Hot Winter Nights

by Codi Gary

  Hunter left Allie’s office and headed downstairs and out the front door. Taking a few deep breaths, he closed his eyes and let the cold air seep into his lungs. A storm was coming, he could tell by the gray sky and the bite to the wind, and something about those gray clouds was calming. Helped clear his head.

  Except then he heard Dex’s voice. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

  Hunter’s eyes flew open, and all of his fury, all of the betrayal and hurt that had been churning inside him, boiled up and over as he launched himself at Dex.

  Chapter 17

  After Dex had finished the roof on the cabin, he’d gone into town for a case of beer and some essentials. After two weeks, the cabin looked better than it had in twenty years.

  And he guessed he had Allie to thank.

  He had to admit, he’d wimped out, the way he’d up and left like that, but Allie hadn’t exactly reached out to him, either. Clearly, she didn’t want to discuss what had happened.

  But he was still her landlord, and now that he’d finished his work, he needed to reevaluate the rental agreement with her. He’d figured the safest place to talk was the hospital, where they wouldn’t be completely alone and he wouldn’t be tempted to kiss her again.

  But when he’d approached the entrance, he’d seen Hunter standing out front by the big oak, looking a little nauseated.

  Dex had called out a greeting as he approached, but when Hunter opened his eyes, Dex had paused and took in his molten red face and furious expression.

  She’d told him.

  “Ah, hell—oomph!”

  Hunter tackled him to the ground, and for the second time in two weeks, Dex had the wind knocked out of him.

  “You son of a bitch!” Hunter threw a right hook that made Dex’s cheek explode. The same cheek the biker had punched, too. Stars popped around Hunter’s head as Dex tried to focus. “Lying piece of shit, you’re supposed to be my best friend.”

  Dex recovered his wits enough to raise his arms to protect his face, and as soon as Hunter’s weight shifted, he bucked, dislodging Hunter. He climbed to his feet and held out his hands in defense.

  “It’s not what you think, Hunt—”

  “What I think is that I told you I was interested in Allie, and you said go for it. Then, the minute my back was turned, you made a play for her. That’s what I think.”

  Dex couldn’t argue the semantics, but it was more complicated than that. “I didn’t mean to kiss her, it just—”

  “Don’t say it just happened. That’s a cop-out and you know it. Man up and tell me you want her. Don’t be a coward.”

  “I don’t want her, okay?” Dex yelled. “I don’t. I am not interested in her, not for anything more than a casual f—”

  Dex closed his mouth when he saw her, standing in the crowd he hadn’t even noticed. This time, he couldn’t walk away from the pain on her face. It became ingrained in his memory.

  Hunter grabbed him up by his shirt, and he waited for the blow he deserved. It never came.

  Hunter shoved him away from him, disgust oozing from his tone. “You’re not worth it.”

  As Hunter turned and walked away toward the side entrance, Dex glanced back to where Allie had been standing, but she was gone.

  Allie wiped at her red, wet eyes as she searched for Hunter, trying to avoid every gaze that followed her as she passed. It had only been ten minutes, but she knew people were gossiping, speculating about her and what she’d done to cause two grown men to fight over her in front of her hospital.

  Seems like she’d figured out a new way to screw up her life. She had been in town for barely three weeks and she’d managed not only to pit two best friends against each other but to discredit herself in front of her staff.

  She’d tried to fight the tears, but what Dex had been about to say hurt. She’d known, deep down, that she didn’t mean anything to him. That what happened had been a mistake, but having him announce it in front of everyone…

  It had been hard to hide the effect that’d had on her.

  Allie opened the door to one of the on-call rooms and found Hunter lying back on one of the bunks.

  He glanced her way as she came inside and locked the door. “What are you doing?”

  Allie held up the first aid kit she was carrying. “I thought you could use some patching up.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Allie ignored him and sat down on the bunk next to him. Opening up the kit, she pulled out an alcohol pad and ripped it open. She picked up his right knuckle, cracked and bruised, and gently wiped at the blood crusting. When he hissed in pain, she blew on it softly until he relaxed.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  She smoothed the antiseptic ointment over his knuckle and wrapped a layer of gauze around it. “I want to.” Once it was secured with tape, she set it back down along his side. “I’m really sorry. I never wanted to cause problems between the two of you.”

  “The problem is that he lied to me. It has nothing to do with you.” He turned to look at her, piercing her with those blue eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you…do you have feelings for me? Or was that all in my head?”

  “Yes, I do, it’s just—”

  “You have feelings for him, too? Be honest.”

  Allie didn’t want to answer, but he deserved the truth. “I don’t know exactly what I feel for him. Right now, I’m disgusted with him and myself, but—”

  “Look, I’m not giving you some ultimatum. I’m not that guy, and despite how things are between us right now, Dex is a friend of mine. I’m not taking myself out of the running, but you don’t owe me anything, either.”

  Then, to her surprise, he leaned up and cupped the back of her head, bringing her down for a hard, fast kiss that caused another stir inside her. When he released her, she was a little dazed by it.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  “That? That was something to think about.”

