Read Coming in from the Cold Online

Authors: Sarina Bowen

Coming in from the Cold (3 page)

BOOK: Coming in from the Cold
12.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

She belly laughed. DANGER HOLLISTER was spelled out. She looked up at him, and his blue eyes flashed with humor. Willow relaxed a little then. She was stuck in a Jeep with no heat, in a blizzard. But sitting next to him, it was almost fun.

He shut the light off again. “That plow is taking its sweet time.”

“They usually do a pretty good job on this road,” she said. “The ski hill is the only reason why. The rich people have to be able to get to their vacation condos.” Then she realized her mistake. “I’ll take my foot out of my mouth now.”

“Nah, I think you called it pretty well,” he said. “But those rich people keep me in business. Ski races don’t bring in money for the little mountains. But we need the little mountains to keep the sport alive.”

“What are you doing here in Hamilton?” she asked him.

“Training solo for a while,” he said, “between races. It puts me here on and off until spring.”

Willow rubbed her hands on her arms. With the car’s engine off, it was getting cold. She reached for the hood of her jacket, but it wasn’t to be found. Willow had unzipped it last week and left it in the mudroom of her house. “Of course.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” she sighed. “Just marveling at my own stupidity again. I do that on the half hour.”

“Are you cold?” he asked. “Wait…” He reached around between their seats. “Can’t reach it…” He swiveled his big frame to lean back between the seats, finally emerging with something bulky. She heard a plastic click, and then a wad of what felt like a comforter unfolded between them.

“You keep a sleeping bag in your car?” she asked.

“For emergencies,” he said. “I drive around in a lot of bad weather. But usually I pull it out for crashing on other people’s hotel-room floors.” She heard the sound of a zipper. “Here,” he said. “Hold this corner.”

She met his hands in the dark and took the corner of the comforter. He pulled the zipper all the way around. “There,” he said, pushing his end under the steering wheel. Then he reached below his chair to slide the driver’s seat backward. “We might as well wait in comfort.”

“True. And thank-you, by the way. I’d be shivering in my truck right now.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

Her heart beat rapidly, and she didn’t even know why. There was something intimate about sitting there with him under the sleeping bag. After only an hour in his company, she had a crush on him. She reached for the bar under her seat and slid herself back a bit, too. “Now if only we had a movie and some popcorn,” she said. “It would be like any other night at my house.”

“You mentioned food again,” he complained. “Cut it out, woman.”

“I do make good popcorn. The trick is coconut oil and just the right amount of salt.”

“You are killing me right now.” His laugh warmed her.

* * *

They fell silent for a little while. Dane listened to the sound of Willow’s breathing, only a few feet away. He tried on the image of watching a movie at home—a quiet night with a girl like her. It wasn’t very often that he allowed himself to think like this, to marvel at the strangeness of his life. Half the men in New England were probably, at this very moment, snuggled up on sofas next to women, watching a movie on TV. That’s what people did during blizzards.

People who were not Dane.

Relationships of any kind were off the table for him. So he never snuggled up to anyone, never tucked his feet onto a coffee table alongside a woman’s, never rolled over in bed to find another warm body there.

He wasn’t a monk, of course. Fucking was different. He did plenty of that. But because he maintained a strict policy—one-night stands only—he’d never
slept
with anyone in the literal sense, never fallen asleep next to a lover. Not since he was a teenager, anyway. After he’d truly understood that his life would never have a happy ending, he never had a girlfriend. He would never be married. No woman would say “I do” to that—to watching him deteriorate, to wiping the drool off his face.

On the racing circuit there was always a female skier—or fan—willing to open her legs for him. Dane always stated his terms clearly ahead of time. And even then, he’d rarely been refused, especially since he’d begun winning World Cup events. Gold medals were a potent aphrodisiac. There was one skier in particular—Kelli—with whom he’d shared multiple one-night stands. And yes, there was such a thing. A few times a season, when the pressure of the tour got to him, he’d request a second hotel room key card from the front desk. A Swede, Kelli knew only slightly more English than he knew Swedish—which was almost none. When he offered her the card, wordlessly of course, she always took it.

Late in the night—which was around eleven for an elite skier, since their days began early—she would enter his room silently and shed all her clothes. They would suck and nibble and slam each other for an hour or two. And when they were sated, she always disappeared again without a word.

