Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Snow Changes Everything
EMILY
T here was something about being included in such an intimate family moment that had me feeling slightly ill at ease as we sat in the hospital waiting room. Really, I didn’t belong here. This was a family affair, and I’d kind of bustled my way into the Kasper’s lives already, demanding to help with the hunt. Now here I was witnessing one of the most intimate things a family could share.
I texted Christine again to get a pulse check on the whole situation.
Christine: A baby? That’s so exciting!
Me: But I’m not even vaguely related. I kind of feel like I inserted myself here.
Christine: Does it seem like anyone else feels that way?
I glanced at Archie, who was studying his own phone, and as if feeling my eyes on his face, his gaze darted up and held mine for a second, sending a shiver of warmth through me when he smiled.
Me: I don’t think so. Not really. It just feels . . . odd.
Christine: Think of it this way—it could make a great book!
Me: I’m not sure what kind of story it would be.
Christine: I think it’s a romance.
I glanced at Archie again, acknowledging that there was certainly an interest stirring in me. And he’d kissed me...
All day we’d shared little touches, warm looks—I knew it was mutual. I just knew it was probably also inadvisable. Still, it was all romantic. The hunt, the kiss, this unexpected time together.
Me: Maybe.
Christine: He kissed you. That doesn’t mean maybe.
Me: Hmm. Maybe not. At any rate, I think I’ll be gone a little while. Overnight for sure.
Christine: Maybe longer if this snow keeps coming down this way.
Me: Is it a lot up there?
Christine: Understatement.
The snow had tapered off a bit where we were in Colorado Springs, but standing to look at the parking lot out the long vertical window revealed a world washed in white. There were at least four inches piled up on the eaves of the roof I could see to one side, and the entire landscape looked magical, completely transformed from what was here before. Funny how even a parking lot could look pretty when it was covered in snow. I didn’t know much about driving in snow, but it did seem like at some point it was a pretty bad idea.
Me: Well, I’ll keep in touch, okay?
Christine: Enjoy your adventure.
I sighed as I put my phone away, and Archie glanced over at me with a half-smile on his lips and a raised eyebrow.
“Just this situation,” I explained. “It’s crazy, right?”
“It is, and maybe it’s a weird thing to say, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too, actually,” I confessed, warmth and nerves turning my tummy as I held his gaze.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I should probably tell you that I don’t make a habit of kissing guests.” It wasn’t something I’d worried about—Archie Kasper didn’t strike me as a player in any way. But it was still reassuring to hear him say it, and to know he was a man who didn’t mind talking about sensitive things.
“Just now and then?” I joked.
“Just never.” His voice was low, nearly a whisper, and held a serious edge that focused my attention.
“Okay.”
“I don’t know if I should have done it,” he went on. “But I just want you to know it’s been a long time. Like, a really long time.. .and maybe I shouldn’t have put you in that situation?—”
“No, it was fine.” I felt a blush crawling up my neck. “I mean, it wasn’t fine.”
“It wasn’t fine.” He looked ready to either laugh or be offended, depending on what I meant.
Shit. “I meant that it was more than fine. But also, you should know I don’t make a habit of kissing men I don’t want to kiss.”
“Oh.” Archie’s eyes burned into mine and fire licked at my blood as I sensed some kind of escalation there. “So...” he stretched out the word, each millisecond pulling me closer to him as the air around us buzzed with tension in the empty waiting room.
I still stood near the window, and now he closed the distance between us, and I could hardly breathe for the anticipation of feeling his lips on mine again, of feeling his arms pulling me near. His hand grazed my shoulder, his eyes burning into mine.
“Mr. Kasper?” I jumped as a shrill voice broke the moment.
Archie had turned away before my mind had cleared, still laced with the fog of desire. He’d been about to kiss me again, I was sure of it.
“Yes, I’m Archie Kasper.”
“I was told to come fetch you. Would you like to meet your nephew?”
Relief and happiness surged within me, replacing the muddy confusion I’d felt a second ago. I stood next to Archie and squeezed his arm as he grinned at me. In that moment, his face was boyish and glowing, the freckles across his nose standing out beneath his ocean blue eyes. The joy he radiated was like pure warmth and I wished I could bottle it. Save it.
“A nephew,” he said, his voice full of emotion. He turned back to the nurse. “And he’s okay? Aubrey is okay?”
“Everyone is healthy and well.” The nurse held the door open for him. “Come back and see.”
“That was so quick,” he said, looking between the nurse and me.
“Your sister was pretty determined,” the nurse laughed.
