Let It Snow... (14 page)

Wow, wow and oh, wow. Trudie was unashamedly a fangirl. She did, however, try not to gush. “I love your column,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Trudie had thought more than once about writing to Tansy on her blog advice column when Knox and Elsa had first gotten together. She also remembered reading about an incident this past fall when a deranged woman had tried to kill Tansy. It had been a watered-down Fatal Attraction, Alaska-style.

The petite brunette smiled and pushed her dark-rimmed glasses more firmly onto her nose. “It’s nice to meet you as well.”

“Take a load off and fill us in,” Alberta said, motioning toward the overstuffed armchair. Trudie sank into the thick cushion and Alberta cocked her head to one side, rather like a colorful bird. “I saw you with Knox earlier and then I saw her highness. What’s up with that love triangle?”

“There’s no love triangle,” Trudie said.

She sipped at her coffee as Alberta’s painted-on eyebrows hiked an inch up her forehead at Trudie’s declaration. “If you say so.”

Tansy spoke up. “Are you talking about the tall blonde woman, Miss Snow Queen, and the dark-haired man who was with her?”

“Right,” Alberta said. “Those two...and of course,” she indicated Trudie, “this one.”

Tansy nodded. “They were checking in earlier when my flight arrived. My fiancé has a survivalist training camp up north. I fly in periodically and stay with my sister and her family,” she said specifically to Trudie. “I wasn’t about to miss Chrismoose. Liam and Dirk—his cousin works with him—can survive without me for the next week. No pun intended.”

Trudie laughed, instantly liking the columnist.

Tansy eyed Trudie through her spectacles. “Have you ever written to me?”

“No, but I did think about it a couple of times.”

Alberta chimed in. “I’ve seen Elsa and Knox together and she’s not right for him,” she said to Tansy.

“I second that,” the advice columnist said. “I only saw them briefly this morning, but it was enough.”

“The vote’s unanimous.” Alberta offered up a snort of laughter.

“It doesn’t matter if the whole world knows it as long as he’s still somewhere in la-la land and can’t see it,” Trudie said.

Alberta and Tansy exchanged a look. Tansy dipped her head toward Alberta. “Your professional take?”

“He’s beginning to wake up. Men do that, you know, sort of fall under a woman’s spell. It doesn’t mean either one’s bad, just wrong for each other.” Alberta turned to Trudie. “Stay your course. He needs you.”

Trudie shook her head. She wasn’t going to get caught up in their love advice and matchmaking. She’d learned her lesson. “He’s not the same man I knew.”

“You’ll find him again,” Alberta said.

Trudie shook her head. “I’m not so sure.” The more important part was she wasn’t sure she wanted to, not in that way. She didn’t relish another dose of heartbreak and hurt.

“I’ve seen them together and I’ve seen the two of you together. Trust an old matchmaker on this.”

Tansy nodded in agreement. “Usually something cataclysmic occurs and things shift.”

“That happened when his grandmother died,” Alberta said. “I sense an equally important change now.”

They weren’t listening to her, so Trudie said it again. “I don’t know him anymore.”

“One way to fix that...” Alberta said with a smirk. “Get to know him again.”

“Funny, that’s what he said.”

“I vote for that plan of action as well,” Tansy said.

“We all seem to forget he’s got a girlfriend,” Trudie reminded them.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Alberta said. “You might want to try asking him. I’m not convinced.” She smirked.

“But he’s here with her.”

“I still say just ask.”

“I second that strategy,” Tansy said, sipping at a cup of tea.

“What, is this relationship by committee?” Trudie asked.

Alberta grinned unabashedly. “Absolutely. Sometimes falling in love takes a village.”

Tansy smiled. “Well, speaking from the voice of experience, Good Riddance is just the village for that job.”

5

“
C
AN
YOU
GET
that branch? The one...right there, a little to the right.... Perfect.”

Knox glanced down at Trudie from where he was perched in a spruce tree, fetching the perfect branch for her. She’d gone with him to the bison ranch earlier. Now he was helping her collect the “materials” for her floral decorations.

