Baby, It's Cold Outside Read online

  Outside the fellowship hall, he braced his hands against the trunk of a car and sucked in big, cleansing lungfuls of the cold, winter air. It was so cold it hurt, colder than it should be in north Georgia this time of year. But the pain was good. The pain brought him back to the now.

  “Hey.”

  Harrison straightened and turned to Porter. “Where’s Ty?”

  “Sebastian took him home. He’s gonna stick around a while, keep an eye on him.”

  “Good.” Ty didn’t need to be left alone right now. He had a long, dark road ahead.

  Porter angled his head, studying Harrison with eyes that saw too much. “You’re not looking so great.”

  Because it was Porter, because he’d see through the bullshit, Harrison admitted the truth. “I need to get the hell out of here.”

  “I’ve got a cabin nobody’s using. It’s a chunk out from town, away from everything and everybody. It’s yours if you want it. Peace and quiet and a chance to get your head screwed on straight. And Eden’s Ridge is closer than you driving all the way home.”

  The whole idea of being in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Tennessee, away from people and pressures, where he could think was beyond appealing. He had some decisions to make. It would be easier to make them without all the reminders of the past.

  “Lead the way.”

  Chapter 2

  “They’re going to ask Michael to come back,” Ivy dictated into her phone app. “He’s pissed about it because he quit the team for a reason. But they’re going to ask, and he’s trying to dodge the call.”

  Feeling an unexpected kinship with her recalcitrant hero, Ivy paused, fully aware of how much of herself she was putting into the story. After all, here she was driving four hours into the mountains, straight into an actual snowstorm, to avoid more calls from her own powers that be.

  “So what extremes is he willing to go to in order to avoid these people? Somewhere remote. Rock climbing in the high desert. He’s totally the type who’d be into that craziness. Maybe even climbing without safety gear because he’s got that death-wish, guilt thing going on. And he gets to the top all in one piece, after some harrowing moment where he nearly fell to his death, and right as he’s enjoying the peace, a helicopter shows up and...he realizes this is the opening scene to one of the Mission Impossible movies. Damn it.”

  Disgusted with herself, Ivy dug into the sack of road snacks she’d picked up at a gas station in the last town.

  “Okay no high desert. Maybe he’s going on some backwoods fishing expedition. In Alaska. Less people in Alaska, harder to get to. So he’s on his way to…wherever he’s going, and he stops for gas at some little hole-in-the wall place with two pumps and moose antlers over the door. He grabs some chips and some Twinkies. Because, why the hell not?”

  She unwrapped one herself from the stash on the seat. “As he goes back out to the truck, he gets cornered by Annika. Because he’s been under surveillance. Of course he has. And of course it’s her. He could never run fast enough or far enough to get away from her. She was always in his thoughts. Sloan knew that, the bastard. So of course he’d send her to talk him into coming back to work.”

  Considering Annika’s arguments, Ivy snarfed down one of the Twinkies. “So how does she convince him? What can she possibly say to make him change his mind? Is that a Twinkie, or are you just happy to see me?”

  Ivy groaned and turned off the dictation. Comedic was not the tone for the series. But no amount of trying had helped her stay in the zone of serious. Also, she’d ruined Twinkies for herself. She couldn’t sustain it because she just…didn’t care if Michael agreed to come back to work. The man was tired. He deserved a damned break. Leave him alone with his fishing tackle and over-processed baked goods.

  She took a huge bite out of a second snack cake.

  Of course, Michael Keenan had a choice. Blake Iverson, aka Ivy Blake, was too busy eating Twinkies paid for with advance money for this book she hadn’t written yet. And she was self-inserting into her plot way the hell too much. Probably inserting too much Hostess into herself, too.

  She tossed the other half of the Twinkie back into the convenience store bag on the seat and put both hands on the wheel. Man, the snow was really starting to come down now.

