Chapter 16

ChapterSixteen

Sadie

It’s beautiful outside today. The sun is shining. The sky is clear and blue and bright. The snow on the ground is piled high, and Nick will need to plow again. And the air is clearly cold, because everything is covered in hoar frost, making the trees sparkle as though they’ve been encrusted in thousands of tiny diamonds. Outside the house, the mountain forest looks magical—a scene that spills from the tip of fairy’s wand. It’s beautiful. Extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

I’ve been sitting here with a warm coffee between my hands, my legs pulled up under my body in the chair next to the big windows in Nick’s living room, and I’ve been staring at this view. I could stay here for the rest of my life, sipping my coffee just like this every morning, staring at this view.

The storm has finally broken. If I want, I could escape this man, this place. But I don’t want that, and I don’t think he wants me to go, either.

I hope he doesn’t. I want to stay here. I want to set up a great big Christmas tree in front of this great big window. This is where I’m meant to have my holiday. I just know it. It’s fate.

It’s fate that I saw that ad, and it’s fate that I answered it.

It’s fate that the woman behind it all was a tricky little thing, and she sent me here to him. I’m supposed to be here.

I’m here for a reason.

And I want to stay for that reason. I just want to stay…

So, it’s beautiful outside. The sun is shining, and the sky is bright and clear and blue. But I have said nothing to Nick about taking me to town, to the airport. I said nothing about calling a taxi. I don’t want a taxi, and I don’t want to go home.

I hear Nick upstairs, like me, he showered after our morning on the couch. My cheeks turn hot at the thought of this morning. Again, he hadn’t let me give him pleasure. I’d wanted to return the favor, and I’ll have to see that he lets me next time. But this morning, he seemed set to make it all about me.

He’s a good man. Mom would have loved him. Dad—Dad would have loved him too. He would have said all the things that dads are supposed to say to the man in his daughter’s life. He would have told him not to hurt me, and that if he did…

I laugh softly to myself, because my father wasn’t a fighter.

He was soft, and sweet, and kind. Threats didn’t come naturally to him, as I suspect they do to Nick. Nick is hard and rough. And when he has a daughter of his own one day, I have no doubt that when she brings a man home to meet him, he’ll give him a threat or two.

He might even be sitting, legs spread wide, relaxed, at the kitchen table, cleaning a gun. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Nick sending that message, cleaning a gun, casually, like he did it every day.

Yes, he’d be that man—portray that image for the eyes of a boy who hoped to be the man to touch his daughter’s body and heart. He’d be protective like that. He’d be that kind of dad. And there’s some weird thing inside me that likes the idea of that—of having that with Nick. A daughter. Someone we care for together. A child. A life.

It’s been days, less than a week—four days—we’re going on four days and I’m thinking of kids with Nick. I’m crazy.

I’m a lunatic.

I should be committed.

Yes, yes, I should be. There’s no excuse for these crazy thoughts. They’re complete insanity. I need help. Maybe I should run. Oh, but I don’t want to run.

The stairs moan, and I know Nick is on his way down. My heart starts to race in my chest. There’s a quick pitter-patter to every beat.

What am I going to say? After this morning, after he did what he did—his face down there between my legs. Oh my God. How he made me feel.

I can’t even. It’s too much. It was so good. I want it again.

I want him.

I want to do to him what he’s doing to me. I want to drive him absolutely mad for me. I want to bring his body to that peak. I want to make sure that when this is done, and I leave here, he remembers me.

Oh, that thought hurts. That I could possibly leave here—that I could be nothing more than a memory to this man hurts so deep inside me, for a moment I can’t breathe.

He appears again in a dark sweater and jeans. He looks so good. He always looks so good. Devilish. His scarred face is beautiful. I know he doesn’t see it that way. But it is, he is. It makes him look bad and sinful.

He looks tough and rough. Like he could go a round or two without breaking a sweat.

“I made coffee,” I tell him when his eyes come to me.

“Thanks.” He heads into the kitchen. He fixes his coffee before he comes to sit with me in the living room. His big body commands the couch, and his eyes fall on me, making me feel heavy and hot under his gaze. “I’ll head out after this; plow the drives I need to plow.”

“Drives?”

“Yeah. I plow for a couple neighbors. They’re older and they need the help.”

“Oh, that’s really nice of you.”

“I’ve been doing it for years,” he shrugs off the compliment.

I take a sip of my coffee. “I’m sure they really appreciate it.”

“I like plowing. And anyway, I’ve got the skid steer, so it’s not like it isn’t easy.”

“Right.” I laugh, casting my gaze back outside to the beautiful day that sits like an elephant between us. I should address it, but I don’t. “How long will it take you to plow?”

He shrugs. “A couple hours?”

“Do you think after, if we have time before Trevor comes for dinner, we could go to town?”

His body tenses, his jaw hardening. My heart flutters as he asks roughly, “You want to go to town?”

“I’d love to see Cottonwood Hollow. I didn’t get to see it when I arrived. You know, snowstorm at all.”

His eyes are intense on me. “Sure. We can go to town.”

I continue because I’m starting to feel nervous. And when I’m nervous, I like to babble. So, I start, “I wouldn’t mind doing some shopping. I still have hope about setting up a tree here. Right here. I think right in front of this window. It would be so beautiful, Nick.” I sigh, like I’m seeing it right here in my mind’s eye. “A big tree with red bulbs. Maybe a few gold bulbs tossed in. Or rose gold. Ohh!” I clap my hands together excitedly as the vision really comes to life. “I could find rose gold ornaments. Nick, it would be so pretty.”

He brings his coffee to his lips. But I see it—the smile he’s trying to hide. He likes that I want this, that I want a tree in his house. That I’m still talking about staying for the Christmas holiday even though the storm has given way, setting me up for my freedom. His freedom. This freedom neither of us wants.

I continue, “I have no gift wrap. And I’m pretty sure you don’t have any either, you know, considering you’re the Grinch.”

This time he does bark a laugh. “Alright, Sunshine. We’ll get you your tree.”

I shriek and his eyes ignite. There’s happiness there in that dark—a happiness that when I first met him days ago, I honestly didn’t think he was capable of. It’s beautiful. And my heart feels full at the sight of it.

“Thank you, Nick.” I jump up with my empty mug and move across the room to him. I drop down to kiss him on the cheek and I’m about to rise and escape back to the kitchen when he catches me, his hand circling around my wrist. He pulls me into his lap, and I let out a surprised gasp that he devours as his mouth falls onto mine, commanding mine, kissing me hard.

When he pulls back, he gazes at me with heat. “That’s the ‘thank you’ I want, Sunshine,” he murmurs, and I blush scarlet.

“Okay,” I breathe. “Noted.”

“Good,” he rumbles deep and low.

My heart pounds as I slide off his lap and let my hips sway as I move into the kitchen.

I rinse my mug and drop it into the dishwasher before turning to him with a grin. “You go plow. I’m going to get ready for town!”

He chuckles as he rises from the couch. “Sure thing, Sunshine.”