by Katie Cross
Safe.
The wintry world gave only a few clues to the building that seemed to lurk in the storm. A flash of warm light appeared, then vanished. JJ looked at me. For what felt like the first time that night, I really saw him.
My heart almost seized again.
Gentle hazel eyes. Long hair pulled into a sloppy man bun at the back of his head. With his wiry, strong shoulders, quick smile, and tight jaw, he was the picture of masculine grace. He regarded me with concern and compassion.
“You okay?” he asked.
A thousand replies surfaced on my tongue, but I forced them back. “Yeah,” I croaked. “Getting there. Th-thank you.”
“Your car just plunged into an icy river in the middle of a snowstorm, and you almost went with it. It’s okay if you’re not really feeling great.”
He slapped on a panty-melting smile that would have reduced a lesser woman to goo.
“Let’s get inside,” he said. “Both of us could use something very warm.”
Snow blasted the back of my neck as I stumbled out of the truck. I couldn’t feel my toes. The storm swirled in eddies of ice as I attempted to wade forward. JJ reached out, clamped a hand on the parka, and guided me to him. Once he was at my side, he hooked an arm around my shoulder and all but held me up as we trudged through two feet of snow. He wore a long-sleeved gray shirt that fit him a little too well.
Only a few feet away stood a wooden door. We hurried inside and were greeted by a blast of blessed heat.
“You’re alive, J-man.”
A man with black hair and meaty shoulders stood up from a chair near a cluttered desk. Mark, JJ’s twin. Despite being twins, they only had their face structure in common. All three of the Bailey kids, their sister Megan included, seemed to have the same face but with vastly different expressions. Where JJ was more thoughtful, Mark reminded me of an enigmatic quarterback: in love with the spotlight and adored by all.
JJ shut the door behind us with a shiver. “Definitely alive.”
“And you brought a friend!” Mark cried. “Tell me you also have coffee, Lizbeth. I could really do with a cappuccino right now.”
I felt, more than saw, JJ shake his head.
Mark’s face fell. He appraised me with open curiosity. Mark and I had never really spoken. Although he came to the coffee shop I managed, he was always on his phone. JJ and I sometimes spoke, but it was rare that I could summon words in the face of my soul-deep crush.
“She’s going to hang out with us for the night,” JJ said. “She’s . . . had some car troubles.”
Suddenly, the warm fire was especially warm, and the smell of man-cave especially pungent. My trembling had ceased, but I still felt sick to my stomach. When the crunch of the falling car replayed in my head, I forced back a wave of nausea.
JJ rested a warm hand on my shoulder. It grounded me against the rush of hysteria. My eternal gratitude for his perceptiveness deepened another notch. I just wanted Bethany to wrap me in her arms while I cried.
“She needs a hot shower,” JJ said with a gentle squeeze. “Storytime later.”
“No problem, Liz,” Mark said as I peeled off the parka. “Get warmed up. JJ’s on deck for dinner tonight, so you know it’s going to be good. You’re shaking. I’ll build up the fire.”
Mark grabbed a coat and disappeared through a back door at the end of a hallway. The area was sparsely decorated. What was there looked accidental. A giant desk with a computer and phone filled the far wall, near the fireplace. Papers, file folders, unwashed coffee mugs, fast-food wrappers, and a ridiculous number of pens littered the desk’s surface. A rolling chair burdened with winter coats, pants, and a pair of wool socks sat behind it.
A few old couches occupied most of the floor. Behind the front door, a ladder led to what appeared to be an attic. Posters cluttered the walls, displaying snowboards, mountains, and treacherous climbs.
“Mark and I sleep upstairs,” JJ said. His hand fell away from my shoulder. A physical pang jolted through me at the loss of his touch. “We have a spare bedroom down here you can sleep in.”
“That’s perfect. Thank you.”
On reflex, I reached for my phone, then realized too late that I didn’t have one anymore. This situation would be far more terrifying if I didn’t know the Bailey boys.
