Shelby woke with a start from where she had fallen asleep watching TV on the couch some hours before.

After she’d unpacked her clothes and put away her toiletries in the bathroom—her eyes lingering on the huge glass walls of the shower and yet another picturesque window—Shelby had quickly shucked her clothes in favor of her favorite oversized LSU sweatshirt and a soft pair of fleece leggings that she had bought specifically for this trip.

She’d originally wandered out into the living room with the intent of curling up in one of the large armchairs beside the inviting warmth of the stone fireplace, deciding that this was the optimum spot for her to start reading one of the half-dozen trashy romance novels she had brought along with her.

But after only twenty minutes or so of reading, Shelby had closed the book with a sigh.

It was no use. Reading about somebody else getting some action—no matter how fictional—was doing nothing to help her forget about Walker. In fact, it seemed to only further worsen her mood, more than anything else.

So she’d gotten up and padded over to the kitchen for a snack. She debated for a short moment on whether or not she should bake some of the cookies she’d bought earlier, right before ultimately deciding that just eating the cookie dough raw would suffice for the time being.

With tube of cookie dough in hand, Shelby had plopped down on the couch and switched on the large TV that was mounted on the wall above the fireplace mantel. The TV was a luxury of sorts in itself, seeing as how Shelby didn’t even have one back home. So she saw no harm in indulging in it now, if only for a little while.

After flipping through a couple channels, Shelby had eventually settled on a documentary about the wildlife of Maasai Mara. She’d reclined on the couch, content to eat more cookie dough than was advisable in one sitting as she watched lions rip apart gazelles and hippos charge from rivers, frothing at the mouth. It wasn’t exactly Christmasy, but it suited her current mentality quite nicely.

Now, she groggily groped around on the couch until she found the remote, turning off the TV that she assumed had been the source of the sudden disturbance in her slumber.

That was, until she heard the loud banging sound that was coming from outside the house.

Shelby was wide awake now, her senses on high alert as her body instinctively kicked into fight-or-flight mode. She quickly rose from the couch as she stepped over to the hearth and pulled a fire poker from its holder, wielding it like a baseball bat.

The banging started up again and Shelby spun to face the front door, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. It sounded like someone was trying to break in to the cabin, the door rattling angrily in its frame from the force of each blow.

I should call the police, Shelby thought suddenly, feeling like an idiot for just standing there waiting for the door to burst open.

She rushed to the bedroom to find her phone, makeshift weapon still in tow. She scooped the phone up off the bed and frantically dialed nine-one-one…

Only to curse and throw it back down again when she understood with an impending sense of dread that she had no cell service way out here.

Not being able to call for help was only part of her problem, Shelby realized as her eyes lit upon the mass of swirling whiteness that she could see through the bedroom windows. Even if she did manage to contact the police, there was no way they’d be able to reach her in time if someone was intent on robbing her, or worse.

Not with the virtual blizzard that was raging outside, anyway.

Shelby’s eyes widened as she stood still for a moment longer, completely transfixed by the snow, despite her current intruder predicament.

In Louisiana, they might get a little snow, but it never stuck. Not like this.

Now she could fully appreciate the locals’ desperation to gather supplies before the storm hit—going out in this sort of weather, for any reason, would be insane.

Mentally shaking herself, Shelby’s hands tightened back around the fire poker as a new resolve presented itself to her.

There was little choice in the matter; she would have to take care of this situation herself, through any means necessary.

Slipping on her boots where she’d left them by the bedroom door earlier, Shelby slowly crept back down the hall and into the living room once more.

The banging had stopped, but in its absence, Shelby was left feeling even more unnerved by the resulting silence. All she could hear was the sound of her own heightened breathing, too loud in her ears to be reassuring.

Shelby gave an involuntary shiver that was completely unrelated to the cold.

What if she had only imagined the knocking? What if she was only overreacting to some completely innocent sound that had been caused by the storm, just because she was on edge about being out here all alone?

Shelby felt her spine stiffen defensively. No, she hadn’t imagined it. And the banging had been too purposeful sounding to be made unintentionally by the snowstorm.

Shelby took a hesitant step toward the door, swallowing dryly before opening her mouth to speak.

“Is somebody out there?” she called loudly, so as to be heard through the door and over the sound of the wind gusting outside the cabin.

She cocked her head to the side and listened hard for any sort of response.

Nothing.

“If somebody is out there, I’ll have you know that I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it if I have to!” she shouted after a moment, louder this time.

It was a lie, of course, but her mystery intruder didn’t need to know that.