“You just described her entire existence on the planet.”
“Come for a quick visit, then we’ll let them all rest,” the nurse said, taking a step back into the ward.
I was pretty sure the invitation did not include me, so I retook my seat, urging Archie forward. “Go,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”
He hesitated, but I waved him off, and a moment later I was alone in the waiting room as the snow fell gently outside the window. How strange it was, I thought, that two people could be so physically near one another and be experiencing such completely different life events in that same space. Aubrey and Wiley were parents. They’d just been through one of life’s great milestones—delivering a child. And here I sat, wishing for a boy to kiss me.
I settled in, and within a few minutes, my phone was buzzing again as Archie sent me photos from the other side of the door. The baby. Aubrey and Wiley grinning madly as they held him. Aubrey holding up a middle finger and glaring at the camera as the baby nursed. There was a pause, and then one more photo arrived, this one of Archie holding a tiny red-faced infant in his arms. The smile he wore was one I hadn’t seen on him before, so genuine and unguarded it nearly broke my heart. I knew why he didn’t smile like that, but now that I knew him better, all I wanted was to see that smile more often.
He was a good man. He deserved to be happy.
Archie returned to the waiting room after about a half hour, and the remnants of the smile were still on his face.
“He’s so perfect,” he said, his voice a whisper as he retook the seat at my side. “He’s just so little and vulnerable. He’s not even mine, and I suddenly feel like I need to become some kind of baby bodyguard and never let him out of my sight so I can protect him.” He chuckled and I laughed too, his giddiness infecting me at the same time as I recognized a deep longing for a moment I’d never get to share with Jake.
I squeezed his hand. “I’m so happy for you guys. Is Aubrey okay with the timing of it all? I know she’s been wanting to be married first.”
“The second he arrived, she forgot everything else in the world, I think.”
“What did they name him?”
“She wanted to call him Marvin, but Wiley wasn’t a fan.”
“It’s not a popular name these days,” I agreed, feeling relieved for the tiny guy.
“So they chose Phineas and gave him Marvin as a middle name. They’re going to call him Finn.”
“That’s adorable.” I sighed. “I’m so happy for you guys.”
He let out a breath and sank back into the chair, still holding my hand. He raised our locked hands between us now and looked at them, as if just realizing we were touching. For a moment, we were silent, and his thumb rubbed a line along my hand. The motion sent a bolt of nerves through me.
“What now?” I asked, and it came out as a breath.
“They’re keeping Aubrey and the baby overnight. Wiley’s not leaving her side, so they’re bringing in a cot for him.”
I nodded. That sounded right.
“And I guess we’d better figure out what we’re going to do,” he said. After he uttered the words, his gaze slid to mine, and I saw the same questions that were circling in my mind.
“There’s a hotel over there,” I said, pointing to the window with my free hand. I’d seen the sign for it as I’d watched the snow fall. “Close is probably good, right?”
He nodded. “I’m hungry too. Are you?”
“Starving.” I confirmed this, a bit relieved we might focus on the food before we had to handle the hotel question. Would we be spending the night together? Did I want to? It would be digging myself even deeper into this situation. I could admit I wanted to spend more time with Archie... but there would come a point when I’d need to tell him who I really was.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess we should get going.”
“Let’s head out, Uncle Archie.” I grinned at him, squeezing his hand again as we stood.
“Man, I love that,” he laughed.
We held hands all the way down to the main floor and out across the parking lot, and Archie’s joy was contagious. I felt light and happy, like the snow falling around us was just one more part of a day designed to make us see the goodness and light in the world—even though we’d both known darkness too.
But as we navigated through snowy streets, and I internally clenched through turns I feared we might slide right out of, anxiety set in. We passed a couple fast food places, and then agreed on one that lay just ahead of the turn in for the hotel. We picked up some food—the smell nearly driving me crazy—and headed into the hotel parking lot.
I was going to a hotel. With a man I didn’t know well. One whom my family regarded as the ultimate enemy.
Why, then, when we approached the desk to ask about rooms for the night, did I feel such a jolt of happiness when the clerk informed us they had only one left?
Archie gazed at me, meeting my eyes and then lowering his. “We could go to another hotel.”
“It’s fine,” I volunteered before anyone had a chance to ask me. “It’ll be fine. I don’t want to drive any more than we have to.” It was true, but it was also a convenient reason to accept this room. To take the key and go upstairs now. Together. Nervous energy bubbled in my body, making me shift my weight.
“I don’t want to—” Archie looked up and as he caught my gaze, his mouth stilled.
