Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Ashley

I wake up at 5:30, like I do every day, but this morning is different.

Not just because Carla is curled around my head, nearly smothering me with her fur, instead of on the pillow next to me. It’s also different because my unexpected house guest is sprawled mostly on top of me, his moist breath warming my pecs.

When we’d gone to sleep last night, we’d been on our respective sides of the bed. As I peer around the bed, I can see that I haven’t really moved, but West has migrated over to my half and has his face planted basically in my armpit, one leg thrown over my thigh. His soft breaths are loud in the quiet space of the cabin.

The strangest part, the part that my mind is having a hard time deciding what to do about, is West’s hand inside my underwear, his fingers brushing against my morning wood.

Considering he’d somehow tugged the blankets all the way over to the other side of the bed, exposing most of me and part of him to the chilly air, I’d guess he’d been searching for warmth in his sleep, but that rationale doesn’t really help me in the moment.

He makes a soft noise and nuzzles against me, his fingers flexing and half cupping my dick. Before things can get more out of hand— pun not intended—I decide to extract myself from the situation. I give Carla a quick scratch on the head, and that gets her moving easily, jumping off the bed and heading toward her dish, waiting for her breakfast.

Then I slowly and very carefully tug West’s hand out from my boxers and scoot out from underneath him, easing him gently onto the bed instead of my bulk. I watch him for a moment, making sure he hasn’t woken up, and tug the quilt back over him.

It only takes a few practiced moments for me to attach my prosthetic, and then I push to my feet—one real, one titanium—and head into the bathroom. I have to practice some deep-breathing exercises to get my dick to calm down enough to be able to actually piss, and I give myself a stern talking-to, reminding my dick that even though West is cute as shit, he doesn’t belong on the mountain.

Not that I want him to.

I’m perfectly happy on my own, have been for a long time. Me and the herd and Carla, we don’t need anyone else. Even if the long winter nights get lonely sometimes, someone like West isn’t going to give up whatever life and important job he has to move to a remote cabin.

And again, I don’t want him to.

I don’t want anyone to.

I like my life the way it is.

I have myself almost convinced by the time I get back out into the main room of the cabin, my eyes drawn uncontrollably to the bed, but it doesn’t look like West has moved.

As quietly as I can, I get the fire built back up so it starts throwing real heat out. Carla meows plaintively at me, and I gently shush her, hurrying to fill her dish and get her clean water.

I’m halfway through making breakfast, bacon sizzling away in a pan as I whisk up eggs to scramble, when I hear movement and then a groan. “God, it’s so early. Why are you awake?”

I shrug, turning to face him with the bowl of whisked eggs in my hand, but West’s face is buried underneath his pillow. Well, my pillow. I ignore how much I like the sight. “Early to bed?—”

“Early to rise,” he calls out. “Yeah, yeah.”

He pulls the pillow off and squints at me blearily, his hair disheveled in a way that makes him look younger, vulnerable. His eyes, a dark brown that looks almost black in low lighting, zero in on me where I’m still watching him from the kitchen.

“Aren’t you freezing?”

I glance down at myself. I’d pulled on a pair of flannel pants but hadn’t bothered with a shirt since the fire would warm the place up just fine. I run hot, my large body exuding heat in a way former lovers had complained about.

Though West hadn’t seemed to mind.

Not that he’s a former, current, or future lover.

“No,” I simply say and turn back to the stovetop, pouring the eggs into the heated pan.

West mutters something I don’t quite catch, his bare feet hitting the floor and then scurrying toward the bathroom. When he comes out a few minutes later, I nearly swallow my tongue at the sight of him enveloped in one of my hoodies that I must have left in there.

“It’s freezing,” he says, stopping in front of the fire and holding his hands out.

I clear my throat and focus on breakfast, doing my best to ignore how much I like the way he looks in my clothes. Reminding myself for the umpteenth time that as soon as the snow is gone, so will West be, and it’s ridiculous to contemplate anything else.

