Total pages in book: 12
Estimated words: 11120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 56(@200wpm)___ 44(@250wpm)___ 37(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 11120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 56(@200wpm)___ 44(@250wpm)___ 37(@300wpm)
“Jesus, it’s freezing out here.” My voice sounds harsh, unused. Not many people to talk to up here. Not many people want to talk to me when I'm in town. Only Gemma Stevens… and Lainey. “Where are your gloves?"
She stares up at me, her wide eyes fringed with black lashes. Her lips are tinged with blue.
I jerk my head towards my cabin. “Get inside.”
She stumbles and I reach for her, stopping myself at the last moment. No reason to put my hands on her.
“Sorry,” she squeaks, and my soul wilts a little. She’s intimidated by me, even though I've been as gentle and considerate as I can be. But of course she is. Everyone knows I'm an ex-con. A felon.
And now she’s on my mountain, fifteen feet from my home. Alone. Any woman would be nervous.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I growl. I sound like a psycho.
“I know.” She stops and stares up at me, and a line appears between her brows. Is she glaring at me? “You would never hurt me, Joel Adler.”
She’s scolding me.
“All right.” I can’t stop my smile, and I’m glad it’s hidden behind my beard. I’ve never been berated by someone a foot smaller and a hundred pounds lighter than me. “As long as we’re clear.”
I take her hand. If she’s not afraid of me, she won't mind a gentle touch.
Her fingers are little icicles in mine. I suck in a breath.
“Sorry,” she says again.
“Don’t apologize.” I propel her forward, practically hauling her off her feet in my haste to bustle her inside. When she staggers again, I scoop her up into my arms and carry her across the cabin threshold like a groom with his fairytale bride.
I kick the heavy door hard so it swings open without sticking. Snow spills off the roof, narrowly missing us. I duck inside and carry my precious bundle straight to my butt-ugly orange couch in front of the fireplace.
“Stay here,” I order, and rise to shut the door and knock snow off my boots. I return and tug hers off, tossing them to dry by the fire. I’ll mop up the piles of melting snow later.
I help her out of her coat and hang it up close to the hearth. “What were you thinking, hiking up here?”
“I couldn’t get cell service on the road.”
I bite back another curse. I need to watch my foul mouth. “Why were you even driving in this?”
“It wasn’t so bad in town.” Her gaze is fixed on the floorboards at her socked feet. She’s like that when I visit her aunt’s shop, peeking out from behind the books she reads in between dealing with customers. She’s shy, and looks young for her age. I’d think she was in her teens if I didn’t know she was only a few years behind me in high school. We were in a junior English class together, because she was advanced and I was a senior with straight Ds in every class, barely scraping by. That was Lainey—smarter than the whole school, and better than me by a mile.
Ten years, and not much has changed.
“Let's get you warm.” I can't think when she’s shivering. I pull an old quilt off the couch and wrap it around her, then crouch to rub her hands.
“I’m okay,” she whispers.
“You could’ve fucking died,” I growl.
She has nothing to say to that. We sit in silence, her on the ugliest couch ever made, me on the floor.
My hands are battered and scarred, marred with the blue tattoo ink I got in prison. More of my bad decisions, written on my skin.
Her fingers are perfect—small, and tipped with glossy nails filed to neat crescents.
I can’t stand the contrast between her hands and mine, so I leave her side to throw more logs on the fire. When I turn back to her, she’s pulled off her snow-dusted hat, releasing a waterfall of silky dark hair. Her cheeks are pink under the black crescents of her eyelashes. In the firelight, Lainey glows like a jewel.
My breath saws in my chest. Next to her angelic perfection, my home is worn and dingy, one step away from decrepit. I spent the last year renovating it, fixing sections of rotten wood. My grandfather used it as a hunting cabin. There’s no mention of the structure on the land deed he willed to me—either he’d forgotten it, or thought it had rotted away. I furnished the place with castoffs I found at the dump. I knew it was no palace, but I see it now through Lainey’s eyes, and I’m ashamed.
No one’s been up here for years, no one but me. The closest anyone’s come was Lainey, six months ago, in summer.
Shame makes me snap. “You shouldn’t have been on the road tonight.”
“I was going to see Aunt Gemma,” she stammers. “It’s Christmas.”