I kept a low tone, ensuring I wouldn’t be overheard by the clerk who had moved off to attend to something else behind the desk. “You don’t?”
My meaning was clear.
And the flare I saw in his dark gaze was all the answer I needed. “If you’re sure.”
“So, yes?” the clerk asked, holding up a key card.
Archie nodded and the clerk put the card down on the desk. “Have a good night.”
“Come on,” I said, taking the key card off the desk with a smile at Archie and turning toward the elevator. I channeled a person I was not, someone confident and sure, someone who had experience seducing men. We stood in the elevator, inches apart, the smell of French fries wafting around us as every cell in my body tingled in anticipation.
The room was simple but adequate. There was a loveseat against one wall, a king-sized bed on the other.
Archie rubbed a hand through his hair, gazing around the room. “I’ll take the couch. Unless...”
I answered the only way I could, by stepping into his orbit, hoping his arms would rise to pull me in. And when they did, I released every bit of fear I’d been holding inside.
I knew this was a man I should be wary of. I’d been told that for four years now, ever since my brother’s death. And yet...I felt safer with him than I ever had. Safer than I had with anyone.
Archie paused to put down the food, and then his hands found my waist, and as I lifted my mouth to his, his grip tightened, pulling me against him. One of his hands slid up my back, pressing me into him as I tilted my head, increasing the friction of our mouths together.
His tongue teased at the seam of my lips and I opened to him, jolts of excitement sizzling through me as his tongue met mine and the intensity of the connection increased. I slid my hands up his chest, pushing back the sides of the coat he wore, which suddenly felt like it was in the way.
With a grunt, he stepped back, pulling my coat off one of my arms, and then stripping it from me totally before discarding his own. A second later, his arms were around me again, and his mouth found mine.
The kiss went on and on, intensifying and then shifting, moving from something needy and desperate to an exploration and then back. Archie’s hands skimmed my back, lifting the hem of the sweater I wore and sliding across the skin of my waist beneath it. The feel of his fingers on my bare skin stole my breath and my capability for rational thought.
My own hands went about their business with little direction from my brain which was occupied entirely with the work of marveling at the fact I’d never been kissed like this before. In fact, the way Archie Kasper kissed me made me feel like I’d never been kissed before at all.
I unfastened the buttons up his chest and pulled the soft warm fabric from his body, breaking our intensity to pull it from his shoulders and look at the miles of golden skin I’d just exposed.
Holy muscles.
Archie wasn’t bulky, not by any stretch. He was lean without being small, and his clothes looked like they were tailored for him. But without them on? I could only judge by the top half, but he could have been a carefully made statue of male anatomy. Every muscle stood in relief, etched in clear lines without being aggressively overbuilt.
My face must’ve given away my astonishment, because Archie’s smile turned just a hint cocky suddenly. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just . . . wow.”
“Thanks,” he said with a low laugh. “If that’s a good wow.”
“It is,” I said, tearing my eyes from the perfection of his chest and abs to look back up into the dark indigo eyes of the man holding me. “Pretty amazing is all.”
The eyes darkened further, and for a beat it felt like all the tension in the universe must be gathering right here in the inches between us. And then it broke, as Archie lowered his head and kissed me again.
And then he let me go.
Confusion swept away some of the desire as Archie put space between us, one of those big hands in his perfect hair again as he dropped his gaze to the floor. He lifted his eyes to me, keeping his chin down. “I wanted to give you a second.”
I did not need a second. “Um. Okay.”
He dropped his eyes again, and blew out a long breath. “Or maybe I wanted to give me a second.”
“Sure,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. I felt awkward suddenly, like I’d misread the situation. Had he changed his mind? Did he not feel what I did?
But that kiss...You couldn’t fake that. And people didn’t kiss other people that way just to avoid embarrassing them.
Archie stood there, the faint light from the snow draping everything outside reflecting in to cast a glow around his incredible body. But his posture was what worried me. He still looked down, one hand on the back of his neck. A figure of desolation.
“Hey,” I said, regaining my courage. I took a step closer. “What is it?”
He raked me with his gaze and that low want pooled inside me again, as if it had just been waiting for reassurance that his own desire hadn’t vanished.
And then he reached for me, and I stepped back into his arms.
“You’re okay with this?” he asked in a strained voice.
“Yes.”
In the next second, my senses—my world, really—became Archie. I didn’t think I’d ever wanted anyone so much. And as I stripped my sweater over my head and pulled him toward the bed, I stopped thinking altogether.