Chapter 4
Ryder
Friday 6.12pm
I’m still reeling from the way she was watching me and wondering what to do about it when she frowns at me.
“I’m not asking you to come with me, I just need you to point me in the right direction and I’ll go by myself.”
I shake my head and grab the closest thermal top and push my head through the neck hole. “Don’t be stupid.”
Her cheeks flush. “You think I’m stupid for trying to see something I may never get the chance to again?”
She doesn’t say another word, just looks at me with such disgust I feel like she aimed a knife and slashed me with it. “Forget it.”
Before I can say anything else she spins on her heel and disappears into the black outside.
I growl a curse as I reach for the other two thermals I always wear. I pull them over my head, grab my coat, close the garage door, and stalk through the snow to the cabin.
Expecting to find her waiting, I open the door and am momentarily caught off balance when nothing of hers remains except the hint of her perfume.
I spin around, my heart thumping against my ribs as I squint into the trees. “Fuck.”
I grab my flashlight and slam the door before I jump down the steps to see how far she got ahead of me.
In the fading light, it takes me longer than it should to find her footprints heading north and over a hill.
I clomp after her, fury building at her continued presence and her willingness to be a giant pain in my ass.
Cindy owes me big time for having to clean up a woman with this level of crazy obsession.
After a few false searches, I finally catch sight of her on the crest of a ridge.
Thighs burning from exertion, I carry on up the hill, breathing hard as icy air fills my lungs.
I descend the hill, trying to catch my breath and get my bearings when I see her craning her neck upward as if she’s going to find the answers to life’s burning questions in the stars.
As I approach, she turns and shields her eyes as I shine my flashlight on her. “Come back. Now,” I growl at her.
She shakes her head. “It’s still early. They might still—”
I cut her off. “If you want to look at some colored lights, do it on Cindy’s time. Now get your ass back to the cabin.”
I think she’s going to relent but she just backs away from me. “I have an obligation to try to get photos. It’s my job and a big part of why I agreed to come here.”
Whether she has a point or not is suddenly redundant when I hear the slightest cracking sound, and belatedly realize as we’ve been talking she’s backed up onto a frozen pond.
“You’re standing on thin ice,” I say as calmly as I can.
Her brow knits. “I’m what?”
She looks down, and her mouth opens but before I can tell her to stay still, the ice gives way beneath her and I have about one second to act before she plunges feet first into the water.
I spring forward, slide belly first across the snow, and just manage to grab her coat as she lets out a shriek.
Adrenaline surging through me, I manage to haul her backward and out of the pond before my fingers lose feeling.
I take a few gasps of air before I roll on my side and look at her stunned and saturated in the snow. “We need to get back.”
This time, she does agree.
***
Millie
By the time we’ve hiked back to the cabin, my teeth are chattering so bad, I can barely speak.
I stumble up the steps behind him, so desperate to warm up, I don’t even bother to remove my boots.
Since everything is wet, and my fingers are no longer cooperating, it takes me far too long to strip off while he hastily removes his own wet clothing.
Since I left my bag in his truck, I can’t even put warm clothes on.
But I’m so miserable I just rid myself of my underwear and when he offers me one, I put a t-shirt of his on.
If I was worried about him looking, he’s too busy getting water on to boil, stoking the fire, and muttering about ‘stupid women’ that I know he’s not spared me a glance.
When he hands me a cup of something warm, I’m shaking so bad, I can barely hold it.
As he hangs my clothes over a drying rack hanging from the ceiling, I huddle closer to the fire, grimacing as I realize I got my phone wet.
But as I notice Ryder looks a little less angry and more worried, I forget about my phone as he mutters, “It took us fifteen minutes to get back here.”
I have no idea why the time he’s complaining about me not being able to walk as quickly, he’s only wet from the top up, thanks to my idiotic desire to get away from him and to see the lights, I’m the one who is suffering the most.
But when I’ve finished most of the drink and am still frozen, his forehead is creased with concern. “Are you tired? Having trouble concentrating?”
I frown at him and try for a shrug. “W,w,w why?” I manage to stutter.
