“No, it’s not. I want to spend time with you. This was about us getting to know each other better. You have my full attention for the rest of the afternoon.”
And she did.
When they filed out of the booth at the end of the game, Chad heard Cassie say to her mom in a low tone, her voice tense. “Mom, I need to go to the bathroom.” Both women eyed the bathroom door warily.
“You can’t wait?” Beth whispered back.
“I don’t think so.”
Chad realized that this would have been the first time since their attack that they had been in a stadium. He tightened his grip on Beth’s shoulder, his eyes scanning the area by reflex. He leaned in. “I can try to find a more private bathroom for you, somewhere in the—”
“No,” Beth said firmly. “We’ll be fine. Come on, Cas. I’ll go with you.”
“I’m coming, too,” Jess added, hurrying after them.
Chad watched them go in and felt his stomach do an odd dip as the doors closed behind them. It didn’t help that Pete seemed to be unusually attentive beside him, eyes roaming everywhere even as he adapted a casual pose and leaned against a support column. Logic told Chad that the women were safe inside. It was a well-lit, crowded area… But still, he couldn’t help that his heart was beating faster than normal, that his palms were sweaty, or that he was staring at the exit door like he was trying to melt it with his laser vision. He shifted his weight. His hands were in his pocket, and he glanced at Pete from time to time, wanting to ask him if he thought everything was okay, but knowing that was a stupid question. After a while, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Sure taking a while.” He forced a smile, trying to play it off as a joke about men always waiting on women.
Pete shrugged and continued to let his gaze dart from face to face as people passed by. Chad checked out other men waiting for their dates or wives outside of the bathroom, trying to determine from their demeanor if there was anything suspicious about them. When Beth and the girls finally emerged from the exit, he exhaled loudly, causing Pete to look at him with an odd expression.
By the time they winded out through the crowd, it was approaching five. On the way home in the cab, Beth noticed that Chad was again looking out the window. The snow was floating lazily down, like dandelion fluff against the now dark sky.
“Let’s go night-sledding,” Chad suggested out of the blue.
“Night sledding? Is that anything like night swimming?” Beth joked.
“Yes, only fully clothed.” He waited expectantly for an answer.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah. Come on, Beth. I know it’s kind of crazy, but…I’ve never been sledding.”
“Never?” Who’s never been sledding at our age?
“No.” He looked out the window again and she watched his reflection in the window. “Not the kind of thing my father would have enjoyed.”
His jaw was tense now and his eyes had a faraway look. He seemed so unhappy and she just wanted to change that. “Well…”
Cassie, sensing something was afoot, turned around. “What are you two discussing?” Jessica mimed her, both of them resting their chins on their hands on top of the backs of their seat.
Chad hesitated. His mouth was open as he looked at Beth sideways.
“Chad wants to go night sledding.”
He sat up straighter. “Manny mentioned that—”
Beth crossed her arms. “So this is Manny’s fault.”
“—the St. Ives-Augusta is on a golf course. They rent sleds at the pro-shop, and he could get me the keys.”
Beth frowned. “Is this legal?”
He grinned. “Pretty much.”
“What do you say, Mom? Sounds like a flawless plan to me.”
All eyes turned to her hopefully.
She hesitated. “Who am I to mess with flawless?”
***
Chad squeezed Beth’s mittened hand before they worked their way up the steep slope to the top of the hill. Railroad-tie steps helped, but the snow was packed pretty tightly between the steps sloping evenly from one icy tie to the next, so they had to hold on to the rope railing, which was supplied just for this reason. Beth was in the lead, while he followed with a short wooden toboggan in tow. Cassie and Roger struggled behind them, toting their finds, one with a plastic saucer, the other with a longer plastic sled. Jessica brought up the rear. Beth lost her footing and came down hard on one knee on a tie, but righted herself and continued to climb the grade slowly.