  As a girl raised in the Deep South, she wasn’t used to this. The big, fat flakes made her feel like she was inside her Mawmaw Opal’s prize snow globe. As a kid, Ivy used to shake it and stare for hours, praying for snow. Enough they’d get out of school and be able to build a snowman. Being within spitting distance of the Gulf Coast most of her life, it had never actually worked. But this—this was the real deal, and it was beautiful. Something she’d appreciate if she’d already made it to the inn and was standing inside it, beside a roaring fire with a mug of hot cocoa in hand. With marshmallows, because what was hot cocoa without marshmallows? But she was miles from the last town, and she was pretty sure she must have missed her turn while trying to navigate her missing plot.

  Why hadn’t she packed her GPS? Oh, right. Because she’d barely made it out with more than a suitcase of random clothes and her toothbrush before running with no plan other than getting the heck out of Dodge before Marianne flew in from Manhattan to personally check on her and the Book That Wasn’t. Maybe she could pull the map up on her phone and figure out where the nearest sign of civilization was. She’d program in her destination and let her phone be navigator like a sane person.

  “Siri, what is the nearest town?”

  But the little iridescent blob on the screen never resolved into an answer. Not enough signal. Which meant there probably wasn’t enough signal for Google Maps either.

  Stealing a couple of quick glances from the road, she opened her music. The silence was getting to her. Stabbing the screen at random, she managed to kick off her Eighties Power Mix. Lifting her voice, Ivy joined Pat Benatar, wailing about love as a battlefield as she slowed for a switchback. By the time she’d rolled through some REO Speedwagon and on into Journey—was there any better band for road tripping?—she’d climbed to a higher elevation and the snow was coming down hard enough she actually heard it hit the windshield. Did that mean there was ice mixed in?

  The more nervous she got, the louder she sang, until the windows all but rattled with her battle cry that she wouldn’t stop believing. It was the best part of the song, and she lifted a hand off the wheel for a fist pump—just for a second.

  The dark shape lumbered into the road.

  Her high note turned into a scream as she hit the brakes. The Blazer fishtailed, the back end spinning to the front. Ivy wrestled the wheel, struggling to turn into the skid. She had a split second looking into the eyes of the bear before the SUV slammed into the guardrail, as if it were a stand of toothpicks, and went over the side.

  “You should get on the road, man. This storm is just gonna get worse.”

  Following Porter’s gaze, Harrison looked out the window of Elvira’s Tavern and had to agree. The thickening flakes had begun to coat the sidewalks of downtown Eden’s Ridge. Tipping back the last of his drink, he shoved away from the table and offered his hand. “I really appreciate this.”

  Porter took his hand and pulled him in for a thumping hug. “Any time. And if you decide you wanna stay longer, you just say the word. The tourist rentals dry up to next to nothing this time of year, and I’m just as happy it’s not sitting empty.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know.” At the rate he was going, he just might burrow in until spring. The real world held that little appeal.

  “There’s some stuff out there. Coffee, basic spices, some other non-perishables I keep on-hand for guests. But not enough to get you through the next few days if the weather turns like they’re saying.”

  “I’ll go by Garden of Eden before I get out of town.”

  “You need anything, you just holler. And that includes a friendly ear.” Porter shot him a meaningful look.

  He’d had a few years and more than a few o
ffers of the same since he got out of the Army. But talking it out hadn’t been his preferred form of processing the shit he brought back to civilian life. Not then and not now. “Understood. I’ll give you a call on the flip side. Maybe we can get another beer and a pizza before I head back home.”

  Porter dipped his head in a nod. “That’d be good. Enjoy your quiet.”

  “It was good to see you, brother.” And now, God willing, he wouldn’t see another human being for the next six days.

  After loading up on supplies, Harrison stopped, out of long-ingrained habit, to gas up the Jeep before he left town. Even in that little span of time, the snowfall seemed to have more than doubled. The cold front that had come through earlier in the week had primed the ground for actual accumulation, and it looked like they were gonna be in for a doozy.

  The drive that, on a good day, should’ve taken a mere twenty minutes, stretched out near to an hour. Harrison practically crawled up the mountain in his Jeep. When he’d accepted Porter’s offer to use his cabin for the week, he’d had no idea he’d need to put snow chains on. It was Tennessee for Chrissakes. It had been years since he’d driven in any real snow. At least while stateside and not driving a Hummer. The last thing he needed was to go sliding off the slick roads this far out from town.

