Snowbound (5 page)

Even though she as technically a paying
customer, it seemed wrong to be sitting around comfortably in his
house while he was out in the cold, working to make sure they were
comfortable during the approaching storm. Biting her lip, Beth
decided to see if she could find him. The parka and boots were
cumbersome, but she knew they would provide welcome warmth as soon
as she left the cozy cabin.

She made slow progress out the front door and
around the small house. It was larger on the inside than it
appeared from the outside, but she knew that was because the
designer—Reed?—had made the cabin longer rather than wider. She
scanned the collection of outbuildings and the surrounding area,
finding no easily detectable sign of Reed. The air was so cold her
sigh was visible as she trekked through the deep snow toward the
nearest shed.

She opened the door timidly, not certain what
to expect. Reed wasn’t there, but a huge collection of firewood was
stacked up to the ceiling all around the perimeter. There was a
small workspace in the middle, with a solid section of trunk and a
gleaming ax buried in it. Recalling that he planned to chop
firewood today, she walked over to the ax and block, examining it
critically.

While she had never cut wood, she had seen
enough movies to figure out the large diameters of the chunks of
wood would have to be split into smaller sections. Quarters,
probably, she guessed upon conjuring a mental picture of the wood
stacked in the holder near the fireplace in the great room.

How hard could it be? Physically, it was
surely taxing, but if she could handle that aspect, it would be a
straightforward task. Beth didn’t try to convince herself that she
would be nearly as useful at the job as Reed, but even if she only
managed a little bit, she’d be saving him some work.

She put one foot on the block and grasped the
ax with both hands, pulling firmly to remove it from its resting
place. To her pleasant surprise, the implement slid out smoothly,
and she was soon holding it in her hands. She frowned at the head
of the ax, wondering why one side was flat. It didn’t look like the
axes she’d seen behind glass doors in the stairwells at her
mother’s high-rise apartment in Manhattan. The dual-sided head
probably served two functions, but she had no idea what to do with
the flat one. Hopefully, the sharp side would be enough.

The next task was the lift one of the pieces
of log onto the chopping block. She set down the ax carefully and
bent to the nearest stack. It took some careful finagling, but she
managed to work loose a piece from the bottom of the heap, being
much too short to try to grab from the top. It was heavy, but more
awkward than anything. Persistence paid off, and she soon had it
positioned on the block.

Mimicking what she’d seen in movies, Beth
stood with her feet spaced widely apart and lifted the ax straight
over her head. After a couple of practice strikes, to make sure she
was bringing it down smoothly and in a straight line, she gave a
solid whack with the tool. A girlish squeal of delight escaped her
when the ax head penetrated the center of the log. Two more chops,
and the piece of wood split in two. With a victorious grin, she
moved one section aside to split the other into fourths before
repeating with the remaining piece.

It was slow and tedious work, and she was
soon hot and sweaty, though she wouldn’t have believed it would be
possible with the temperature outside. She paused for a moment to
strip off her coat and lay it across the pile before resuming her
task.

Within an hour, her arms and shoulders ached,
but she had a nice little pile of wood nearby. It was certainly
enough to fill the box in the great room, and maybe half-fill the
box by the old pot-bellied stove in the bunkroom. Not that they
probably needed to worry about that. In fact, if it got too cold,
they might have to confine themselves to one room to conserve fuel.
She wondered if he had a fireplace in his room, and if he would
invite her to share it.

Lost in her sweet little daydream of Reed
taking her to his bed and making love to her by the glow of a fire,
it took her a moment to realize he was calling her name, and not in
her fantasy. Blinking, she looked away from the log to find an
angry-looking Reed standing in the doorway. “What?”

“I said, what the hell you doin’, girl?” He
looked disgusted as he strode across the shed, skirting her meager
pile of split wood, to wrench the ax from her hand. “Are you crazy?
You don’t use a maul without safety goggles, work gloves, and a
lick of common sense.”

