Chapter 4
Poppy
My hands tremble as I try to undo the buttons on my shirt. Now that I’m inside and not being carried by the giant farmer I realize how cold I am and how much danger I was actually in.
Hopefully, Matt abandoning me with a sprained ankle in the middle of the woods is the worst thing that is going to happen to me today. I take in my surroundings. When he said ‘cabin’, this is not what I expected.
I’m not quite sure what I expected. Maybe a one-room shack with a rusted woodstove and a tin of beans on a shelf?
I’m happy to note there are no jars with body parts, medieval weapons or animal heads lining the walls, but this isn’t anything I’d call a cabin, either.
The main room is large and warm, all exposed timber beams and stone that looks like something from Architectural Digest. The fireplace is the size of a small car and the wood fire is blazing and crackling at my back.
The furniture is beautiful, real wood, and definitely of higher quality than my IKEA hacks.
Matching leather couches the color of dark caramel and a handwoven rug that probably cost more than my rent lend a softness to the room and huge floor-to-ceiling windows that probably offer a spectacular view when it isn’t storming outside.
This place looks like a resort, and I’d definitely pay money to stay here with those gorgeous bookshelves built right into the walls and stuffed so full that a few paperbacks have been double-stacked sideways on top of others.
There's a kitchen off to the right that has actual counter space, copper-bottomed pots hanging from a rack, and a serious-looking espresso machine.
My fingers fumble on the tiny buttonholes, and I squeeze my hands, trying to make them work. My ankle is throbbing, and it feels like I’m never going to get warm, despite the fire behind me.
I sit there dripping on his very nice rug and swallow back tears. I’m soaked
to the skin and my leggings are now more mud than fabric and I've just been carried through a mountain ice storm by a man I've never met and deposited in what appears to be the coziest and most expensive cabin in the entire San Juan range.
A stranger rescued me, while Matt left me on a rock. I might be in shock. I'm definitely in shock.
Stevie bleated the whole time he carried us, muffled little complaints from inside his jacket.
I kept my face pressed against his shoulder because the sleet was horizontal and vicious, and I could feel the steady, solid rhythm of his heartbeat through the layers between us.
He moved through the woods like neither the weather nor my weight were a hinderance.
I should not find that as attractive as I do.
He jogs down the stairs, his dark hair glinting auburn under the lights, frowning as he watches me fight with these stupid tiny buttons. As if I needed a UV protection-shirt in mid-April, but obviously I had no idea what I was doing on that hike today.
He crouches in front of me again, setting down the blankets and clothes and I notice his cheeks are windburned.
“Do you want some help?” His voice is low and gentle, and I become suddenly and acutely aware what an utter and total disaster I am.
I am a woman who went hiking unprepared, got left by her situationship, sat in a snowstorm and is now on a stranger's rug, filthy, shivering, and probably giving off a strong aroma of hand sanitizer, wet wool and goat.
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. Tears blur my vision, and I yank at the last dumb button that just won’t cooperate.
He sighs and takes hold of my hands with one of his. His fingers are warm. Big. He doesn't squeeze, just holds it, his thumb grazing that sensitive spot on my palm and the contrast between the cold of my skin and the heat of his hand is so stark, I suck in a breath.
"Sorry," he says, not looking up as he gently moves my hands out of the way.
"You didn't hurt me."
"Your hands are frozen."
I look down at them. He's right. They're splotchy red and a little blue around my nail bed.
I'd been using them to shield Stevie's face from the sleet and hadn't noticed how bad it had gotten. He stands, walks into the kitchen, and comes back with a dish towel that he wraps around my hands, closing them together inside it. “Can I… um.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Look, you’ve got to get out of those wet clothes. Let me help you.”
I nod, and he lowers himself to the floor, reaching out to undo my shirt. Somehow those big hands manage what I couldn’t, and I shrug it off happy to have the wet fabric away from my skin. “Thanks.”
“Those leggings have to go too.”
“If we’re going to first base, maybe you should tell me your name,” I say and then immediately wish I could bite my tongue. “I didn’t mean that…”
He chuckles. “It’s Gibb.” He reaches for the blanket and drapes it over my shoulders.
It’s already warm from the fire and he tucks it around me, before sitting back and untying my boots.
For my injured leg, he carefully works the knot loose, making sure not to tug or jostle it.
The lace catches and he picks at it with a patience that seems at odds with the contained intensity of everything else about him.
He does it without making a production of it. Like taking care of someone is just a thing he does, not something he thinks about. I remember the way he zipped his coat around me and Stevie before lifting both of us effortlessly into his arms.
I don't know why that gets to me, but it does.
When he eases the boot off, I manage not to make too embarrassing a noise.
"Breathe," he says, still not looking at me.
"I am breathing."
"You're holding it."
I exhale, feeling a little foolish.
“Now the leggings. If you can, try to slide them down over your hips but don’t put any pressure on your ankle.”
The blanket covers me from neck to knees, so I unwrap my hands and hook my thumbs into the waistband of my leggings.
I feel like an idiot, wriggling and rocking to get them over my butt, but thankfully Gibb averts his eyes.
I manage to get them as far as my knees, but I can’t go any further without attempting to balance myself with my feet.
He seems to recognize my predicament and gestures towards my legs. “May I?”
A blush heats my cheeks. I’m certain I’m imagining the heat in his tone, but something about his voice, that low, whiskey-rough rasp is pure temptation.