Again, more silence followed.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Shelby eliminated the distance between her and the front door. She took ahold of the doorknob, gripping it so tight that her fingers turned white as she slid back the deadbolt.

Fire poker at the ready, Shelby cracked the door open so that she could peek outside.

There was nobody there.

Releasing the breath that she’d been holding, Shelby let the door fall open a little wider. The wind ripped at her blonde hair, blowing it across her face and into her eyes, making it harder to see than it already was.

“Hello?” Shelby called, impatiently pushing her hair back as she squinted into the surrounding darkness. There was nothing visible for as far as she could see outside the halo of the cabin’s front security light; just an endless expanse of white snow, so thick and heavy that she couldn’t even distinguish her car from the rest of the landscape.

“Is anybody there?” she asked hesitantly. She was beginning to feel silly about the entire fiasco. Maybe the sound had been caused by the storm after all.

Brows drawn in uncertainty, Shelby took a determined step away from the cabin door, wanting to make sure once and for all that no one was really out here…

And her foot came down on something soft, yet resilient, that most definitely was not snow.

Shelby instantly reeled back in surprise, the snow quickly swallowing the fire poker as it fell from her grasp, her fingers suddenly gone limp.

Because there, half protruding from the snow, was what could only be a human arm, its gloved hand still extended toward the cabin door as if trying to reach it.

But it wasn’t moving.

Giving a small squeak of alarm, Shelby’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. Her body was trembling, but she couldn’t tell if she was shaking from the cold or from shock at this point.

Oh my god! Is that a dead body? she thought, her mind going into a different sort of panic.

What the hell am I supposed to do if it is a dead body? I can’t even call the freakin’ police because of the storm!

Do I bring it inside? Or should I just leave it out here?

Giving herself a mental shake to quiet her growing hysteria, Shelby knelt down to pull on the arm. She felt weirdly relieved when it provided some resistance, the snow falling away to reveal the rest of the arm and part of a torso.

Well, at least it’s not a severed arm, she thought, somewhat detachedly as she began to brush away the rest of the snow. Because that would be an entirely different level of fucked up.

When she had gotten rid of enough snow to finally see the body’s head, she strained to flip it over so that it was no longer facedown in the snow.

And gasped in surprise when the body’s owner gave a low groan as it fell on to its back.

It’s alive! Shelby exclaimed internally, before mentally correcting herself. He’s alive.

But not for much longer if I don’t get him inside and out of this cold.

With that threat in mind, Shelby redoubled her efforts to free the man from the snow. Her fingers soon became numb from the cold and she wished she’d had the forethought to put on gloves.

But then again, she hadn’t really anticipated digging through the snow to uncover a man who’d been buried alive when she’d first come out here anyway.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Shelby asked the man as she finished removing a majority of the snow from his body. She placed a hand against his cheek and—to her surprise—his eyes flickered open to meet hers.

The man blinked at her, dazed.

“Are you…an angel?” he asked, so softly she could barely hear him over the wind.

Shelby felt her cheeks heat, despite the cold.

“No. I’m just staying at this cabin for Christmas.”

“Oh,” he said, as if finding out that he wasn’t dead was the same as if he’d mistaken the time and gotten to a meeting earlier than he had intended.

Shelby probably would have laughed at his frank acceptance under different circumstances, but still, she couldn’t hold back the small smile that tugged at her lips.

They gazed at each other for a second longer, and, strangely enough, Shelby felt a tightness ease in her chest that had been there before she’d even left Catahoula Creek.

But then the man’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as unconsciousness took him under once more.

“Shit!” Shelby cursed as she patted his face to get him to open his eyes again, to no avail.

“Shit,” she said again as she moved to crouch behind his head and grip him tightly under each arm so that she could pull him into the cabin and out of the storm.

Thank god he passed out so close to the door, Shelby thought gratefully as she struggled to heave him over the threshold. He was almost too heavy for her to move, but she managed to drag him into the cabin and across the living room so that she could lay him on the rug beside the fireplace.

Shelby quickly went back to shut the front door before more of the outside cold could infiltrate the small cabin. As it was, the snow that had found its way inside while she’d been digging out the stranger on the doorstep was already melting into puddles that led all the way into the living room.

Shelby ignored the mess as she went back to the fireplace and threw some fresh logs onto the dying fire, quickly stoking it with the spare fire poker that she hadn’t lost in the snow so as to bring the room back to a cozy heat.

Once finished, Shelby turned back to the man and knelt beside him. His eyes were still closed, which worried her. And when she reached out to test the too-pale skin of his face, it was still ice cold to the touch, despite the roaring heat of the nearby fire.