  Chapter 18

  Dex was sitting on the front porch of the cabin when Allie got home from work. When Allie saw him, her hands tightened on the steering wheel before she turned the car off and stepped out. Her stomach twisted and churned, tying her insides up in knots as she approached.

  Dex stood up. “Allie—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t.”

  His full lips compressed into a hard line, and she could tell his green eyes were blazing in the porch light.

  “Fine, I just came by to apologize for earlier. What I said was out of line, and I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” Allie wished her voice hadn’t trembled on the word as she tried to pass him. When he reached out to try to stop her, she said, “Don’t you dare touch me.”

  Dex threw his hands up in the air. “All right, I won’t, but we still need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About the cabin. I finished the repairs and we need to talk about rent.”

  Allie gaped at him, completely taken aback. After everything that had happened, he was here for money? She stiffened and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Belmont, I’ll have the check to you first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Come on, Allie—”

  “Good night.”

  With a heavy sigh, he let her pass, and she pushed through the door, slamming it behind her.

  Penny held up a bottle of wine. “So I heard you had an interesting afternoon.”

  “How did you hear that?”

  “My phone’s been blowing up all day with questions about you. All the single men in town want to do you, and the women want to know what your secret is. I mean, if you can get two guys like Dex Belmont and Hunter Gracin to have a parking-lot brawl, you’ve gotta be dynamite in the sack.”

  “Kill me now,” Allie groaned.

  “No way! You are stirring things up around here. I mean, the most drama this town sees is on The Bachelor. You, my friend, are my new hero.”

  Allie grabbed two wineg
lasses from the cupboard and held one out to Penny. “Don’t you have a bar to work at?”

  “Called in sick. Figured you could use a little more estrogen and a lot less testosterone in your life.”

  “What I need is a time machine.”

  “Sorry, all out of TARDISes,” Penny said as she poured Allie a glass of wine, nearly full to the brim. “But a few of these might help you block it all out for a little while.”

  The next morning, Dex slammed his fists into the sides of his punching bag, putting all of his self-loathing and bitterness into every blow. God, he had messed everything up, even his apology. He hadn’t meant to talk about rent at all, but when she’d tried to blow past him without giving him a chance to explain, he’d lashed out.

  Bluebell let out a loud howl as someone pounded on his front door.

  Dex, shirtless and covered in sweat, jogged from his gym room to answer it and found Allie standing on his front step with an envelope.

  “Here you go. You are paid up for six months, so there is no reason for us to have any other contact except in a professional capacity.”

  Dex took the envelope, slapping it against his thigh. “Come on, Allie, I get that I handled all of this badly, but we live next door to each other. We are going to see each other around town.”

  “Seeing each other out and about is fine. It’s the being-alone-together part we have a problem with.”

  Hoping to break through her anger, he tried to tease her. “Are you saying that you have no self-control when it comes to me?”

  Her dark-brown eyes were so cold, his smile slipped. “Actually, at this moment, I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last man on earth.”

  With that, Allie spun on her heels and walked to her Jetta. Dex watched her disappear down the road, and when she was out of sight, he slammed the door. Bluebell was lying across the floor watching him pace, and for some reason, he found himself talking to the dog.

  “Why can’t she just accept that I messed up? We all make mistakes and say things we shouldn’t. It’s not as if I set out to hurt her.”

  Bluebell lifted her head and yawned, but Dex kept talking.

  “I mean, I said I was sorry, and she’s not exactly innocent. She kissed me back; she let me.…”

  God, when she’d come on his hand, all he’d wanted to do was rip off her pants and bury himself inside her. To make love to her until she was screaming his name. He’d wanted to possess her, to brand her as his. It had scared the hell out of him.

  So he’d taken the easy way out and bailed. He’d pushed her away and that made him a horrible guy.

  And even more, he was the guy who lost his best friend.

  Sitting on the couch, he rubbed his hands over his face, breathing deep. When Bluebell stuck her wet nose under his chin and nuzzled him, he let his hands drop to stroke her soft ears.

  “I guess I really screwed up this time, huh, girl?”

  Chapter 19

  The first major snowstorm of the season raged around Allie as she stood over her car engine, cursing. It was just past nine in the evening, freezing, and Allie wished for the millionth time that she’d left work before the storm hit, but with half her staff gone for Thanksgiving, she’d stayed late to help.

  I could be back in New York right now.

  But even surviving a blizzard was better than taking snide comments from her mother and long-winded lectures from her father for four days. No. Allie had decided to weather the storm from the warmth of her cabin. Instead, her car wouldn’t start and the cold was eating through her clothes, numbing her skin painfully.

  Out of the darkness and swirling snow, a buzzing engine and single headlight zoomed into the parking lot. The snowmobile stopped behind her car, and the bundled-up driver got up, making his way toward her.

  She recognized his strut before he even took off his helmet. Dex. She’d actually managed to avoid him for the past two weeks, even the few times she’d gone out with Penny or Hunter and a few other people from the hospital. She hadn’t asked Hunter if the two of them were talking, because she didn’t think it was her place.

