by Teri Wilson
And here Anya sat, getting all misty-eyed over a movie. Part of him admired her for it. A large part. And somehow Brock knew the dangers of the storm outside were nothing compared to the swirling blizzard of attraction in Anya’s cozy cottage.
He wondered if she felt it too and suspected she might when his kneecap first brushed against hers and she jumped.
“Everything okay over there?” he asked, noting the pink flush that settled in the vicinity of her exquisite cheekbones.
“Sure.” She slid her gaze toward him, and his stomach tightened as it always did at the sight of those eyes. “Shall I make more popcorn?”
“No, thanks. I’m stuffed.”
She picked up the bowl and moved it to the coffee table, and the space between them grew instantly smaller. Brock rested his arm against the back of the sofa. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but within moments Anya’s head found its way onto his shoulder.
And it was nice—this closeness. Far nicer than Brock had imagined. And despite what he wanted to admit, he’d imagined a scenario like this one. On more than one occasion even.
Anya’s hair carried the subtle fragrance of coffee and caramel, and Brock allowed himself a deep, intoxicating inhale. He had the sudden urge to memorize everything about her—the precise shade of her violet eyes, the incredible softness of her dark hair and the way he felt strong enough to take on the world when she was tucked beside him like this—so he could carry those memories with him when he left.
“Brock,” she said in a half-whisper, her body rising and falling slightly against him as she murmured his name.
“Yes?” His breath sent a tiny ripple through her hair.
“I want to explain about Saturday, at the Reindeer Run.” She grew still beside him.
The difference was subtle, but Brock noticed it nonetheless.
His first instinct was to tell her she owed him no explanation. After all, hadn’t he come to the eventual conclusion that he’d staunchly avoided talking about his future plans when he’d been around her? He’d suspected as much when he reflected on things in the seclusion of his own home, but here, now, it was an undeniable fact.
Even so, if Anya wanted to talk about things he owed it to her to listen.
“Okay,” he said and waited.
She spoke softly and kept her head on his shoulder, so he couldn’t see her face. “I overreacted. I know I did, and I’m sorry. Deep down, I guess I have this fear that everyone’s just going to go away and I’ll be left all alone.”
Brock couldn’t imagine Anya ever ending up alone. Who would be fool enough to leave her?
You would, you idiot.
“Why do you feel that way?” he asked, hating himself at that moment in a way he’d never hated himself before.
“Because it’s happened before. My father left when I was a baby. I’ve never met him. Twenty-six years after the fact, my mother is still angry and refuses to even talk about him. I don’t know anything about the man but his name.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder how the actions of a single person can have such widespread consequences.”
So these were the family issues she’d hinted at before. Brock’s hands clenched. He may have nearly made a mess of things with Anya, fraying the fragile threads of their newfound friendship, but he couldn’t imagine doing something as cold-hearted as walking away from a woman and a baby.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair.
“Oh, there’s more.” Anya let out a modest laugh, but Brock could feel the pain behind it.
He sat very still and waited for her to continue. For several long moments, the only thing he could hear was The Karate Kid soundtrack mingled with the gentle patter of snowflakes against the windows.
At last, she spoke. “I had a boyfriend a few years ago. My first and only. He was a world-class skier. Skiing was everything to him, and when it provided a way for him to leave Aurora he took it and never looked back. But first he dumped me on national television.”
Brock blinked, not entirely believing what he was hearing. “On television?”
Wasn’t that a bit of cruel overkill? What was wrong with this guy?
“Yep.” She nodded. Brock was barely aware of a lock of her hair tickling his nose.
All of his awareness was centered on one thing, and one thing only. As her words sunk in, he was hit with a realization that changed things. All appearances to the contrary, he and Anya were the same. They were two people whose lives had been shaped not by those who lived among them, but by those who were missing.
Whether they’d walked away of their own accord or been taken in the dead of night didn’t matter. The result was the same—a hole in the heart waiting to be filled.
Sitting beside Anya, the hole in Brock’s heart felt smaller. And he had the sudden, very real urge to heal the one in hers. A storm of emotions churned inside him, fiercer and more frightening than any snowstorm he’d encountered. He felt a dam break, the dam he’d spent the better part of a lifetime constructing—the one holding back all the pain and confusion about his brother’s disappearance. And for the first time, he had an urgent need to share himself with someone.
With Anya.
He was ready to tell her everything—what had happened to his brother that dark, snowy night and how afterward everything about him changed. He would explain why he moved around like he did. He would make her understand it wasn’t a choice, but that it was a compulsive need that burned inside him—this obsession with the snow and with finding people. An obsession with no known cure.
Although he was beginning to wonder if a remedy might be among the things he searched for.
Brock cleared his throat. “Anya, I...”
Before he could get started, she gasped and bolted upright. Her dainty hands clutched at the front of his flannel shirt, and her eyes flew open wide.
Brock followed the direction of her gaze, and his eyes landed on a sight that made him forget all that he was about to say. He could do little but shake his head in wonder at an occurrence so rare and unexpected that it took immediate precedence over anything and everything else.