I need to get him out of these wet clothes, or he won't warm up fast enough, Shelby thought calmly, drawing on memories from survival stories she’d heard in the past.

With a clinical detachment, Shelby began the somewhat difficult process of undressing the unconscious man.

She pulled off his damp wool cap first, exposing a shock of dark hair that was plastered flat against his head, followed by his gloves so that she could hastily rub some warmth back into his hands between her own cold ones.

It’s not enough, Shelby silently reprimanded herself as the man still remained lifeless in sleep.

Taking a breath to steady her climbing anxiety that the man would come this far only to die on the cabin floor in front of her, Shelby reached out to unzip his coat. She rolled him onto one side, and then the other so that she could release each of his arms in turn, chucking the coat off to the side so that she could repeat the process with the sweater that he wore underneath.

Holy hell and gods above…

Shelby went momentarily brain dead as she peeled off the man’s saturated sweater to reveal a plane of hard, chiseled muscle beneath that would be perfectly at home on the cover of any of her romance novels.

The man was hot.

Not just hot, but four-alarm fire, third-degree burns, melt your panties hot.

Shelby’s eyes greedily devoured the corded muscles of his shoulders and arms, and down further still. The ridges of his abs were so deep and defined that Shelby had no trouble imagining getting lost inside them like they were her own personal maze of pleasure. His pecs were wide and flat, begging her hands to mold against them as she straddled him, holding on for dear life…

Shelby shook her head roughly to dislodge her dirty thoughts as her face heated with instant shame. What the hell was she thinking, ogling the poor man like a sex-starved teenager while his very life might hang in the balance?

Still blushing, Shelby averted her eyes from his tantalizing torso as she shifted her attentions to removing his sodden boots and socks. She forced her mind to go blank as she unbuttoned the fly of his jeans and tugged them off so that he was now clad in only a snug pair of dark blue boxer briefs.

Very snug boxer briefs.

Batting away her unhelpfully carnal thoughts, Shelby stood and grabbed an ultra-plush throw blanket from one of the armchairs by the fireplace. She unfurled it beside her oblivious guest and rolled him on top of it so that he was no longer splayed out on the now-damp rug of the living room floor. She piled two more thick blankets on top of him, bundling him up like a human burrito, before going about gathering up his discarded clothing.

Shelby placed his coat and boots near the fire so that they could dry, before taking the rest of his clothes to the laundry room that was set off from the kitchen so that she could put them in the dryer. After a short moment of internal debate, Shelby peeled off her own wet clothes and stuffed them in after his before starting up the cycle.

Arms crossed over her chest in an unnecessary display of modesty, seeing as how the attractive stranger was still unconscious on the floor, Shelby streaked through the living room and back down the hall to the bedroom.

She scrambled to re-dress herself, randomly donning a t-shirt and some cotton shorts that were the first things she’d found when she opened the dresser. She grabbed two of the pillows from the bed and turned to leave, before thinking better of it and going back to yank the entire comforter free. Satisfied, Shelby padded back to the living room to check on the man who had somehow become her charge in the last twenty minutes.

Shelby dropped her burden on the floor as she crouched down beside the man once more.

She was pleased to note that some of the color had returned to his face in the short time she’d been away. But when she slipped a hand beneath the blanket, Shelby was concerned by the persistent frigidness that clung to his skin. He was still too cold. She sat back on her heels with a sigh, contemplating her limited options.

Mouth tight in resolution, Shelby prepared herself to do what was necessary to get his body’s temperature back to normal.

Positioning one of the pillows under his head, Shelby pulled back the blankets far enough so that she could slide in beside him. Her skin erupted with an instant protest of gooseflesh as it came into contact with his, but she ignored it as she scooted closer, cocooning them both beneath the massive comforter as she nestled her head on her own pillow.

Shelby tried to relax as she pressed her body alongside his, but her mind kept revisiting images of his sculpted physique, making her squirm.

The mental reminders were wholly redundant, seeing as how she could feel said muscles from where she lay flush against his side, but the combined affect was staggeringly potent.

Well, you did say you wanted some action, her mind goaded, making Shelby scowl. She glared at the happy flames of the fire over the man’s prone form, feeling like they were the ones mocking her instead of her own lonely thoughts.

Yeah; somehow, shacking up with a hypothermic stranger wasn’t really what I had in mind.

Closing her eyes and forcing her errant musings into silence, Shelby slowly drifted to sleep, comforted by the steady beat of the man’s heart from where her hand rested against his chest.