Her blue-and-green striped knit cap bore a dusting of snow. In the waning light, her cheeks were rosy.

He could swear the sun was brighter, the snow whiter, and the air sweeter today than it had been in a really long time. And he’d been excruciatingly aware of her all day—the way her eyes sparkled, her scent, her warmth. It was as if he was in the grips of a fever. As agreed, he’d escorted Elsa to dinner last night, but he’d had little patience with her demands and chatter.

Trudie, the thought of Trudie, his desire for Trudie, had been a constant ache. He’d tossed and turned through a sleepless night, wanting another kiss, wanting her. In his fevered brain, he’d made love to her numerous times, numerous ways throughout the night. However, the ache was still with him. It had actually intensified as the day wore on.

He made the cut and handed the branch down to her. Even Jessup had caught the fever, although the dog’s was more holiday excitement. Jessup had set aside his snow aversion and was rolling around in the white stuff like a maniac.

“Your dog has lost his mind,” Trudie said, laughing at his antics.

Knox knew the feeling. “Maybe. But he seems pretty content.”

“He’s making canine snow angels.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Knox hadn’t known what a snow angel was until Trudie had explained it to him the first winter he’d lived with Mormor. His grandmother would be happy that he and Trudie were hanging out together again.

“Thanks for coming with me this morning,” he said.

Trudie trudged through the drift to add the new branch to her collection in his truck bed. “Are you kidding? That was so cool.” She returned to the tree. “Just to see the operation and the setup was awesome.”

They’d flown into the bison ranch just as the sun was inching up over the horizon. The shaggy beasts had stood in majestic contrast to the white landscape. “It was a sight to behold, wasn’t it? All the bison against the snow?”

The whine of snowmobiles sounded in the distance. A chickadee fussed noisily one tree over. The faint scent of wood smoke punctuated the cold air.

“Yeah, it was pretty incredible. Thanks for inviting me. Dwight was really nice.”

Well, just how damn nice did she think he was? Jealousy knotted low in Knox’s gut. What the hell was wrong with him? First off, he’d known a moment of the green-eyed monster when Trudie had talked about going fishing with that Jeremy whatever his name was and then she’d seemed to smile a lot at Dwight, the bison ranch owner, today.

So? She was a free agent...and a damn nice person...and a damn pretty woman and smart and fun to boot, so why wouldn’t she be looking? And why wouldn’t Dwight or her new fishing buddy or any other guy be looking back? And it seemed to Knox that Dwight had definitely been interested. Not that the rancher had been out of line or acted a fool, but a man knew when another man found a woman attractive.

It had never been a problem for Knox before, but he suddenly found that it was—a big load of a problem.

He
wanted her. She’d been there all along, right in front of him, and he’d been too stupid and too blind to see. Now he saw, but was he too late? Was she willing to really know him again? Would she want him as a man, as a lover, not simply as a friend? Despite the explosiveness of last night’s kiss, or perhaps because of it, she’d been friendly, but guarded, today.

“You gonna stay up there all day or what?” she said with a cheeky smile.

“Smartass.” Knox laughed. “Maybe I will just stay up here for a while.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll wait in the truck because I’ve got some sense.” She grinned in the direction of his vehicle parked on the side of the road. “But feel free to sit up there and freeze your butt off.”

He dropped to the ground with a thunk, the deep snow cushioning the impact. Nonetheless, it threw his balance off. He reached for the first thing in front of him—Trudie—at the same time she reached out to steady him.

Knox fell backwards into the snow. Trudie landed on top of him. All the air seemed to leave his lungs. It wasn’t the impact of the fall, but the press of her against him. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Her warm, fragrant breath mingled with his. Her lower body pressed intimately against his. Want...need...hunger...arced between them, bound them.

He was lying in a bed of snow and he was on fire for her. He’d wanted just this thing all day.

“Trudie...” He wrapped his arms around her, securing her even tighter and harder against him.