She was perfect for him.

But now here he was, sporting a hard-on in the seat of his frigid Jeep. And all because he was sitting beneath a sleeping bag—with a very pretty girl, but still—like any dope. The racing life was plenty exciting, but tonight it didn’t feel like enough. At that moment, he wanted what dudes with beer guts and bald heads had. He wanted the pretty girl to lay her head on his shoulder and ask him to please change the channel or to bring her a drink.

He shucked off his gloves and rubbed his face with his hands.

“What’s the matter?”

I’m stupid, too
, he wanted to say. “My blood sugar is crashing,” he said instead. “If we’re lucky, you might find a couple of energy bars in the glove box.”

He heard her opening it, then fumbling around inside. “Score,” she said. He heard the crinkle of plastic. “Here.”

Dane held out his hands in the dark. She found him, and a gloved hand fumbled two bars into his palm. He dropped the bars into his lap, and then caught her hand before it moved away. “Hang on,” he said, pulling her glove off, then clasping her hand in both of his. Her skin was soft, and it was difficult to let her go. “Okay,” he said. “You’re not too bad off.” He put her glove back into her hand.

* * *

A tingle went up the back of Willow’s neck as two giant hands released hers. “What was that for?” she asked, voice husky.

“If your hands aren’t cold, then your core is warm enough,” he said, his voice low.

“Oh,” she whispered.

“It’s basic cold-weather safety. Do you want peanut butter or oatmeal raisin?” he asked.

Her cheeks flushed, and she was glad for the dark. “You go ahead and enjoy them,” she said.

“No way. I insist on sharing this feast.”

“What a gentleman,” she remarked, smiling. “Surprise me.”

“Good choice, because I can’t read the labels.” He cracked one package open. “Hold out your hands.”

She did, and his found them again. She tried not to be overly conscious of his touch in the dark as he put an energy bar carefully into her palm. “Thanks.”

He didn’t answer. She only heard him open his and chew.

They ate in silence, and Willow tried to stomp out her unlikely attraction to this stranger. But something in his delivery really spoke to her. His smoky voice in the dark hinted at secrets. She wished he would reach for her hands again, and this time forget to let go.

“So,” he said after a time. “How was he an asshole?”

“Oh, my boyfriend? He…”
He never loved me.
“I fell hard, and he didn’t. And I lived that way for two years, hoping things would get better. But he only wanted a fan club. And a house to live in.”

“That’s rough,” Dane said, his voice a pleasing rumble. Silence descended on them for a moment. And then he said, “Do you hear something?”

She strained to listen. And between gusts of wind she did hear something—an engine.

Dane turned the key in the ignition, and the car hummed to life. He put on the hazard lights, the headlights and the windshield wipers. As Willow watched, a thick blanket of snow was swished off of the glass in front of her. “Wow,” she said as the headlights slowly became visible. “You weren’t kidding about the accumulation.”

Dane whipped around in his seat, trying to see out the back, where another wiper had cleared off the rectangular rear window. “It’s back there,” he said.

“Yay,” Willow said, but she was a liar. As ridiculous as it sounded, she wasn’t quite ready for their peculiar tryst to end. Her darkened farmhouse was drafty and lonely.

“We need more light,” Dane said, hitting the dome light over his head. “Getting
hit
by the plow would not be the best way to finish this evening.”

She spun around to watch, too, and their heads were nearly touching. The glow of headlamps grew faintly visible. Though it still had to be a hundred yards away, Willow thought she could make out the yellow-orange flasher that sat atop municipal vehicles. “He’ll definitely stop for us, won’t he?” she worried.

“Sure, unless he’s a total dick. Like your ex-boyfriend.” Gently, he knocked his knit hat into her knit hat, just once. Like a special wintertime fist bump.

She laughed, her eyes fixed on the plow truck. When this was over, she was going to ask for his phone number. He was quite a guy, Danger Hollister.

Chapter Three

As the light grew brighter, Dane knew he was supposed to feel relieved. But all it meant for him was safe passage to another lonely night in his room over on Main Street, keeping company with a copy of
Sports Illustrated
and some tunes. Or worrying about Finn, the last person alive who really knew him.