He doesn’t answer, just gets up and leaves me to shiver in his t-shirt.
I don’t know how long he’s gone for, only that he’s climbed up the ladder to the loft and when he comes back carrying a bedroll and a sleeping bag, I’m starting to feel numb.
I’m so desperate for relief when he pulls out a sleeping bag and drops it in front of the fire, I assume he’s done helping me.
“What about a bath?” I slur.
He shakes his head. “The bath is outside, and I’d have to heat it with firewood first. Body heat is safer.”
Something inside my brain seems to understand what he’s suggesting, but I can’t even think of why it might be a bad idea.
And when he strips off his clothes, leaving nothing but his tight boxers on, I no longer care about propriety, or modesty, I just want to get warm again.
My limbs are so heavy, I have to get him to help me climb into the sleeping bag and turn on my side.
“Take the t-shirt off. We need skin to skin for this to work,” he says.
In my addled state, his voice is surprisingly tender, which worries me even more than not being able to feel my body.
After a few false starts, I manage to rid myself of the t-shirt and don’t even flinch when he climbs in beside me and presses his entire body against mine.
He slides his arm under my neck, places the other around my waist, squeezes gently as his breath comes hot in my ear. “Let me know when you’re getting feeling back on this side and we’ll do the other side.”
Something akin to horror flickers to life at the idea, then quickly dies as I realize if we don’t do this, I might not ever see the Northern Lights.
***
Ryder
She’s still shivering, teeth chattering so bad, I know this was the best option. Even with the fire warming my back, she’s so cold it’s like hugging a block of ice.
I stay pressed against her back, holding her tight and for the first time in years, pray to the God my mom believed in.
No matter how I look at it, Cindy is not going to be happy about this. If I’d not been such a prick about things, and explained it wasn’t safe to go walking about, she’d have probably been gone by the morning, and I wouldn’t be in this insane situation.
If I wasn’t shit scared, this would almost be funny, but I know enough about hypothermia to know her five-second dip into freezing water, and the time it took to get back here, could be life-threatening.
I need to keep her awake, and lucid so I find a way to keep her talking.
“Are you always this stubborn?” I say.
She doesn’t reply, and her grip around me is getting weaker. I’ve never been great at small talk, but since this is life or death, I give it a try. “My Grandad was born here. This is his cabin.”
She doesn’t reply which gives me enough reason to keep talking. “Cindy and I used to come stay with him when…”
I’m not sure I want to bring up our lousy childhood, so I leave out the worst and focus on the gruff man we spend way too many holidays with.
“Mom was a Christian. But Dad’s side of the family are Atheists. First Christmas Cindy and I came here, he told us Jesus didn’t exist and that he and Santa were invented by advertisers to sell to mindless people,” I say.
Even as I say it, anger burns at me as I think of the pinched expression on Grandad’s face when we’d ask why mom had put us on a plane in tears.
Millie tenses and even though I never talk about my parents, I’m almost relieved when she gives me a coherent if somewhat slurred response. “Cindy never really talked about your family. Just said your parents weren’t very happy.”
I grunt a reply, ready to put a stop to the conversation but can’t seem to quit. “Cindy has selective memory about our childhood,” I mutter.
I don’t tell her how I used to make excuses for the bruises and the arguments. I don’t mention that I used to play music in our room or turn up the TV to drown out the shouting matches.
And I’ll never admit that I resented having to protect her from the knowledge that behind the façade of respectability her dad was a drunk and a wife-beater.
“Do you believe that?”
I frown at the back of her head and wonder how I ended up talking about personal shit like this with her.
“Believe what?”
“What your grandfather said about Christmas?”
“I never really thought about it,” I say.
Her voice is still muffled but comes out marginally stronger, and with far less chattering. “I’d have thought you’d have nothing else to do but think out here?”
It’s a fair question, I suppose, but not one I can easily answer. “I try not to think about the past.”
“And what about the future? Do you avoid thinking about that too?”
I frown, unwilling to say anything else that will lead to more conversation.
