Mackenzie
“We need rules.” Jake said.
I looked at him like he’d just spoken alien. “Rules?”
“Rules,” he repeated. “We are stuck here for however long this blizzard lasts. It’s a small cabin.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. What are these rules?”
“Rule number one. No hockey talk.” When I started to interrupt, he stopped me. “Rule number two. No. Hockey. Talk.”
Point taken.
“Anything else?” I asked.
He shook his head. So I shrugged and nodded. “Okay. Sounds fair.”
He glanced at me sideways. “I’m serious,” he said. “I don’t want to hear anything about playoffs, or the Galveston Fury, or saucer shots.” He raised an eyebrow as he used the term he found so amusing.
I rolled my eyes. “Why are you still talking about hockey? You’re already breaking rules one and two.”
Now it was Jake’s turn to roll his eyes. But I just grinned at him, and then for some stupid reason, I started laughing.
“Why are you so chipper?” he asked.
“Chipper?” I laughed out the words. “How old are you, Grandpa? Who uses the word chipper?”
He sighed like an irritated adult might do to an annoying child. “Okay, then. Spritely. Why are you so spritely?”
“Why are you determined to talk like an old man?”
“I’m not talking like an old man. I’m Canadian.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Maybe we talk differently.”
“What . . . grandpa-esque?” I laughed because clearly I was hilarious. But Jake didn’t think so. Again, he sighed. And I could only imagine he was thinking about what a long and painful evening it would be if we kept having conversations like this one.
So I took pity on him.
“I’m happy because I’m here with you, is that such a bad thing?” I asked.
Jake fixed me with those damn magnetic eyes.
“How do you know I’m not a serial killer?” he asked, folding his big arms across his big chest. Because if you hadn’t heard, he was big.
“Are you a serial killer?” I asked.
“Well, no . . . but you don’t know that.”
“Do you plan on starving me in a cellar pit and then wearing my skin as a suit?”
“Not today.”
I handed him the shot glass, which he accepted. “Well then, drink up, Sunshine.” I clinked his glass with mine. “Anyway, just before I came here I rang my father to let him know where I was and what I was doing. I also left strict instructions for him to send for the Mounties if he doesn’t hear from me in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Really?”
I burst into laughter. “No!”
Like I was that organized.
I grinned but Jake just rolled his eyes at me.
“But I did ring him to let him know where I was going,” I reassured him.
“You should send him a message. Let him know there is a blizzard and you’re stuck here until it passes.”
While Jake disappeared to the small bathroom off the kitchenette, I decided to do exactly that. I wanted to send one to my dad, one to Meg and Anna, and one to my mom in California. Since the incident, I was more conscious about letting people know where I was throughout my day.
Except, I had left my cell phone in my car.
I looked at the clock above the window. It was only five-thirty but it was already getting dark outside thanks to the approaching weather. Thinking I could race out to my car and be back in no time I shoved on my coat and gloves, and opened the front door. Immediately, cold air blasted my face and a strong wind hurled snow across the little front porch. My car was only a few yards from the cabin but it might as well have been a thousand miles away. As soon as I stepped into the wind it whipped me up and sent me sliding across the floorboards and down the snow-laden front steps, landing me on my ass by my car. Using the chrome bumper I hoisted myself onto my feet again, struggling against the wind and the sleet as I reached for the car door.
Pulling on the doorhandle I yanked it open, leapt inside, and slammed it closed behind me.
Inside the car it was quiet. Still. Eerie. I couldn’t see a thing because the windshield was already under a layer of snow, so I had to feel around for my cell. I found it on the passenger seat and shoved it into the inner breast pocket of my coat before opening the door again.
As soon as I climbed out of the car, another surge of wind pushed me sideways and I fell straight onto my ass again. Dazed, I tried to get up but the wind wasn’t finished with me. Like a bear toying with its prey it rolled me over and over and over again. Ice and snow were like a rain of nails against my skin and the wind howled like a demon in my ears. Totally at its mercy all I could do was tuck my chin into my chest and hope to God I wasn’t blown away into the dark where I would certainly freeze to death.
Another howl of wind screamed past me, lifting me off the ground and rolling me farther away from the car. But like a beacon in the darkness a strong pair of hands pulled me off the ground. Before I realized what was happening, Jake threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing, and carried me through the screaming wind, his strong body fighting the weather until we were safely back in the cabin.
Wind tore through the front door and rattled everything in its path as Jake set me down on a chair at the table.
“Are you crazy?” he asked, kicking the door closed behind him.
“Clearly,” I said between chattering teeth.
My jacket had protected me from the snow but my jeans were damp.
He shook his head. “Why would you do that?”
“My phone was in my car.”
“And that was worth risking your life for?”
“Y-yes!” I fought to hold back my chattering teeth as I looked at him. “I have three very demanding clients. That equates to approximately one hundred phone calls a day. I n-need my phone.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.”
“No, it’s business.” Jesus Christ, I was cold. “I’m an agent. That’s w-what I do. I take p-phone calls and make deals.”
Jake opened the door to a small linen closet and pulled out a towel.
“You should take those off,” he said nodding toward the jeans I was hopelessly trying to dry off with my gloved hands. “You’ll freeze if you leave them on.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “There’s one I’ve never heard before.”
“Again with the funny,” he said, handing me the towel. “Take them off and I’ll put them in the dryer.”
Wrapping the towel around my waist, I shimmied out of my jeans and handed them to Jake. The clothes dryer was in a little nook off from the pantry. I heard him close the door and the subsequent sound of my jeans starting to tumble.
When Jake walked back into the room I was again taken back by the sheer size of him, and just how damn handsome he was. No wonder he had the reputation of a playboy. In the last couple of days I had read a lot about him and his taunts and trysts. They were all over the Internet. How he liked women. Lots of women. How he was never short of a beautiful woman on his arm. How he could talk a girl out of her clothes with just a look.
Inwardly, I grinned. It can’t have all been lies. An hour with Jake and he already had me out of mine.
* * *