“Oh.” She stared at the tool that seemed to
have worn permanent grooves in her palms during the last hour.
Maul
. “I thought it was an ax.” He cursed something that
would have shocked her grandmother, but she’d heard worse from the
girls in her private school. Beth folded her arms and stared at
him. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem?” He shook the maul at her. “My
problem is, my insurance don’t cover fools doing stupid things to
themselves.” With obvious disgust, he tossed the maul behind him.
“What possessed you?”

She was torn between the urge to cry and the
urge to smack him. Beth decided on neither. With a sniff, she said,
“I was trying to help you.”

“How’s it goin’ to help me if you get
yourself killed, woman?”

A grin blossomed without her permission.
“Finally, I’m no longer ‘girl’.”

He cursed again. “This ain’t a joke,
Beth.”

“I know that.” She went for a soft tone to
placate him. “You’re overreacting though. I was doing an okay job.”
Pointing to the neat stacks beside her, she said, “I’m sure I’m
nowhere as fast as you, but I made some headway.”

He glowered at the pile, and then kicked it
with the sturdy snow boot on his left food. She gasped as the
pieces went everywhere, feeling more outraged that he’d disrupted
her pile than that he’d yelled at her. Until that display of
temper, she’d thought he had acted out of concern, not anger.
“You’re just a bully.” Bending over, she started gathering the wood
into her arms, intent on delivering it safely to the house, since
she’d started the job. He could damn well finish the rest though.
It’d serve him right if the entire woodpile toppled over onto
him.

Doing a fair bit of cursing herself, she
elbowed him out of her way to get a stick behind him. At the same
time, he reached for her arm. “Let go of me, you jackass.” With a
violent tug, she pulled free. The quick motion upset her center of
gravity in the unwieldy boots, and she flailed her arms, cursing
again as the wood flew everywhere.

Beth fell forward hard, barely catching
herself on her hands to prevent her face from smacking into the
ground as her torso had done. “Look what you did,” she snarled,
tears coming to her eyes. “Now I have to pick all that up
again.”

Anger fueled her, and she got quickly to her
feet, stomping to the nearest piece. Wielding it like a pointer,
she whirled around to him, shaking it in his direction. “You don’t
have to be so mean or rude. I was trying to help. Some people would
just say thank you.”

“Beth.” He held out a hand, his face turning
pale.

Concern chased away a bit of her anger, and
she lowered her stick. “What’s wrong? You look terrible.”

His expression tightened, but his complexion
remained on the gray side. “Honey, look down.”

The endearment caught her by surprise, but
wasn’t nearly as surprising as the red splotch spreading across her
lavender sweater. “What the hell?” For a moment, her brain couldn’t
identify the substance. “Blood?” As soon as she realized she was
bleeding, the pain suddenly hit. She dropped the wood and put her
hand over the wound. “Ouch.” Though she was still angry with him,
Beth didn’t reject his help when he put an arm around her waist and
led her back to the cabin.

Halfway there, she started to feel a little
faint, though probably from shock instead of blood loss, she
decided critically. As she wobbled, Reed bent down and swept her
into his arms, striding through the snow with the same ease she
would have walking down a New York City sidewalk. He shouldered
open the door and took her straight to the table, sitting her on
top of the smooth surface.

“Don’t move,” he admonished before turning
from her to go to the sink, stripping off his heavy coat in the
process. When he returned, he held a large white box with a red
cross on it. It was definitely more elaborate than the typical
first-aid kit. He looked a bit nonplussed when he asked, “Can you
take off your sweater?”

This was certainly not the scenario she had
imagined would lead to her getting undressed in front of him. Still
feeling a bit shaky, she eased off the sweater, leaving her in just
the satin camisole she wore underneath. Despite the pain from her
cut, she shivered when his fingers gently lowered the left strap
and pulled down the top a bit, so he could get a better look.

“Sorry,” he said.

She shook her head, not wanting to explain
the cause of her indrawn breath. “How bad is it?”

“Gimme a sec.” He opened a crinkly pouch of
saline solution and poured it over the wound. She winced a bit, but
didn’t find it too uncomfortable. “I think some butterfly Band-Aids
will fix you right up, girl. Looks like you fell on the edge of the
ax. Ain’t gonna need stitches.”

