Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
The weather report had been wrong. Not slightly wrong.
Not "chance of flurries might be chance of snow" wrong.
Catastrophically, life-threateningly, someone-should-be-fired wrong.
The forecast had called for three to five inches overnight, tapering off by morning.
Instead, Greenwood Hollow was buried under eighteen inches and counting, with winds gusting hard enough to rattle the arena's industrial doors and send visibility plummeting to near zero.
Tarmek stood at the window of his office watching the parking lot disappear under a blanket of white. Practice had been cancelled hours ago. Most of the team had gone home before the worst of it hit, warned off by Coach Morrison's increasingly frantic weather app notifications.
But not everyone had left.
His phone buzzed.
Fen: Made it home. Roads are brutal. Stay safe, captain.
He typed back a brief acknowledgment, then checked the time. 8:43 PM. The storm showed no signs of letting up. The arena's emergency systems had kicked in an hour ago, backup generators humming to life when the first power surge had flickered the lights.
He should leave. His condo was only ten minutes away under normal conditions, but it might take thirty in this mess, even with four-wheel drive and careful navigation. He had supplies. A fireplace that actually worked. Everything he needed to ride out the storm in reasonable comfort.
Instead, he found himself walking towards the back exit. The one that faced the parking structure. The one that gave him a clear view of Edie's camper.
It was still there. A small, colorful box of painted flowers and cheerful stripes, now barely visible under the accumulating snow. The windows glowed faintly but something about the light looked wrong. Unsteady.
He pushed through the door and immediately regretted not grabbing his coat. The wind slammed into him, driving ice particles into his face and finding every gap in his practice clothes. He squinted against the white-out conditions, focusing on the camper, and forced himself forward.
The walk that normally took thirty seconds stretched into two minutes of battling drifts that reached his knees. By the time he reached the camper, his fingers were numb and his lungs burned from breathing frozen air.
He pounded on the door.
"Edie!"
No response. The wind swallowed his voice like it was nothing.
He pounded harder. "Edie! Open the door!"
A pause. Then the door cracked open, just wide enough for a pair of brown eyes to peer out at him through the swirling snow.
"Tarmek?" She had to shout to be heard. "What are you doing out there? Are you insane?"
"Let me in."
"I'm fine! Go home!"
He didn't bother responding. He put his hand flat against the door and pushed, not hard enough to hurt her but hard enough that she stumbled backward and had to catch herself on the tiny counter. He stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him.
The cold hit him immediately. Not just the absence of warmth, but aggressive, biting cold that had infiltrated every inch of the cramped space. His breath fogged in front of his face. Ice crystals had formed on the inside of the windows.
And she was standing there in four sweaters layered over each other, fingerless gloves, two scarves wrapped around her neck, and what looked like every pair of socks she owned stuffed into a single pair of boots.
"Your heater is dead," he said.
"It's just being temperamental." She rubbed her arms, a gesture that didn't quite hide the shiver running through her. "It does this sometimes. I'll figure it out."
"How long has it been off?"
"I don't know. A while. It's fine."
"How. Long."
She hesitated. "Maybe... three hours?"
Three hours. In subzero temperatures. In a metal box with the insulation capacity of a tin can.
He looked around the camper and saw the evidence of her attempts to cope.
The pile of blankets on the narrow bed. The battery-powered lantern that was producing the flickering light he'd seen from outside.
The kettle on the propane stove, clearly her attempt to generate some warmth, now sitting cold and useless.
The propane was probably running low too. Or frozen. Or both.
Something inside him broke. It wasn't anger, exactly.
Or not just anger. It was something older, something primal, something that had been building for weeks every time he noticed her skipping meals or working too late or leaving her door unlocked.
Something that had been coiling tighter and tighter in his chest, waiting for the moment when her stubborn independence would finally push her into genuine danger.
That moment was now.
"You are not sleeping in a frozen metal box," he said.
His voice came out as hard as the granite in the surrounding mountains. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a statement of fact, as immutable as the storm howling outside.
She blinked at him. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"I'm fine. I've been through worse. One time in Colorado, my heater died in the middle of October and I had to—"
"I don't care what happened in Colorado. You're not staying here."
"Tarmek." She drew herself up to her full height, which put the top of her head roughly level with his chest. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm a grown adult. I've been taking care of myself for years. I don't need you to—"
"You're shivering."
"I'm a little cold. I'll live."
"Your lips are turning blue."
She pressed her definitely blue-tinged lips together in a stubborn line. "That's an exaggeration."
"Your fingers are white." He reached out and caught one of her hands, holding it up between them. Even through the fingerless glove, he could feel that her skin was dangerously cold. "You can't even feel this, can you?"
She tried to pull her hand back, but he didn't let go.
"Let me—"
"Can you feel this?"
"That's not—"
"Can you feel this?"
Her jaw tightened. Her eyes glittered with something that might have been tears or might have been stubborn fury. "Not really," she admitted finally. "But that doesn't mean—"
He released her hand and moved.
In one smooth motion, he bent down, caught her behind the knees and around her back, and straightened up with her cradled against his chest. She made an outraged noise and grabbed at his shoulders for balance.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Taking you somewhere warm."