“Can I borrow a phone?”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” He reached into his back pocket. “Here.”
With numb fingers, I typed a quick text to Maverick.
Lizbeth: Hey, it’s Lizbeth texting from JJ Bailey’s phone. Had some car trouble in the canyon. Everything is fine. JJ stopped and helped me out. I’m staying with them at Adventura until the storm passes. Can you let Ellie know?
A reply came moments later.
Maverick: Glad to hear you’re all right. I’ll let Bethany know in the morning. Texting Ellie now. Be safe, Liz.
The simple connection with Maverick eased my heart. Tears thickened my throat. He wouldn’t be dealing with a birth and a death in the same day, at least.
Lizbeth: Baby boy okay?
Maverick: Stealing my breath every minute, just like his mama. :)
I released a relieved sigh. I’d tell them the full truth later. In ten years. Or maybe never. Except for the part about the missing car . . .
With a weak smile, I passed the phone back to JJ. “Thanks.”
He held out a hand, and I accepted it, trusting myself into his care for a few moments. Right then, I needed it.
“C’mon.” He gently steered me toward the hallway. “You need a hot shower first, dinner second. It’s been a helluva day.”
Standing in a square shower with cobwebs in the upper corners, I bit into a clean washcloth and silently cried. Letting go of my tears felt as cleansing as the hot spray that prickled my skin. I’d put up my hair in a bun so I didn’t have to worry about drying it.
With shaky legs, I leaned against the wall and let my thoughts roll out. The air grew humid, sharpening the scent of pine and curling the stray hairs at my neck. Eventually, JJ knocked and said, “Leaving some clean clothes on the counter for you, Lizbeth.”
The door whispered open, then shut.
Steam clogged the room when I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around me, and stepped out of the shower. The heat had restored life and humanity to my frozen limbs. I stumbled into a pair of ridiculously big workout pants and one of JJ’s sister’s shirts. The top fit me better than one of his would have, but it still hung loose. JJ’s heady, masculine smell lingered in my nose.
Rallying my courage again, I wiped steam off the mirror. My cheeks had pinked from the heat, which at least distracted from my bloodshot eyes. I removed my residual mascara, folded my clothes, made sure the bathroom was clean, and slipped out the door.
The hallway was empty, so I ditched my other clothes in the guest bedroom JJ had pointed out, then wandered back toward the living room/office. JJ stood on the far side of a room divided by a half wall. It appeared to be a makeshift kitchen. He’d changed into a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt that hugged the contours of his shoulders.
His expression brightened when he saw me. “Feel better?”
“Much, thank you.”
“Have a seat.” He nodded to the couch. “The hot chocolate is almost ready.”
“Thanks.”
Instead of sitting, I perused a bookshelf against the far wall. Death on the Mountain and A Climber’s Guide to Everything drew my attention. I pulled them down, my thoughts wandering. Surely these were JJ’s. Likely all these books were JJ’s. Mark didn’t strike me as a reader.
By the time I finished my brief perusal, JJ had returned, a mug of hot chocolate in hand. He passed it to me, then sat on a nearby chair to nurse what appeared to be tea.
“Thank you,” I said.
The sweet warmth calmed my stomach. I took another eager sip, suddenly ravenous. It seemed to expand in the hollow part of my body. I peered at him over the top of the cup.
“And thank
you for . . . you know.”
He shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”
“But you could have—”
“And didn’t.” He finished firmly. “I’m grateful I was there to help. You would have done the same. You just came back to Pineville this summer, didn’t you?”
Grateful for the change in subject, I let out a long breath. “Yes. Around the same time as you. I graduated college in May. Since Bethany was pregnant all summer, and very sick, I’ve been running the coffee shop. I just came from the hospital, actually. She had a little boy.”
His eyes lit up. “Wow. Quite the day for you.”
“Yes. I’m a proud auntie—who’s alive, thanks to you.” I lifted my mug. “Here’s to several new beginnings.”
He clinked his mug against mine with a witty smile.
