9. Angelica
9
ANGELICA
“ W hat’s that noise?” My brow furrows as a loud cranking sound comes from the utility room as if the cabin is groaning and grumbling about the cold snap we’ve been having.
“It’s the boiler. It’s been on the blink ever since I got here.” He pours coffee into my mug. “Want a drink?”
“Yes, please.” I chew on my nail. “It was making an awful sound when I was in the shower yesterday.”
“I’ll make sure there’s plenty of wood in case it packs up.”
“Could it pack up?” I gulp, looking out the window at the snow. The tyres on my car are no longer visible.
“It packed in before. I told your dad he needs to invest in a new one. This one’s about as old as you are.” He drinks the last of his coffee, then rounds the counter. “How are you, by the way? No headaches, blurred vision, vomiting?”
“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.” I smile as I blow into my mug.
“How’s Mr. Snuggles holding up?” His smile reaches his eyes before he turns and exits the kitchen.
I follow him, holding my mug with both hands, warming them as I walk to the large glass doors, and watch in awe as he lifts the axe, then brings it down onto a large log, splitting it in two. He may be like a giant teddy bear and great for cuddles, but wielding an axe, he’s all man.
My body shudders as he brings the axe down on another log. I never knew I’d be so engrossed in someone chopping wood, but Sawyer has me hypnotised. The way he swings it around is like a warrior going into battle, only now the threat is an old boiler.
A smile curves my lips and he catches my gaze through the glass. My cheeks heat as they have done every time he looks at me since he caught me red-handed, or should I say caught in the act with Mr. Snuggles.
It wasn’t my finest moment. I couldn’t possibly have looked sexy, humping a teddy bear, fresh from the shower with limp, wet hair and no makeup.
But Sawyer has done his best to make light of it since. I just hope one day I can see the funny side, but I doubt it. I’m completely mortified. I should go to my room and hide there all day from pure shame and embarrassment, but I’m sure he’d drag me downstairs with him.
I sip on my coffee, inhaling the cinnamon sprinkles Sawyer added. My mind wanders back, trying to remember when I developed feelings for my dad’s best friend. It’s hard to know when I started crushing on him. A memory from my late teens pops into my head. I was at a party and I called him to pick me up because my parents were out of town.
A smile curves my lips, knowing that was the first and last time I ever had too much alcohol. Sawyer thinks someone spiked my drink, and he called his friend Shane to shut down the party. If he didn't have to take care of me, I'm sure he would have shut the party down himself. He held my hair back while I threw up, then stayed over and kept checking on me throughout the night. I guess I knew then that I wanted a man just like him who was attentive, caring, and able to take care of me like my daddy does.
He chops more wood, then wipes his brow with his sleeve. Gathering the logs into a basket, he brings them inside.
I stand to the side, letting him pass. “What time did you get up this morning?”
“Early. I couldn’t sleep.” He strides over to the fire, staring at Blitzen, the wooden deer on the wall. “What are you looking at?” he says to the deer, making me giggle.
“What did Blitzen ever do to you?”
“He gives me the creeps.” He drops the basket next to the open fire. “It’s like he’s watching me.” Sawyer turns around. “You don’t think your dad has a camera in there, do you?”
I shake my head with a laugh. “You’re crazy. Why would Dad put a camera in here to watch you sitting in front of the TV with your Tesco ready meal, drinking beer?”
He shrugs. “Fair point.” His hands clap and he rubs them together. “Get your coat on. I have a surprise for you.” He walks into the utility room, but turns back to me. “You might want wellies too.”
“Are we working on my dressing table?”
“We’ll do that later. First, I have something else in mind.”
I follow him into the utility and find my wellies on the shoe rack. I bend and pull on the rainbow-striped boots over my jeans, then grab my fleece coat from the hook. “Where are we going?”
Sawyer shrugs a pre-packed rucksack onto his back and then lifts another bag, which he carries in his hand. “You’ll see.”
Trudging through the snow is exhausting. I’ve only walked from the cabin down the lane at the side of the woods and I’m already out of breath. Snow settles on the fur of my hood and I stick out my tongue to feel the crisp flakes there, hoping it will cool my rising body heat from the extra layers Sawyer made me wear, and the exertion.
Sawyer looks over his shoulder. A red hue creeps up his cheeks from under his beard. “You all right back there?”
“Great. If I’d known we were walking down the lane, I’d have got the old sledge and had you pull me.”
He huffs. “Remember when I used to carry you on my shoulders?”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to do that now, though.” Snow creaks and compacts with every tread of my wellies, reaching my calf where the plastic of my boot is practically cutting off my circulation, telling me my legs a lot bigger than it was the last time I wore these.
“Because of your dad?” he says with a pinched brow.
I stop walking. “What’s my dad got to do with it?” My gloved fingers find the zip on my coat and pull it down, needing to cool a little from the exercise. “I meant because of my weight.”
He silently chuckles. A smile plastered on his nodding head as he continues to walk. “You think I can’t lift you because you’re carrying a little holiday weight? That’s cute.”
“Holiday weight?” I giggle. “Maybe it is holiday weight…accumulated from the last ten years. And I’d like to see you try.” I fiddle with the tassels on my scarf, hoping he accepts the challenge.
He lifts the bag in his hand, which is bursting with what looks like a blanket and camping equipment. “What am I, a packhorse?” Rolling his eyes, he hands the bag to me. “Here.”