After we eat our breakfast—me sharing a tiny bite of bacon with Carla once she joins me at the table as she does for every meal and West smiling at me in a way that makes my cock twitch in my boxers—the sun’s finally starting to lighten up the sky.

West helps me clear the table and starts on the dishes without being asked, and I like that he seems to be comfortable with the silence between us. I’m used to the quiet, but he seems like the type to like the constant hum of noise .

I can see there isn’t as much snow outside as I’d feared there would be, but it’s still enough I know West won’t be going anywhere today. Probably tomorrow either. I check my phone, confirming the temperature with the wind blowing fiercely is still single digits. Too cold for the herd, but I should be able to make my way out to the barn to check on them.

“Any news?” he asks softly when he spots me checking my phone.

I shake my head. “Just checking the temperature.”

“It doesn’t look as bad out there as I thought it would,” West says, voice hopeful, and a part of me hates that I have to dash that.

“It’ll still be at least a few days before they get the road out here done. This area of the mountain is so remote, it’s usually one of the last places.”

“Even with the resort nearby?”

I frown at him. “The resort’s over an hour away, in the valley between this peak and the next.”

West blanches at me. “What? No, I thought I was almost there. My GPS?—”

I shake my head. “I don’t know where it was taking you, but it wasn’t the resort.”

Though he is right. The owner of the place caters to wealthy people who like to pretend to rough it in the mountains and has the resources to make sure his place—and the roads around it that lead to the handful of shops and restaurants nearby—is cleared of snow as soon as possible. The main road to the resort is always a top priority. The only thing being done first after a storm is the area around the small clinic.

Sighing, West turns away. “I guess I need to call my boss and let him know I won’t be making it to meet the client.”

He seems to mostly be talking to himself, so I don’t respond, finishing up the dishes and keeping an eye on him as he wanders over to his phone. I have a booster that helps me get a signal, one of the compromises I had to make with Aunt Marie so she can call or video chat with me whenever she wants to.

I try not to eavesdrop as West talks to his boss, explaining quickly how he was in an accident and is stuck an hour from the resort. “Yes, I understand, Daryn, but we’re completely snowed in here,” West says, his voice tight. He listens for a moment. “I’m sorry, again, but there is literally nothing I can do unless you want to send a plow out here to clear the path and drive me the rest of the way to the resort.”

I finish cleaning up the kitchen, smiling at the sassy response.

“No, that’s not what happened,” he says. “I just… No, you see— If you would just…”

A weird sort of anger fills me at the way his boss doesn’t seem to give a shit that his employee’s life had been in danger thanks to an assignment he’d sent him on, made worse by the fact that he keeps speaking over West.

He’s quiet for nearly a minute, phone pressed to his ear and free hand covering his eyes. I take a step toward him, drawn to him and his obvious distress, but I make myself stop.

“I see,” he says softly and then hangs up.

He stares down at his phone and then tosses it onto the unmade bed, his face doing something complicated. I’m not sure if I should ask what happened or not. It’s not really any of my business.

Swallowing, he turns to me. “He fired me.”

I give my head a quick shake, hands fisting at my sides. “He can’t do that.”

“Well, he did,” West says a little louder, and Carla scurries underneath the bed, unused to raised voices. “I don’t know if he didn’t believe me or if he truly doesn’t care, but he said since I wasn’t able to prioritize an important client, I obviously wasn’t a good fit for his company anymore.” His voice is raw as he recites the words, eyes glassy. He cards his fingers through his hair and shakes his head with a humorless laugh. “After all this time of putting up with his bullshit, I can’t believe he fucking fired me before I could quit.”

I don’t outwardly react to his words, but I can’t help but wonder what he means. If he hated his job so much, why had he risked his life for some client meeting?

“I’m sorry,” I finally say, my voice gruff.

“Yeah, me too, I guess.”

After checking on the alpacas and Rebecca—and stopping Norm from executing a prison escape—I go out past the clearing and hunt down something I hope will cheer up my house guest. It goes against my rules, but the loaded, hopeless silence I’d left him in wasn’t something I could tolerate for the next few days. His unhappiness is like an itch under my skin, just deep enough I can’t reach, and will drive me mad if I don’t do something.

