CHAPTER FOUR
Harrison
I woke before dawn already irritated. And I knew exactly why. I’d dreamt of a woman dressed in white, lost and shivering in the cold
It wasn’t my ex.
It was her.
Elle.
The woman who’d invaded my space and my dream.
I convinced myself the dream had come from catching her the night before — the weight of her against my arm. It was not from the fact that I had almost, almost drew her closed and kissed her.
Ten years I’d spent building a life that answered to no one. I liked my mountain. I liked my solitude. I did not appreciate one woman with dark hair and even darker eyes unraveling any of it.
She worked for him. That part I kept circling back to.
My grandfather had sent someone almost every month this year.
More than any other time I could remember him doing before.
Even accounting for the fact I mostly ignored the ones he sent, it made me think he’d finally decided subtlety wasn’t working and switched to volume.
Fine. I could out-stubborn volume. I’d been doing it for a decade.
There’d been a call a few months back, now that I thought about it, where he’d gone quiet in a way that wasn’t like him — a pause after I’d said no to something, a beat too long before he changed the subject to the weather.
I’d let it go. Told myself he was tired, or that the connection had lagged.
I was good at telling myself things that let me stay exactly where I was.
But that led me back to why? Why was my grandfather needing me to look over deals he’d been doing long before I’d been born.
I know he was getting older, but even after I’d taken over the company, he’d been right there beside me.
When I’d left, he’d been surrounded by competent men and women who had worked with him for years.
Had something changed? Or had I just not been paying attention to what was already there.
And then to send her. Elle hadn’t opened with a pitch.
Hadn’t tried flattery, hadn’t done a single thing the last three had done.
She’d stood on my porch in the wrong shoes and told me off instead.
That wasn’t strategy. Or if it was, it was a better one than anyone had tried yet, Either way I didn’t appreciate how well it was working.
By the time I made it to the kitchen, I’d more or less decided how the morning would go. I’d be civil. I’d get her fed, get the roads checked, get her back down the mountain before I did something I’d regret. Like ask her to stay for reasons that had nothing to do with weather.
Elle was already there, hair pulled back, dressed once again in her own clothing.
The snow had stopped, but the sky hadn’t cleared the way it should have.
It was gray and low and sitting too still.
I’d lived on this mountain long enough to know weather.
The smell of coffee filled the room. It should have irritated me, but it didn’t, and that irritated me more than it should have.
She looked up when I came in, and something warm crossed her face. An actual smile. The kind that made the whole room seem different. It made me want to do several things I shouldn’t have wanted to do. That involved my mouth. On her. Everywhere.
“Morning,” she said. “Storm’s gone and it looks like the snow is melting. At least to my untrained eye.”
“It’s not gone.” I nodded toward the window. “That’s a lull. Systems this size stall out and regroup before they’re finished with you. I’d bet money it’s not done.”
“You’re just saying that to keep me here.”
“I’m saying it because I’ve lived on this mountain for ten years and you’ve been here for twelve hours.”
“I could make a whole speech right now about you being right and insufferable about it. Want to hear it?” She took a sip of coffee, entirely too pleased with herself.
“Refrain yourself.”
“Okay.” She paused. “For now.” Another smile that did not help my building lack of control around her.
“My grandfather’s had people up this mountain more than usual this year. A lot more. What’s changed?”
She hesitated, weighing her answer the way I was starting to recognize she did with anything that actually mattered to her. “You need to give him your approval on this one.”
“And?”
“And that’s all I know.”
I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know she wasn’t telling me everything. The question was — did I want to know the whole story? I knew I could push, but I’d already realize that pushing her would do no good. She’d just dig in her heels and become more closed mouth.
“He’s seemed — off. The last few weeks. Shorter on the phone. Distracted. I don’t know what it is. I just know it’s something.”
I hadn’t expected that. My grandfather didn’t do off. He’d run that company through two recessions and a hostile takeover attempt without losing a night’s sleep, as far as I knew.
“You’re telling me you don’t know, or you’re telling me you’re not telling me.”
“Both, probably.” She met my eyes without flinching. “I’m not going to lie to you, Harrison. I’m also not going to tell you things that have no basis in fact. They are just feelings, nothing more. All you have to do is ask him yourself. You do talk to him.”
“We talk. That doesn’t mean he tells me anything worth knowing.”
I let it go. Pushing wouldn’t get me anywhere with her. She’d already decided how much ground she was willing to give, and I respected that more than I wanted to.
She rinsed her mug, disappeared down the hall, and came back in yesterday’s jacket. I had the sudden, unexplainable urge to take her shopping. “I should get going.”
