Chapter Two
Seth was halfway to the snowbank before he realized he’d left his gloves and the liners back in the barn. He was used to working in the cold, so that part he didn’t mind. Digging a snowmobile out of a drift the size of a small mountain with his bare hands? Not so much. “Hold on,” he yelled. “Help’s coming.” He doubted she’d hear him over the howl of the wind, but he had to try. The last thing he wanted her to do was thrash around and end up sinking herself and the machine in any deeper. He just hoped to God she wasn’t injured. Or worse.
He’d recognized the snowmobile as belonging to Mabry Jenkins, who, until about five minutes ago, Seth had thought of as a fairly intelligent man. Mabry owned a big apple orchard just down the mountain from Seth’s vineyard. Snowmobiles were an easy way to check on the orchards and the vines, or any other part of their extensive properties during the winter. Seth owned one, too. To hear Mabry tell it, most winters didn’t dump enough snow to make it worth taking the covers off the things. This wasn’t one of those winters.
Seth was already formulating the earful he’d be giving the older man later, as he moved off the path he’d plowed that morning between the barn and the house and waded into snow that was hip deep in places where the wind had caused it to drift. He was wading through it as fast as he could and had gotten close, when what sounded like a faint shriek made his heart momentarily stand still. He swore under his breath and redoubled his efforts, forcing lengthier strides through the snowpack. He was, first and foremost, concerned with the welfare of his new houseguest. But he’d be lying if a small part of him wasn’t also visualizing a headline screaming something along the lines of, NEW WINERY OWNER PERMANENTLY INJURES FAMOUS IRISH FOLK SINGER IN FREAK SNOWMOBILE ACCIDENT! His business would be doomed before he even got it off the ground.
His baby sister was right when she’d said Seth had seen a lot of the world, most of it bad. Given that, his mind could conjure up in rather alarming detail any number of potential scenarios that awaited him on the far side of that mound of snow, all of them grim.
So he was completely unprepared for the sight that awaited him when he finally made it around to the other side of the wind-whipped bank.
Standing in the small clearing made by the snowmobile’s entrance into the towering drift stood a mere wisp of a thing, hands planted on narrow hips, and the biggest, brightest smile he’d ever seen stretched across her pale, gamine face. “Well, that was bloody brilliant, wasn’t it then,” she said on a hoarse gasp, looking almost delighted by her predicament.
“You’re lucky you’re not bloody everything,” Seth said, knowing he should be relieved, not irritated, but that faint shriek had cost him a good year of his life.
She’d already pulled off her helmet, so now she dragged off her ski goggles and stuck them inside the helmet, then propped it under one arm. Her smile grew even wider, if that was possible. “Halloo there,” she said cheerfully, as if they’d just run into each other on a busy street corner. Close up now, with the wind no longer snatching the sounds away, he thought she sounded more throaty than hoarse, making him wonder if that was a result of the surgery Moira had mentioned, or perhaps her natural speaking voice. Before he could decide, she surprised him further by dropping into a deep curtsy, complete with ducked chin and her free hand elegantly extended, then popped upright again. Her smile had a wry twist to it now. “I do love making a grand entrance. Performers, we’re such a shameless lot.” Then she suddenly bent over and set the helmet and goggles on the ground before propping her hands on her thighs as if fighting to catch her breath.
Seth immediately snapped out of his momentary and quite uncustomary stupor, all but leaping through the last stretch of thigh-deep snow and into the small clearing to lend a hand. “If you need air, tip your head back, not down,” he said, taking her arm in a steady hold. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”
“I’m okay,” she said on a bit of a gasp, “just more winded than I thought from getting tossed on my arse.” She slowly straightened, though, and did as he asked, tipping her face up to the sky, holding his arm for balance. She giggled when the snow pelted her cheeks and chin rather vigorously. “I’m not sure this is helping,” she said dryly, speaking from the corner of her mouth while sputtering the snow from her lips, but gamely keeping her face tilted up.
Seth found himself smiling. “I think you’re okay.”
She tipped her chin forward again, then blinked her eyes open as she turned to look up at him, and he found himself once again at a surprising loss for words. When it came to the opposite sex, there were two things Seth Brogan was most definitely not: he was not shy, and he never found himself tongue-tied. Maybe he’d simply been caught off guard by her being the capricious, glib one. At the moment, however, it wasn’t her charming insouciance that had struck him silent once more.
She looked like something out of a traditional Irish fairy tale. Fair skin chapped pink by the snow, red hair woven in two simple plaits that fell to just below the nonexistent curve of her breasts, a slight, almost elfin build clearly outlined in her formfitting, bright blue ski jacket and pants. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find there were delicately pointed tips on the ears presently tucked under her wide, black, fleece headband. It was the not-so-traditional Irish part that currently commanded his rapt attention. Her eyes weren’t the bonny sky blue of his sisters or his great-grandmother. No, hers were a downright luminous shade of teal and azure blue he’d only ever seen in the tropical lagoons of Indonesia, deep in the Sumatran rainforest. Exotic rather than Celtic.
