by Stacy Gail
It took a while for his words to sink in—long enough for him to give the waitress their order and to admire how they’d greeted each other by their first names. As much as she adored her hometown, there was probably a lot to be said for living in a small town where everybody knew your name…
“Wait. Home?”
Aha. There. It finally sank in.
“My home for now, anyway. Thanks, Khrys,” he added when coffee and orange juice arrived. He picked up her hand and curled it around the glass of OJ. “Vitamin C in liquid form. Someone in your zombified condition is just begging to get sick, so we’re fighting that shit off with OJ and bacon. I threw the bacon into the mix because bacon can fix anything. Drink.”
She could only follow orders, and only if they were simple. She raised the glass and the first hit of bright, tangy citrus brought a faint ray of sunshine into her dim and hopeless world. “My God.”
“What?”
“That’s the best orange juice I’ve ever tasted. I wonder what brand this is. God’s brand, probably.”
“Red, your body’s so pushed beyond its limits that anything you put in your mouth right now would be the best thing you’ve ever tasted. Keep going. Bacon’ll be here soon.”
Suddenly her stomach let out a growl that she was sure the entire diner heard. “Let’s revisit this home thing.”
“Look, it’s not like I want this to happen either, but what’s the alternative? Leave you here? Let you stumble around in a fucking blizzard? What’s the answer?”
She shook her head, helpless. Hating her helplessness. “I don’t know.”
“Drink up. Once you’re done with your juice, you’re having a little coffee. Not a lot, just enough to get you through the next hour.”
“I don’t want you to be forced to take me in, Quinn. I’m not your responsibility just because you got stuck transporting me.”
“I know what my responsibilities are. How do you take your coffee?”
“Four sugars, four creams. Look—”
“Four?” His surprised laugh was deep and mellow, and it rolled out of him to fill the small diner with life. It had to be her fatigued brain imagining things, but Mia could have sworn the room’s cracked linoleum floor and the heavy wood paneling brightened and warmed with a golden glow just from that deliciously masculine sound alone. “So basically you like super-sweet coffee-flavored cream?”
“I’m too tired to tell. Are you judging me?”
“I’m judging that you’re too cute to be allowed out on your own. Who knows what would happen if some wild mountain man got a good look at you? I can’t let you out of my sight.” He leaned across her to get the sugar, and her world was momentarily filled with a nice, clean scent mingling with something deliciously spicy—nutmeg or cardamom.
Something yummy. Something lick-worthy.
Holy crap, she wanted to lick him.
She stifled a shiver and tried one last time while he took care of her coffee, all the while unable to remember when anyone had ever doctored her coffee up for her. “I don’t want to force you into playing host, and you obviously don’t want to be my host. I hate being a burden.”
“No one on this earth can force me to do a damn thing if I don’t want to do it. I do whatever the hell I want. Just ask my oh, so loving and supportive family. I’m sure they’ll only be too happy to tell you all about that.”
There was a world of bitterness threading through those words, so much so that even her exhausted mind took note of it. “If you do what you want, yet you obviously don’t want to have me as a house guest, why are you going to take me home with you?”
“Because Mother Nature is currently being a bitch, there are no other available beds for fifty square miles, and I don’t want to deal with the guilty conscience I’d get if I just dumped your ass here to wait out the storm.”
He wasn’t making her feel any better. “But—”
“I’m done discussing this, Red, do you hear me? I’ve come up with a solution, so whether you’re comfortable with it or not isn’t my problem. Personally, I think you’ve had enough problems to deal with the past twenty-four hours, so it’d be stupid of you to create another one, and the one thing you’re not is stupid. Exhausted, stressed, stranded, starved and so sleep-deprived you can’t see straight, yeah. But you’re not stupid.” As he spoke, he stirred her coffee, then slid it toward her. “Give that a try, see if you like it.”
“Thank you.” The words seemed so inadequate in expressing her gratitude to this man who was so obviously going above and beyond the call of duty that her tired, scratchy eyes burned with wetness. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t cry.” Again his tone became alarmingly hard and he was close enough to feel his body stiffen. “Don’t you fucking cry, Mia. Look, food’s here, so concentrate on that and just… don’t cry.”
