Chapter 2
Colt
The girl, Ivy, is dripping melted snow all over my floor, but I can't bring myself to care.
She's looking up at me with these warm brown eyes that remind me of hot chocolate, and her cheeks are flushed pink from the cold.
When she smiles, she's got dimples that make something uncomfortable twist in my chest.
I haven't had a woman in my cabin since, hell, since I moved up here three years ago.
"Bad news?" she asks, unwrapping her scarf to reveal long black hair in a braid over one shoulder.
She's shorter than I thought, maybe five-four, thick and curvy.
The Christmas sweater she's wearing, complete with a light-up reindeer, should look ridiculous.
Instead, it makes her look young and sweet and completely out of place in my stark cabin.
"This storm is going to be a bad one," I tell her, grabbing a towel from the bathroom. "It’s not going to stop until morning."
She blinks at me. Instead of the panic I'm expecting, her face lights up like I just told her she won Christmas.
"Really? I get to spend Christmas up here?
" She looks around my cabin with genuine delight, like she's seeing some kind of winter wonderland instead of my deliberately sparse living space.
"This is so cozy! And that fireplace is gorgeous.
Do you cut your own wood? Of course you do, look at those arms."
She stops talking abruptly, her cheeks turning an even deeper shade of pink.
"I mean, uh, your obviously very functional arms. For wood cutting. Not that I was looking at your arms specifically, I was just," she breaks off with a nervous laugh.
"Ivy."
"Yes?"
"You're soaked. You need to get out of those wet clothes before you get hypothermic."
Her eyes go wide. "Oh. Right. That's very practical advice."
I disappear into my bedroom and grab a clean flannel shirt and some thermal underwear. When I come back, she's standing exactly where I left her, still dripping.
"Here." I hold out the clothes. "Change into these. I'll make coffee."
She takes the bundle, her fingers brushing mine.
"Where should I?"
I nod toward the bathroom. "Door locks."
While she changes, I busy myself with coffee and try not to think about the fact that there's a half-naked woman in my bathroom. A sweet, chatty, completely innocent woman who probably has no idea what kind of man she's stuck with.
When she emerges, my mouth goes dry.
My flannel shirt hangs loose on her frame, but it can't hide her beautiful curves. The thermal underwear clings to her legs, and her hair is loose now, falling in dark waves past her shoulders. She looks soft and rumpled and like she belongs in my cabin, which is a dangerous thought.
"Better?" I ask, handing her a mug of coffee.
"Much, thank you." She wraps her hands around the mug and takes a sip, closing her eyes with appreciation. "Oh, this is really good. What kind of coffee is this?"
"Just coffee."
"Well, it's perfect." She settles onto my couch like she owns the place, tucking her legs under her. "So, Colt Murphy. What do you do up here all by yourself?"
The simple question hits harder than it should. What do I do? Try to forget. Try to sleep without nightmares. Try to convince myself I deserve to be alive when better men aren't.
"I like the quiet," I say instead, taking the chair across from her.
"I can see why. It's so peaceful here." She looks around again, and I see her taking inventory. The lack of personal touches. The absence of any Christmas decorations. The guitar in the corner that I haven't touched in months.
"Do you play?" she asks, nodding toward it.
"Not anymore."
"That's a shame. Music makes everything better, don't you think?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "I sing sometimes when I'm baking. Lottie says it makes the cookies taste happier."
Despite myself, I almost smile. "Cookies can't taste happy."
"You clearly haven't tried my cookies." She jumps up and retrieves the bakery bag from by the door.
"These are from your mother, by the way," I say, opening the bag.
"Two dozen Christmas cookies, assorted. The order said she wanted to make sure you had something homemade for the holidays since she couldn't be here. "
She opens the bag and the smell of sugar and spice fills my cabin. She's arranged the cookies in neat rows. They’re snowflakes and stars and candy canes, all decorated with careful detail.
"She shouldn't have," I say finally.
"She loves you," she says gently. "The order had a note. She said she knows you like your space, but she didn't want you to be completely alone for Christmas."
The casual way she mentions my mother makes my chest tight. Mom's been trying to reach out for months—phone calls I don't answer, letters I don't open, and now cookies delivered by the sweetest woman I've ever seen.
"You don't know anything about me," I say, more sharply than I intend.
"I know you let a stranger into your cabin during a blizzard," she replies without missing a beat.
"I know you gave me dry clothes and good coffee.
I know you're worried about me getting hypothermic, which means you're kind.
And I know you used to play music but stopped for some reason, which makes me sad because music shouldn't be given up lightly. "
She says all of this while arranging cookies on a plate like she's setting up for a tea party.
"I'm not kind," I tell her.
"Well, that's where you're wrong." She holds out the plate. "Cookie?"
I take one—a snowflake covered in white icing—and bite into it. The flavor explodes across my tongue, rich and buttery with hints of vanilla and almond. It's been years since I've had anything homemade.
"Good?" she asks, watching my face.
"Yeah. Good."
Her smile beams brighter than any Christmas lights. "I knew you'd like them. I added extra vanilla to the snowflakes because they looked like they needed something special."
We eat cookies in comfortable silence while the wind picks up outside. I should be annoyed by this disruption to my routine. I should be counting the hours until I can get her back to town and return to my solitude.
Instead, I find myself watching the way she savors each bite, the way she hums little snatches of Christmas carols between cookies, the way my cabin suddenly feels warmer with her in it.
"So," she says eventually, "sleeping arrangements. I'm guessing you don't have a guest room?"
"Just the one bed." The words come out rougher than I intend, and her cheeks pink up again.
"Right. Well, I can take the couch. I'm not very tall, so I should fit fine."
I look at my couch, then at her. She'd fit, but barely, and she'd be uncomfortable all night.
"I'll take the couch."
"Don't be silly. This is your home. I'm the uninvited guest."
"You're not uninvited. And I'm too big for the couch anyway."
We stare at each other for a moment, some kind of standoff that neither of us wants to back down from.
"We could share," she says quietly. "I mean, if you don't mind. I'll stay on my side."
The image of Ivy in my bed, warm and soft and smelling like vanilla makes my body respond in ways it shouldn't. She's twenty-one. She's sweet and innocent and probably hasn't been with many men. She deserves better than a broken-down ex-rescue coordinator with blood on his hands.
"Fine," I hear myself say. "But I sleep on the left side."
"Deal." She stands up, brushing cookie crumbs off the flannel shirt. "Thank you, Colt. For everything. I know this isn't how you planned to spend Christmas Eve."
As I watch her disappear into the bathroom to brush her teeth with the spare toothbrush I found for her, I realize she's wrong.
This isn't how I planned to spend Christmas Eve.
It's better.