  “Are you all right?” Dex asked loudly. His deep baritone swirled around her in the wind, and she shivered, a reflex she swore was from the cold and not because she’d missed the sound of his voice.

  “I’m fine.” This was the first conversation they’d had in weeks, and she still wasn’t ready for it.

  “Sure you are. That’s why you’re standing outside, staring under your hood in a blizzard, right?”

  He had a point. “My car won’t start.”

  Dex ducked inside, flipping on a flashlight she hadn’t seen in his other hand. “Your battery is probably frozen. Have you checked it lately?”

  “No, I’ve been busy.”

  “Well, NAPA is closed by now. Here”—he handed her his helmet—“hop on the back and I’ll give you a ride home.”

  She shoved the helmet back at him, a little harder than necessary. “Thanks, but I’ll get a ride from someone inside.”

  Even in the dark storm, the parking-lot light showed that his green eyes were blazing. “Are you seriously going to make someone drive out of their way in a snowstorm just to spite me?”

  “I’ll stay with Penny, then.”

  With a shake of his head that sent snow flying off his hair, he said, “Suit yourself.”

  But as he walked back to his snowmobile, Allie reconsidered her options. Penny had left Allie’s place before the storm hit, meaning Kermit had been locked in his cage for at least four hours. There was no way in hell she was going to ask Dex to check in on him. She didn’t need to owe him any more favors.

  Thinking about Kermit’s adorable, lonely face as he lay locked in his cage, though…

  “Wait!” Slamming the hood of her car down and grabbing her purse off the front seat, she trudged through the snow to catch up.

  He paused, straddling the snowmobile and watching her with one raised eyebrow.

  “Can you please give me a ride home?”

  Folding his arms, the helmet still dangling from his hand, he seemed to be considering. Unlike her shivering body, he appeared oblivious to the cold, and it made her hate him more than she already did.

  If I really hated him, then I wouldn’t think about him a hundred times a day.

  “Say ‘I’m sorry, Dex, for being rude’ first,” he said.

  “What are you, five?” she asked.

  He didn’t respond, just sat there with that annoying eyebrow arched, waiting expectantly.

  She decided she could still despise someone and be attracted to them. Through gritted teeth, she muttered, “I’m sorry, Dex, for being rude.”

  Giving her the helmet, he waited until she was on the back of the snowmobile with her arms wrapped around him before he started the engine. As he blazed out of the parking lot and up the road toward home, she held on tight, the wind in her face like a thousand needles piercing her skin. Finally, she laid her cheek against Dex’s back and closed her eyes. The ride was bumpy and long, and by the time he pulled into his garage, she was shaking so badly she could hardly stand.

  “Why don’t you come inside and get warmed up?” he asked.

  “No, thanks, I’ve got to let Kermit out.”

  “I can get Kermit—”

  “It’s not going to happen,” she said harshly. Taking a deep breath, she tried again with a little less bite to it. “Thank you very much for the ride. Good night.”

  She turned and made her way out of the warm garage and up the hill toward the cabin, the snow blinding her. Finally, she burst inside and flipped on the light so she could see Kermit, but nothing happened. She continued fiddling with the switch, and finally groaned in frustration. She could hear Kermit whimpering and realized how frigid it was inside.

  As if the heat had been off for hours.

  The dark and the cold were beginning to cause a claustrophobic tightness to wrap around her. She had always hated the dark, because her imagination always w
ent to what might be lurking there. Fumbling in her purse for her phone, she called Dex, trying to make her way toward Kermit’s cage by feel.

  “Change your mind about coming over?”

  “No, but my power is out and I can’t see anything. Can you bring a flashlight and flip the breakers for me?”

  She could hear his heavy sigh through the phone. “Why don’t you bring Kermit and wait out the storm with me? I have a backup generator and a fireplace—”

  “God, can’t you just, for once, do something nice without acting like it is an inconvenience to you?” Her voice came out shrill and panicked. Silence on the other end had her checking to see if the call had dropped, but no, he was still there.

  Way to go. Insult the only person who can help.

  “I didn’t mean that, I just…I don’t like the dark.”

  After what seemed like forever, he finally spoke. “I’ll be right there.”

  As Dex came through the door, the snow slid down his neck and under his collar, making him shiver. Or maybe it was the freezing, dark room. No wonder Allie hadn’t wanted to go searching for the breaker box.

  Turning on the flashlight, he shone it around the room until he found her sitting on the couch, holding Kermit.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t find my flashlight or I would have gone out and tried to flip them myself,” she said.

  “Well, come stand at the door and let me know if anything happens when I try the breakers. The less time I stay out in the cold, the better.”

  Allie stood up and he could hear the tread of her feet behind him as she followed him to the door. He went around the side of the cabin and yanked the box open. He started pushing the breakers back and forth. “Anything?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Shit.” Closing the box, he hurried back into the house, as if it would be any warmer there than outside.

  “You can’t fix it?”

  “No, not in this weather. You’re going to have to stay at my place tonight, so why don’t you go grab a few things—”