She didn’t answer as steaming plates of golden waffles with mounds of melted butter and crispy, still-sizzling strips of bacon appeared before her, mainly because two basic needs had shut down her brain. She was starving and needed to eat, yes, but she also wanted to cry. She wanted to let it all out and just freaking bawl. Every cell in her body quivered with bone-breaking tiredness, and on top of that she was swamped with the fierce frustration of not being where she wanted—needed—to be. While she sat there in the middle of nowhere, Jackson was living it up in beautiful, non-stormy Seattle without her and posting pictures designed to make her think terrible things. Wrong things.
Heartbreaking things.
Anyone would have been crying if they’d been in her shoes.
“Mia.” A hand came down to grip the nape of her neck. Warm. Solid. Strong. She knew she shouldn’t allow herself to enjoy this stranger’s touch as much as she did, but she was too exhausted to fight anything that felt that good in a world that held no comfort. “Eat.”
Nodding mutely, she grabbed up her fork and stared at the waffle. It was too much trouble to cut. Maybe it would be okay just this once if she ate it with her fingers…
“Don’t wimp out on me now.” He poured on a small ocean of maple syrup over the waffle before his hand engulfed hers still holding the fork, and began cutting it up. “The pancakes here are okay, but the waffles are the total shit. Seriously, I don’t know how they do it, but they’ve got this great buttery, crunchy outside but they’re still really light on the inside. One taste and you’ll see why this place’ll be packed a couple hours from now despite the sixty-below temp outside.” With that, he guided her hand holding the fork to her mouth.
Heaven.
“Good, right?”
She moaned and closed her eyes, and she didn’t give a hoot if the sound she made was inappropriate. It was seriously that good. “Oh my God, yes.”
“Damn, woman. Do that again.” He helped her shovel in another bite. Maybe it was the fatigue, but it seemed like the heat of his hand at her nape and the leg that was against hers intensified to the point of making her feel feverish. “Let me know you like it.”
Eyes still closed, she sighed as she savored the bite. “I love it.”
“Yeah, you do. You know you do.”
“More.”
“I’ll give you more. So much you can’t handle it.”
“Trust me, I can handle it.” Slowly Mia’s eyes opened as she ate another bite, and with the nutrients hitting her zapped system it dawned on her that their hushed conversation, in a different context between two complete strangers, should have been pretty damn creepy. Or maybe that was just her brain seeing things that weren’t there.
No.
It wasn’t that she was seeing things.
She was being totally creepy.
Ugh.
“On second thought, maybe I should slow down. If I eat too fast I’ll just wind up making myself sick.”
“Yeah. Right. Good thinking.” The hand at her nape went away, as did his guiding hand on hers. Without warning, she was once again aware of the cold seeping in from outside. He pulled his ow
n waffle toward him, dumped a healthy slug of syrup on it and dug in. “I think you’re going to like the bacon, too. Organically raised and cured by Khrys’s uncle. You won’t find any better.”
“Wow.” She breathed in the salty, smoky flavor while her mouth watered. “Do they have a smokehouse or store here in town?” Maybe she could pick some up before she continued on to Seattle.
Quinn shook his head. “They have a small place on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, east of Glacier National Park, and since they own this place you can only find that brand of bacon here. There’s another reservation south of us, which belongs to the Flathead Nation.”
She sighed, lost. “I don’t even know where any of those places are. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. You weren’t planning on coming here.” He shrugged, making quick work of his meal. “Honey Pot’s in northwestern Montana on the western tip of Glacier National Park, and about five hundred miles north of us is the Canadian border. This area is chock full of lakes, rivers and mountains, so it’s renowned for being an outdoorsman’s paradise. There’s ice fishing, skiing and snowboarding in the winter, hunting in the fall, and mountain biking, fly fishing, zip-lining, white-water rafting and Harley road rallies in the summer. And of course you’ve got gambling year-round on reservation land. Does that help?”