Then, as Dane watched, the plow truck turned the corner, heading onto another road. “What the…?”

The dome light was still on, and he turned to Willow, who did not look surprised. “I thought that could happen,” she said.

“Why?”

“We’re very close to the town line. We’re sitting in Westland, and I’ll bet the plow belongs to Hamilton. And he must not have seen us here.”

“Or maybe the driver
was
your ex?”

Those beautiful lips curved into a smile, and she punched him in the arm. “This one’s not on me. Maybe it was one of yours.”

“Right,” he said, his eyes stuck on her feminine smile. He pressed the dome light off again, reluctantly.

Jokes aside, one benefit of being a loner was that he didn’t actually have any ex-girlfriends. The other guys on the circuit had plenty of trouble with those. He turned off the headlights, and turned the key in the ignition. The car fell silent.

“What do we do now?” Willow asked. He was pleased to hear that her tone was playful, not scared.

“Oh, I think we have a beer,” he said.

“It would be really nice if you weren’t kidding.”

Dane felt around the lower part of the driver’s side door. His hands closed around the bottle. He took the keys from the ignition and fumbled with the church key he kept there, popping the top. “You can have the first sip. Give me your hands. We can’t spill a drop.”


Seriously
? You have a beer?”

He found her fingers, and curled them around the bottle. “Give you a dollar if you can tell me the brand.”

Laughing, she took a sip. “Saint Pauli Girl.”

“No fucking way!”

She giggled. “You left the hazards on, and I know the label. The girl in the German costume, with the big tatas….”

He hit the button to shut off the hazards. “Cheater.”

“I can’t believe you just happened to have a beer in your car.”

“The ski tech gave me a roadie. I forgot about it until the energy bar made me thirsty.”

“Here,” she said, passing it back to him. He managed to put his hands on hers while taking the bottle, and again while passing it back to her after a swig. What was up with that? He hadn’t been so eager to touch anyone’s hand since about the eighth grade.

“You don’t secretly have a six pack, I suppose?” she asked.

“No,” he smiled. “I wish I did. But then we’d have to pee.”

The joke caught her while sipping, and she choked a little.

“Easy,” he said. “That’s precious liquid you’re holding.”

She passed it back. “I didn’t spill. I swear.” With the lights off again, it was very, very dark. He couldn’t see her at all, and the effect seemed to sharpen his awareness of her sounds in the dark. Each exhalation, each word she spoke, sounded intimate.

“A full bladder is only useful if you’re trapped in an avalanche, not in a Jeep,” he said, keeping the banter alive.

“Why is a full…? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“Wise girl.” He took a tiny sip and passed the bottle back, executing a full-contact hand-off.

They sipped slowly to make the bottle last, but it went fast anyway. “You finish it,” he said, turning in his seat to face her.

“Okay,” she said, downing the last sip. “But only because I have one more thing to add to this party.”

This time, when she handed the bottle back, he caught her hand and did not let go. “What’s that?” he asked, wondering how she would react. Her fingers were slim and delicate.

She paused before answering, and he wondered if he’d overstepped. But she didn’t pull her hand away. “My pocket is full of raisins,” she said eventually.

“Your pocket?” She still didn’t pull away. So he put his other hand on top of hers.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “They were supposed to be a treat for my chickens. But I promise there’s no chicken spit on them or anything.”

He pressed her small hand flat between his two, rubbing her knuckles gently. “Do chickens have spit?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered.

Hopefully he wasn’t the only one who found their grade school touch exciting. “I didn’t know that,” he said. He turned her hand over in his, stroking it.

* * *

What the hell was happening here? Willow had never thought of her palm as a sexual organ before, but the sensation of his fingertips on her skin was electric. “Do you like raisins?” she asked, stupidly.

“Sure,” he said.

Willow put her free hand into her pocket. “So…How about you tell me something…I know—something that you’ve learned from life experience. And I’ll give you one.”

BOOK: Coming in from the Cold
12.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Daddy's Girl by Poison Pixie Publishing
Gently Instrumental by Alan Hunter
Altered Destiny by Shawna Thomas
Jane Austen by Andrew Norman
For the Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell, Ph.D.,
Taking Chances by Frances, Deanna
Greybeard by Brian Aldiss