Cold Snap (In From the Cold #1)

by Lee Brazil

  Chapter Five

  Monday morning arrived too soon for Cannon's convenience. He hadn't managed to bury his embarrassment over the weekend's events yet, and he had no choice but to face Scott, and possibly even Finn, who he'd avoided at the hospital on Sunday by checking himself out against medical advice and taking a taxi to a hotel, not the charming Weatherford, but a dubious little mom and pop motel on Route 66 that smelled of lavender and bubblegum and had sheets like sandpaper. The proprietor had been kind, and the room warm, and he'd been lucky to get it as skiers had been flooding the area in the wake of the recent "powder accumulation".

  He couldn't avoid Finn forever, but he needed time to settle his nerves and figure out how to explain himself to the man. How fucking bad was his luck lately that his one-night stand turned out to be not just a colleague from the university—that was bad enough in retrospect, but he'd figured they wouldn't meet much on campus—but also a close neighbor? He'd known the name Finn sounded familiar, and maybe pretending to remember why hadn't been his smartest move, but he'd been lust-blinded that night at the Weatherford, there just wasn't any other explanation for how he could have failed to put together what Finn was saying and realize that of course he lived at Mountain Shadows if he answered the phone there. Who else would the owners ask to look out for the place but a resident?

  He'd asked the bleary-eyed desk clerk for a wakeup call at the crack of dawn, gulped a gallon of foul 7-Eleven coffee and met a car dealer at a Subaru lot by eight. By nine, he'd driven off the lot with more confidence in a newly leased four-wheel drive behemoth of a vehicle. It responded well, but sitting up high after driving the Shelby exclusively for so long made him feel like a hippo in a tutu.

  Finn Lorensson was right though. He felt immeasurably safer driving this car. The roads didn't seem anywhere near as dangerous, though he couldn't bring himself to break forty on the highway and slowed to a near crawl when he took the Mountain Shadow exit.

  The closer he got to the resort the faster his heartbeat, and he couldn’t tell what it was that created the reaction. Take your pick, he sneered at the white-faced man in the rearview mirror. The return to the scene of the accident would be traumatic, seeing the damage to his beloved car, going to his house and finding…

  Surely to god if someone were in there they'd have gone by now?

  He breathed a sigh of relief when the lodge came into view and pulled into the dirt lot. It was well cleared, and the lodge appeared as welcoming as it had on the day he'd picked up his key two weeks ago. God, was it only two weeks?

  Cannon checked his watch. Ten-fifteen. He was only a few minutes late, and judging by the huge, penis-compensation truck boasting of "Siggy's Reconstruction", his appointment was still there. Good. Taking his contractor down to the cabin would get him out of the lodge quickly.

  Turning off the truck’s engine, he jumped down, wincing at the landing. His head ached, of course, from its contact with the steering wheel. It was the aches and pains in his other muscles that had surprised him.

  Crossing to the front door of the lodge, he already missed those damned heated seats. It was the first thing he'd asked for, the one thing he'd insisted on at the dealership, in addition to four-wheel drive. He opened the front door and stepped inside, grateful for the warmth of a cheerful fire. Cannon stamped his feet to throw off as much of the wet as he could before crossing the neatly polished flagstone.

  "Could you remove your boots please?" The sweet voice was familiar, and Cannon glanced around the room until he found Jillian, the woman Finn had called to babysit him, standing by a small cart with coffee, bowls of individual creamers, and piles of napkins. They were supposed to have met before that, when he checked in and picked up the keys, he recalled, but she'd called at the last moment, telling him she had an emergency and the keys would be under the doormat. Her gaze traveled from him to the right, and he followed it to find a stark white, hand-printed sign advising visitors to remove their boots.

  "Jillian?" Her round, womanly figure and brown highlighted hair were familiar, but he asked anyway, just to be sure. His memories of the events directly after the accident were vague, somewhat jumbled, but the pale round cheeks and dark brown eyes had to be familiar for a reason.

  "Hello, Dr. Malloy. How are you feeling?" She smiled, but her eyes had turned dark, and her movements became stiff. "Your guest is in the dining room. I was just taking some fresh coffee in."

  Cannon bent awkwardly, biting off his groan at the way his stiff muscles protested, to remove his boots one by one. As soon as his feet hit the stone floor, he sighed in relief. It was warm and toasty, not cold as he'd expected. "Oh, that feels good." The smile he gave Jillian wasn't the least bit forced, and that was a rarity these days. He'd been faking emotions for so long, reality felt like a bit of a shock.

  You weren't faking it Friday night. He ignored that voice of reason again, and with the damp leather in hand, checked quickly for a place to put them and discovered another pair, rugged, steel-toed work boots obviously belonging to his contractor, parked on a rough-looking green doormat. He set his own boots next to the others and followed Jillian into the dining room.

  A bulky, burly-looking man in an off-white craftsman's coverall, with piercing blue eyes, a smiling mouth, and rosy cheeks sat in a spindly chair, tipped back with his stocking feet braced on the table. He talked and laughed softly into a phone. The man held up a finger and quirked a pale blond brow at Cannon before speaking. "Okay, bro. I have to go. My client has arrived. I'll come out and see you as soon as I'm done with him."

  "Kindly remove your feet from my clean table!" Jillian barked the order, then shuddered and turned, fleeing the room.

  Siggy rose to his feet, frowning after the departing woman. "Damn. I wish she wouldn't do that."

  "What?" Cannon turned back; he had his suspicions about Jillian's odd mood changes, the way her efforts at standing up for herself seemed to be followed by timidity or unease. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but he'd seen enough traumatized people in his twenty years as a medical professional to recognize post-traumatic stress when he saw it. And maybe he was deflecting? Attributing Jillian with his own feelings because hers were easier for him to deal with? That might be some of it, he excused himself, but twice in ten minutes he'd seen her react the same way, like a mouse roaring at a lion before skittering off.