Chad started feeling bad about dragging Beth out on such a frigid night. The wind picked up and was blowing the snow, making it swirl around them. It whistled through the trees lining the hill to the left of the makeshift stairs. When she turned to him at the top of the hill, he could see her eyes smiling. They were the only things visible between the bottom of her hat and the scarf covering her mouth and nose. He stuck the end of the toboggan in the snow, grabbed her, and pulled her scarf down enough so he could give her a quick, spontaneous kiss. Their mingling breath warmed him briefly; the kiss warmed him even more. He smiled and pulled her scarf back up without saying a word. His eyes scoped out the hillside for the best route for the toboggan. The moon was shining brightly through the thin branches of the trees, so it was easy to find their way.
Strangely enough, he found himself thinking about his ex, Julie. By now Julie would have been pitching a royal bitch-fit, he was sure, telling him he was an idiot for choosing to do this. No, he corrected, she would have never come in the first place.
He pulled the toboggan out of the snow and set it down. “Are you ready?” He raised his eyebrows in mock-challenge. She was clapping her hands together to keep them warm, but he could see her cheeks rise in a smile, eyes dancing as she nodded. As usual, he thought she looked cute. A hat covered her whole head, except the hair sweeping across her forehead. Her cheeks, what he could see of them, were rosy, and somehow, those sexy eyes of hers were that much more gorgeous for being the only part of her face he could see. He held the toboggan as she climbed on in front. He sat down, wrapping his long legs around her.
When he pulled his legs up, the toboggan lost its tentative grip on the snow and started nosing downhill. He tightened his arms around her. The thrill of the speed and the feeling of totally abandoning himself to the moment filled him. Beth’s scream of delight as they whizzed over the snow harmonized with his deep laughter.
At the last minute, he realized that he would have to stop the sled before they passed through some scrawny trees and ended up in the creek. The abrupt stop turned into a colossal wipeout, Beth being thrown off first as the toboggan swung around one-hundred-eighty degrees before stopping.
Chad sat up, laughing, and then turned to see her sprawled out in the snow behind him. He crawled over. Looking down, he could see her face was covered in the snow kicked up when they tried to stop. Oh, man. Now she’s really gonna be pissed.
But she started laughing and sputtering, trying to get the snow out of her mouth and using the back of her mittens to wipe away the snow covering her eyes. He roared with laughter again, and covered her with his long body, bending down for another kiss. The feel of the cold snow around her lips combined with the warmth of her mouth turned him on, and he pressed against her even more.
A shout of, “Knock it off, you two! You’re going to melt all the snow!” broke the stillness, and they turned their heads to catch Roger calling to them with his hands used as a megaphone. He followed this pronouncement up with a shout of “GERONIMO!” and then ran forward a few steps and belly-flopped onto the saucer at the top of the hill. He steered himself deftly to where they still lay in the snow, coming so close that Chad had to roll them out of the way to avoid a collision. He and Beth sprang to their feet and started pelting Roger with snowballs even before he could rise from his sled.
“Ahh!” he yelled, as one of Beth’s luckier shots hit him in the back of the head. She froze; her hand over her mouth. Roger’s eyes narrowed to s
lits. “You are so dead!”
Beth took off running over the slippery surface as he bent to gather more snow into a ball. Before he could straighten up with his ammo, he was hit with a barrage of snow from Chad, who scampered off after Beth. Roger was left with a handful of snow and no one to throw it at.
On the way back up, Chad led, warning Beth about particularly slippery spots. They saw Jessica whiz by on the saucer. When they reached the top, Cassie called out, “Chad, ride down with me!”
Chad glanced at Beth, but she nudged him. “Go on. I’ll wait.”
She watched as they took off, and felt her heart warm at the sight. However, she didn’t have time to think about that as she heard a sound to her right. Roger had reached the top of the stairs. She took a defensive position.
He laughed, panting a little from the climb. “Truce.”
She held out a hand and they shook on it.
He tilted his head in the direction of the hill. “Wanna go down?”
