Unable to tolerate the sight of the silly wig a moment longer, Ella snatched it from Brady’s head and tossed it on the front passenger seat before putting the vehicle back in gear and starting up the road.
“The…Je..Je…Jeep…we need to get it.” Brady stammered, as his body shivered uncontrollably.
“I assume it’s at the side of the road someplace.”
Ella’s annoyance was obvious. Brady wondered why she sounded so angry, considering he was the one who was freezing while she was nice and dry.
“Yes, we… we need to get it.”
“I don’t think so. We’re getting you to my cabin where you can get out of those clothes and dry off, before you get a nasty case of frostbite.” If you haven’t already, she added silently.
“No…no…” Brady shivered. “I’ve rented a cabin. Please take me there, I’ll pay you.”
“Sorry, but my cabin’s closer. I’m taking you there,” Ella said stubbornly.
“I’m not having sex with you,” Brady insisted, still shivering uncontrollably as he tried to absorb the dog’s warmth. This was his nightmare. He was going to be held captive by some deranged fan. It was obvious she’d followed him up to the mountain.
“Excuse me?” Ella shrieked. Did I hear him right?
“I’m just making it perfectly clear,” Brady answered as he continued to hug Sam. “I appreciate that you picked me up, and I’ll be happy to pay you for your services, but if you thought following me up here would…”
“You think I followed you up here?”
“Didn’t you?” He was unable to stop shivering, making his voice raspy.
“Why, you jackass! I should have left you on the side of the road to freeze. No, I didn’t follow you up here. And if I had, how would I have known you would be so reckless as to go wandering out in a blizzard?’
Brady considered her words for a moment, and realized she had a point.
“I’m sorry. I just assumed. Why… why are you up here?”
“I have a cabin up here. I believe I mentioned that a moment ago,” Ella spat angrily. “Although, you do make such an attractive figure wearing that silly blond wig sideways,” she added with a snort. At the mention of the wig, Brady felt his face flush. He suddenly realized how foolish he must have looked, stumbling down the road wearing the ill-fitting hair piece.
It was obvious he pissed off his rescuer, so he decided to remain quiet for the rest of the drive. He needed to clear his head and reestablish feeling to his fingers and toes.
Minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of a large log cabin. Ella reached to the center console and pulled out the garage door opener. After giving it a click, the garage door began to open.
“When we get in the house, I’ll start a hot shower for you, so you can get warm. Don’t worry; your virtue is safe with me.”
After driving into the garage and turning off the engine, Ella pushed the garage door opener again, sending the automatic door closing behind them. She quickly got from the vehicle. Glancing in the backseat, she saw Sam practically sitting on Brady’s lap. Moving to the passenger side of the car, she opened the back door. Brady assumed she intended to help him out, so he immediately told her he could get out on his own. Ella glared at him and then asked him to please get out of the car so she could help her dog.
He wasn’t sure why the dog needed help, but he got from the vehicle and stood shivering in the garage as Ella reached in the back seat and physically guided Sam down onto the concrete floor of the garage.
“Why doesn’t she just jump out?” Brady asked, hugging his own body and still shivering.
“Because she can’t,” Ella said as she shot him another angry look. Without saying a word, she walked into the cabin, leaving Sam and Brady to follow in her wake.
Chapter Five
Ella went immediately to the downstairs bathroom and turned on the small wall heater. Silently, Brady, who was still trembling, followed her into the room with Sam trailing behind him. The dog stood in the doorway and watched as Brady started rubbing his hands together in front of the hot red coils of the space heater.
“You might have frostbite; I don’t think you are supposed to rub your hands together like that. Get your wet clothes off and stick your hands under your armpits while I get the water warm,” Ella instructed as she opened the shower door and turned on the hot water. She knew the water was icy cold, and would take a few minutes to warm up.
The two stood in the small space with Sam looking on. The dog sniffed the air around the wet stranger. Brady didn’t seem embarrassed about stripping in front of Ella, and immediately jerked off his jacket, and then sweatshirt.
“I’m going to the kitchen and grab a thermometer. We don’t want the shower to get over 110. Or was it 107? I’ll be right back.” As she walked around the now half-nude rock star, she nudged Sam out of the bathroom, into the hallway, and closed the door to keep the heat in the small room.
When she returned to the bathroom a few minutes later, she found Brady in the shower, standing under the hot water. The shower door was shut, yet through the obscure glass she could see the outline of his body. Ella paused for a moment, and felt a pang of embarrassment. She took a deep breath and told herself to grow up; this was a special circumstance. While she wasn’t accustomed to being alone with strange nude men, she was fairly confident that she would be safe with this one.
“I’m going to open the shower door just a crack and hand you a thermometer. I know the hot water feels good, but you don’t want the temperature to get over 107.”
She opened the shower door an inch, and looked away as she handed him the thermometer. He took it from her and asked, “You aren’t coming in?” There was a teasing lilt to his voice.
“Excuse me?” Ella slammed the shower door shut.
“Body heat and all,” he laughed, feeling suddenly much better. The sensation was back in his hands and feet, and by the look of his skin, he didn’t imagine he had frostbite.
