Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (7 page)

worked so many possibilities through in his head, and they all

ended up with failure.

When she woke up in the midafternoon, Fletcher was there

beside her, holding a bowl of warm water and a few rags. Her

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face was bruised and her hands were still shaky, but she had

more strength than she’d had the night before.

“Where do you hurt?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

She took a wet rag and held it to her face, dabbing at the cut

on her hairline. One eye was swollen, but the other was clear,

observant. “My name is Janine.”

“My name is Fletcher.”

She nodded and looked around the room. Her sharp gaze

took in everything, but she was still moving a bit too slowly.

Was it safe to give her medicine? Would it help her or harm her?

All he had was aspirin, and he knew aspirin thinned the blood.

“I have aspirin,” he said, and let her make the decision.

“Yes. Please.”

He opened the cabinet in the far corner. The cabin was two

rooms—a bathroom was hidden away in one corner, but the rest

of the house was wide open. He could feel her eyes on him as he moved around it, stoking the fire even higher, searching under

the old porcelain sink for the emergency first-aid kit that he

was certain had been left under there at some point. He finally found it behind the gun oil and the can of cooking lard. When

he turned back to her, there was an amused smile on her face.

“What’s so funny?”

She nodded toward the mess that was the kitchen. “Men are

the same,” she said, her words a little slurred. “Whether in New York City or at the top of a mountain.”

“What were you doing at the top of my mountain anyway?”

Fletcher opened the bottle of aspirin and held it out to her.

As she sat up, the quilt fell down, giving him a quick view of her breasts before she pulled the fabric up again. A blush rose to his

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cheeks and he looked out the window. The raccoon was sitting

on the porch, looking back in the window at him.

“I was looking for new places to shoot,” she said.

“To shoot?”

“I’m a photographer.”

Fletcher stiffened. “You were on private property.”

“I know that now.” She dabbed again at the cut on her fore-

head and winced. “I apologize.”

“What kind of things do you photograph?”

The silence was long. Fletcher refused to look back at her.

The raccoon waddled a few steps closer to the window, and

Fletcher went to the kitchen to get some leftovers. When he

opened the door, the coon didn’t flinch or move away. It was

probably time to name the old boy, because it appeared they

were stuck with each other.

Fletcher held out the pan and the raccoon came forward to

sniff at it. Fletcher set it on the porch and watched as the black-masked creature carefully selected a piece of flapjack, rolled it neatly with his tiny paws, and stuck it down in the snow.

“I could use some dry clothes.” She was standing in the door-

way, looking over his shoulder at the raccoon, the porch, and the vast white blanket beyond.

“You can wear some of mine. They are too big for you, but

better than that quilt.”

He listened as she shuffled toward the closet, then he dropped

down into the rocking chair. The chill of the snow immediately

seeped through his jeans, but he hardly noticed. He stared at the white world outside his porch as the raccoon chattered away.

A photographer, of all things. Fletcher was willing to put

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money down on the reasons she was here. The fall was just a

mishap, but she hadn’t lost her way. She had been trying to find good cover.

He was glad she was okay, but he hoped her equipment had

been smashed all to hell.

After a few long minutes, she came out onto the porch. She

was wearing an old shirt of his that fell to her knees. She had on a pair of long underwear underneath that, and a pair of his

thick socks. They came halfway up her shins. Fletcher fought

the urge to smile—she looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her father’s closet.

She limped over to the railing. They looked at each other.

“You know who I am,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You’re paparazzo?”

“It pays the bills.”

“I’ll bet it does.”

Janine wrapped her arms around her middle and kept silent.

In the afternoon light, the bruises were very clear. Just looking at her made him hurt. He wanted to apologize for being so rude

to her, but on the other hand, he was angry as hell. He wanted

her off his mountain.

“I came out here to be away from the rest of the world,” he

said.

“I can see that. Nobody in their right mind would live so far

off the grid.”

“Thanks.”

She shifted her weight to the other foot and winced as she did

it. “Look, it’s a job, okay? Some of us have to work.”

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He rocked and said nothing.

“Everyone wants to know what is going on with you,” she

said.

Fletcher glared at her. “You’re grasping at straws for explana-

tions.”

“Do you know what a stir you made when you disap-

peared?”

“Tabloids don’t make it out this far.”

“The most influential man in Silicon Valley just drops it all

and chooses to live so far away from technology, nobody can

reach him anymore? Only Bill Gates would have caused more

uproar.”

“How is Bill anyway?”

She shot him a glare. “Nobody knows why you ran.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Once you’re a celebrity, it’s
everybody’s
business, Fletcher.”

“I’m not a celebrity. I’m a computer geek.”

“You became a celebrity when you started dating actresses.”

The chair slammed against the wall when Fletcher stood up.

He rose to his full height, towering over her by more than a

foot. He put as much venom into his voice as he could manage.

It wasn’t hard to do—the slightest mention of Amanda could

still cut him, even after all this time, and fury was better than sadness.

“Get off my mountain,” he growled.

Janine actually cowered a bit, which satisfied him and made

him sad all at the same time. She looked at the chair as it settled back down into its usual place. “I would, Fletcher. But I can’t.”