“Well, would you look at that?” he whispered.
Anya’s eyes grew shiny behind a veil of tears. “Is this really happening? I can’t believe it.”
Brock sent up a silent prayer of thanks. “Believe it.”
He reached for Anya’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as the very elusive Dolce tiptoed her way into the living room.
* * *
“Has she ventured this far before on her own?”
Brock’s question somehow made its way through the fog of Anya’s thoughts. The sight of Dolce gingerly walking around the living room, coupled with the unexpected tenderness of Brock holding her hand—the way she’d felt with him the whole evening, actually—was a little much to take in all at once.
“Anya?” he whispered, prompting her to say something in response to his question.
“No. Never.” She licked her lips. “What should I do? Should I praise her?”
“Probably not. We don’t want to spook her.” Brock paused, considering the options. “I don’t have any treats on me. Do you?”
“Unfortunately, no. In the kitchen but not on hand.” Anya glanced at the empty popcorn bowl on the coffee table.
Only a smattering of unpopped kernels remained. There was nothing edible within reach.
“Okay, I think we should just stay very still and very quiet. We don’t want to overwhelm her.” Brock tore his gaze from Dolce and focused instead on Anya. “Try to act casual.”
Act casual? Right.
It was an awfully tall order. There wasn’t a single casual thing about this evening’s events...except maybe her fuzzy polar bear slippers.
Anya was beginning to wonder if all of it was a
dream. Had Brock Parker really shown up in the middle of a snowstorm, suggesting they hunker down and watch a movie together? And had things started to feel so cozy that she’d ended up snuggling against him? And had she actually told him all the humiliating details of her past?
Her throat grew dry.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—dwell on such things now. She’d grown weary of thinking things through. For once she wanted to forget the past, forget the future and simply live in the moment. Because as moments went, this one was pretty good.
Dolce made a tentative circle around the coffee table, her button nose quivering as she neared the empty popcorn bowl.
“Try not to overwhelm her. You may not even want to look her directly in the eyes,” Brock murmured. His voice was calm and even. Anya wondered how he could appear so unruffled.
She did her best not to stare. It was terribly difficult. After all, she’d been waiting a year for something like this to happen. When she’d rescued Dolce from that awful man, Anya had imagined the dog romping around her cottage, chasing balls and chomping on squeaky toys. She’d had no idea just how traumatized the poor thing had been.
Would she have still intervened and saved the dog if she’d known what a long road would lie ahead and that she might even lose her cottage? Of course she would have.
She blinked back the sting of tears—grateful tears. The extent to which Brock’s arrival in Aurora had changed things for Anya had never been more apparent than at that moment. Watching her timid little dog, now quiet and confident for the first time, willingly venture beyond the confines of the bedroom was more than she’d dared to hope for in so long.
“You did this,” she whispered to Brock, her voice thick with emotion. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Brock gave a slight shake of his head, but Anya was glad he didn’t say anything to try to deflect her gratitude. She wanted him to know just how much this meant to her, although she couldn’t quite put it into words. It meant...everything, really.
Dolce’s head swiveled in Anya’s direction at the sound of her voice. Anya smiled at her dog. And then Dolce’s curly sled-dog tail gave a tiny little wag before she scurried back to the safety of the bedroom.
“Oh!” Anya dropped Brock’s hand and clutched at his shirt again, the flannel soft beneath her fingers. “Did you see that? She wagged her tail.”
“She sure did,” Brock said, his voice still barely a whisper, even though Dolce had returned to her hiding spot.
Anya’s gaze lingered on where Dolce had been. She was afraid to look away in case the dog poked her head around the corner again. She held her breath for a few seconds and finally allowed herself to exhale when she heard the rustle of the bedspread, likely from Dolce scurrying underneath the bed.
For a moment, she was paralyzed. She could hardly believe she’d just witnessed the breakthrough she’d wanted for Dolce to have for so many months.
Brock’s hand found her shoulder. The weight of it, the warmth of it, told her what she’d experienced had been real.
At last she turned around. His face was closer than she’d expected. Mere inches away. The sight of him so near flooded her senses.
She swallowed with great difficulty. “So that really just happened?”
He nodded slowly but said nothing. Anya could see tiny flecks of gunmetal gray in his blue eyes that she’d never noticed before—and a few lines near the corners of those eyes that seemed to speak of a world-weariness that made her want to do something utterly ridiculous, like cook him chicken noodle soup or knit him a sweater. She should have been relieved to find an imperfection, tiny as it was, on that gorgeous face. Perhaps it leveled the playing field a bit.
She wasn’t relieved. Far from it. If she’d thought she was in trouble before, she was drowning in it now. There weren’t words to describe the thinness of the ice upon which she walked.
She was reminded of a moose she once saw creeping its way across the surface of the pond behind the Northern Lights Inn. It had been early spring, weeks after the winter’s hard freeze had begun to crack and thaw. By nightfall, an audience had gathered around the moose, cheering it on, willing the creature to make it safely to the other side. Anya had prepared hot apple cider for the spectators, serving it in paper cups with cinnamon stick straws. Nearly everyone in town had cheered and toasted with those paper cups when at last the moose stepped off the ice onto safe, solid ground.