“Penguin got your tongue?” she asked, and the twinkle in her smile reached those eyes, setting the deep teal pools to sparkling.
“Sorry,” he said, trying to shake off their hold on him. That husky note in her voice, so at odds with her gamine face and petite size, had an equally entrancing effect on him. Maybe it was the unusual feeling of being caught badly off balance, or her rather blithe demeanor given the heart-stopping entrance she’d just made, but he sounded a little testier than was called for when he added, “But what in the blue blazes was Mabry thinking, letting you commandeer one of those things? And where is he?” Seth hadn’t heard the whine of another snowmobile, meaning the old farmer had allowed a complete stranger to simply hie herself up the side of a steep, boulder-strewn mountain covered in more than a few feet of snow. It was beyond idiocy. It was downright negligent.
She turned slightly and followed his gaze, down the mountainside behind her, then looked back to him. “I asked Mr. Jenkins, rather politely, I thought, and he said yes.” She smiled. “I’m discovering you Yanks are suckers for a lass with an Irish accent.”
Seth had to fight the smile that naturally rose to his lips at her droll tone. This wasn’t funny. “You could have been permanently injured or worse,” he told her. “These aren’t toys.”
“He offered an escort, but I could see your vineyard from where I started. He laid out the general route, told me to stick to the deer paths through the snow, cautioned me heartily about going off trail, and told me to turn around if I couldn’t navigate easily. The only reason I ended up as I did was I mistook the drift for part of the slope incline.” She smiled. “Imagine my surprise when I plowed right in.” She turned to look at the back end of the snowmobile, which was still visible. “I did a standard eject off the back end and let the engine die in the bank. It should be fine.” She looked back to him, as if that took care of that.
“You did a . . . standard eject,” he repeated, somewhat hollowly. She’d said it as if it was something she did every day. “What was that shriek then? I thought you were pinned under the damn thing.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I think half a snowman went down the back of my jacket when I got up. It was a bit of a chilly surprise, I tell you,” she added with a grin. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
Unfazed by his continued scowl, she leaned in and lowered her voice, and he found himself bending down to hear her, as if the two of them were about to share a secret. “If it makes you feel a wee bit better, my older brother is something of a professional with these sorts of machines. Anything with an engine, really. He’s a professional stuntman. He taught me a fair bit of what he knows where vehicles are concerned. Normally there’s a big landing pad when you leap off. Fortunately, I had a nice pile of snow to catch me.” She smiled up at him. “If we ever get caught up in a high-speed car chase, I’m your girl.”
Her face was just inches below his now. Normally he’d be having all sorts of thoughts about those eyes of hers and her mouth with those bow-tie lips, and maybe what would happen if he just lowered his head the rest of the way ...
Only Seth’s brain was still hung up on “professional stuntman.” She was ... well, he didn’t know what she was. He did know she wasn’t like any woman he’d ever met before.
He straightened, tempted to smile again. She was engaging, and it was hard not to fall under the spell of her gregarious charm. Hell, he was tempted to laugh right along with her. But he was still coming down off the adrenaline punch from the initial wreck, not to mention her cry of alarm might have jarred loose one or two memories from his time overseas that he otherwise was pretty good at keeping buried. And then there was the residual irritation over his sister’s high-handedness mixed in there, too. So, the best he could come up with was, “Moira did mention you were self-sufficient.”
Her lips curved in a dry smile. “You should trust her.” Then she motioned behind her with a gloved hand. “You know, that half-buried snow machine notwithstanding.”
He did chuckle then, even as he gave his head a slight shake. He felt like he’d followed Alice straight down the rabbit hole. Or into the snowbank, as the case may be.
She stuck out her gloved hand. “Pippa MacMillan,” she said. “I promise I won’t be quite so much work going forward. You’ll hardly know I’m here.”
He doubted that, very much. He took her gloved hand in his now chapped-pink, bare one and gave a light shake. His hand felt like a bear paw wrapped around her small, slender fingers.
“I appreciate your letting me bunk in. Your sister said you had plenty of room, but I promise I won’t be in the way. I’m happy to lend a hand if you need one.” She propped her hand on her brow and looked around at the drifts of snow, with more still coming down. “I was imagining springtime in the mountains, though, so maybe that’s not much of an offer.”
“This is springtime in the mountains.”
She grinned at that. “I love the snow. Don’t get to spend much time in it, so this has been a lovely bonus.”
A lovely bonus. “Well, you’ll have a fair amount of it to play in, though my heart might appreciate it if we leave the snowmobile stunts out of it, at least until the storm dies down.”
“Deal,” she said easily.
“And thank you for the offer of help, but I thought you were here to rest,” he said, trying to find his way past their very unorthodox meeting to something resembling normalcy. “Moira mentioned something about throat surgery?” He thought again about that yelp and tried not to wince. He noted she had a thick scarf wrapped multiple times around her neck. She’d had it pulled up over her mouth and nose at one point, as it still had a crust of snow and ice embedded in the front of it, creating a distinct outline from where her goggles had held the scarf in place.