I take the bag, then before I can say anything, I’m lifted into the air and thrown over his shoulder.
He turns into the woods and tracks between the trees. “Satisfied?”
I giggle as my head hangs over his shoulder, the bag in my hand weighing me down. “I’m getting dizzy.” The world has spun on its axis and I’m getting a different perspective from this angle. Mainly that Sawyer wants to show me how strong and masculine he is.
“I don’t care how many years it’s taken to achieve this body of yours, but it’s bloody perfect, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
He thinks I’m perfect. I feel light as a feather in his arms, even if Sawyer is out of breath a little.
“I like you with some holiday weight, too,” I say.
He chuckles. “It’s hard work keeping this body, you know. I can’t tell you how many take-outs and poor decisions I have to endure to keep in shape.”
I laugh along with him. “Same.”
After a few more steps, his hands glide up my coat as he lowers me to the snow-covered ground like a pillow beneath my feet. His cold bare hands under my layers, make me shiver in a delightful way.
I spin around, faced with the treehouse. My smile pushes my cheeks up as he tugs at the ladder, checking it’s safe.
“After you.” He holds the bottom of the ladder as I climb up, the wood creaking with every step.
Opening the hatch, the musty, damp scent of moss and pine fill my senses. My arse cheeks clench as Sawyer places his hand there, as if giving me a nudge or trying to push me through the hatch. I can’t be sure which, but I crawl ungracefully into the gap and continue on my hands and knees along the cold wooden floor.
Everything is as I remember, only now it’s covered in cobwebs. Mum’s old blanket box sits below the window, melted candles moulded to the sill. The wind blows outside and the treehouse creaks and groans as if it’s waking up to our presence.
“Not as bad as I thought it would be,” Sawyer says, placing the rucksack and other bag onto the floor before squeezing his large frame through the small hatch.
I sit on the blanket box as Sawyer grabs a picnic rug from the bag and lays it out on the wooden floor. Inside the rucksack is a flask and mugs and biscuits.
He gets more camping equipment from the bag and lights a small gas heater. The heat warms my face, reminding me of all the times I’d come here with Mum when we’d stay at the cabin in the winter months.
“Hot chocolate?” He lifts the flask and two tin camping mugs.
My eyes swell with happy tears as I nod. I want to crawl over to him and climb into his lap, kiss his cheek and bask in his warmth for doing this for me.
Hot cocoa wafts around the small wooden space and I inhale, soaking up the delicious aroma that takes me back to my childhood. We might be in the middle of a snowstorm with no contact with the outside world, but I’ve never felt more safe with Sawyer, and right now is probably the happiest I’ve been for a long time. With him, I can just be myself.
“Thank you.” I take the hot mug from him, holding it between my palms and letting it warm my hands. “For all of this.”
He shrugs a shoulder as though it’s nothing. “I had to do something.” He quirks a grin. “I haven’t got you a Christmas gift either.”
I lean over and swat his thigh as he kneels on the picnic rug, but I really just like to touch him and feel close to him. A shiver tingles my spine, making my body shudder.
“You warm enough?” He shuffles around, opens the blanket box and pulls out a few cushions and a crochet blanket. Stretching his legs out and leaning against the wall with a cushion behind his back, he pats the other cushion at the side of him next to the heater. “I’ll keep you warm.”
With my drink in hand, I shift over to him and park my bottom on the pillow. His arm stretches around my back, cushioning me from the wooden surface of the wall. I lean my head against him, soaking up his scent, a mix of pine and something that’s just him. “This is nice.”
His thumb moves up and down my arm, the movement barely noticeable over my thick padded coat, but it’s there, and somehow I feel it in my stomach.
“Why have you never settled down?” I sip on my drink, waiting for him to answer. “I mean married or had kids. You know.”
He lets out a long sigh. “I told you, I don’t believe in marriage.”
I bristle in his arms. “How come?”
His large mitt runs over his face. “Because relationships don’t last. Sooner or later, someone leaves.”
“Not if you meet the right person. My parents?—”
“Your parents were made for each other, yes, but look how that ended. It almost broke your dad.” He removes his arm from around my back and reaches over to where he left his drink. “Thank god he had you to focus on.”
“So you never get attached for fear of getting hurt?” I sip my hot chocolate as it becomes clear why every relationship he’s ever had never lasted longer than a year.
He leans back against the wall with a groan. “What are you, a shrink now?”
“Just because your mother left, you think all women leave.”
Raising his mug, he nods to me with a chuckle. “You’ve missed your calling.”
“Stop making jokes. I’m serious.” I place my mug on the floor and turn sideways to face him. “Maybe if you let people in, they wouldn’t leave.” I’m not sure why I’m saying this. The last thing I want him to do is get married. I remember when he’d bring a woman round to the house for a drink with my parents. Seeing him with someone made me jealous as hell, but it also solidified the fact that he was off-limits.
I need that grounding now. I need to remember there’ll never be anything more between us, so I can stop fantasising about him and maybe move on.
“What about you, anyway? You can’t talk. I’ve never known you to have a boyfriend.” He grins again. “Or a girlfriend.”
He’s right. All this time, I’ve been guilty of not letting anyone in, but not because I’m scared of commitment. The realisation hits me in the face like a snowball. It’s because nobody was him.