My arm is starting to go numb and since she feels fractionally less cold, I wriggle my fingers. “I need you to move over, I can’t feel my arm.”
Her body tenses, but she does as I suggest, and I manage to slip my arm back as she awkwardly turns on her side.
She immediately pushes her body against mine, and I flinch not just at the coldness of her skin, but the fact that her tits are now against my chest.
I drape my arm over her again and hold her close as she positions herself so she’s comfortable.
“Why did you get into MMA?”
It’s a question I’ve been asked so often, I normally have my answer at the ready, but for the weirdest reason, probably because this is the closest thing to intimacy I’ve had in a year, the truth drips off my tongue.
“Fighting was the only thing I was ever good at.”
She’s silent for a moment. “Did you ever confront your father?”
Every muscle in my body clenches and even the feel of her against me doesn’t take the bitterness from my words. “No.”
Her arm tightens around me, and I’m not sure if she’s offering me a hug or just trying to get closer to me, but it makes something painful prick at my chest.
Something I’m close to giving in to and know I can’t. “We’ll give it ten more minutes then you should be fine,” I snap.
She stiffens in my arms. “You don’t need to be rude. This is not how I was supposed to be spending Christmas either. I was supposed to be with my family and Adam.”
Her hair is tickling my nose, so I push my fingers through her damp hair. “And Adam is?”
She doesn’t shift as she answers. “Until two days ago, he was my boyfriend. I thought he was going to come home with me for Christmas, instead he dumped me by email.”
“Classy guy,” I mutter.
“I thought so. But this is the third time I’ve been dumped. I’m beginning to think maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with me,” she says.
I nearly roll my eyes at that one. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You picked a guy who was wrong. That’s all.”
She sounds frustrated as she replies. “You’re over-simplifying it. He had his reasons. I was away all the time and I’m too self-sufficient.”
“What does too self-sufficient mean? Is that chick code for self-pleasuring?”
She jerks her head up so rapidly she smacks my chin. “No, it is not. I mean I can do a lot of things guys can. Like change a tire, fix my water heater, that sort of thing. My dad made sure I learned all that before I left for college.”
I frown down at her, perplexed. “And this Adam told you he didn’t like that about you?”
She nods. “Among other things. But that’s not the first time I’ve heard it. Men don’t want independent women who can take care of themselves.”
I choke on a laugh. “Who the fuck have you been talking to? Guys think that’s sexy as hell.”
Her eyes widen. “What guys? I’ve been dating since I was nineteen and I’ve never met a guy—"
I cut her off. “Like I said. You were with the wrong guys.”
Her brow crinkles, and as I look at her, I’m relieved to see her lips are no longer blue but rosy red, and her body is getting warmer by the second.
Not only that but now she’s getting better, my cock seems to have woken up to the fact a beautiful naked woman is draped over me.
I shift slightly, hoping to staunch the flow of blood but that only makes it worse when I feel her bush tickle my leg.
She’s so caught up in insisting she was at fault, she seems oblivious to the effect she’s having on me.
“I think you’re wrong. You’re basing that on your personal experience and not what most men want.”
I need to get out of this sleeping bag, and away from her, but she’s being so stubborn I can’t resist.
“No, I’m not. You’re drop-dead gorgeous, you aren’t needy and you’re away a lot. That’s every guy’s dream girlfriend.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why did I say that?
Her eyebrow arches. “Oh really? Then I guess the reality didn’t live up to the dream then did it?”
I shift back a little, hoping she’ll take the hint, she’s out of the woods. “How would I know? Maybe you have annoying habits?”
But she just screws her face up and doesn’t let go of me. “Like what? You just said I’m technically every guy’s dream girlfriend.”
“I don’t fucking know. I never met the guy.”
Her forehead scrunches into a frown. “You curse too much.”
That does it, I’m done with this conversation and she’s going to be fine. “Yeah well, you talk too much.”
I shift more abruptly, but the movement both jiggles her tits and causes her hand to slip.
She sucks in a breath, and we freeze, eyes locked together as her fingers rest on my now rock-hard cock.
