Chapter 11
Alicia
‘Should we take a shot at getting back to the hotel?’ she suggested to Jamie. ‘Before it gets dark.’ Surely they still had a couple of hours until dusk finished its shift and evening clocked on.
Jamie looked out the window then at his watch.
‘Listen, Alicia, I hate to break it to you, but it’s already three. At this time of year, it’ll be pitch black by four and we’re at least a couple of hours walk from the hotel. We can’t risk leaving now.’
‘Oh. So, does that mean,’ – Alicia regarded the room, her gaze settling for a moment on the box bed in the corner – ‘we’re stuck here for the night?’
Jamie considered the bed, too, then came back to Alicia. ‘Aye, but please don’t worry. I’ll sleep in a chair.’
Where she would sleep – or lie awake not sleeping – wasn’t high on Alicia’s list of priorities.
More of her concern lay with being here overnight with a relative stranger.
Sure, during the day it was kind of cosy and maybe even romantic, but she knew little about Jamie, and didn’t want to be trapped with him after dark.
They had a long way to go before full trust was installed.
Also, she had a luxury lodge she’d paid for.
‘Won’t the hotel wonder where we are and send out a search party?’ she asked, hopefully.
‘It’s unlikely tonight. But, honestly, we don’t need rescued. I’m confident that if the snow stops by morning we can walk out of here. We just need to get through the night.’
‘I’d rather give it a go now.’ Alicia reached for her coat from the peg by the door. ‘I’m going to walk back to the hotel.’
‘What?’ Jamie stood up as she was pulling on her backpack and opening the door.
‘No, you’re not.’ He didn’t move any further but pinned her to the spot with steely blue stare, his jaw set in determination.
It was a look that said, you will take me damned seriously, woman because I’m not messing about. Alicia remained where she was.
‘Sorry.’ Jamie plunged his hands into his pockets.
‘But you shouldn’t leave. I know you think you’re safer out there in the snow than you are in here with me, but I can assure you that is not the case.
You’re going to have to trust me on this one.
Put your bag down and take your jacket off.
Or keep the jacket on, but you’re staying the night here.
As I said before, you sleep in the bed and I’ll take the chair.
You’ll have full privacy at all times, but if I let you walk out that door now, I would live to regret it and you might not even get the chance. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Alicia did. She nodded silently. He was right. She was letting her fear of being alone with him override her common sense about the dangers of the snow. He had at least outlined his plan to allay her worries about being alone with him. Maybe it would be okay.
For dinner, Jamie boiled some snow on the fire using the old metal kettle and combined it with a small packet of dried noodles he had in his backpack.
He split the cooked product between the two of them and Alicia thought noodles had never tasted so delicious.
After dinner, they found a jigsaw puzzle in one of the cupboards and sat across the wobbly table from each other.
Much of the time they silently slotted the pieces into place, but occasionally they drifted into conversation about various safe topics.
Jamie told Alicia all about bothys and how they existed all over Scotland and were maintained by a bothy association.
She asked him about the history of the area and he told her about the Jacobite rising in the 1700s where someone called Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to win the throne back from the English.
He talked about the illicit whisky trade of roughly the same era, of which she knew a fantasised version from watching Connor’s show on TV.
It was fascinating hearing Jamie enthuse about his homeland and amazing that such a small country could have so rich a history.
Occasionally, as they chatted and worked on the puzzle, their fingers touched as they both reached for the same piece and Jamie apologised. She wanted to tell him there was no need but didn’t want to send the message of quite how much she liked those little electric moments.
Jigsaw complete, Alicia yawned and shivered a little. The previously blazing fire was now no more than glowing coals in the grate.
‘Tired or bored?’ Jamie asked.
‘Oh, tired,’ she said. ‘You’re not boring.’
‘Aye, likewise. I’ve had a nice time chilling with you.’ Jamie stood up and wandered over to the box bed. ‘I can see you’re cold so luckily there’s a blanket. Most folk sleeping here would have planned it and brought a sleeping bag but I’m assuming you didn’t.’
‘You assume right.’
‘Me neither. I’m going to give you my jumper because once the fire goes out, the temperature will dip and you’ve got to be warm to sleep.’ Jamie wasted no time in pulling his sweater out of his bag and handing it to Alicia. ‘Here.’
