9. Lucy

Chapter 9

Lucy

K nowing that Spencer Cassidy wanted to kiss me had done something to me. My self-confidence was soaring, my crush on him had exploded, and it was all I could do to keep myself from jumping across this counter and throwing myself in his lap to give us both what we wanted.

He had come in from gathering wood. His windblown hair was tousled, looking like I had just run my hands through it instead of the wind, and his broad chest heaved with exertion. The light flush in his cheeks was adorable, making me want to kiss him all over. From the kitchen window, I watched him go back and forth from the shed to the porch while making the soup. I could see how his biceps bulged even through his jacket, and the tense line of his jaw, as he worked. Both would fuel my fantasies, probably for the rest of my life.

There was so much wood out there that he must have been avoiding coming back into the cabin.

But what did I know? I relied on central heating for warmth. Maybe we needed all that wood.

What I knew for sure now was that Spencer Cassidy wanted me, and it excited me in a way that had me floating on air.

When he first pulled away from me, I was hurt, but it only took a minute for me to understand him. I always knew Spencer was one of the good guys. Having a dad like his made it a given. Since my dad worked with his father, we were invited to all of Cassidy’s Automotive employee barbecues, so I got to see what his family was like. Aside from my grandpa, I had never known how it felt to have respectful, gentlemanly, protective attention directed solely at me.

I felt safe with Spencer.

It was a revelation.

He looked tortured when he pulled away from me. Entirely and utterly tortured , there was no denying it—I saw what I saw. He was all Mr. Darcy with the hand flex about me, and I was into it. The mini-crush I had kept in the back of my mind for all these years suddenly morphed into something I wanted to fully explore immediately.

It felt like he wanted to protect me as much as he wanted to ravage me, and it was a turn-on like no other. But I could wait for the ravaging if it meant I could keep feeling this way.

After years of dating dick-pic-sending, non-committal, emotionally stunted boy-men, I was finally in the presence of a real man. A grown-up, adult man. A good man. And bonus: he couldn’t get away.

Bring it on.

I ladled soup into bowls, buttered some bread, and then joined him at the table without any idea what on earth we could talk about when everything he said only served to put me more under his sexy spell.

He had scrambled my brain, rattled all my senses, and made me feel things that no man ever had, and I wanted him so bad right now.

But I also wanted to respect his wishes. I loved how he wanted to wait almost as much as I hated it. Ugh, damn him for being honorable and kind, and sexy and hot, and everything I ever wanted.

“This is confusing me,” I blurted. I was frozen in thought, with my spoon halfway to my mouth. “I don’t know what to talk about.”

“I don’t either. Except this soup is great.” He set his spoon down and reached for the bread.

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to tell my grandma it was a success.”

A grin tipped one side of his mouth. “You’re too cute. I can’t look at you.”

“Thanks?”

His eyes darted past me to the window. “Shit,” he muttered. “It’s white out there. Whiteout. Look.”

I turned. “Oh snap.” Static filled the air, and I jumped in my seat. “What the hell was that noise? And what the hell is up with all this damn freaking snow?”

“The radio.” He stood, tearing across the room and up the stairs to the loft.

“Great. More good news will be forthcoming, I suppose,” I muttered to myself. “Saved by the static.” I mean, it was snowing again. What else did we need to know?

The mood that had risen between us was dead for now, which was probably for the best as I was beginning to have my doubts that we could keep off of each other if we had to stay here much longer.

I finished my soup, trying not to think about what would happen once we got home. Would this end? Would we go back to our “Hey, how are you?” interactions and forget all the magic that has happened since we got here? The thought of not seeing him after this hurt.

Being here felt like the beginning of something, and I was afraid to think of what it was. I’d gone from vowing to be done with dating and men to wanting it all back again with Spencer.

I wanted a chance to be happy, damn it. But now I found myself wanting it with him.

What if he was getting news that we could leave? I wasn’t ready.

Was I being selfish by not thinking about my family and what they could potentially be going through in town?

Or was it finally my chance to have something for myself?

I wasn’t worried about my mom. Her house could withstand any disaster that came her way. Her anxiety wouldn’t allow her to be ill-prepared for anything. Whenever I finally made it out of this cabin and went to her place to prove to her I was still alive, she’d tell me everything that happened while I was gone, how she was right about all her paranoid safety-freak ways, and how I needed to stock my car and house with more cold weather supplies—which, obviously, was a fair point—over peppermint tea and her sugar-free sugar cookies, which I, much to her amused annoyance, referred to as imposter cookies.

I wasn’t worried about my grandparents either. The Honeybrook would also be okay. It had stood proud for almost a hundred years, weathering every storm that had hit this area. However, they wouldn’t lecture me about anything when I got home. We’d just crack open a few beers by the big fireplace in the lobby and rant about storms from the days of yore and yesteryear and how much snow we’d be cleaning up around the property for the next few months.

I guess I could worry about my four half-sisters—my dad was a player before and after my mother, and during, too—but I didn’t like to think about him. They were all scrappy ladies and would be okay no matter what.