“Knox...” she seemed to breathe his name on her exhale. He could swear he felt her heart racing against his chest through the layers of their clothes and jackets, which was just plain damn crazy...almost as crazy as what he was about to do...what they were about to do.

He cupped the back of her head in his gloved hand. She might say she didn’t want them to kiss again but she damn sure wasn’t making any move to get up. He pulled her head down to his. The smoke of their breath mingled as she drew closer. Her warm breath gusted against his face. The rest was up to her—what she really wanted was about to be known. His hand still rested against the back of her head but those last few inches—it was up to her to bridge them.

He looked into her eyes. Her dark pupils mirrored him. He opened himself to her, letting her see how much he wanted her. He also let her see his uncertainty.

Their lips were cold but the kiss was hot. The cold began to seep away until there was only heat and her soft pliant mouth meeting his.

This time it was Trudie teasing her tongue against his lips, seeking entry. He groaned and pulled her closer as her tongue swiped against his. Fire licked through him, between them.

Nothing else existed for him. It was simply the feel of her, the fit of her curves against his body, the press of her pelvis between his thighs, her taste, the reverberation of her moans, the velvet stroke of her tongue.

And it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. Frantic need pulsed through him. He wanted to know her intimately. He wanted her naked in his bed where he could explore the texture of her skin with his hands, his mouth, know the taste of every inch of her, hear her moan his name in the throes of passion. He wanted to see her eyes alight with a fire stoked by him and subsequently quenched by him. He wanted her—all of her—every inch of her. Fire...want...need...consumed him.

A sudden loud barking startled them apart. Jessup stood staring at them, apparently unsure if they were okay, definitely baffled by Trudie on top of Knox and the moaning and groaning going on.

Trudie raised her head, breaking the kiss, pushing away from Knox. He loved his dog, but this was twice now....

She scrambled to her feet, visibly shaken. Knox staggered upright as well, feeling drunk from kissing her. His legs weren’t quite steady beneath him and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the cold. Conversely, it was all about the heat.

Trudie looked at him, panic flaring in her eyes, her lips full and red from their kisses. “Why did you... We shouldn’t... That was a mistake.”

They might go down a path, but it wasn’t going to be that one. “No, it wasn’t. It was a lot of things, but it was not a damn mistake.”

She couldn’t have changed that much in the last year and a half. The woman he knew didn’t kiss casually and she damn sure wouldn’t have kissed him with that kind of passion if it wasn’t what she was feeling. Some women kissed by rote—like the paint-by-number kits they’d used as kids. The picture didn’t really matter, you just filled in the blank with the color listed.

He had finally figured out Elsa operated that way. Their relationship had never been personal, which made breaking up all the easier to do. She hadn’t particularly seemed to care when he told her he didn’t want to see her anymore. Elsa required a passably attractive man at her beck and call. Hence, she’d wanted Knox to accompany her to Good Riddance. It really had nothing to do with him—he was just the color needed to fill in the blank spot on the canvas.

That, however, was not the way Trudie operated. She didn’t simply make out for the sake of doing it. Everything with Trudie was personal. So, when she kissed him like that, when he felt the press of her thighs against his, it wasn’t just blind lust speaking, but desire for
him
. There might not be a hell of a lot that he did know about her these days, but he knew that much with unwavering certainty.

Trudie wrapped her arms around her middle and for a second he thought she’d turn her back to him. She didn’t. She faced him, eyes flashing.

“It was a mistake for any number of reasons but first and foremost because you have a girlfriend and I don’t sneak around kissing some other woman’s man behind her back.”

Knox caught the shimmer of tears in Trudie’s eyes. He didn’t know if they were tears of frustration or anger or self-loathing, but the one thing he damn well couldn’t stand was the thought of Trudie crying when he could so easily change that for her. To hell with blowing Elsa’s “cover.” He’d put her before Trudie once before, laid his loyalties in a way that had hurt Trudie, and he’d be damned if he’d hurt her that way again.

“I’m not Elsa’s man,” he said.

“Right.” Arms still wrapped around her middle, she turned her back to him.

