Snow Angels (3 page)

Besides all that—as though that weren’t enough—no woman would want him when she saw him. Really saw him. No woman would want to touch his mangled body.

So when Lyssa dropped the last sweater into the pile and stood there in a tight T-shirt cradling the delicious mounds of her breasts in soft back cotton, he’d swallowed the drool in his mouth, choked back the rising frisson of arousal, and made her a sandwich.

And he was glad he hadn’t done anything stupid. Like yank her into his arms and rub his body against her softness the way he ached to—

No. He was glad he hadn’t done that. Because now he knew. She was one of
them
. One of the crazy, man hungry lunatics who stalked a man to the ends of the earth. Braved the mountain passes in the dead of winter. Hiked through miles of snow to get to him.
With her cat
. Somehow she’d found him. Hunted him. Tracked him here, for God’s sake.

Given that, she was probably the craziest of them all.

She muttered something to herself and then chuckled, as though someone had made a jest.

And then…she
responded
.

Horror curled through him as he realized she was having a conversation with herself.

Or her cat.

Or an imaginary friend.

None of which were promising options.

Oh definitely. She was gone tomorrow.

No matter how fucking gorgeous she was. No matter how delicious she smelled. No matter how much he wanted to fist his hands in her hair and seal her lips with his….

She laughed again and a frisson of trepidation danced down his spine. She was crazy as a loon.

No doubt about it. She was gone tomorrow.

Come hell or high water.

It wasn’t high water.

It was high snow.

And maybe a bit of hell.

Wade stared out of the door of the cabin, a cold fist gripping his chest.

It has been a miserable night, lying on his bed, aching, Bo crowding him out but providing much needed warmth.

It had been a miserable night, lying on his bed, wanting her. The only thing that kept him from succumbing to a roiling panic was the knowledge that come morning, she would be gone. It was only one night. Twelve hours at the most. And he’d be alone again.

She—and her piquant smile, her silky black hair, her curvy body, and her upturned eyes that seemed to see too much, know too much—would be gone. He would be alone. Again.

It was what he wanted.

Desperately.

But, as he stared outside, with a cold fist gripping his chest, he realized. That would not be happening. The snow was too deep. And it was still coming down.

She wasn’t going anywhere. At least not today.

Yesterday’s flurries had, in the dark of night, become a blizzard, dumping nearly three feet of snow on the ground. It had been a pleasant winter wonderland yesterday. Today, it was impassable. To make matters worse, all the snow that had accumulated on the steep roof of the carport had slid off, completely burying the jeep. It would take him hours—maybe days—to dig it out.

The thought horrified him. His muscles still ached from yesterday’s run. He turned his head and stretched his neck. Cartilage cracked but the throbbing didn’t ease. The precursors to a blinding migraine hovered still. He rubbed his neck a bit, but to no effect. When it got like this, nothing helped.

He should probably pop a couple more pills and crawl back into bed to hibernate like a surly bear until it went away—

“Good morning.”

He grimaced. Did she have to sound so chipper? He glanced at her over his shoulder and tried not to flinch. She’d found some clothes closer to her size—they were probably Val’s, but his sister had never looked so damn sexy in yoga pants and a cami. Lyssa’s long hair flowed over her shoulders in a rippling river. Her eyes, beneath the fringe of her bangs, were wide and bright. She smiled and a raft of dimples erupted on her left cheek. And her breasts….

His fingers flexed.

“Did you sleep well?” She helped herself to his coffee, took a sip and then had the audacity to grimace. She padded to the fridge and added in a healthy dollop of his milk. “Well? Did you?”

He frowned. “No.” Why did she have to be here? Why did it have to snow last night? Why did she make him so damn…hungry?

“Really? I slept like a log.” She yawned hugely to illustrate that point. Or rub it in. Then she scrounged around in the fridge, pulling out his carton of eggs and the last of the bacon.
His
bacon. “Do you like French toast?”

