Changed us?
Outside, the storm hasn’t stopped, but it’s bright and sunny, like we’ve been transported straight into a scene from a Christmas postcard. Pine branches bend under the weight. Snowflakes drift like fallen stars.
“I want to go outside,” I say.
He raises a brow.
I go on. “Just for a bit. Let’s… play in the snow.”
I smile to myself, remembering a time when I did, in fact, run from him.
“Do you remember that time I threw a snowball at you? You’d already graduated from high school.
I think I was a senior. It was snowing, and I tossed it straight at you, hit you smack in the face, and you chased me all the way to the little pond behind the house? ”
“I remember,” he says, shaking his head. “How could I forget?”
“You got all bossy with me.”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, stern and sexy. “You’ve no idea how badly I wanted to get more than bossy with you. Thought I was a feckin’ deviant for wanting to put you over my knee. Drove me half-mad thinking about it.”
“My god, I would’ve lost my mind,” I say with a laugh. I squirm, instantly aroused. “You would’ve turned me on, and I would’ve confirmed for myself that I, too, was a feckin’ deviant.”
We laugh comfortably together.
“You hit me straight in the damn face,” he says, pausing to take a long swig of coffee as I sip my cocoa. “I chased you. Talk of running? You ran like a scared little rabbit being chased by a fox.”
“I kinda was.”
He chuckles, and my insides warm. “You got all the way to the pond before I caught you. Think you tripped?”
I nod. I remember in vivid detail. My voice lowers, huskier. “And you pinned me down. I thought my heart was beating so fast I might pass out.”
He nods. “Aye, lass. Mine too.”
I swallow the cocoa; my mug’s empty.
The way he looked at me when I was pinned beneath him… dominated by his strength, and at his mercy. Something shifted between us then, and we both knew it.
“You pulled my hat down over my eyes, and then you took off.”
“Had to,” he says soberly. “If my father or your mother’d caught us like that…”
“I know,” I whisper.
We both look out the window.
“Let’s go outside, Owen. Let’s play in the snow.”
He smirks, eying my half-eaten breakfast. “Finish yer breakfast before I’ll allow you to play, woman.” He leans forward. “Maybe a pretty, blocked American novelist needs to keep her energy up so she can have what it takes to unblock herself, aye?”
I snort and finish my breakfast. “Now can we go out?” I feel like a little girl again, in the best possible way. Safe and hopeful. Excited.
There’s a long pause, then a slow nod.
We rustle around the closet in the cabin and find an oddball assortment of clothes and shoes. He helps me into a thick parka, pulling the zipper all the way to my chin like I’m a child.
His fingers linger on my collar. My breath clouds between us.
“Don’t run this time,” he murmurs.
I almost laugh. Running is the last thing on my mind. If anything, I want to run from everything… but him. Even though I know this is temporary.
Even though I don’t really know who Owen Callahan is.
He tugs on his winter gear. Why is that so hot? The knit hat pulled snug brings out the green in his eyes. He looks so much… bigger. Stronger. Immovable. I turn, push the door open, and walk out.
He growls behind me, something about “locked door” and “not a care for safety,” but his words are swallowed in the great outdoors.
It smells clean and crisp out here, the sky a dazzling shade of white blue, a winter wonderland.
It’s quiet in that surreal, snowy way. Every sound is muffled. The world is white and soft and infinite. My boots crunch down into at least a foot of snow. Flakes catch in my lashes, melting on my lips.
I turn. Owen stands just behind me, his arms crossed, eyes narrowed but dancing at me.
And I throw the first snowball. It hits him square in the chest.
He blinks, then looks down at the wet patch spreading across his coat, then up at me. His eyes are flat. Amused. Dangerous.
“You want to play?”
I grin and throw another. He dodges it and steps forward, fast.
I squeal, my heart racing, and I’m quickly smacked with a snowball of his. It’s light and fluffy, but it slides down past my collar and freezes my neck.
Another hits, and then another. How does he make them so fast? I stumble and make a clumsy, quick ball to toss back at him, but it isn’t packed like his were and disintegrates well before it hits him.
I’m way over my head here, so I do the only sensible thing.
I run.
Snow flies up around me as I sprint toward the trees. My lungs burn. My heart is a fist pounding against my ribs. But I don’t get far.
I dodge a stunning birch, her long limbs graceful and majestic, ducking under a thick branch heavily laden with snow. I yelp when I slip and tumble because I know it’s over now. I can hear him heavy and fast behind me.
He tackles me into the drift with terrifying precision. I land with a gasp, my back hitting the powder, cold slicing through my layers. He’s on top of me in a blink, his knee between mine, one gloved hand beside my head, the other catching my wrist.
I’m breathless, frozen… trapped. Just like the first time.
He’s staring down at me, his face unreadable. Snow clings to his lashes, and his cheeks are flushed. His mouth—
God, his mouth.
He kisses the tip of my nose. “I could kiss yer mouth, and we’d freeze together. They’d find us like that, frozen together forever.”
“A peaceful way to die?” I suggest with a giggle.
He bends his mouth to my cheek and gives me a gentle peck before he lets me up.
“Give up, little Emma?” he asks. He has to tack on that little, knowing full well he’s twice my size, especially when we’re like this. “I’ll remember that.”
My belly flips.
I shake my head, trembling with something that isn’t just cold.
He leans closer. His nose brushes mine. Then he reaches up slowly and pulls my hat down over my eyes, just like before.
Darkness.
I shriek and laugh, twisting under him. But his weight lifts, and he’s already gone. I hear his footsteps crunching away.
When I sit up and push the hat back, he’s standing a few yards away, watching me with that look that turns my bones to ash.
I remember it so vividly.
And just like that, I’m eighteen. Snow in my boots.
That same stupid laugh. I’d hit him with a snowball back then too.
He’d chased me down, pinned me in the exact same way.
Only back then, I didn’t have the words for the way my stomach flipped under his weight.
The way my breath caught when he pulled my hat down and vanished.
He left me aching.
Not this time.
“Is that a cardinal?” I ask, and he actually falls for it. When he’s looking away, I twist, grab a handful of snow, and throw it right in his face.
“You little—”
But I’m already as far from him as I can run.
This time, when he catches me, he lifts me straight up in the air, snow gear, boots, and all.
“We could build a snowman?” I suggest helpfully as he carries me, princess-style, back toward the house.
“You’ll freeze to death with your games, lass,” he says, his eyes twinkling at me. “And it’s time I warm you up.”
When he slides me down his body, my legs are shaking. My throat is tight. My heart still doesn’t know if it wants to run or kneel.
Inside, he peels the coat from my shoulders and untangles my scarf. His hands are warm, even through the gloves.
“How cold is it?”
“Ten degrees. That’s twenty-two degrees below freezing.”
Oh god. Yeah, the bright sun made it look warmer than it really is.
He presses a fresh mug into my hands—hot steaming tea, made with cream and sugar. I sip and watch him.
And all I can think about is that snowball. That look. If I’m honest? At that moment, I knew I was his, even if I didn’t understand it yet.