Rebecca awoke, cold and disoriented. Then she remembered where she was—lost—and how she’d gotten there—stupidity. The little car seemed to have run out of gas, as its engine had stopped running. Since the lights weren’t on anymore, she guessed its battery had also been discharged. She clicked the ignition off, and as expected, it did nothing when she tried to turn it back on. It was completely dark outside, something she never saw in the City with its massive light pollution. Rebecca couldn’t make out any light at all except the moon.
“Hey—the moon! I can see you up there! That must mean the snow stopped. All right! But unfortunately that doesn’t get me out of this ditch.”
Needing heat, Rebecca pulled her laptop out of its case and turned it on, setting it on her knees. The screen lit up and the little fan motor whirred softly. She tried to find a wireless network, knowing it was pointless. Nothing. She clicked the lid closed again. Soon the heat of the computer’s battery helped warm her legs.
Rebecca sniffed. What was that smell? She should be able to identify it…
“Oh man, I smell smoke! Wood smoke! And I seriously need to stop talking to myself!”
She craned her neck around and saw it. A faint yellow light coming from two small windows on a hill behind her. Someone was in a house up there. Someone who was burning a wood fire that smelled, right now, absolutely heavenly.
Hurriedly scrambling as excitement, relief, and anticipation warred for reign over her senses, Rebecca gathered her laptop case and purse, yanked the keys out of the ignition and pushed hard against the car door. Snow had piled up against it as she’d slept, and it took every ounce of strength to get the door opened against the snow and the fact that she was pushing it uphill from her cock-eyed perch in the ditch. Holding the door open with one fashionable black ankle boot, she gave a last heave and climbed out of the car with her paraphernalia in tow.
A literal sinking sensation overcame her as she realized she was nearly knee-deep in snow. It was cold, wet, and made her feel miserably hopeless. But she quickly quashed these emotions and summoned her usual persona.
Self-assurance. Self-confidence. Self-reliance. She squared her shoulders and took one step, then another. The car door fell shut with a slam behind her, and she headed toward the wood smoke and the little windows with the yellow light. She didn’t allow herself to wonder if the people in that house were likely to let her in. She would get in, get warm and dry, and when the snow stopped, someone would get that horrid rental car running for her, and she’d be on her way.
It seemed to take hours to get to the house. She was a poor judge of distance anyway, and the physical exertion of trudging through the snow, her chattering teeth, and nagging thoughts of frostbite didn’t help. Twice, she tripped headlong into the soft snow, unable to see in the dark even with the moonlight. She was freezing and shaking when she pushed the doorbell. Then she realized the doorbell was just a knotty place in the wood she’d somehow found with her forefinger in her much-too-thin kid glove.
She knocked on the door. Nothing. She pounded then, weakly, but not stopping until the door opened.
Soft light spilled out the open doorway, and a tall masculine figure blocked her view of the room. Rebecca didn’t know what to say, had not planned her opening remarks as a good attorney always does. Her only thought had been to force her body to reach the house. Her chattering teeth wouldn’t have allowed coherent speech anyway.
“Help,” was all she managed, softly, before feeling herself begin to collapse. He yanked the computer bag from her shoulder and pulled her into the room as the door slammed behind her. A blast of wind whooshed through the cabin, extinguishing the flame of a single white pillar candle on the coffee table.
“Are you nuts, woman?” He tossed her tapestry purse on top of the laptop case. Next, he removed her beloved emerald cloak and dumped it on the floor. Then came the snug leather gloves, pulled off quickly and landing inside-out on top of the cloak. He sat her onto the couch and knelt down, unzipping her ankle boots and throwing them in the general vicinity of her other belongings.
“Hey! Those are—”
“Completely useless in snow? Right. What are you dressed for? A business meeting in a climate-controlled office? It’s twelve degrees! What are you doing way out here?”
His questions came fast and furious, and his hands moved over her just as quickly. Before she realized what was going on, Rebecca was on the couch completely nude. A moment later, she found herself wrapped in a down-filled comforter.
“Hey!” she said again, wishing words would appear in her mind to deride him for his cavalier attitude and rough treatment. Not to mention the fact that he had undressed her without even a proper introduction.
“Yeah, yeah, just a minute.” He grabbed the white pillar candle off the coffee table and stalked away, returning in a moment with a thick chocolate-brown towel which he wrapped rather awkwardly around her wet hair. Then he was out of her sight again. Rebecca sank into the somewhat lumpy couch cushions, willing herself to stop shaking. A few minutes later the man reappeared with a heavy pottery mug in his hand. Steam rose from it enticingly.
“Tea?” Would Earl Grey be too much to ask for?
“Coffee. Strong and black.” He thrust the cup at her without apology. From his dialect, she surmised she had at least managed to get to Eastern Tennessee somewhere.
“Okay.” Strong and black was the only way she drank coffee, something she probably did more frequently than her doctor would like. A snowstorm seemed to call for tea, or hot cocoa, but Rebecca put that down to her romantic spirit.
Which she had thought was long dead.
Reaching for the big mug, she dislodged the arrangement of the comforter around her shoulders. She shifted it and got one hand out, holding the comforter together with her other hand. Relief washed over her as she gripped the warm mug. She was safe, almost dry, and nearly warm, too. No more worries about dying in that snowdrift with the tiny car as her casket. She closed her eyes as the first blessed sip of coffee slid down her throat.
“Mmm, this is surely the best coffee I’ve ever had.”
“So in other words you are starved, dehydrated, and have completely lost your mind while out wandering in the snow.”