Alicia took it, the wool thick, chunky and a little scratchy between her fingers. ‘But, what about you?’ she asked. ‘How will you keep warm? How will you sleep?’
‘Don’t worry about me. I can sleep standing up and, as I said before, I don’t feel the cold.’
Alicia doubted very much that Jamie could sleep standing up, although she supposed that a lot of people could sleep in chairs so it was conceivable that he was one of them.
But when she watched him pull over the same rickety wooden chair he’d been sitting on earlier, she got the distinct feeling he was lying to assuage her guilt.
‘And you’ve got the curtain on the bed for privacy,’ he added. ‘But I’ll look the other way, whenever you need me to. Or wait outside.’
If Alicia could have been warmed by Jamie’s thoughtfulness, there would be no need for the fire or an extra sweater. It was like he had considered every one of her worries and was doing his best to put her at ease. Maybe she had overreacted earlier.
She hunkered inside the box bed, musty smelling drapes drawn and slid Jamie’s sweater over her head.
Of course, it smelled of him. That manly, tangy bergamot scent would be around her neck and on her hands all night long.
It made her want to peel it off and hold it to her chest. As she lay back on the makeshift pillow fashioned out of a shirt, also pulled from the magician’s hat that was Jamie’s backpack, she realised that it, too, smelled far too sexy.
My God, the man may as well be in here with her.
What was he doing? Alicia listened but the stillness of the bothy gave away none of its secrets.
Then peeking out the drapes, she was immediately reminded that privacy went both ways.
Jamie was standing in the dimly candlelit room removing his jeans.
Fuck. She was so out of order. He had granted her every bit of dignity and here she was spying on him.
Well, not spying, as such, but accidentally watching him undressing.
You don’t have to watch.
But it didn’t feel like a choice. Here was this rock of a man standing in the middle of a bothy in only a pair of long johns and a flannel shirt.
It shouldn’t have been sexy, but Jamie Butler managed to make thermal clothing hotter than a forest fire.
The thickness of his thighs filling the fabric and, oh, the bulge.
Holy moly! Her mouth turned to cotton. She sucked in a breath to steady herself.
But it was louder than expected. Jamie flicked his head towards the box bed.
Shit. Alicia fell back on the pillow, feeling like a cross between a naughty child and a pervert.
She had never felt like a pervert before, but she had been covertly gawping at Jamie’s penis.
That would make a man a pervert, so how was she any better?
‘You okay, Alicia?’ Jamie’s low tones filtered through the drapes. ‘Got everything you need?’
‘Mmm, yes, thanks.’ He knows. He knows. He may as well have asked if I wanted a photo. Alicia slapped her forehead, the sound muffled by the beanie she was still wearing. ‘I hope you sleep well.’
‘Aye, you too. If you need anything in the night, let me know.’
She shook her head and mouthed the word ‘no’ to herself. No, no, no. Do not tell him you need him next to you.
‘Thank you, Jamie. I should be fine. Goodnight.’
And that should have been it, but as Alicia lay in the darkness of her box bed, cocooned in the warmth of Jamie’s sweater, his rich scent hugging her, in no way could she sleep.
By rights, exhaustion should have her dead to the world but for what could have been hours, thoughts of Jamie roamed through her mind like a trespasser tramping onto unguarded land.
The arousing scent of his cologne. His smile.
His bulk. That bulge. Imagine that inside you.
She couldn’t shift it from her mind. A rogue fluttering shimmied in her underwear. Maybe she should…
Jeez! No, you can’t. Not even quietly.
Okay, she wouldn’t touch herself. That would be wrong with Jamie on the other side of the drapes But then a sound made her eyes fly open, even though it was pitch dark and there was nothing to see. The sound of a man’s breath. Sharp and urgent. Panting. Oh, no, please say he isn’t. Please.
But on it went. Puff, huh, puff, huh, puff, huh.
Alicia was torn between covering her ears and looking out the drapes.
Nervous of what she might see, but unable to restrain herself, she shimmied herself up in bed, as quietly as possible, and edged back an inch of the fabric.
The sight she beheld almost made her gasp.
Jamie, still in his Christmas-gift-revealing long johns and a tight white t-shirt that moulded perfectly around his muscular upper arms, was doing push ups by candlelight on the floor of the bothy.
Oh, thank God. But at the same time, wow! Those arms. Beefcake is the only word.