She hesitated.
“Come on. I won’t make us crash like Mr. Reckless down there.”
She agreed and they sped down the hill in the darkness. Roger brought the sled up to a neat stop short of the creek. “That was great,” he was saying when a snowball hit Beth in the shoulder. “Okay, that’s it. No more Mr. Nice Guy.”
He and Beth gathered up snow and charged after their attackers who took shelter in the trees beyond the stairs. They chased the pair up the slope until Cassie and Chad made their getaway downhill on their toboggan. “Let’s see if we can catch them,” Roger yelled, and they piled onto the sled. Intent on catching the toboggan, he seemed to forget to regulate his speed.
Understanding their predicament first, Beth let out a scream of warning, and he was miraculously able to bring the sled up just short of the precipice over the creek bed. The two turned to each other, smiling in relief over their near miss, when suddenly the bank gave way and they plunged with a splash into the creek. They came up gasping for air in the chilly water and then laughed as they sloshed their way over to the bank. Roger climbed out and offered his hand to Beth. She grinned and yanked, pulling him back in before scrambling up the bank. He came up again, spitting out water.
“That’s my girl!” Roger hollered into the night.
Chad, Cassie, and Jessica, who had joined their ranks, came rushing up, barely suppressing their amusement. “Are you all right?” they managed to get out as Beth stood there dripping into the snow.
“Yeah, peachy,” Beth returned. “Why don’t you ask Mario Andretti here?” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder.
Roger joined them. “You were supposed to put the brakes on.”
“Me?” She punched him in the arm. “You had your legs over mine.”
“Ouch!”
She ignored him. “I guess my sledding is over. I didn’t bring any extra mittens or hats or coats. You guys stay and have fun, and I’ll get some hot chocolate going for you. I brought some in my suitcase.”
“I’ll come back with you,” Chad offered.
“Oh no. I don’t want you to have to quit on my account.”
“But I want to spend time with you. And besides, I’m cold.”
“We can hit the hot tub!” Jessica blurted out.
“Yeah!” Cassie seconded.
She laughed at their exuberance. “Okay. But let’s get moving. I feel like a human icicle.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Beth was in front when they got back to the hotel suite. As if in slow motion, Chad watched from behind as she reached for the paper attached to the door by tape. He lunged to snatch it before she could. She turned to look at him with a question in her eyes.
“Uhh…sometimes fans leave some very…inappropriate notes.” He exchanged a quick look with Roger.
She arched her eyebrows. “I see.”
Chad hurried to open the door, holding it open for her. “You ladies get out of those wet clothes and into something warm, and I’ll be right with you.” Beth studied him for a second, but then turned to the girls.
“Come on, girls.” She followed them into the room. Chad closed the door behind them, sighing and spinning around to lean with his back against the door. He tore open the folded sheet of paper, ripping it a little in his hurry.
“Another one?” Roger commented, trying to read over his shoulder.
YOU ARE A LOSER, CHAD! YOU NEED TO STOP USING WOMEN AND TREATING THEM LIKE SHIT! I FOUND YOU HERE. I’LL FIND YOU AGAIN!
“Oooh! Sounds even madder than the last one.”
“How’d they find us? I thought switching hotels would do the trick. There’s got to be thousands of hotels in this city!”
Roger shrugged. His brow creased. “You know, none of this started until you began seeing Beth.”
“So?”
“So how much do you really know about her.”
“It’s not Beth, Roger. She wouldn’t do this. Besides, she was with us, you idiot.”
“She could have gotten someone else to put it there for her.”
“It’s not Beth.”
“Ooookay.” Roger began to whistle in an annoying way as he opened the door to his suite across the hall that mirrored the suite Chad was in.
“I’m telling you, it’s not her!”
Roger got the door open, stepped through, then called through the crack as he closed it. “Whatever you say, buddy.”