“What did you graduate in?” he asked.
“Bachelor’s in Computer Science.”
“Impressive.”
“Thanks.”
“You should fix Adventura’s website,” he said. “Mark attempted it last winter. It’s absolutely hideous.”
“I’d love to look at it.”
Website makeovers were a fun part of what I could do, but the idea of working with the Bailey boys was too unreal to think about. Besides, the warm purl of heat in my stomach surely had nothing to do with the curious expression on his face. I curled deeper into the couch, feeling drowsy after the shower.
“What are you going to do next?” he asked.
Great question. “Um . . . there are job options.”
“Ah. I know that hesitation.”
He sat halfway on the couch, elbows resting on his knees. There was something sexy about the way he held the cup of tea in his whole hand, the palm cupping the bottom. Although tempted to drop my gaze, I didn’t.
“I just needed a break for a year,” I said. “College was hardcore for me. Nonstop. So when I finished, I just . . . I needed some time to figure out what I wanted to do. Running the Frolicking Moose and paying down some debt was ideal.”
A grimace crossed his face. “Adulting stuff.”
“Unfortunately. There’s also this job I really want.”
“Oh?”
I nodded.
JJ regarded me curiously for a moment, then turned back to his tea. “I remember that transition. As if it wasn’t hard enough just to graduate, now you have to figure your life out. There’s a lot of pressure.”
Several things startled me there. First of all, I didn’t know college had been part of his world. Second, he was at least nine years older than me. Word around town pegged the Bailey boys at thirty.
“You graduated college?” I asked.
He nodded. “Bachelor’s in Environmental Science.” Then he laughed, presumably at my expression. “I take it you’re surprised?”
“A little.” I gave him a sheepish smile. “I guess I assumed you’ve just always been climbing and living in a van.”
He shrugged and leaned back, leaving the tea to cool. His arms looped behind his head, and it was a struggle not to stare.
“I’ve always climbed. Just like you, after I graduated, I took a step back to see what I wanted to do. Then I just . . . never did it. We did live in a van,” he tacked on with a roguish grin. “For about a year.”
The last words came out quieter, but I couldn’t tell if it was regret in his voice, or something else. A loud bark of laughter came from the attic.
“What about Mark?” I asked, taking another sip of hot chocolate. It was over halfway gone by now, and I almost was too. The snap of the fire had lulled me. Being alert and on guard for so long had worn me out. Not to mention sleeping on and off in a ball on the hospital bed for forty-eight hours.
“Mark went too. Graduated with a degree in business. Eventually did his MBA online while we traveled.”
“And then?”
“We bummed around together for a long time. Neither of us wanted to grow up, so we just kept playing. Traveling. Getting into trouble. My poor mother has too much gray hair because of us.”
I smiled. His mother, a flight nurse in Jackson City where Bethany had just birthed my adorable nephew, was lovely.
“We messed around for almost a decade, living off climbing sponsorships, odd jobs, and sometimes Mark’s rampant charm. We did that right up until he bought Adventura and ‘settled in.’” JJ’s air quotes looked ironic, at best. “Mark will never really stop. He’s started one business and he’s already on to another one. He’s a moving target.”
Sensing something beneath the surface, I asked, “And what about you? Are you a moving target also?”
“Dunno yet.”
The last sip of hot chocolate slid down my throat. Although curiosity tugged at me, I stood with the empty mug.
“Thank you, JJ. This helped calm me down. But I think I’ll go to bed, if you don’t mind.”
My body had relaxed into a state of near-sleep. This seemed as good a time as any to hide away. To avoid the beautiful way the fire warmed his skin to golden tones. No reason for me to study the angle of his jaw and replay the way his arms had kept me from death.
He took the mug from me. “Good. I’m sure some rest will help. I’ll take care of the cup.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, Lizbeth?” he called as I headed for the bedroom.
I glanced over my shoulder. He stood there, holding my mug, looking gorgeous in the firelight.