  On the radio, the song broke and the local DJ came on. “They’re calling it Stormageddon, folks. It’s getting ugly out there. Snow’s coming thicker and faster and temps are dropping fast. The roads are getting dangerous. The Stone County Sheriff’s Office is asking everybody to get where they’re going and stay there until the storm passes. The kiddos will be thrilled because school is officially cancelled.”

  Heat pumped out of the vents, but it wasn’t quite enough to cut the chill inside the Jeep now that the sun was down. If he’d known he’d be coming into this kind of weather, he’d have switched to the hard top. But hell, it was sixty degrees at home last week. The cold didn’t really phase Harrison. Nothing much did. Still, he’d get a fire going when he made it to the cabin and put together some kind of stew for dinner. The kind that stuck to your ribs and warmed you from the inside out. With that happy thought in mind, he rounded the switchback and began the final climb. Just another mile or so.

  His headlights swept over the guardrail. Or what used to be the guardrail. What remained was a mangled twist of metal. New or old? He slowed. The ground was already coated in snow, but he could tell it was churned up beneath. His body coiled with tension as he stopped and put on his flashers. For a few long seconds, he sat in the driver’s seat, hands tight around the steering wheel as he stared at that gap in the rail.

  Memory crept in of another snowy mountain road. Of gunfire and blood. He’d made the wrong call and three of his men had paid the price.

  Harrison shook his head to clear it. This wasn’t Afghanistan. Not an ambush. Somebody had gone over the side.

  Hand on the Glock 19 at his hip, he climbed out of the Jeep and trudged carefully through the accumulating snow to the edge of the road. Some forty or fifty feet down the slope, an older model Chevy SUV was nose down, taillights on. No smoke plumed from the exhaust. Was the driver injured? He checked his phone. No bars to call 911. Looked like he was on rescue duty. At least if everything went to shit, nobody would be impacted but him this time.

  Returning to the Jeep, he popped the liftgate, shifting supplies around until he could get to the coil of climbing rope. He’d need more than that to get somebody else back up. Surveying his options, he added a couple of locking carabiners and some para-cord to his pockets and shut the Jeep. Working fast, he anchored the center of the rope to a tree and tossed both ends over before running the length through his legs, around his hip, and over his shoulder for an emergency rappel. Positioning himself at the edge, he slowly let out slack and made his way down the slope. It wasn’t as steep as what he was accustomed to climbing, but he was grateful for the rope. The ground was slick as hell, and the snow was getting deeper by the minute. The trip down took longer than he liked. As he neared the Blazer, he heard faint sounds of music. Singing? Ears straining against the strange muffling silence of the snow, Harrison listened.

  Was that...Whitney Houston?

  “I wanna feel the heat with somebody before I freeze to death, please God.”

  Not Whitney. The driver was apparently conscious and had some pipes. Was she delirious? Did she have a head injury?

  This close to the vehicle, he could see that she’d been saved by the trees. Wedged between two stands, they were the only thing that had kept the SUV from hurtling into a boulder fifteen feet below. But while they’d slowed the momentum, they’d also blocked all four doors.

  Harrison worked his way around the trees to the front of the vehicle. He could just make out a woman in the driver’s seat—still singing. No blood that he could see, but who knew what was going on below the dash or behind the spiderwebbed windshield. He reached out and rapped on the hood and the singing turned into a scream.

  Chapter 3

  Oh, my holy Jesus, the bear is attacking the car!

  Ivy clutched at her chest, certain she was having a heart attack and her body would be found frozen, in this car, sometime in the spring.

  The bear spoke. Wait, not a bear. A gigantic, bearded dude stood in the beam of her headlights.

  Somehow that wasn’t any better. Was he a crazy mountain man? One of those preppers? Some lunatic in need of a wife, who would kidnap her and hold her hostage, never to be heard from again?

