The Elf and the Ice Princess (13 page)

Unbelievably, it
was indeed possible for her to feel worse. She pulled out of his grip and
turned away. “I’m getting a cab.”

“But you didn’t.”
The thread of hope in his voice stopped her. “Say yes, I mean. You and he
didn’t…”

The beginning was
out, she might as well give him the whole truth. She turned away, unable to
face him. “He kissed me. I didn’t stop him.” She took a deep breath. The cold
air settled into her lungs, numbing her. “He wanted more, but that’s when I
said no. He said he wanted to leave her and come back to me for good. But I
realized I didn’t want that. That’s not my life. I don’t even want it to be.”
She’d found something so much better and then gone and broken it. “I didn’t
even know about Erica yet. That poor baby. His dad doesn’t want him. How could
I have ever loved someone who’d do that?” She buried her face in her hands.

His grip on her
bicep squeezed, not brutally but firmly, as he turned her to face him. That
alpha presence he hid so well came back in full force, soothing her with his
strength. “Remember the story I told you about how my ears got cut? I left out
the part where I almost killed the man who did this before I left the island. I
wanted to do it. I had the opportunity to—I made sure I did. But I didn’t go
through with it. And I am a better man for having wanted that and walked away
than a man who never had to fight the temptation. We can’t always control what
we want. We can control what we do about it.”

She gulped. Brett
had nearly killed someone? It was hard to imagine. Or at least it had been when
he didn’t have that fierce look in his eyes. The one that said he had a force
of nature in him hidden just below the veneer of silly joy.

“No,” he said,
once again sure of himself. “You walked away. Hold your head high. You and me?
We’re fine.” He pulled her close.

For a moment she
leaned into his chest, reveling in the warmth and wonderful winter scent of
him. He made her feel cared for, like she was something special.

But she was too
damaged, and Brett was too good, too sweet despite what he said, for the salt
and vinegar of her life. She could never hold on to something this good. She
had to let it go now before it went too far and the end hurt too much.

She looked
at the long driveway in front of her and at the hill behind. Down the hill was
a gas station where she could meet a taxi. Trekking rocky terrain in the dark
may not be the smartest thing, but she’d made the walk many times when she’d
lived here. By road, the gas station was well over a mile away. The hill it
was, then.

She pulled
away from Brett’s arms and shrugged out of the jacket he’d finally slipped
around her, mourning the loss of his scent almost as much as the warm circle of
his arms. “I’ll get the dress cleaned and send it to your law firm. Thank you
for the use of it. It cleared some things up for me.”

“The dress
is a gift.”

“One I
can’t accept. You’re a good man, Brett. It’s been good knowing you.” She
blushed, embarrassed by her next words, but she said them anyway, “I think I’ll
remember you as an elf. A little magic in a dreary world is a good thing.”

“Don’t walk
away. Please, Carrie.” He whispered her name as she turned toward the cedar
brush.

Blocking him out
as best she could, she debated removing her shoes. Though heels would make
progress hard, the ground was probably too cold and rocky to walk barefoot on.
“I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I told you I’m not the right girl for you.”

She picked up the
tail of her dress to keep it from dragging through the dust and tottered around
the boulders. The weather grew colder by the moment, and as the air chilled her
shoulders, face and calves, she wished she’d taken the time to get Lora’s
cloak. But going back now was emotionally not an option. In less than ten
minutes she’d be at the gas station. She’d call for a cab as soon as she got
there. Right now, she just needed to put as much distance between herself and
tonight’s events as possible.

She glanced
back for one final look before the trees blocked her vision. Instead of the house,
however, she sought Brett. His silhouette stood out darkly against the lights
of the party, dominating the landscape around him. His eyes were closed and his
narrow face tilted up to the stars as the wind tossed his hair back into its
natural dishevel. With his slim hips and tall stature, she imagined delicate
elf ears in place of the scars.

They fit
him so well she could almost believe.

He ran his
hands through his hair and cocked his head, like he listened to something mere
mortals couldn’t hear. His eyes opened, reflecting brightly in the moonlight.
He was sublime, a thing of nature. She ducked into the trees before he caught
her staring.

W
ell after the
ten minutes it used to take to reach the gas station, Carrie was lost and freezing.
The landscape had changed too much; her old signposts were gone or altered
beyond recognition. The wind whipped the trees into a frenzy, swaddling her in
prickly cedar and relentless cold. She sat on a boulder to catch her breath or
maybe just to give up, call Lora and try to explain the series of events that
led her to be lost and freezing on a hillside.

Coming this way
had been hasty and stupid. Lora would be pissed but eventually she’d get her
off this godforsaken hill.

But it
wasn’t Lora she wanted right now. Carrie inhaled and exhaled slowly. She’d
blown that bridge to shreds. Performing as a mall elf for fun was one kind of
crazy; nearly screwing your married ex-husband and then wandering down a
deserted hill sometime around midnight was another crazy entirely.

The night
sky provided the only light, and it danced dark shadows across the trees with
barely a whisper reaching the ground. Her shoes were ruined, but luckily she
hadn’t destroyed the dress. At least she didn’t think she had. She’d find out
in the morning, if she ever got out of here. She had to stand up, figure out
which direction was down and go that way. Hell, if she just walked one
direction she’d eventually find
something
.

She puffed
hot air into her hands and rubbed them on her shoulders, trying to fight the
growing numbness. Maybe she’d call Brett in the morning and apologize. She
could tell him she’d gone crazy—no lie there—not because of the house, but
because she was terrified of losing him. So she left first. But why would he
take her back after she admitted she was too scared to go the distance? It
would be stupidly hopeful on his part to expect better of her after she’d let
him down. Kinda like she’d expected better of Lincoln.