“Apparently, you are feeling better. You made it very clear I could not have my way with you,” Ella said sarcastically.
“Now that I know you aren’t Annie Wilkes, I’m okay with it.”
“Well, gee, lucky me. Thanks, but no thanks. Stay in the shower while I bring you some dry towels and a blanket to wrap up in until your clothes dry.” Ella reached down and picked his discarded clothing off the floor. “I’m going to go put these in the washing machine after I get you the towels and blanket.” Ella left the bathroom, closing the door behind her before Brady could respond.
Brady stood under the hot water as it streamed from the showerhead. Enjoying the heat, he glanced down at the thermometer. The idea of testing the water temperature seemed silly, so he set the thermometer on the shelf in the shower, and closed his eyes, moving completely under the downpour.
A few minutes later, he heard the bathroom door open, and he could see the woman’s silhouette through the obscuring glass. The toilet seat was down, and he watched as she set something on it, which looked like a stack of towels.
“I’m hanging the blanket on the back of the door, so it doesn’t get wet when you dry off,” he heard her say before she left the room.
Ella went to the laundry room, adjacent to the doorway leading to the garage. Before putting the clothes in the washing machine, she checked all the pockets. The only thing she found was a wallet in his pants pocket, which she set on a shelf. She checked the label on the jacket, and it appeared to be washable, so she shoved the coat in the washing machine with his denims, shirt, sweatshirt and underwear. Turning off the laundry room light, she grabbed his wallet from the shelf and walked to the cabin’s main downstairs living area, at the end of the hallway, just past the door to the bathroom where she’d left Brady.
Five years earlier, Ella’s father remodeled the downstairs living area, removing the wall separating the small kitchen from the living room. Now, it was one great room with a breakfast bar separating the living room from the c
ompact kitchen. When standing in the kitchen, she could look across the living room to the stone fireplace and the large picture window along the far wall.
After setting the wallet on the kitchen counter, she decided to call Amanda about the stranded renter. She didn’t bother using her cell phone, as she already knew there was no cell service on the mountain. Picking up the land line, Ella let out a little curse when she realized the line was dead.
Glancing up from the phone, Ella looked out the kitchen window and noticed the snow was coming down even harder than before. Setting the phone’s handset back on its cradle, she walked into the living room to the large picture window behind the leather couch and opened the blinds so she could see outside.
“Damn, we’re snowed in,” Ella cursed as she stood at the window, looking out. Snow covered the landscape, making it impossible to distinguish where her front yard ended and the street began. A steady stream of snowflakes continued to fall from the sky.
“Snowed in?” Ella heard a voice ask behind her.
She turned around and faced her houseguest, who stood in the living room, a red, white and blue patchwork quilt wrapped around his nude body. His dark hair was damp and had obviously been towel dried and combed back hastily with his fingers. It fell to just above his shoulders.
Ella paused a moment, staring at him, before responding. He really did have amazing eyes. She could understand why star-struck women might be attracted to such a man.
“I’m afraid so. My name is Ella Lewis, by the way. I assume you’re Brady Gates. Amanda told me you were renting a cabin up here.”
“Amanda?” he asked with a frown.
“Yes, the woman who handles the rentals on the mountain.”
“She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.” He didn’t know why he should expect anything else. He imagined paparazzi would be showing up within the hour, if they weren’t already here.
“Yeah, I heard that. But she just told me, ‘cause she knew I’m safe to tell. Don’t worry, she didn’t tell anyone else.”
“Why should I believe you wouldn’t tell someone?” The moment Brady asked the question he came up with his own answer. She wants to keep me to herself.
“Well, for one reason, until she told me you were coming up here, I had no clue who you were. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Dismissively, Ella walked from the living room to the hallway leading to the garage. “I’m going to bring in my stuff from the car. I need to get the food put away.”
“What do you mean you had no clue who I was?” Brady called after her. He continued to stand in the center of the living room wrapped in the colorful blanket.
“Just what I said,” Ella shouted back, not taking the time to explain.
When Ella disappeared down the hallway, Brady noticed his wallet sitting on the kitchen counter. He looked around but didn’t see his cell phone. There was a telephone sitting on the counter. The cabin had a landline. He picked up the phone to call out but the line was dead.
“Do you have my cell phone?” Brady asked when Ella walked back into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box filled with groceries.
“Excuse me? Why would I have your cell phone?”
“It was in my coat pocket.”
“I checked your pockets before I put your clothes in the washing machine. The only thing I found was your wallet.” She nodded to the wallet sitting on the counter.
“It must have fallen out in the back seat of your car.”
“I didn’t see it. But I’ll look again when I go out there. Unfortunately, it won’t do you any good,” Ella said as she set the box on the kitchen counter.
“What do you mean?”
“No cell service up here.” She turned and walked from the kitchen and headed back toward the garage.
“I don’t believe you,” Brady told her when she returned to the kitchen carrying her purse and a bag of groceries.
“What do you mean?” While bringing in the groceries a few moments earlier, she had thought to herself how ungrateful the man seemed, considering she’d just saved him from freezing to death on the mountain.