“Sounds wonderful here.”
“Heaven couldn’t be better, despite the current weather conditions.” He nudged a plate her way. “Try the bacon. And be sure to tell Khrys how awesome it is before we leave.”
She sampled the bacon and had to stifle another moan of pleasure when the smoky tang bit into her taste buds. To keep herself from having another near-orgasmic food moment—though she thought she might be forgiven for it, since it was freaking bacon—she tried to focus on the conversation at hand.
“I’d love to see this area when it’s not being buried by a polar vortex and I’m not in a hurry to get to my fiancée. I’ve never really been anywhere other than my hometown.”
“Chicago, right?” When she nodded and reached for her coffee, he turned in his seat to study her. “It sounds like you’re a real homebody. Makes me wonder why you’re in such a hurry to get to your boyfriend.”
“Fiancée.”
“No ring equals no fiancée in my book. He’s your boyfriend, and a cheap-ass one at that. Answer the question, Red,” he added when she sighed again, loudly. “You said you were in a hurry to get to him, so what’s the rush?”
“Did I say I was in a hurry?” To her chagrin she realized that she had. Automatically her hand went to her purse, where the envelope of papers was tucked away. Or at least they were there physically. But the packet of papers was also felt in her chest, lying there like a ton of bricks that she couldn’t get out from under. “What I meant was that I’m just anxious to see him again. Jackson’s been getting everything organized in Seattle for the past seven months, so—”
“Holy shit, seven months? You haven’t seen your man for seven months?” He stared at her as if she’d just claimed to be engaged to Jimmy Hoffa. “Does he visit you?”
The uncomfortable heat of humiliation began to prickle her neck. “As I said, he’s very busy…”
“And this is your first time visiting him? Did he send for you?”
She pushed her plate abruptly away as the food she’d eaten turned into a ball of cement in her stomach. “That’s none of your business.”
“So he didn’t send for you.” He looked at her for a long moment, and she hated what she saw in his dark blue eyes—something torn between disbelief and pity. Then he shook his head and picked up his coffee mug to drain it. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mia, but I don’t think you two are together anymore.”
That terrible, queasy dread she’d lived with for weeks returned with a vengeance. “I don’t want to be rude to the man who’s helping me out, but what part of none of your business did you not grasp?”
“I’m making it my business, and don’t worry about being rude with me, since I’m not going to worry about being rude with you. Things are more honest when people say what they mean, and from here on in, that’s what you and I are going to do.” With that announcement, he looked to Khrys and signaled for the check.
Chapter Four
Soft, cottony flannel that smelled like heaven—orange blossom and clean linen—rubbed against Mia’s cheek. She sighed, breathing it in, before indulging in a lazy, head-to-toe stretch. Her head sank into the cloud-soft pillows before she burrowed deeper into the cozy cocoon of sheets, blankets, even more pillows and a thick down-filled duvet.
Oh…yeah.
The scent of the soap she’d used in the shower before tumbling into bed was nice too. It had been a new little bar, like the soaps that nice hotels provided for their guests. She’d once read a magazine article about collecting complimentary soaps and shampoo bottles from hotels while traveling, so they could be used for houseguests later on. As unlikely as it seemed, her host must have read the same article.
Her host.
With another sigh, she opened her eyes and stared up at the lofty, angular, wood-beamed ceiling. She hadn’t really noticed the room she’d been put in before now, but with white light flooding in through a wall of windows that led to a private patio now buried in a foot and a half of snow, she was impressed with its size. When Quinn had directed her to this beautiful bedroom, she’d tried to assure him that all she needed was a couch, or even a blanket and a quiet corner. He’d ignored her by leading her into the en-suite bathroom, dropping off her carry-on as he went, and told her to shut the hell up and get some sleep.
Then he’d left her alone.
Quinn Kingfisher was a generous host, clearly. But he wasn’t big on diplomacy.