“No news. Or at least nothing we couldn’t have guessed for ourselves.” Spencer’s voice startled me as his boot steps sounded across the wooden floor toward me. I dropped my spoon in the bowl with a clatter. I really had to stop zoning out like this.

“Is everything okay?”

"Yes, for the most part, everything happening in town is to be expected. The usual: power outages, icy roads, fallen trees, and people hunkering down. So far, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. It’s good that the schools are still on winter break.”

“So we’ll just hang out here and ride it out. Are our families okay then? And what about my mom?”

“Exactly. We stay put. Everyone is fine. Your mom is at the inn with your grandparents and sisters. They’re making meals for the Honeybrook Action Center as usual and keeping the road workers supplied with coffee and snacks.”

“I wish I were there to help.”

“Me too. They could use another tow truck. But it is what it is. And it’s best if they don’t have to worry about us.”

“Okay, I agree. You’re right.”

“Also, I found this.” He handed me an emergency radio with a hand crank. “We can listen to music if we can get a station to come in. And you can have some actual music to dance to in the kitchen.”

“You saw that?” Luckily the cringe I just cringed was not fatal and I would live another day and probably find another way to embarrass myself again somehow.

“Sure did.” His smile turned into a chuckle “You have some great moves, Darlington. Prom was definitely a missed opportunity,” he teased, rejoining me at the table and taking a bite of his soup.

“Oh my god.” Brushing my embarrassment aside, I started cranking it and then turned it on. “I know you don’t like the quiet. This is amazing.” It was staticky, but I smiled when "1999" by Prince came on. “How apropos; tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. We can party like it’s—what, 2099? We’ll probably both be dead by then.”

Dying didn’t worry me. Stopping myself from jumping Spencer is what worried me. I slammed my eyes shut when the mental image of kissing him at midnight tomorrow popped into my head. Damn it—I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about things like that—like how sexy he looked in his blue flannel shirt. He’d rolled the sleeves up while he was in the loft, and how kind of him it was to give me something new to lust over.

“What a cheerful thought.” He chuckled. “Almost as macabre as your gangrene pedicure discount.”

I huffed a sardonic laugh. “I used to think of myself as an optimist, but I’ve spent too much of my life searching for silver linings. Those days are over.”

“I feel that, especially after my last relationship.”

“Oh yeah?” My curiosity piqued, and I leaned forward, steepling my fingers beneath my chin. “Want to talk about it? I’m a great listener, and my advice is usually well received.”

One of his eyebrows shot up as he weighed the question. “Do you want to talk about Skip McFadden? And why you agreed to go out with a tool like him?” He finally answered me, and I smiled, not missing the gentle sarcasm in his tone. Maybe he was bad at love too.

“Oh god no. But I have already told you everything there is to know about him. And I get you. For the sake of fairness, you can always ask me about my dad or my last two boyfriends, then we can really get into it.”

“Are we foregoing our plans for board games and poker for twenty questions?” He countered.

“Or maybe truth or dare?” I boldly suggested.

“I never turn down a dare and I’m honest to a fault. Better be careful what you ask for.”

Blood pounded in my brain, and I enjoyed a full-body shiver. For someone who wanted to wait to kiss me, he was sure flirting his ass off right now.

“You’re perplexing me, Spencer. I think I like it. Mixed messages are fun when I know what you really want.”

My stomach tingled as his gaze traveled over my face, deliberately not looking any lower. His jaw tightened with the effort, and I fought the temptation to provoke him into checking me out. His attraction was evident, and I hoped mine was too. Who was I trying to kid? I had never been able to hide my feelings; he knew how I felt. Turning down a sure thing must have been hard for him, and it only made me want him more. The irony was torturous.

“You’re not shy anymore, are you?” His low, husky voice sent a thrill through me. “I could barely get you to talk to me back in school, and I don’t see you around town enough these days to try—at least I never seem to see you when we’re single at the same time.” He paused, drawing his lower lip between his teeth as his eyes flicked down to my chest and back up. The look was so brief that I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching him so intently. “And Lucy, I would have tried.”

“The shy little artist you used to know back in school is long gone.” I tried to steady my voice, making sure not to sound flirty. However, it came out Marilyn Monroe breathy despite my effort. “Writing and drawing take up most of my time, and I don’t go out much. If I had known how you felt, I would have made it a point to seek you out too.”

Fuck being shy. What did it get me? He wanted me, and I wanted him and we both knew it. Plus, I had just survived some serious shit. I almost froze my ass off in my car—literally. I could do hard things. I was a woman who was now going to get what she wanted—and what I wanted was Spencer Freaking Cassidy.

The tension between us was so thick you could cut it as we sat watching each other. Anticipation, as heavy as the snowfall outside, flittered in the air between us. His hands wrapped around his mug, gripping it tightly as the muscles in his jaw twitched in frustration. Unfortunately, the natural conclusion of this interaction was not going to happen because, apparently, neither of us was willing to take advantage of the other.