Swallowing, I bob my head and watch as he slowly reaches under the blanket.
He’s not anywhere near my girly bits, but they wake up anyway, distracting me from the pain in my ankle.
His hands move over mine as he gently slides the fabric down my legs.
He doesn’t touch my skin, but it feels electric all the same and I hope he doesn’t notice that I’m holding my breath again, but for a completely different reason.
Easing the leggings off, with the same deliberate consideration he removed my boots, Gibb lifts my injured leg into his lap.
His hands move over my ankle with slow, deliberate pressure, thumbs tracing the joint, testing where the swelling is worst. It should hurt.
It does hurt, but there's something about the way he's doing it, like he has all the time in the world, like testing the injury and understanding it is what matters, that I matter. It makes the pain a secondary thing.
"Not broken," he says. "We’ll have to have it looked at, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a bad sprain. You'll be off it for a few days, but you’ll be fine."
"Good. That’s great. Really great news. I’ll definitely get it checked out when I get home." I am babbling again. He glances up at me and I see the ghost of something in his expression, not quite amusement, more like he's trying to figure me out. "Sorry. I'm not great with pain."
"You sat on a rock in an ice storm for over an hour."
"Well. That was different. There was a baby to protect."
He looks at me for a second longer than necessary, then drops his gaze back to my ankle.
"Is she okay?" I ask. "Stevie. I tried to keep her warm, but she’s so loud for something so small and I couldn't tell if she was scared or if that's just—"
"That's just Stevie," he says. "She has a lot of opinions."
"After Stevie Nicks," I say.
"She was once quoted, ‘don’t be a lady, be a legend.’ My Stevie came out of the womb bossing everyone around.
The name picked itself." He stands, and the loss of his proximity is immediate and specific. "I’ll wrap it, then you can change into those dry clothes, and I’ll carry you to the couch so you can rest.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
"I'm getting the bandage," he says, already moving toward the hall. "Do you want me to take you to the washroom first?”
Heat crawls up my neck. "I'm not going to—"
"You're not going to argue with me about it. You need help." His tone is firm but not unkind. He looks back over his shoulder, and his eyes are dark, a little guarded, but steady. "Poppy. You're safe here."
The simplicity of it hits me somewhere in the middle of my chest.
"Okay," I say.
My ankle feels much better with the bandage and a second dose of ibuprofen.
I swallowed my pride and let him carry me to the washroom, but I drew the line at having him stay in there with me.
I can manage to hobble around enough to wash my face and hands and get dressed in the clothes he’s left on the counter.
I’m already wearing his sweatpants, which are soft and warm and even though they’re a little snug over my butt, they are big enough for the waist to be comfortable. I’m swimming in the length, however, but it’s not a fashion show.
Thank God it’s not. There were actual pine needles in my cleavage, and I picked a small twig out of what was left of my drooping ponytail.
Half of my hair is a tangled mess, and the other half is wet from where it fell loose around my face, but I managed to brush out the worst of it.
Now that I’m relatively mud-free, I pull the maroon-colored sweatshirt over my head, pausing to inhale the clean scent.
Cedar and laundry soap and something else that makes me want to bury my nose in it.
What is wrong with me? Yes, he’s big and gorgeous and kind. And his clothes smell amazing, but I’ve never been someone who swoons. Even when Matt asked for my number, I didn’t feel this giddy anticipation.
Not that Gibb has asked for my number. Or made it seem like he might want to.
I take one more sniff and pop my head through the opening, tugging the sweatshirt down.
I peer into the mirror to make sure I don’t have any more wayward forest debris anywhere when the frames on the wall behind me catch my attention. Are those awards?
I turn and hop over to get a better look at them. They’re some kind of round plaque in a frame. Like a gold record. I tip my head up and lean closer. They are gold records. I note the writing. Velvet Riot.
My mouth drops open. Matt was just talking about this band and the lead singer who disappeared. What was his name?
Gibson Hart. My blood rushes in my ears. Gibson… Gibb. Oh. My. God.
I reach for my phone, to look for a photo, only to realize it’s out in the living room.
With him. Possibly a rock star. I look at the next plaque. This one is silver, no, not silver. Platinum. Velvet Riot – Saints of Ruin.
There’s a knock at the door. “Poppy?”
I shriek and clap a hand over my mouth.
“Poppy are you okay?”
“Fi-fine.” Shit. What am I supposed to say to him? At least this explains my reaction to him. Gibson Hart has a voice like smoke and a smile that made twelve million women fall in love with him.
Including my friend Neveah. I remember her talking about one of his shows and apparently, she cried all the way through it because she was just so overwhelmed to be near him.
And her seats were nosebleeds.
“Do you need help?” he asks.
“Nope, I’m good. I’ll be out in a minute,” I call, hugging the sweatshirt around me.
I look at the records again, trying to make sense of it.
The guy who carried me through the woods doesn’t really look like a rock star.
He’s big and gruff, with a beard and raises goats.
What kind of rock star becomes a goat farmer?
Why would you leave that life to live on a mountain?
Maybe to find the kind of silence you would have to need badly enough to find a place like this and put up fences.
This is why Matt dragged me out here. I close my eyes, picturing the phone he tucked into his jacket and wouldn't let me see.
I think about the rip on his sleeve and the look in his eyes when he'd come back to the clearing. He wasn’t worried, or sorry, just lit up with the certainty that he'd found something.
My stomach drops.
Or someone.