He approached her rigid form, lightly putting his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him once again.

“Trudie, I know I’ve hurt you but you know I’ve never been a liar...or a player. How I feel about Elsa aside, I would never disrespect you that way—making you a side dish. And I’m not made that way. I wouldn’t kiss you if I was still involved with Elsa.”

Wariness gleamed in her eyes. “Then why are you here with her? This isn’t making any sense. Help me understand what’s going on here because I’m confused and I just don’t need this.” She took a step away, shrugging off his touch.

“I told Elsa over a week ago that it was over.” He shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “She took it well enough, but she had this gig coming up and asked me to escort her.” He shrugged because it really hadn’t been a big deal and he’d been ready to come back to Chrismoose. “I wanted to come anyway. It was short notice for her to find someone else. I agreed to escort her and keep my mouth shut so the whole town wouldn’t be buzzing with our breakup.”

Her lower lip trembled and more tears shimmered in her eyes before she looked away from him. Puzzled, he rubbed the back of his neck with his gloved hand. He didn’t know what it was, but something had just gone terribly wrong. This was not the reaction he’d expected. “What’s wrong?”

“So, you told her more than a week ago that you and she were done?”

Why did Trudie sound pissed about that? He’d have thought it would’ve been a good thing in her book. He really, seriously, just didn’t understand the way a woman’s mind worked sometimes—old friend or not. “Yeah. And you’ve never liked her anyway so why are you acting all crazy over that?”

“Crazy?” Her voice rose an octave. Maybe that hadn’t been the best choice of word. “Really?” Okay, no
maybe
to it. Definitely not the best choice of wording. Note to self—don’t use the term
crazy
in conjunction with Trudie’s behavior again—even if it did seem spot-on. “You break up with her, don’t even contact me, I’m not even on your freaking radar, but then I show up here and hey, you think I’m some convenient rebound material? It’s not like you went out of your way to find me. It’s just like, hey, why not make out with good old Trudie since she’s handy.”

“Trudie, it’s not like that.”

“That’s what it seems like. No call, no nothing.”

He’d thought about it. He’d actually considered picking up the phone or sending her a text but he’d known she’d be here. He’d known they were bound to run into one another. It had just seemed easier not to call or text, so he hadn’t. Apparently, that was the wrong course of action.

“You just run into me and you think I’m easy because we have history. You can kiss my ass, Knox Whitaker.”

She was so cute with her eyes flashing, telling him off, and he quipped the first thing that came to mind. “I’d like to, I’m trying.”

Her mouth temporarily dropped open and for a second he thought she might laugh, might defuse. Instead it went the other way and her eyes blazed with fury. She opened her mouth, no doubt to rip him a new one, and he jumped in ahead of her.

“Okay. Sorry. That wasn’t funny, I guess. I was just trying to make you laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Stay away from me. Obviously we aren’t going to be the friends we were before and obviously you don’t have enough respect for me to treat me like a woman you’re interested in deserves to be treated. I am not some old shoe you can just slip back on.”

“Dammit, Trudie. I don’t think of you as an old shoe.”

“Then, dammit, Knox, don’t treat me like one. You can take me home now.”

They climbed in the truck and tension stretched between them like taut barbed wire. Even Jessup wore a mournful expression. Once again, Knox knew how he felt.

At last he pulled up in front of the cabin Trudie was staying in. Silently he helped her transfer the greenery they’d collected to her SUV.

He should leave. Instead he lingered on the front porch. He knew now he’d screwed up a year and a half ago. Apparently he was still screwing up. He didn’t want to keep doing it.

He started to put his hands on her shoulders but stopped himself. The truth of the matter was he wanted to touch her too bad and he wasn’t sure that he could simply put his hands on her shoulders without pulling her into his arms again. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead.

“You told me to stay away from you. You also said I’m not respecting you so I’m going to ask you point blank if what you really want is for me to keep away. It’s not what I want. I don’t
think
it’s what you want. But if it is, then I’ll leave you alone.”