I find a small pine tree not too far away and cut it down, shaking off the snow and making sure there aren’t any critters living in it. I carry it back to the cabin, doing my best to breathe through the mild panic building in my chest. It’s silly to ignore holidays after years of my parents’ deaths. They wouldn’t want that. I can still see Mom dancing to her favorite holiday songs as she decorated the tree, Dad bringing in cocoa and trying to help but not doing it to her satisfaction.

My lungs feel like they’re full of lead, forcing me to stop just as the cabin comes into view, smoke rising cheerily from the chimney. I take several deep breaths, reciting the mindfulness shit my old therapist taught me to bring myself back into the present.

It works—like it always does—and when I can take a deep breath without feeling like my chest might explode, I start walking again, keeping my eyes on the front porch.

This is for West, not me. It’ll be fine.

I can hear music as I draw near, Christmas songs blaring from the radio I have perched on the windowsill over the kitchen sink.

After losing my leg, I hadn’t felt like celebrating… anything. And then, when my parents passed in a car accident after being hit by a dr unk driver the day before Christmas, I tucked away all my memories and feelings around the holiday and pretended like it was like any other day. Being out here by myself, it had been easier than it probably should have been.

But West… His brightness is already starting to fill the cabin in a way I’m not used to, like just him being in my space is shining a light on all of the places I’d been neglecting. Taking one last deep breath, I open the door and step inside, hefting the small tree in beside me.

West glances up from where he’d been focusing on Carla curled up on his lap, his eyes widening and mouth parting in shock as he takes in the tiny pine. “I thought you didn’t…”

He cut himself off, like he doesn’t want to point out what I had said the night before. I just shrug, carefully setting the tree in the corner so it can lean back against the walls. Carla stretches and hops down, coming right over to give it a sniff. Pulling off my gloves, I bend over and give her a quick pet.

The scent of the sap is already filling the room, washing me in memories of my childhood—presents and cocoa, cartoons with reindeer and snowmen.

“I don’t have any decorations,” I mutter, taking off my coat and boots.

West smiles at me, probably the first true smile since he woke up yesterday evening in my bed. It’s big and blinding and filled with so much happiness, his eyes creasing into half-moons.

My heart thuds in my chest, warming me from the inside out.

“We’ll find something.”

“I think it looks amazing,” West says, studying the tree.

I finish stirring our cups of cocoa and glance at it. I’m pretty sure he might be blind. We’d popped popcorn and strung the pieces on some fishing line, and then he’d used aluminum foil to make some ornaments and a star for the top .

It’s pretty sad-looking, honestly.

But the fact it’s made West beam with happiness for hours makes it the best tree I’ve ever had.

He seems to have forgotten—at least for now—that he’s lost his job, wrecked his car, is stuck with a stranger, and will possibly miss Christmas with his family.

It’s hard not to get sucked into his joy. I’d even told him about some of the traditions my family had growing up when he’d pressed me for information.

“It’s alright,” I say, handing him his mug of cocoa and settling at the kitchen table.

He waves at me. “Considering what we had to work with? It’s amazing.”

I smile behind my mug, taking a sip of the hot liquid and letting the sweetness fill my mouth and senses. West sits next to me in the same spot he had last night when we shared our sandwiches and this morning as we munched on crispy bacon and eggs.

We drink in silence for a while, the Christmas music still playing softly in the background as he stares at the tree, his smile a little softer now.

“Thank you,” he says when we’re almost finished with our cocoa. “I know you did this for me, and I…”

“It’s no big deal,” I say, staring into my almost empty mug and not mentioning my near panic attack outside. “Sorry, I don’t have any lights for it.”

West makes a noise, and I glance up as his chair scrapes on the hardwood floor. He places his mug on the table decisively and steps around the table, not stopping until he’s right next to me and staring down into my face.

“Ashley, it’s fucking perfect.”

And then his lips are on mine.