Chapter Four
Their plight sinking in, Claire shot a glance at Liam.
“Karma,” he said under his breath.
She didn’t know if he was joking—or how, under the circumstances, he could be—but nevertheless, she looked for that hint of a smile that always seemed so close to his lips.
There wasn’t one.
Instead, he frowned as he pushed the door open against the wind and stepped outside. After a brief inspection of the tree, he came back to the truck. “It’s still attached to the trunk,” he said. “And the top half fell sandwiched between two trees, so there’s no moving it.”
“Should we get the chainsaw?” Privately, she just wanted to go back to the lodge and deal with whatever came, but that would mean staying with him, and she wasn’t sure she could do that without drooling or otherwise embarrassing herself. Like bringing up the chainsaw hadn’t already accomplished the latter.
He gave her a sideways look. “Probably not worth it. There are miles of this road ahead, and as bulky as these evergreens are, this probably won’t be the only one to fall in that wind. Apparently I’m a magnet for that kind of thing,” he said.
She forced an unsteady smile. Was he joking about the tree on his truck? “We really need supplies to weather this at the lodge.”
He shrugged. “It’s shelter. We’ll figure it out.”
Her stomach churned, but she nodded her agreement anyway. An hour ago, the day had been sunny and almost pleasant, temperature-wise. As quickly as the weather turned, this clearly wasn’t a storm they should fight.
She shifted into reverse. “I don’t want to risk going off the side with visibility this bad, so we’re going up backward. Help me watch for the turns.” Switchbacks in reverse weren’t going to be her favorite things, but it beat plummeting off the edge trying to do a three-point turn on the narrow road. Her heart was already in her throat, and she was almost certain it had less to do with weather than it did a certain green-eyed passenger who seemed to have no problem trusting her to navigate in a blizzard, his life in her hands.
The storm seemed to worsen by the minute, and it took nearly an hour at a crawling pace to reverse their tracks back to the lodge. She parked next to the building, where the wall and the trees offered some shelter from the wind. After she cut the engine and removed the key, she looked at Liam and couldn’t help noticing how bright his eyes were against a backdrop of sheeting snow. “Well,” she said. “I suppose I should officially welcome you to Dry Mountain Lodge, seeing as how you’re the first guest in years.”
He shot her a look. “Dry mountain?”
“Maybe in the summer.”
He shook his head, laughing quietly. “I’m guessing I won’t get through to the B&B where I have reservations. I prepaid, so they won’t be out anything, but if someone needs the room, I’d hate for the front desk to hold it for me.”
“Try a text if all else fails,” she suggested. “They usually keep spinning and eventually go through even when the reception is bad.” She was surprised by how calm she sounded. Because now, somehow, he was going to spend the night. With her.
She’d fantasized about the man. She could not sleep with him. Near him, she quickly corrected. The fireplace might be massive, but so was the room it was in. Without working heat, the only comfortable spot was right near the fire. The two of them, near the fire, in a snowstorm.
Her and the only guy she’d actually thought about since her latest ex, because the previously unnamed Liam Chase was safely in her head. Just an obscenely gorgeous man, a little sweat-soaked, a little dirty, who’d stared at her from that meme and promised to make all those unspoken fantasies come true with zero chance that he’d mock her or talk to the press.
Talk about a dream shattered.
Not that seeing him in person was anything less than dream-worthy, but her body hadn’t gotten the memo about how bad of an idea that attraction had suddenly become. Her body remembered orgasms and was wretchedly excited to see a potential catalyst for them in the flesh.
“I’m sorry you’re stuck here,” she said. “I didn’t expect this.”
“Believe me,” he muttered. “I didn’t either. I sleep naked.”
Her jaw may have unhinged slightly. He couldn’t have thought his statement innocuous, but he didn’t seem to have meant anything by it. Nevertheless, her heart rate kicked up a notch while her stupendously misdirected brain tried to piece together Naked Liam from Hot HVAC Guy.
“You’ll be…cold.” Oh, that was just brilliant. They were sitting there her truck in an actual blizzard, and she felt the need to inform him that his underwear would have been to key to staying warm.
He blinked. For a long time. More like he closed his eyes and couldn’t look at her, but at any rate, when he did meet her gaze, he looked almost as embarrassed as she felt. “I’m not going to sleep naked now,” he said.
“Oh.” She could have kicked herself. She prided herself on handling live interviews with aplomb, and here she was with him stammering like a pre-teen staring down her favorite celebrity. “When you sleep later, I mean.”
“I’m just generally not going to sleep naked,” he said. “Not like this. I didn’t mean you needed to worry.”
“I wasn’t worried. I was…concerned. Frostbite, you know.”
He gave her a serious look that led her to believe he might share her concerns. Then he said, “Which appendage had you concerned?”
Oh, dear God. She must have turned ten shades of red. And he didn’t look the least bit like he was flirting. Instead, he seemed bewildered by the words coming out of his mouth, which totally clashed with the smooth-talking, sexy charmer she had expected would go with that perfect face. He still looked the part, at least. Like that was a good thing. “We should go in,” she said.
“Good idea.” He started to gather his stuff.
“Can I help?” she asked.
He glanced at her in surprise. “Sure. Thanks.”