Fletcher stared at her, the words to blast her forming in the

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back of his mind, his hands trembling, his eyes watering with

anger. In the end he stepped away from her, yanked his coat

from a hook just inside the door, and stalked down the porch

steps. He strapped on his snowshoes and started walking. It

took effort to move across the snow, and he focused on the

strength of his legs and the pumping of his heart until he erased all thoughts, save one.

Why can’t they just leave me alone?

By the time he came back to the cabin, the anger was mostly gone.

He was worn out, physically and emotionally. The fight might

come back to him another day, but for now, he was just resigned to dealing with this woman who had crashed into his life.

Fletcher had done a lot of thinking while he walked through

the wilderness. If Janine was going to be here for as long as he thought she might be, he would have to be civil. Making enemies with her was the last thing either of them needed. He was accustomed to his solitude and far preferred that to the company

of anyone, but if she was going to be here anyway, Fletcher had to admit it would be nice to have someone to talk to.

Besides that, there were more practical matters to think about.

She had tracked him down. He wasn’t foolish enough to think

she would be the only one. If she could do it, so could someone else—his secret would soon be out, whether he liked it or not.

Smoke rose in thick plumes from the chimney. Inside, the

cabin was toasty warm. The fire was roaring in the fireplace,

and it was roaring in the cast-iron stove, too. He found Janine standing over it, stirring something in a pan, her face flushed from the heat.

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“I’ve never used a wood cookstove before,” she said by way of

greeting.

Fletcher removed his coat. “Don’t burn yourself.”

“I’m being careful.”

Fletcher pulled a chair out from underneath the small kitchen

table and sat down. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m hurting.” She looked over at him and shrugged. Her face

looked worse than it had before he left, as if the bruises had

finally made themselves clear.

“There’s aspirin. I’m sorry there isn’t more.”

“Aspirin is good.” She watched the pan for a moment. “Thank

you for helping me.”

“You’re welcome.”

She looked at him with wide eyes, surprised at his genial

attitude.

“Janine, there are some things you need to know.”

She looked at him, wooden spatula in hand, and waited.

“First, I’m sorry I blew up a while ago.”

Janine waved his apology away. “You were entirely justified.”

“Second, I want you to know why my privacy means so much

to me.”

She flipped something in the pan. It smelled like pork chops—

she must have found the smokehouse out back. Fletcher’s stom-

ach rumbled, and Janine smiled at him. Her smile made her very

pretty, despite the bruises.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said.

“Are you going to print this?”

Janine laughed. “I’m a photographer, not a reporter.”

“I had two choices,” Fletcher said. “I could declare everything
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lost and jump from a rooftop, or I could disappear and try to

start over.”

Janine tapped the spatula against the pan. “I’m listening.”

“It wasn’t what everyone thought. The rumors were wild but

none of them were true.”

“The biggest rumor was that you were jilted by a woman,”

she said.

“Wouldn’t being jilted by a man make the bigger story?”

Janine whirled around and looked at him with wide eyes.

Fletcher let out a long, hearty laugh and shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not true.”

Janine blushed and turned back to the stove. “Not a woman.

Not a man, then. What was it?”

“I couldn’t handle it anymore. Life became nothing but pres-

sure, money, and ridiculous expectation. I got into computer

engineering because it was my passion. I got out of it because it was suffocating me.”

“You disappeared right before the indictments.”

Fletcher closed his eyes, remembering the day he learned

how much his employees were embezzling. He remembered the

Feds sticking that paperwork under his nose, showing him how

much he didn’t know: the forged signatures, the bank accounts

hacked, the expertise of his own company and his own protégés

being used against him.

“I didn’t give them up, if that’s what you’re wondering. I found out about it all a few days before the rest of the world did.”

He watched as she put the pork chops on a chipped platter.

She sprinkled a bit of flour in the skillet, waited a moment,

then poured in a cup of water, stirring the whole time. Fletcher watched her as she cooked. Now that he could look at her and

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not think of hospital emergency rooms, he realized what a

pretty woman she was. Her body was long and lean, with the

firm calves and shoulders of a seasoned athlete. Her brunette

hair was somehow wound around an old, battered pencil—the

result was a messy bun at the back of her head, wisps trailing

over her shoulders. He studied the fine lines of her neck. There was a bruise right underneath her ear, but he noticed instead the strong line of her jaw, and the surprised way she smiled when

she turned and caught him looking.

“I’m a mess,” she said, holding her hands up in apology.

“You’re lovely,” he said, the words popping out before he had

a chance to think about them. He felt the blush travel quickly

up his cheeks, heating his face. He busied himself with unlacing his boots, hoping she hadn’t seen his embarrassment, so much

like a little boy instead of a grown man. Where the hell had that come from?

“Thank you,” she said. The surprise made her voice light,

almost playful.

Fletcher shrugged and started on the other boot.

She set food on the table, a simple dinner of pork chops,

gravy, and fried potatoes. She poured ice-cold water from a

pitcher and sat down in the other chair, smiled at Fletcher, and picked up her fork.

“Eat,” she said.

Fletcher looked at the food, and his stomach rumbled again.

It was the first meal he hadn’t cooked for himself in almost a

year. The last time was at Amanda’s house, and when they were

done they had forsaken the wineglasses to pour the red liquid