“If you get too cold, we keep the fire running all night. Feel free to add more logs to it, or sleep on the couch. Mark and I are upstairs if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
“We can report the accident in the morning, but there isn’t much they can do now, anyway. It’ll eventually have to get towed. If they can even reach it down there.”
My mind spun. I hadn’t even thought of getting the car out.
“Thanks.”
I closed the door behind me, bathed in a sudden chill. This little cabin clearly didn’t have central heating, and the window didn’t keep out the cold. JJ had set a few more blankets and a pillow on the bed. I fluffed the pillows and climbed in. When I tugged the blankets all the way to my chin, I realized that the pillow smelled like JJ. Was it his?
My body molded to it like mush.
4
JJ
Mark appeared from the attic thirty minutes after Lizbeth went to bed. He tilted his head toward the spare bedroom. “Bed?” he mouthed.
I nodded.
Once she’d left, I’d sunk into food preparation. The smell of marinara and pasta filled the room. Mark gravitated to the food naturally.
“She okay?” Mark asked in a quiet voice as he approached. “She didn’t look so great when you arrived.”
“Fine, I think.” I rubbed a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted. I recounted the story, with the scariest parts emphasized appropriately. While I told it, Mark grabbed dishes for dinner.
“Seriously?” he whispered and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “JJ, you’re a freaking hero. It’s all those climbing muscles. I always knew you had a knight in shining armor buried underneath all those layers of hippie.”
“I couldn’t have done anything if she hadn’t gotten herself halfway out already.”
“You look shaken up.”
He leaned back in his chair, spaghetti piled high in a bowl. I felt shaken up. Reality had set in. Tonight could have been a tragedy. I loosed my hair and let it fall to my shoulders, relieved to ease the pressure from the hair tie.
“I am shaken. I almost didn’t get her.”
“Well done, brother. You saved her.”
He decked me lightly in the arm as he dove into his food. My mind wandered to Lizbeth. She still seemed to be in shock. Her overall mien was a bit too calm. I wasn’t the one who’d dangled over a white-capped river, seconds away from death, and even I felt it all the way to my gut.
“I made you some hot chocolate,” I said. “It’s in the microwave staying warm.”
> “But not because you made it in there.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“You’re the best brother ever. Real, made-from-scratch hot chocolate on a blizzard night? You’ll always be my fave, JJ. What would I ever do without you? Fortunately, we never have to know. Hey, I had an idea tonight and started putting out some feelers. You want in on it?”
His voice faded into the background as I turned my attention back to my food. Mark rarely wanted me to respond—he just wanted a listening ear—so I let my mind drift.
Thoughts of a certain terrorized redhead circled my brain in an endless loop for the rest of the night.
5
Lizbeth
When I woke up, my neck felt as tight as the spine of a new book.
I straightened carefully. My collarbone protested each millimeter where it had pressed against the seat belt. My stomach felt a bit sore from lying on the windowsill before the car fell. A quick inventory confirmed I was fine. Alive.
A wooden ceiling loomed overhead. Behind me, the warm crackle of a dying fire filled the air. I blinked away a dream of tangled steel, grating metal, and deep ravines.
Yet here I sat in . . . Adventura.
Memory returned quickly. With a groan, I rubbed a hand over my face. At some point in the night, I’d slipped out to the living room, too cold to sleep. The Bailey brothers had already gone to bed, so I’d made a little nest on the couch closest to the fire and slept there.
Nightmares had replayed every second of the crash in excruciating detail all night long. As if my brain wanted to process it in slow motion. In the dream, my car hadn’t just been sliding. No, I’d dangled on the edge, one finger on a rock. I screamed and screamed and screamed, stuck in the awful sensation of almost dying.
It left me feeling cold.
I blinked and forced my thoughts back to the present moment. The clock said 7:34, but the room lay in shadows. Little light made it past the ongoing storm outside. But the wind seemed to have lessened. A quick look at the windowpanes confirmed that snow had frozen to the glass.