Rebecca glanced up sharply at him then. She wanted to say something cutting, because he was being unkind. But her intrusion could have been met with a much worse welcome. Instead of speaking again, she continued to sip the coffee and look at the man. This seemed to bother him, and he paced a moment before throwing himself into an overstuffed chair across the rough wood coffee table from her. He didn’t break eye contact for long though, except to notice when the comforter shifted as she sat up a little straighter, exposing one slender white shoulder to the cold air, and his glance, for a moment.
“Okay, you’re warming up now. Want to tell me what you’re doing way out here in this weather, on Christmas Eve?”
“Hm. I guess I owe you that much. My name is Rebecca. I was driving to a friend’s house to spend the holiday, and I lost my way. Then I slid off the road. My rental car is a little distance from here. I got stuck in a snow bank, and I saw your lights.”
Rebecca realized she could be in considerable danger here, having absolutely no way to defend herself if the man wanted to hurt her. But she was confident he wouldn’t do that. Something in his blue eyes made her trust him. She saw honor there, and compassion, though she hadn’t noticed the latter in his voice.
He was a big man, standing easily over six feet tall, and broad-shouldered, with thick dark hair sprinkled with white, a handsome face, an interesting mouth, and a very nice physique well displayed by his worn jeans and gray thermal shirt. She wondered briefly at the waste of his being here alone, then realized there could be someone else in the little cabin who just hadn’t shown himself. Or herself.
“And you are?” she prompted.
“Your savior.” He extracted himself from the big chair and stalked away again. Why? She hadn’t asked anything of him but his name. That seemed only fair. What else was there to discuss at this point?
The man didn’t return. She listened intently but heard no sounds, and finally put her empty mug on the table. Being careful of the arrangement of the comforter, she slipped down into the cushions.
Rebecca lay there for a long while, enjoying the crackling fire that had warmed her body, the smell of whose smoke had helped save her life. She thought she could see people dancing in the flames, very energetically. The way they danced together mesmerized her. The more she watched, the more she saw two distinct figures dancing together. Maybe it was a Latin dance of some sort. It was so sultry—more like lovemaking than dancing. Two fluid bodies, one much larger, towering over the small one at times, reaching for the small one, and the small one reaching toward the other and then dancing away a moment later, teasing, until the larger one overtook it and the two danced so closely together for a while that they became one big flame. Crackling, sending out sparks, putting off waves of heat.
Rebecca knew it was just her mind playing tricks, that she was tired and needed sleep. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the dancing flames, and she couldn’t help noticing that she was getting warmer by the moment. She felt her breathing become heavier, as she saw herself as the small flame, and the man in the cabin with her as the large one.
How would it feel to dance so close to that big handsome man? How would it feel if he reached out for her, and she to him? And if she pulled away, would he overtake her, pull her into him until they became one? Until their dance brought them together in that most intimate of dances?
He put his hand on her bare shoulder and she screamed.
“What?” he yelled, jumping back a good foot. “I just touched your shoulder. Holy—You looked like you were in a trance or something. I thought…”
Horrified that he had found her getting hot and bothered by his fire, Rebecca reacted in her usual way—she lashed out.
“You don’t ever sneak up and touch me and not expect a reaction. Don’t try it again, mister. I know karate. I might as well tell you that now. I’m from the big city, where women know how to take care of themselves. So just back off.” She narrowed her gaze to let him know she was serious.
He immediately clapped a hand over his mouth. Rebecca suspected he was hiding a smile, but he turned his back on her before she got a good look at his eyes to verify that. A minute or two passed, then he faced her again.
“You’re okay here? I went to bed, and then thought I should be sure this is all right for you.”
“I’m fine. Great. The couch has a couple of lumps, but it’s better than the seat of that little car I’ve spent eternity in today. Thanks.” She added it as an afterthought.
“Well. You’re welcome. I’ll add a couple sticks to the fire, then it should carry through for a while. But it’s a cold night out there.”
Rebecca knew that, and acknowledged the truth of it by sliding back down, pulling the comforter more securely around her, and tightly closing her eyes to avoid seeing the man. Or the man in the flames. She heard him adding logs to the fire, and felt, rather than saw, him stand back up, walk the few steps toward her. She kept her eyes closed as he softly bid her good night and walked out of the room again.
****
David paced the small bedroom. This year’s Christmas Eve vigil was ruined, that much was sure. He always yearned for the Christmas break from work, but this year he’d been obsessed with his need to get to the cabin. He was better this year. His wounds were healing. So he didn’t understand his near-desperation to get to the mountain for Christmas Eve. Why was it even more important this year?
Holly.
Her name whispered through his mind. She was his reason for being here at all, of course. If she’d come with him for Christmas, she’d have made sure their suitcases had been packed early. She would have included his favorite shirts, neatly ironed, and for the Christmas dinner with the rest of the McClain clan at his mom and dad’s house, the silly reindeer necktie she’d bought him at a consignment shop in downtown Knoxville. The tie played Jingle Bells when you squeezed the little music box hidden in the hem of the tie.
It also played Jingle Bells if Holly gave him a really great hug, which she so often did.
Had. Past tense. Not anymore. And not for a very, very long time.
Back in Knoxville he had a nice, big house in a suburb with a big lawn and a big garage, and a big swimming pool in the back. He’d bought it all for Holly. Without her, it was just a place to eat and sleep…and work.
But this cabin. It was special, even though he came here alone. Holly had told him it would be, hadn’t she?
He lay down on the cold sheets, pulled the covers up around him, and hoped for sleep. Surely he would dream of Holly.