"Put me down!"
"No."
"Tarmek! I said put me down!"
He shifted her weight so he could get a hand on the door latch. "You can argue with me later. From somewhere that isn't going to kill you."
"This is kidnapping!"
"This is common sense."
He kicked the door open and stepped out into the storm.
The wind was even worse than before, driving snow horizontally across the parking lot and reducing visibility to almost nothing. He tucked Edie closer against his chest, shielding her face with his shoulder, and oriented himself towards where he'd left his truck. Thirty yards, maybe. Forty at most.
"This is insane!" She was shouting directly into his ear, which he probably deserved. "You can't just carry people around! There are laws!"
"Sue me later."
"I will! I'll sue you for... for assault! And battery! And... and general orc-ish behavior!"
"That's not a crime."
"It should be!"
He reached his truck, a massive four-wheel-drive pickup that he'd bought specifically for upstate New York winters, and yanked open the passenger door.
The interior was still warm from his earlier trip to check on the arena's heating systems. He deposited her onto the seat with more care than her protests probably warranted.
"Stay," he said.
"I'm not a dog."
"Stay anyway."
He slammed the door before she could argue further, started the engine with the key fob still in his pocket, and cranked the heat to maximum.
Through the window, he could see her fuming, her mouth moving in what was undoubtedly a continued string of complaints.
He ignored them and headed back to the camper.
Her bags. She'd need clothes. Toiletries. Whatever else females required to survive. He didn't know what that included, but he could figure it out.
The camper door was still open, banging against the frame in the wind.
He stepped inside and looked around, trying to identify the essentials.
A backpack hung from a hook by the bed and there was a stack of presumably clean clothes next to it.
He placed the clothes in the pack, trying not to wince at the haphazard arrangement.
There was a box of toiletries in the tiny bathroom and he grabbed the whole box, along with her laptop bag, covered in stickers and paint splatters.
He added two totes full of art supplies, then carried everything back to the truck.
Fighting through drifts that had already grown another inch, he breathed a sigh of relief that she was still in the truck.
She'd even stopped yelling. When he opened the driver's side door and placed her bags behind the seat, she was sitting with her hands pressed against the heating vents, eyes closed, some of the tension finally leaving her shoulders.
"I could report you," she said without opening her eyes. "For manhandling. Or womanhandling."
"You could."
"I won't. But I could."
He climbed into the driver's seat and put the truck in gear. "Are you going to keep complaining?"
"Probably."
"Fine. Complain somewhere warm."
The drive took thirty minutes instead of the usual ten.
The roads were nearly impassable, drifts building faster than the occasional plow could clear them, but his truck was built for this and he'd driven in worse conditions during away games in Minnesota.
He kept his focus on the road and the narrow channel of visibility his headlights carved through the white-out.
Beside him, her shivering slowed, then stopped. Color crept back into her cheeks. Her hands dropped from the vents to her lap, flexing experimentally as the feeling returned.
"Where are we going?" she asked finally.
"My condo."
"Your—" She sat up straight. "Tarmek. No. Take me to a hotel. Or a shelter. Or literally anywhere that isn't your personal residence."
"Hotels are probably booked with stranded travelers. Shelters will be overwhelmed. You're coming to my condo."
"That's not appropriate."
"Neither is freezing to death. I think inappropriate wins."
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She crossed her arms over her chest, and stared pointedly out the window at the nothing that was visible beyond the glass.
"You're very high-handed," she said. "Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Frequently."
"Good. I want it on record."
"Noted."
Silence settled between them, broken only by the grind of the wipers and the howl of the wind. He kept his eyes on the road, his hands steady on the wheel, and tried not to think about how right it had felt to pick her up and physically remove her from danger with his own two hands.
Orc instincts. That's all it was. Protective instincts deeply ingrained by millennia of evolution. Nothing personal. Nothing to do with the way her weight had settled against his chest like it belonged there.
The small condo building appeared through the snow. Only four units, built into the hillside with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered spectacular views of nothing, at the moment. Far enough out of town for privacy but close to the arena
He pulled into the underground garage and killed the engine.
"We're here," he said unnecessarily.
She looked at the garage door, then at him. Her expression was unreadable in the dim light.
"Fine," she said finally. "But I want it noted that I'm only agreeing because the alternative is turning into a human popsicle."
"Noted."
"And I'm leaving as soon as the storm clears."
"Also noted."
"And if you try to carry me anywhere else without my explicit permission, I will bite you."
That didn't sound as threatening as she probably hoped. His mouth twitched despite himself. "Understood."
She unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle, then paused and turned back to look at him.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For checking on me. Even though you're incredibly infuriating about it."
He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary.
"You're welcome," he said. "Even though you're incredibly stubborn about accepting help."
Her lips curved into something that was almost a smile. "That's fair."
She got out of the truck. He followed with her bags, his mind already running through logistics—the guest room would need fresh sheets, she'd need warm clothes, he should probably make soup or something humans ate during storms—while some deeper part of him, the part he was trying very hard not to acknowledge, settled into something that felt dangerously like satisfaction.
She was here. She was safe. She was under his roof.
And the storm wasn't letting up anytime soon.