With that thought, she pushed out from under the cuddly layers of bedclothes, tried to ignore the faint chill seeping through her thin nightshirt, and made the bed as quickly as possible. She then made a beeline for her carry-on still in the bathroom, all the while wishing a parka, thermal underwear and several thick sweaters would magically appear inside of it. But since she’d packed for a short stay in Seattle and not the Montana mountains, she was stuck with black velvet leggings, cute faux-combat boots with a wedge heel that almost put her at six feet, an oversized powder blue shirt and a deeper blue infinity scarf. She’d gone to bed with her hair damp, so its usual riot of curls was an absolute rat’s nest. She finger-combed it into some semblance of order, sprayed it as best she could into place—though anyone with curly hair knew the term “in place” was a sad joke—then brushed her teeth and went to town on covering up lingering signs of fatigue with makeup. She might have gone through twenty-eight hours of travel hell, but she didn’t have to look it.
By the time she left the bedroom with her carry-on wheeling along beside her, she was ready to meet the day.
But she crashed to a halt when she spotted a woman in the center-island style kitchen tucked away at the back of the house, suddenly not ready to meet anyone or anything, though she wasn’t sure why. Her energy plummeted as if the atmosphere had sucked it all away, and all at once she just wanted to crawl back under the covers and stay there until it was time for her to return to the airport.
This had to be her rescuer’s wife, she decided, staring at the petite brunette who hadn’t noticed her yet. Or at least his woman. No guy as hot and over-the-top masculine as Quinn went without female companionship unless he chose to, and he sure as hell didn’t strike her as the type who enjoyed the celibate life. Hell, a hot guy like Quinn probably needed a woman on call twenty-four seven, and she could imagine the ladies of Montana would be happy to line up for the privilege of getting that call.
She certainly would be.
The errant thought hit her like a brick between the eyes, snapping her out of her stupor. What the actual hell? Where had that thought come from? She was engaged to Jackson, a man she’d loved for years. The last thing she should be thinking about was lining up for a chance to climb int
o Quinn Kingfisher’s bed so she could let her inner porn star out.
No matter how tempting that prospect might be.
Grimly she made herself step forward, shoving aside the weird shock this woman’s presence kicked up. “Hi. Um, I’m Mia.”
“Oh! Look who’s risen from the dead.” The woman snapped around from her task of loading the fridge with food, a bright smile lighting her cute, elfin face. She was in her early to mid-twenties, a smattering of freckles across her nose, and she wore her dark brown hair short and in a snazzy asymmetrical cut that showed off her jaw line beautifully. Chandelier-style silver earrings dangled almost to her shoulders, with each line ending in a silver feather, and the workmanship was so intricate Mia longed to reach out and study the jewelry up close. “Quinn’s around somewhere, probably slogging his way through the ton of emails he gets on a daily basis. I’m Olivia, by the way,” she went on before Mia could get a word in edgewise, her hazel eyes bright and friendly. “And you’re Mia Flowers, the unluckiest traveler in the world, and oh my God, you are so freaking tall. Why can’t I be tall like you? It’s so unbelievably unfair how I got screwed in the genetic lottery. Everybody got the tall gene but me. Why do I have to be so shrimpy?”
“We normal-sized people have to have someplace to rest our elbows and drinks. The top of your head works just as well as any other surface.” Quinn, dressed in blue jeans, rugged-looking hiking boots and a navy blue knit pullover with a white T-shirt underneath, came through the open doorway, only to come to an abrupt halt when Mia turned to face him. “Whoa.”
Her smile of greeting faltered. How was she supposed to take that? “Uh…whoa?”
“Hell yeah, whoa. Six hours ago I brought in some sickly-looking, washed-out, stumbling-around zombie. You can’t possibly be that same woman.”
“Oh my God, that mouth of yours is why you’re still single. Ignore him, Mia,” Olivia advised while Mia struggled not to die of mortification at Quinn’s accurate description. Then Olivia’s words filtered through and she frowned in confusion mixed with a resurgence of buoyant energy. “All the Kingfishers are horrible except for me. They may have gotten the tall gene, but I got the adorable, everybody-loves-me gene. Just ask my hubs, Thomas, downhill wunderkind and all-around fab guy.”