“Ignoramus!” Chad mumbled. He turned to enter his room, shoving the note into his jeans pocket. No one was around, though he could hear noise from one of the girls’ bedrooms. He rushed to his room, threw on some fresh clothes, and then came back to start the fire, hoping that James had supplied the wood he had asked for.
Minutes later, he fell on his tush in front of the hearth and watched his work come to life. Flames began to spring from the starter log James had provided, although he hadn’t thought to ask for one. He stared at the fire, wondering again how his little “hideout” had been discovered. Who was mad at him enough to even try to find him in the first place? He pulled the note out of his pocket and read it again before tossing it on the flames. He backed up to the coffee table and looked on as the tongues of fire lick their way up the paper. It crumpled, turning up at the corners and in on itself. He was mesmerized by the red hot glow and flickering movement of the fire.
“Why did you burn that?”
He jumped at the sound of Beth’s voice. “Huh? I…needed some more kindling.” He rose, noticing she held a box of hot chocolate mix in her hands. “I can’t believe you brought your own.”
She smiled, spinning on her heel to head into the kitchen. “I told you the other night on the phone that I almost can’t sleep without it.”
He followed her. “But you said you like Irish cream in it. I don’t see any Irish cream.”
She turned her head to look at him with a grin. “Too big to pack. I’ll just have to do without.”
“I think there might be some up in the cabinet.”
“I doubt that,” she said, but she opened one. She froze. Inside were a half-dozen boxes of different kinds of hot chocolate and several brown bottles. She set one on the counter and reached for another. She emptied the cabinet of bottles and then stood staring at the different brands of Irish cream. She turned around slowly.
“You did this!”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t have you losing sleep.”
She sauntered over to where he leaned against the counter and he straightened up, reaching out to touch her shoulders. She pressed against him, extending her arms to bring her hands to either side of his face. She pulled him down and gave him a long, sensual kiss.
“Thank you.”
He cleared his throat for fear his voice would come out in an unmanly way, so affected he was by the kiss. “You’re welcome.” He wanted to pull her in again, but they heard the girls’ voices and broke apart.
She smiled at him in a sexy little way. Her eyes twinkled, while calling out, “Girls, do you want some hot choc
olate?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. D.”
“No thanks, Mom. We’re going down to get some good use out of that hot tub.”
“Okay.” She addressed Chad. “Why don’t you go in by the fire and sit down and relax? I’ll make us some hot chocolate.”
By the time she came out, he had rearranged the furniture to make them as comfortable as possible. He moved the coffee table to one side and pulled one of the couches so that it was directly in front of the fire. He threw cushions on the floor and sat with his back against the couch. Beth placed the cups on the table near him and sat down. Chad put his arm around her and she snuggled into his chest. They sat quietly for several minutes.
“This is nice.”
“Mmm,” he agreed.
She sat up a little bit so that she could look at him. “This was a great day. Lunch, the hockey game, night sledding…”
“How fun could that have been? You ended up in the drink!”
“That part I could have done without.” She reached up to run a hand across his cheek. “But I liked watching you have fun. Even when you were talking to Manny. I was imagining the two of you as young kids.”
He turned, thoughtfully gazing again into the fire. “You wouldn’t have liked me back then.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was worse than I am now.”
“Meaning?”
He gave a half-shrug, turning to look at her. “When Davy and I were on our own, I never knew where our next meal would come from, if we’d have electricity so that he would have light to do his homework by…” He reached up to move a piece of her hair back out of her face. “It made me uptight. Like an animal struggling to survive on a day-to-day basis. Not nearly the happy-go-lucky guy I am today.”
She laughed. “Happy-go-lucky sounds more like Roger. You’re…intense.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that a good thing?”
The corners of her lips lifted, quivering slightly as she teased, “It can be.”
“Hmm.”
She tightened her arms around him, laying her head on his chest. They watched the wood in the fire glow orange-red. He squeezed her tighter.
TRAPPED UNDER ICE (ROCKING ROMANCE COLLECTION) Page 10