“Nothing to worry about. I’m not an invalid,” she assured him. “The surgery was a good while back. I might not sound it quite yet, but my voice is fine. I just needed to get off the carousel of crazy for a bit. I’ve still got vocal exercises to work on. I probably shouldn’t be out in this much longer, though,” she added; then her grin came right back.
“What?” he asked, curious despite himself, when she didn’t go on.
“That rush of cold air was actually the only part of my race up the hill that was perhaps a bit foolhardy. It was just so ... freeing. My hired airport transport couldn’t get farther up the mountain road, so we turned in at Mr. Jenkins’s croft. I was hoping he wouldn’t mind a temporary visitor until the plows came through. Then I saw the snow machine parked out back and the next thing I knew, I was asking to borrow it. Don’t be angry with him. I told him about my brother, and even gave him a little demonstration. I had planned to drive it on up the roadway, but he said it would be faster and easier to just go on up the hill. I offered to pay him for the rental, if that’s a concern.”
“No,” Seth said. “Out here we do what we can to help those who need it.”
“Aye, he said as much. That’s how it is in the village where I grew up, too.” Her face lit up as she shrugged. “Honestly, I simply couldn’t resist. No one looking over my shoulder, no one fussing after me, worrying every little thing to death. It just felt so good, you know?”
“I do,” he said. And it was the truth. At least that last part. His entire existence in Virginia could be summed up by that exact same sentiment. “I’ll try not to add any more to that chorus then.”
She smiled. “And I’ll try not to scare the bejesus out of you.”
“Deal,” he said, smiling briefly as he echoed her earlier agreement. He glanced at the snowmobile. “Did you have any gear? Bags?”
“It’s all down with Mr. Jenkins. I figured I could retrieve it once the roads were clear. If you’ve got a spare toothbrush and a tumble dryer, I’ll be fine. I’m pretty low maintenance. Well, I used to be. I’m pretty sure I still am.” She smiled at him. “I’m entourage-free, so I have that going for me at any rate.”
Seth just blinked. It was like being caught inside a snowstorm with a tornado. A tiny tornado, but still. He was about to lead the way up to the house, figuring they could exit through the waist-deep trough he’d made when he’d plowed through to get to her, when he noticed she was looking at something past his left shoulder, her eyes growing wide.
“Your sister didn’t tell me you had your own yetis up here.”
Seth heard the snort behind him before he even looked. He briefly ducked his chin to his chest and momentarily closed his eyes, wondering when, exactly, he’d lost complete control of his life. In his rush to save a woman who clearly didn’t need saving, he’d obviously neglected to close the barn door. Seth turned to find Dexter standing a few yards behind him, his heavy coat now caked with the heavily falling snow. Small flakes glistened from the tips of Dex’s ridiculously long, dark eyelashes as he stepped closer, his soulful gaze fixed on Seth.
“This is Dexter,” Seth said. “He’s a llama.”
Pippa laughed. “Yes, I’m familiar with the breed. Long-legged sheep, my sister calls them.”
Seth nodded, thinking it was an apt description. “He came with the winery.”
“Of course he did,” Pippa said, without missing a beat. “Does he like women? Can I pet him?”
“He’s an attention whor—hound,” Seth corrected. “He’ll adore you on sight if you even look in his direction. But he’s a jealous lover, so be careful. He’ll spit if he thinks you aren’t showing him enough attention. And, full disclosure, no amount of love will ever be enough. So, you might just want to avoid—”
But it was too late. Pippa had slipped by Seth and was already stroking the base of Dexter’s long neck, crooning nonsense words to the beast. Seth sighed inwardly, thinking his second call, after barking at Mabry, was going to be to Moira, warning her never to pull a stunt like this again. He had a million and ten things that needed doing and this late-season snowstorm wasn’t helping matters any. Having a full-time guest, even one as sharp and gregarious as Miss MacMillan—maybe most especially due to that—was going to add to that load, no matter how self-sufficient she was. She’d only been here a blink and he was already hours behind schedule.
Then Pippa was talking to Dex while leading him back through the snow, heading toward the barn, not the house, her delightful laughter filling the air as Dex nudged her along while trying to simultaneously nibble on her headband.
Everyone else is having a grand old time. Made him feel like he was being a grumpy old man. Maybe he’d let the enormous burden he’d taken on with the winery get to him. Just a little. He remembered his plan to find his guest alternate lodgings, and that brightened his mood. Maybe he’d only lose the one day. He’d get it sorted out, get her sorted away, deal with Dex, and maybe get to one or two of the items on his lengthy to-do list before sundown. Then he could focus on the mound of paperwork that needed attention that evening.
“Are you coming?” Pippa called out. “Last one to the barn gets to defrost a llama!”
He shook his head in resignation, but he was chuckling despite himself as he followed along after the unlikely pair. He’d look back on that moment later and wonder how he hadn’t realized right then that nothing in his life would ever be the same again.