His belly rumbled. “Yes.” He knew his tone was surly, perhaps petulant. He couldn’t help it. She made him restless. Twitchy. Still, he plopped into a chair and watched her putter in the kitchen, whipping up French toast, omelets, and bacon. He hardly glowered at her at all when she served him.

She sat in the other chair and smiled at him across the table. “Dig in.” Without waiting for him, she proceeded to do so.

It made him hungry to watch her eat.

And not hungry for food.

Lust, for her, bubbled in his gut.

A cold nose nudged his hand, clenched in his lap. Reflexively, he opened his fist, patted Bo’s head, and scratched him behind the ears. He whined and nudged again. Wade broke off a chunk of—perfectly cooked—bacon and fed it to him. He wolfed it down and then set his muzzle on Wade’s thigh, peering up with big brown eyes. A dampness formed on his jeans.

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, seducing her. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, having a fling. It had been years since he’d had intimacy of any kind that didn’t involve his fist. It had been years since he’d even had the urge to try.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Lyssa chirped, attracting his attention once more. She leaned in and grinned. “I promise, I didn’t poison it.” And that easily, he was reminded: She was crazy.

He strengthened his resolve.

Yeah. Okay. For the first time since Kandahar, he wanted a woman. Really wanted a woman. But indulging in any kind of intimacy with a stalker was just asking for trouble. His friend, Jenner, Mr. July the year before, had made the mistake of flirting with a calendar groupie. He’d had to file a restraining order in the end.

Wade picked up a fork and gingerly cut into his French toast, although he didn’t know what he was looking for. He was sure she hadn’t poisoned it. Still, he watched her as he slipped the morsel into his mouth and—Oh. Holy. God.

Absolute heaven. With his cooking skills, he’d been existing on what equated to K-Rations. Spam, spam, and more spam. This tasted like ambrosia.

“What did you do to this?”

She bristled at his tone, which, he had to admit, was a trifle harsh. Accusatory maybe.

“
Do
to it?”

He frowned. “It’s good.”

“Oh.” She blew out a breath and her bangs fluttered. “Cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla extract. And of course, lots of butter.” Her cat leaped onto the table—it shook when the portly feline landed—and skulked around her plate. “Oh,” she cooed. “Do you want something to eat?” She pinched of a bit of her omelet and the cat gobbled it up. When she offered a bit of bacon, the creature snatched it and scurried away.

To his surprise, Bo didn’t give chase. He remained where he was, dampening Wade’s jeans, though his eyes did follow that snow-white streak into the spare bedroom.

“Mmm.” When Lyssa popped the rest of the strip into her mouth, he had to look away. “I love bacon. Shall I make some more?”

Wade balled up his napkin and tossed it onto the table. “There is no more. That was the last of it.”

She gazed at him in dismay. “You’re not serious.”

“I’m absolutely serious. I was hardly planning on…having company.”

She had the good grace to look mortified as she settled back in her chair. Silence reigned for a moment, and then she cleared her throat. “I brought some bacon.” He glanced at her. He liked to think it wasn’t a hopeful glance. “It’s in my car.”

Okay. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that she was here after all.

He frowned thoughtfully. “How far is your car?”

“A mile or so. That way.” She waved her hand to the north. Then tipped her head, as though listening, and waved to the east. “Right. Over that way.” She huffed a laugh. “I’ve always been bad with directions.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.” She nibbled her lower lip. “At any rate. There’s food in my car. If we need it.”

“A mile or so.”

“Mmm hmmm.”

“In three feet of snow?” His hip ached at the thought.

“Right.” She peeped at him. “Well, there’s bacon.”

“How much bacon?”

“Two slabs.”

He gaped at her. The omelet churned in his belly. Two slabs of bacon? How the hell long was she planning to stay? Would she tie him to the bed, hobble him, and lock him in the cellar like Annie Wilkes in
Misery
? He opened his mouth…and the words slipped out. “Are you crazy?”

She stilled. He tried to ignore the wounded expression in her eyes. It helped that she blinked it away quickly. “Well,” she said. “People
do
think I’m weird.” She snorted a laugh and waggled her fingers behind her head as though swatting a fly. “But I’m not crazy.”