  “Are you okay?” His voice was muffled by the snow and the vehicle.

  He didn’t sound crazy. Squinting at him through the falling snow, Ivy didn’t think he looked crazy either. But what did crazy look like, anyway? It wasn’t always frothing at the mouth. Look at her Aunt Lucile. She was crazy as a Betsy bug and mean with it, and nobody’d ever know it to look at her.

  “Lady, can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  Get ahold of yourself, woman. Whoever this guy was, he wanted to help. Which was a damn sight better than freezing to death on this mountain.

  “I’m okay. I can’t get out.”

  “Are your legs pinned?”

  He was big enough he looked like he could rip the vehicle apart with his bare hands. “No, the doors are just blocked.” She’d been too afraid to move much for fear that a shift in weight would send her Blazer hurtling the rest of the way down the mountain.

  “Is it just you?”

  Ivy hesitated. Was he making sure there was only her to incapacitate? Oh, get a grip! It’s a rational question in a rescue situation. “Just me.”

  “Sit tight.”

  Like she was gonna do anything else?

  He moved back into the trees. Where was he going? For help? Maybe they were close to a town and could call a tow truck. Would a tow truck even get out in all of this mess? Could a tow truck get her out?

  She jolted again as he knocked on the back window.

  “Unlock the doors.”

  Ivy’s hand hovered over the auto lock. He could be a lunatic axe murderer.

  A lunatic axe murderer, who just happened to drive by an hour after you went over and risked his life to climb down, on the off chance he’d find somebody to kill? You are paranoid, my dear. This is further proof you made the right decision in not writing romance.

  She hit unlock.

  Her rescuer wrestled with the back hatch for a minute before popping the liftgate window. “The back’s jammed, but the window will open. You’ll need to climb out this way.”

  Ivy was still in the driver’s seat. “Is it safe to move? What if the car rocks and slides further?”

  “It’s wedged pretty good. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Either way, it’s not safe for you to stay here.” The low rumble of his voice was matter-of-fact and strangely soothing. He was clearly a man used to giving orders. “Just move slow and steady.”

  Searching for some kind of calm, she unbuckled her seatbelt and immediately fell onto the steering wh
eel and the deflated airbag. “Oooph.”

  “You okay?”

  “Probably bruised from the seatbelt. Could’ve been a lot worse.”

  With excruciating care, Ivy worked her way out of the driver’s seat and over the center console so she could retrieve her purse from where it had landed in the floorboard. The SUV groaned a little but didn’t move. Her phone had ended up on the far side of the dash, well out of range while she’d been pinned in the driver’s seat. She groped for it now, stretching her fingers across the vinyl until they closed around the case.

  Her crow of victory was cut short as she saw the screen matched the spiderwebbing of the windshield. It didn’t light at the press of the home button. Great. She really was at the mercy of this stranger. Tossing the ruined phone into her purse, she shoved it through the gap between the front seats and hauled herself over the console, into the back.

  Her bags had flown forward in the crash. Oh, dear God, her laptop! Not that there was anything worth a damn on the current book, but she had years of ideas accumulated on that hard drive. Resisting the urge to try to open the case and check, she looped the strap over her head and wore the bag cross-body. She looked at the suitcase, currently lying at the base of the driver’s seat.

  So lucky that didn’t hit my head.

  “If I shove my suitcase up, can you grab it?”

  The grumpy lumberjack—it was what he looked like in the flannel shirt and shearling trucker jacket, with that thick, dark beard—made a grunt she took as assent. It took some doing to wrestle the bag ahead of her and push it up and over the backseat, so he could reach across the cargo space and grab it. But though the Blazer creaked and groaned, it didn’t actually move. That made Ivy feel better.

  Climbing out herself took a little more effort. She felt like a fish, flopping over the back of the seat in a graceless heap. The motion jarred the assortment of bruises starting to make themselves known in the wake of fading adrenaline. Her hands were shaking as she curled them over the edge of the liftgate and stood against the back of the second row seat. It was just enough to get her head and shoulders out of the SUV.