The cold
fact remained that she couldn’t honestly tell Brett she’d never get scared
again. It would be a lie, and he deserved the truth.

Her
insecurity didn’t stop her from wanting him, though. She wanted to be a
stronger person for him and for herself, so she could let love happen. She wanted
to love and be loved again. And Brett was special. They wouldn’t merely be fun,
they’d be wondrous together. Epic, just like he’d said.

Closing her eyes,
she wished with all she had inside her for Brett and his kindness and his joy
to find her now. She wished so hard that his name escaped her lips like a
murmured prayer.

The trees rustled
and the birds cawed, and she was alone on a hill. Stupid magical thinking. She
needed to get down the hill. Hoisting herself back up, she winced when her left
ankle strap cut into her skin and tried to pick a direction.

“Carrie?”
The voice blew on the wind so in tune with the movement that it seemed a part
of the gale. She lifted her head. There was no way he’d heard her.

And yet…
“Brett? Is that you?” Or was she hallucinating? Because she wouldn’t put that
past herself right now.

“Carrie,”
echoed from a different side this time, impossibly far from the first call but
closer to where she was. But it
was
his voice with its quiet power. Either that
or she was going completely insane.

Still, she
called loudly this time, “Brett! Brett Vertanen! I’m here! Find me! Please!”

“Carrie
Martin.” The voice was right in front of her.

And so was
Brett, with no sound of footsteps or moving branches or crunching leaves to
betray his path. The air felt charged, like lightning had struck. Energy
tickled across her skin then dissipated as quickly as it had come. 

With a somber
face, he wrapped his tux jacket around her shivering shoulders, and the woods
seemed lighter with him near. She collapsed against him, and he held her
securely while she cried sobbing tears that ripped from deep inside.

As her tears
slowed and calm replaced the ache, his lips pressed gently against her
forehead. “Come home with me,” he said. “Please. Don’t make me leave you alone
tonight.”

She
hesitated, wavering on the edge between hope and despair. But she knew which
way she’d fall—she’d picked despair long ago and change was hard. She looked
away from his expectant face, down to the ground where he couldn’t meet her
eyes. But what she saw there jolted her mood, resetting the delicate balance.
“Why are you barefoot? It’s freezing.”

His toes
dug into the ground like a sun worshipper on the beach. “It feels good to me.”

A few tiny
flakes of white stuck to his hair and shoulders. She reached out incredulously
to touch them, and each fleck melted with the heat of her fingers. “Is it
snowing? In Austin?”

Brett
smiled up at the sky. “Sometimes I miss it.”

Carrie let
him go so she could limp around in a circle and see the drops fluttering in the
wind. “Did you…” She felt ridiculous. Did he make it snow? Of course not. And
he was crazy for going shoeless in a snowstorm. But there he was, with his
ethereal face still tilted up, eyes closed, enjoying the snowflakes as they
tumbled across his skin.

He opened
his eyes slowly and looked back at her. “I have another gift to give you, if
you’ll accept it.” He reached into his slacks and pulled out a ring box.

Carrie
laughed nervously as the little gray cube clicked open. Inside was a platinum
ring with a snow-white opal, glowing with hints of blue, brown, and green. “Is
that…?”

He shook
his hand, stalling her. “It’s not exactly what you think. You might call it a—a
hope ring. Where I come from, you wear this for a year and a day, and then get
married or go your separate ways. Ring first. Then the decision. It’s backwards
from here, I know.” He trailed off and examined her for a reaction. His own
expression showed nothing but that same shy certainty that he wanted to give
her this gift. She didn’t know what to say. After a moment of her confused
silence, he spoke again. “I wasn’t going to ask like this. I was going to give
you a little more time out of respect for your culture—not much, mind you, that
would be disrespectful on my part—but I want you to understand how serious I
am. You probably don’t believe I can know what I’ll want five, ten, twenty
years from now. But you’re wrong. I knew when I met you.”

She stared
at the ring, scared and yet covetous. Reason screamed that this was a terrible
idea, even if it wasn’t a normal engagement ring. Her heart feared that it
would all go wrong and insisted she run away.

And yet that
voice inside, the one her mother of the cha-cha-ing cat paper referred to as
her “soul’s voice,” insisted she couldn’t let him pass by, that the only right
answer here was “Yes.” Eyes misting, Carrie tried to sort through the conflict
for an answer.

Her eyes must
have betrayed her panic because he began to fill the silence with nervous
words. “It was my great-great-grandmother’s. Her husband made it for her. He
was a smith. They said he was the best of his generation. You can look at it if
you want without putting it on. See what you think.” He stood still, his eyes
pleading as the snow swirled around his handsome frame, and she waited for the
punch line or the demand. The jerk of reality that inevitably cut through the
fairy tale.

When it didn’t
come, she asked, “Did Ryssa wear this?”

His jaw worked
for a moment before he nodded. “For two weeks. It’s what panicked her brother
into action. Does that bother you?”

“No. No, not at
all. Are you kidding? I was married. I’m not upset that you were serious about
somebody else in the past. Just curious. Anyone else in between?”

“No.”

“Then why me? Why
now?”

“I love
you.”

Tears mixed
with the snow that melted against her fevered skin. “You can’t love me. You
don’t know me well enough.”

“Yes, I
do.”

“You’re
asking a bitter, thirty-year-old divorcée to believe in love at first sight,
Brett.” He nodded but didn’t say anything. She huffed out a frustrated breath.
“That’s like believing in magic or in”—she waved a hand at him—“elves.”