  "Run away." Shaking his head, he turned back to Cannon and held out a blunt, work-roughened hand. "Hi. I'm Siggy Lorensson, you have to be Dr. Malloy."

  "Cannon," he murmured vaguely. Fuck. The man was an incredible contrast to the suave, sophisticated, wool-suit wearing Dagfinnr Lorensson. "Are you…er…related to Finn?" What were the odds? Wicked Q. Templeton would have laughed his ass off by now at how Cannon was stepping from frying pans to puddles to piles of steaming shit.

  "My brother." He laughed and threw up his hands in a hold off gesture. "Please, whatever he did, whoever he failed, don't hold it against me! My big brother is frequently a pain in the ass, but I assure you, I am the best contractor in this area, licensed, bonded, and…sober."

  Blinking, Cannon assessed that. His instinct was to avoid anything even remotely associated with Finn Lorensson, at least until he'd recovered his equilibrium from their encounter. But he didn't have time to find another contractor. "Okay. I gave you a little bit of an idea of what I want done, but I've added to the list since. I need a heated garage built onto the cabin in addition to the kitchen enlargement." He gulped, thinking back over the events of the previous day. "I also want a security light, really bright, outside, so I can see, and an internet tower. Can you do all that?"

  "Whoa!" Siggy shook his head. "Slow down there. That is a lot of work, and some of it isn't even possible. Why don't we get a cup of this coffee that Jillian made, sit down, and talk this through slowly?"

  Impatiently, Cannon checked his watch. "I only have off until noon. I was supposed to be at work today, but I needed to meet you, so…" He sighed at the s
tubborn expression on the man's face. "Can you get your coffee to go?"

  Siggy nodded. "I'll just take a cup and drop it back off before I go. To be honest, I'd love the chance to talk to Jillian again, apologize for being so…Frankly, I don’t even know what I did to set her off."

  Rolling his eyes, Cannon replied, "Feet on the table. Germs, disrespect, you're big, loud, and happy, and she's terrified of all of those things right now." Frustrated with his rising voice and the nearness of his emotions to the surface, Cannon clamped his lips shut and ground his teeth. "I used to be married, have two boys in college now. Trust me…apologize for putting your feet on the table she obviously cleaned, and let the rest go."

  "Okay." Siggy held up a thick white mug with the lodge's logo. "I’m all set. Let's drive on down to your place. I can tell you before we get there though that the bright security light is out of the question."

  "So is remodeling the kitchen and building a garage." The gritty voice made Cannon start, and he turned to find a big, scowling man blocking the door of the dining room.

  "Says who?" he demanded, eying the man suspiciously. Was this the person who'd been in his place?

  "The owner."

  "Nice try, moose, but I have permission from the owners to treat the place like my own home. And at my own home, I have a garage to keep my car, a light to scare off intruders, and a kitchen big enough to cook more than a microwave dinner in."

  "Well." Siggy smiled blandly at the man in the doorway. "The security light is actually against local ordinances. Flagstaff is a 'dark town'. The night sky views are incredible. Bright lights destroy the effect. You can see the Milky Way from the top of the hill over there…"

  "And one measly security light will destroy the view?"

  "One light leads to more lights, and the more lights, the less visibility."

  "Well, something has to be done! It's dangerous to be out here. There was an intruder at my place the other day." His heart pounded just thinking about those strange footprints in the freshly fallen snow. "What does city ordinance allow?" He had enough experience of homeowners’ associations in Georgia to know there was no point fighting that.

  "I doubt that there was anyone out there."

  Scowling, Cannon turned from Siggy to the man in the doorway. His temper slipped. "Who the fuck are you again?"

  "I'm Scott McGregor, owner of Mountain Shadow lodge. The guy who towed your car out of a snowdrift so your boyfriend could take you to the hospital, and capable of breaking your lease without a thirty day notice if you don't change your fucking attitude. As you would know if you hadn't been avoiding me the last two weeks. I've left you plenty of messages."

  Oh god. Cannon bit his lip, humiliation and embarrassment at his own behavior escalating as the man limped into the room. He did, quite clearly recall half listening to messages and planning to deal with them later, as soon as he got his feet under him. It was just that between the move, the weather, and the total chaos of trying to adjust to teaching instead of doing, later hadn't ever arrived. "I…"

  "I don't know what you think DJ and Pauline told you, but no alterations are permitted to the original cabins. There are structural issues involved."

  "That's what I was going to tell him," Siggy inserted. "A little more diplomatically." He smiled at Cannon and shrugged. "Those A-frames, they're tricky little bitches."

  A gasp from doorway drew all their attention. Jillian was backing out, Cannon barely caught a glimpse of her before she was gone.

  "Awesome." Siggy groaned. "She's never going to give me the fucking time of day now."

  Scott gave Siggy a dirty glare. "If you expect to be doing much work around here at all, you'd best clean up your language. No structural alterations, Malloy. Paint, yes. Plant some flowers, go for it. Nothing that can't be undone when you leave in six months."

  Siggy swung on him. "Six months?"

  "I only have a temporary post at the university."

  "Dude, I wouldn't even be finished with a garage for six months!"

  His cheeks were burning with embarrassment, his body ached from the impact yesterday, and…shaking his head, Cannon recovered the Southern manners he'd been raised with. He held out a trembling hand to the proprietor. "Can we start over here? I'm overreacting and off balance, and the reasons aren't related to anything that's happened here. It's all baggage I brought with me from Atlanta."

  Scott unhesitatingly clasped his hand and nodded. "We'll let it all go, and I'll see what I can do for you in regards to better security and a larger kitchen, if you'll come to my office. I have to sit down."