“People think you’re weird?”

She picked up her fork and poked at her eggs. He suspected she did this just to have something to do. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.” She gored him with a fierce frown. “I know who I am. I know what I am. And you have to be true to yourself no matter what other people think. Even if it means you spend a lot of time alone.”

Crazy or not, he couldn’t argue with her logic. And there was something there, woven through her words that made his heart ache for her, this beautiful, fragile, crazy woman.

Then all sympathy fled. Because her cat once again darted onto the table, stole his bacon and fled.

It occurred to him her cat was something of a porker.

And a thief.

***

After breakfast, they suited up to make the long hike to her car. It was all Lyssa could do to focus on dressing herself.

As gorgeous as Wade had been in a fluffy towel with pink hearts, he was even yummier in his cold weather gear. His bulky jacket highlighted the breadth of his shoulders, his boots clung to his calves, and the furred hunter’s hat made his stark features seem all the more prominent. She didn’t look at his hands.

Men’s leather gloves were something of a weakness for her.

It was a damn shame he thought she was crazy.

But she couldn’t blame him.

All through breakfast Jax had been jabbering in her ear, distracting her. She couldn’t be altogether sure she hadn’t answered him aloud at least once.

Jax had been urging her to start dating again, even though he knew her issues. Dating for her wasn’t like it was for other people. Nothing about intimacy was easy when you were a sensitive.

People tended to freak out when you could read their deepest, darkest secrets as though they were tattooed on their forehead. People also tended to deny the truth. Whether they felt the need to lie, or they were in denial about their truth. Regardless, sharing her observations was, more often than not, awkward.

Lyssa couldn’t remember how many friends she’d lost before she’d learned to keep her mouth shut. She still wasn’t very good at that, but she tried. And boyfriends? She didn’t even want to think about those disasters.

Before Jax, she’d had one miserable encounter after another, struggling to balance the pain of intimacy with a burning need for connection. For her,
touching
a man came with complexities and challenges a normal woman didn’t have to deal with.

But Jax had been a sensitive as well. He’d understood her. Probably because they were so very similar, both connected to the energies flowing through the universe.

Their relationship hadn’t been perfect by far—more often than not they drove each other crazy—but it was nice having a companion, a lover who
understood
.

But he was gone. Well, physically gone. And it was time for her to try again.

Or so he said.

Jax thought this man would be perfect for her.

And he might have been. If he didn’t think her a complete loon.

“Are you ready?” Wade asked, tossing a backpack over his shoulder and giving her the once over. The muscles in his face tightened. His nose curled.

“What?” She couldn’t help snapping. She really disliked the way he looked at her sometimes. As though she smelled bad.

He shook his head. “You’re so tiny.”

She bristled. “I’m hardly tiny.”

“It’s a long way.”

She glowered. “I made it last night. In the dark.”

“I should go alone.”

“You don’t know where my car is.”

“I’ll follow the road.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

Tension between them hummed as they stared at each other, and then he relented. “Fine. Come along.” He took her elbow, and she wrenched it away. A reflex probably, for both of them. Unless she was working with a client, she avoided physical contact as a rule. At her sharp retreat, a muscle clenched in his jaw. “But if you get stuck in a drift,” he snapped, “I’m not pulling you out.”

***

In the end, he was the one who got stuck in a drift. And it was a damn good thing she’d come along, or he would have been there all night. They’d only made it halfway to her car, slogging through waist deep snow. It was waist deep for him, chest deep for her. The only way she could make any progress at all was following the trench he plowed. Behind her, she pulled the sled he’d suggested they bring—to carry the food on the way back.

It was a good thing she was behind him because in a narrow bend in the road, he stepped too close to a pine tree. Anyone who knew anything about snow and pine trees knew—never step too close to a pine tree. The snow collects on the branches and when it becomes too heavy, the branches bend; snow falls around the base of the tree, creating a kind of cave, a hollow, close to the trunk. Falling into the tree well, when alone, could be a death sentence.