“Thank goodness.” She tilted her head. “Can
you do that, I mean, if I’d needed it?”

Reed nodded, though his gaze remained focused
on her wound as he dabbed it gently with sterile gauze. “Had some
medical training in the Army.” Setting aside the gauze, he reached
for a box of bandages. “Got some painkillers and everything, but I
ain’t never needed to perform surgery on any of my clients.”
Looking away briefly from her flesh, he glowered at her. “Ain’t
never had one dumb enough to go out lookin’ for this kind of
trouble.”

She returned his glare. “I promise I won’t
help you again, you brusque bastard. I’ll just sit on my ass and
eat bonbons all day until Daddy arrives.”

He snorted. “You already lost the argument
when you got to resort to name-calling.” Reed opened the first
bandage. “Besides, ain’t got no bonbons, Beth.”

For some reason, that struck her as funny,
and she started giggling. Trying to stifle the response with her
hand did no good, and she ended up laughing. To her surprise, he
joined in with a small chuckle.

“Now, hold still. I gotta get the edges back
together.”

It struck her that he was awfully close to
her left breast as he gently pulled the wound taut and applied the
first bandage. It was a strange mix of pain and pleasure that
assaulted her for the next five minutes, as he affixed three more
bandages before covering it all with a large adhesive pad. The
tugging and pulling of the wound hurt, but his fingers on her skin
were heaven.

“There. That should fix ya’ up. You’ll need
to keep it as clean as possible, and we should check it again
tomorrow.” His fingers slid under the strap of her white cami to
slide it back up her arm. “Just let me know if it starts hurtin’
real bad or something though.”

She nodded, compelled to put her hand over
his, leaving the strap partially on her shoulder. “Thanks,
Reed.”

He nodded, and his cheeks bloomed with color.
She didn’t know if it was embarrassment or a reaction to her touch,
and his words didn’t help clarify. “Sorry I yelled at you. I just
about come undone when I saw you swingin’ that maul around.”

She rolled her eyes, trying to resist the
urge to argue. “I wasn’t swinging it around. I was bringing it down
in a firm, forward motion.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Fine,
girl, but you still wasn’t bein’ safe. If you’d told me you wanted
to live the dream of bein’ a lumberjack, I’d’ve shown you how.”

Carefully, so as not to spook him away, she
brought up her other hand to cup his cheek. “You said you were too
busy to teach me things.”

His eyes widened, and he seemed torn between
two courses of action for a long second. Then his hand fell away,
and he stepped back.

Frustrated, she grabbed a handful of his
plaid shirt. “Why do you keep backing away every time I get
close?”

“Why do you think, girl?” He shook his head.
“This ain’t never going to work. You’re too young, and I’m too
old.”

“I don’t care about age,” she said
softly.

He scoffed. “You just need to stop this.
Ain’t nothing gonna happen.” Reed pulled away and turned his back
to her, reaching for his coat. “Now I gotta get back to chopping
wood. You sit your pretty little ass here in the house and
recover.”

Irritation and frustration drove her actions.
With a slight wince at the stretch of the wound as she lifted her
arms, Beth peeled off the camisole and threw it at him, nailing him
in the back of the head.

“What the—” He broke off as he turned around
to face her again, his eyes widening at the sight of her standing
naked from the waist up.

“I’m not too young to know my own mind, so
stop dismissing me like my desires mean nothing.” Glaring at him,
she kicked off her snow boots. “I’m a woman. Yeah, I’m young, but I
know what I want.” Her fingers shook as she unsnapped and unzipped
her jeans, pushing them down to step out of them. “Who I want.”
Softening her tone, she said, “I want you.”

His eyes narrowed, and he stormed back to
her, gathering her close. “And you always get what you want,
princess?”

“Always,” she replied, though it felt like
the wrong thing to say.

Reed growled low in his throat, and his mouth
covered hers, crushing and punishing, even if it didn’t frighten
her. Beth threaded her fingers through his hair, dragging his head
closer as his mouth ravished hers. She parted her lips, meeting his
tongue enthusiastically as he kissed her in a way no man ever had
before.