“I can’t believe there’s no cell service,” he said. She glanced at him as she set her purse and the sack on the counter, and thought he looked rather silly with the quilt wrapped around him.
“See for yourself,” Ella said impatiently as she opened her purse, pulled out her iPhone and tossed it to Brady. “Yours wasn’t in the car, but you can try mine.”
Surprised by her sudden action, he awkwardly reached for the unexpected missal coming toward him, temporarily releasing his hold on the quilt. He fumbled for a moment and the covering dropped to his feet, giving Ella just a brief glimpse of what the groupies were desperate to see, before Brady quickly recovered himself.
Ella chuckled, finding the peep show more amusing than titillating, and turned away, heading back to the car.
Brady walked to the couch, sat down, and tried to make a phone call. Just as Ella said, it did not work. Frustrated at being stranded, Brady sat quietly and contemplated his situation while Ella brought in the rest of the groceries and her luggage. Sam kept close to Ella’s side, following her in and out of the garage.
“Thanks for the help,” Ella said sarcastically when she entered the kitchen and started to put the groceries away.
“This phone doesn’t work.” He got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen, then set her iPhone on the counter.
“Duh. Didn’t I say that? I put your clothes in the dryer. They should be ready in a few minutes. Since you no longer look as if you might die of frostbite, I think you can manage to get them yourself when they’re done.”
“If the phone doesn’t work, I need you to take me back to the Jeep so I can get my things, and then take me to the cabin I rented, or maybe back to town would be better.”
“I don’t think so,” Ella said as she put a gallon of milk in the refrigerator.
“You can’t keep me here,” Brady insisted.
“Keep you here? What’s with you?” Ella said angrily as she turned and faced her unwelcome houseguest. “You haven’t so much as said thank you. If I hadn’t stopped and dragged your butt out of the snow, you would probably be a Popsicle by now. You act like it’s my fault the phone line is down, or that we don’t have cell service. Sorry, buddy, but none of that is about me, or even you. It’s just the simple reality of this place.
“If you think I intend to risk my life and go out in this weather, you’re nuts. This is not driving weather. Unless you haven’t noticed, we’re having a fricking blizzard! You think I want you here? Trust me, if I could simply drive you someplace and drop you off, I would do that in a heartbeat.”
“You sound like you mean that,” Brady said in a quiet voice. He was startled by her angry tirade. He assumed she was just making excuses to keep him at the cabin. She wouldn’t be the first woman who tried to insinuate herself in his life, especially since she was given this opportunity. Yet, by her cross expression and the fact she rarely looked at him, he was beginning to suspect she genuinely did not like him.
“Do you dislike me?” Brady found himself asking when Ella went back to organizing her groceries. Ella paused and turned from the open pantry to face Brady.
“Dislike you? I don’t even know you.”
“Most people assume they know me. I just wondered if you read something about me that made you dislike me.”
“Mr. Gates,” Ella began after taking a deep breath, “I understand you are some sort of celebrity. The only reason I know that is because Amanda told me she rented the cabin to some well-known musician. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but frankly, when she told me your name, I had no clue who you were.”
Brady found himself laughing at her words. He didn’t know what he found more amusing, the fact that she pretended to have no idea who he was, or that she might hurt his feelings. He thought whatever game she was playing was mildly amusing, and had she not saved his life, he might be more annoyed.
; “Miss….what did you say your name was again?” he asked in a condescending tone.
“Ella Lewis.”
“Miss Lewis, I might believe what you’re saying if I thought you’d been living on this mountain for the last five years, but considering you are supposedly a writer…”
“Supposedly?” Ella interrupted. “First of all, how did you know I was a writer? And what do you mean, supposedly?”
“The guy at the gas station mentioned it.”
“Oh, you mean when you cut me off, and stole my place in line?”
“I didn’t mean to do that.”
“And I don’t recall you apologizing. But then, you haven’t yet thanked me for saving you from the blizzard, so I suppose manners are something you don’t need when you obtain whatever fame you supposedly have. And you must have a hell of a lot of money, because if you’re as popular with the women as Amanda claims, it certainly can’t be your charm that reels them in.” At that moment the dryer bell rang.
“That’s the dryer. Your clothes should be ready. Go get dressed. You look ridiculous in that quilt.” Ella turned from Brady to put away the last bag of groceries.
Brady stood a moment in silence and watched Ella. She was definitely pissed, he told himself. If she was trying to play hard to get, she was a pretty good actress. Brady started down the hall and paused briefly at the bathroom he’d used earlier. Suddenly he recalled asking Ella to join him in the shower. He cringed at his behavior, not really sure why the crude invitation popped out of his mouth. He remembered feeling a sense of euphoria, knowing he was safe and warm, and suspected that was the reason for the spontaneous invite.
In the laundry room, Brady found his clothes in the drier. The jacket was still a bit damp, but the rest of the clothing was dry. Shutting the laundry room door for privacy, Brady slipped on the clothes he had been wearing earlier. They were actually Kevin’s clothes, and he wished he had his suitcase with him so he could wear something he felt more comfortable in.
While Snowbound (Sensual Romance Series) Page 4