Silly moose, she’d thought, long before the moose had reached the midway point of the pond. Why doesn’t it just turn around and go back where it knows it’s safe?
She inhaled a steadying breath.
Sometimes turning around isn’t so easy. Sometimes the lure of what’s on the other side is just too hard to ignore.
Brock reached up and, with a gentle swipe of his thumb, he wiped a tear from her cheek. His touch sparked something inside her—something she’d ordinarily never allow herself to feel, much less act upon.
Later, she’d blame what happened next on the excitement of Dolce’s breakthrough. At present, she didn’t care to examine the reasoning behind the pounding of her heart or the way her gaze was drawn to Brock’s lips as though they held a world of secrets she wanted to explore. Behind her, snow danced against the windowpane and music swelled from the television. Anya was hardly aware of either of those things.
She was, however, very much aware of how badly she wanted to kiss Brock Parker. It was a longing she felt down to the marrow of her bones. He was right there, scarcely a whisper away. How easy it would be to just lean in and touch her lips to his.
So she did.
At the first brush of her lips against his, one of Brock’s hands slipped to the back of her neck. Then the other. He cradled her head in his big, strong hands as tenderly as if she were made of glass.
If he was surprised by her actions, he didn’t show it—a fact that only made Anya’s heart beat with even greater intensity. And as Brock drew her closer and deepened the kiss, Anya felt herself falling...
Falling...
Falling...
Like the first fragile snowflake of winter, promising a world of glittering beauty after a long, lonely summer.
* * *
Brock wasn’t quite sure what was happening to him.
In that brief, sweet moment when Anya had rested a steadying palm on his chest and leaned in to kiss him, he should have had the strength to stop her. Less than an hour ago, she’d told him why she reacted as she did after Cole had mentioned Brock wasn’t in Alaska to stay. The last thing Brock wanted was to become another in a list of men who’d disappointed her. Who’d left.
So now—especially now—Brock had no business letting her kiss him. He had no business burying his hands in her hair and certainly no business kissing her back as though his life depended on it.
The trouble was, he didn’t want to stop her—not before she’d kissed him and certainly not now.
With the touch of her lips, the memory of every exotic place Brock had ever been—every mountaintop, every snow-crusted summit—flew right out of his head. All the angst, the searching and the restlessness that had been a part of him for so long were replaced with the kind of tranquility he’d never before thought possible. There was only the here and now—this place, this Alaskan range, this woman. And the startling reality that if he stayed, it would be more than enough. More than he’d ever dared to imagine.
And as quickly as all those feelings rushed in, grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a hard shake, they were gone.
Anya pulled away from him, scrambling to the opposite end of the sofa. Her fingertips flew to her lips. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
The sudden absence of Anya from his arms sent Brock reeling. He blinked, confused at what had just happened and even more confused by the sudden look of shock and regret on Anya’s lovely face
. Her fingers were still pressed to her lips, as if she were trying to keep those lips in check, to prevent them from going rogue and kissing him again.
In his state of bewilderment, Brock managed to breathe out, “What?”
“I’m sorry.” She stood, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle on her sweatshirt and taking a giant step backward. Her calf bumped into the coffee table, sending a turquoise ball of yarn tumbling to the floor.
The trajectory of its roll sent it spinning right past her polar bear-clad feet. Brock’s gaze snagged on Anya’s slender ankles, disappearing in the puffs of white fuzz.
Does she have any idea how adorable she looks in those crazy slippers?
Doubtful. And something told Brock now wasn’t the time to tell her as much.
He lifted his gaze once again to her face. Judging from her tormented expression, Anya’s thoughts weren’t anywhere remotely near her choice of footwear.
Brock held up his hands, as if he were approaching a frightened deer in the forest, and took a cautious step toward her. “It’s...”
“Please don’t say it’s fine.” Anya shook her head and crossed her arms across her body.
It’s fine was exactly what he’d planned on saying. Even though fine was a nearly unspeakable understatement.
“But...” he started.
“But it’s not fine. I kissed you.” She drew her bottom lip between her teeth. Brock tried, and failed, to look elsewhere—anywhere but at her mouth.
Yes, you did. You kissed me. And it was incredible.
He angled his head and searched her eyes for any hint that the kiss had affected her the way it had him. But all he saw there was regret. “Anya...”
“It was a mistake.” She swallowed. Brock traced the movement of it up and down the graceful column of her neck. “A mistake that won’t happen again.”
A mistake.
Brock’s chest seized. He wasn’t sure why.
She was right, of course. The kiss was a bad idea. The worst. Anya couldn’t trust him any more than she’d trusted her father or Speed. Brock’s job—and his very nature—meant he was destined to repeat their same failures. He would leave, just like all the others. So she was right. The kiss had been a mistake of the highest order.