“Roads are probably still bad.”
“I’ll manage.” She grabbed her purse. The folder was still sitting on the coffee table where I’d left it. “You really should review that and call your grandfather.”
She walked out before I could answer, cold air cutting through for the second it took her to shut the door behind her.
I let her go.
I told myself I was relieved about it, the way I’d told myself several other things this morning that weren’t holding up under any real scrutiny.
I listened for an engine. Wheels finding purchase in the snow as she drove away.
Nothing.
I was reaching for my coat before I could tell myself it wasn’t my problem.
By the time I got outside, she’d popped the hood and was standing over the engine, hands on her hips like she could shame it into starting through sheer force of will.
“Get back inside,” I said.
“I can handle a dead battery.”
“Not out here, you can’t.” I didn’t wait for the argument, just took her by the elbow and steered her toward the porch. “I’ll pull the truck around, see if I can jump it.”
“I don’t need—”
“Inside.” My tone was flat enough, dark enough, that she actually stopped talking.
She went, glaring at me the whole way, muttering something I chose not to hear because I already knew it would make me smile. And horny. Hell, just being the same room made me horny.
I worked for twenty minutes trying to jump start her car.
The battery was too old for this type of cold and no amount of coaxing was going to bring it back to life.
I shut the hood and drove the truck back into the garage, sitting for a moment.
I cursed myself for allowing her to start down the mountain.
But I knew what I’d been thinking. I’d wanted her gone. I didn’t want her around a moment longer than necessary because she was already in my head.
And I wanted her in my bed.
She was watching from the window when I came back in, already reading the verdict on my face. “Battery’s dead. Won’t hold a charge.”
“So we jump it again in an hour.”
“Won’t matter. Even if it turns over, I’m not letting you drive down that road today.”
“That’s not your call.”
“My mountain,” I said. “My call.”
“You could take me down in the truck.”
“Could. Doesn’t fix the part where you’d have no car once down the mountain.”
“I could call an Uber.”
“That’s a three-hour Uber, Elle. I don’t think granddad would approve of that expense.” I hung up my coat, intending to walk away.
She didn’t like that. She stepped right into my path, tossing her head and making her ponytail bounce. I wanted to grab it and bring her face to mine. Damn, she had no idea what she was doing to me.
“He would for me.”
“Are you always this stubborn?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “Stubborn gets you places.”
“Well, with me, stubbornness just for the sake of being stubborn could get that ass of yours spanked.”
Her mouth opened in astonishment. “What did you just say?”
I crossed my arms and looked down at her.
“You heard me. And unlike you, I don’t repeat myself for the fun of it.
I only say things I mean.” I let my eyes drag over her, unhurried, daring her to call my bluff.
“You don’t have any place to be, Elle. The roads are dangerous and I’m not letting you risk your neck just to be someplace else than here. ”
“But you don’t want me here.” Her voice wasn’t exactly small, but it was quiet.
“Did I say that?”
“Yes, you literally said that.”
I shrugged. “Things change.”
“And what exactly has changed?”
I didn’t answer. Walking into the kitchen, I started making breakfast. Mostly because I didn’t trust myself not to turn her over my knee and spank her until that ass was a bright red. She was stubborn to a fault. I knew that stubbornness was a wall she’d built not to allow anyone too close.
The wind hit the house hard enough that we both turned toward the windows. Snow was slanting sideways now, where an hour ago there’d only been pale gray sky.
Neither of us said anything for a second.
I crossed to the living room, flipped the television to the local station. The forecast graphic filled the screen showing a path of white pushing down out of Canada.
Red text scrolled underneath. Blizzard Warning In Effect… Heavy Snow And Whiteout Conditions Expected… Travel Not Advised.
“That’s not possible,” Elle said, coming to stand beside me, arms wrapped around herself. “It’s September. You said it was a lull, not — that.”
“Told you it wasn’t finished with us.” I watched the radar loop swallow half the state, and didn’t let myself sound as satisfied about being right as I felt. “Doesn’t happen every year. Last one like this dropped two feet in a day and a half.”
“Two feet?”
“Yep.” I turned the volume down, the graphic mocking us both. “Point is, you’re not driving anywhere today. Might not tomorrow either.”
She was quiet, staring at the window like she could argue with the weather the same way she delighted in arguing with me.
“Well,” she said finally, her voice light but I could see the strain on her face. “Guess I’m snowed in with the mountain man after all.”
I didn’t count that as I win as I had earlier. I liked her stubbornness and spirit. My body wasn’t being subtle about it either. I was hard and it hurt, and I liked that a little too much.