She took the bag he offered and pushed open the truck door, then made a run for the front porch. She was closer, but he got there at the same time, which was impressive considering he was carrying a snowboard in that wind. They burst inside the lodge together, snow swirling in their wake. He shut the door against the wind. “Hell of a storm,” he said.
“Yeah. Some day you’re having.” She immediately regretted the words. How many times was she going to remind him of that stupid tree?
If he shared similar thoughts, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he pushed back the hair that had fallen in her face, shocking her so much with the light contact that she took a step back.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything. You had a branch…” He tugged, extracting a small bough from her hair.
“Save it for the fire,” she half-joked. Inside, she was experiencing total meltdown. He’d touched her. He’d touched her, and he was spending the night, and she’d had sex dreams about him.
Holy awkward hell.
She realized she’d been staring when he cleared his throat and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I actually have reception, I think. I’m going to try to make a couple phone calls.”
She didn’t object, or even give a solid reply. Just a sort of half nod that had her wishing she’d blink and wake up. So what if he was pretty much the hottest guy she’d ever laid eyes on? He was still the worst idea she’d ever had. The worst idea she was still having. Runaway Bride hooking up with Hot HVAC Guy was not a headline she needed in her life.
And who said anything about hooking up?
This was going to be a long night. A long, cold night spent thinking about appendages and green eyes and really, really bad ideas.
She watched him walk to the far side of the room to stand by the window as he made his call. The last she heard of his soft-spoken words were stuck here and she has a chainsaw.
Great.
She headed to the whimpering pile of ashes left in the fireplace and tried not to salivate while imagining him sleeping naked. He still wore a thick coat, but she didn’t need him to strip down to fuel her imagination.
She’d seen the picture circling the Internet. He’d worn a shirt. A white, dirt-smudged, soaking wet shirt. His presumably sweat-darkened hair made those eyes pop like crazy, but it was the fabric clinging to every ridge of defined muscle that had made the man a star. Now, despite the number of times she’s seen that image, she realized what little justice it did to the man in the flesh.
He was…breathtaking.
Clearly, she’d spent too much time at work, around all those soft-in-the-middle stuffed-shirt types. This guy was stupidly ripped.
And she, stupidly staring. Again.
“Nice place,” he said, as if he hadn’t noticed her attention.
Flustered, not even having realized he was off the phone, she glanced around. The ceiling soared, cobwebs billowing between the exposed beams. The two-story main room was lined on its upper half by a natural wood-railed balcony, from which hallways led to guest rooms. There were ten suites, all upstairs. Downstairs, adjacent to the common room, there was a large kitchen, a dining area, and a couple of club rooms. Some of the space had been repurposed over the decades, she was sure, but the current version held all of her memories.
And the Hot HVAC Guy.
“It was pretty amazing back in its day,” she said, somehow managing to trip over the words.
“It’s amazing now,” he said. “I love old buildings like this.”
“You do?” He’d surprised her, though she wasn’t sure why. Just…the only two people who knew where she was—her best friend, Jessie, and her station manager—had both made faces when she mentioned retreating to an abandoned lodge. Jessie had pointed out the city was plenty big to disappear into, if she just kept her head down, but her station manager had actually looked relieved, once the initial reaction to I’m going to hide in the woods had faded.
“Yeah,” Liam said, still looking around, his eyes even brighter with interest than they had been when he was glaring at her for wrecking his truck. “We work in a lot of old places in the city. There’s just something about the history that fascinates me.” He turned his attention from a visual tour of the walls to rest his gaze on her. “Old buildings are kind of like people,” he said. “They all have a story.”
“Do you?” she asked. “Have a story?” Belatedly, she realized the question had an odd intimacy in the cavernous old lodge. Being the only two people in the place, and probably on the mountain, made intimacy a thing whether they wanted it or not. And though she didn’t, she was pretty sure she’d just asked a loaded question that could easily be interpreted as a flirtation.
After a measured moment, he said, “Considering you dropped a tree on my truck, you can consider yourself the most interesting part of it.”
He softened that sentiment with a smile she couldn’t help returning. “I don’t know if I should be impressed or feel sorry for you.”
He laughed. “To be honest, I don’t know either. What kind of sleeping accommodations do you have in here? Just the floor?”
“You may have heard we don’t have any heat,” she said. “Except for the fireplace. I’ve spent the last three nights in a recliner, but you can have your choice of guest rooms if you don’t mind being cold or stale odors. The linens are folded and put away, and all the furniture was covered, but it’s all been sitting for a few years now.”
“I’d rather camp out by the fire, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure, we can share.”
His brow lifted.
“The room. The fire. The…never mind.” She wiped her hands on her pants. “Can I get you some coffee?”
“Yeah,” he said, a smile tugging at his mouth. “That would be great.”
Sure it would. Because she was alone with a man who had no clue how many orgasms he’d coaxed out of her. A man who liked to sleep naked. One with whom she was now sharing a blizzard, a mountain lodge, and a roaring fire. Adding coffee to the mix would only leave her jacked up on caffeine so she could spend the night wide awake, woefully aware of every move he made.
And especially the ones he didn’t.
He might be a walking neon sign of a bad idea, but he was also the only man she’d wanted in months. He was never supposed to exist in her real life.
There was no way this could end well.