Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 26056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
She smirks. “Great. You take the porch. I’ll take the fireplace.”
Outside?
Perfect.
I’ve got a plan already.
She cranks up a tinny Christmas playlist on her phone—Run Run Rudolph blaring like this is some kind of festive war zone—and we both dive in.
She’s pulling out tinsel like it’s a tactical assault. I grab my axe and head for the shed.
***
Forty-five minutes later, I’m shirtless, stringing lights up the porch post with one hand and holding a freshly cut pine bough in my other. Snowflakes stick to my skin. My breath fogs in the freezing air.
But I don’t feel a damn thing.
Not when she’s watching me like that.
She’s pressed up against the frosted window inside, hands cupped around her face like a goddamn Christmas voyeur. Her lips part. Her gaze tracks the line of my shoulders, down my back, and lingers—lingers—at the waistband of my jeans.
I look up and smirk.
She yelps and disappears like a cartoon villain caught mid-peep.
I finish the last nail and plug in the lights.
Boom. Warm, golden glow. Even I have to admit—it looks pretty damn magical.
By the time I stomp back inside, Noel’s standing by the fire, arms crossed, face flushed.
“Not fair,” she says.
“What isn’t?”
“Using your abs to hypnotize the judges.”
“Didn’t realize this was a pageant.”
She stalks over, chin lifted. “You knew I was watching.”
“Did I?”
“You flexed.”
I lean in, drop my voice. “Sweetheart, I always flex around you.”
She gulps.
Then pokes me in the chest. “You win. Fine. But only because I got distracted and burned my garland.”
I glance at the fireplace. A half-melted strand of red beads curls like sad tinsel snakes.
“Tragic,” I murmur. “But points for effort.”
She shoves me lightly. “I demand a rematch.”
“You want me shirtless again?”
She flushes, eyes darting. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She crosses her arms. “You’re a menace.”
“You’re chaos wrapped in sequins.”
We stare at each other. Neither one of us blinking. The fire crackles. The music switches to something slow, sultry.
Her gaze drops to my chest. Lingers. Then rises again, soft and sharp at once.
“I’m still not sleeping with you,” she says, voice quiet.
I grin. “Didn’t ask.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
“Always.”
She groans, spins around, and throws a faux snow-dusted pillow at me. I catch it mid-air.
“Careful,” I say, tossing it back. “You’re dangerously close to flirting.”
Her laugh is breathy. “Shut up, Hollis.”
But her smile says otherwise.
And even as the storm traps us here a little longer… it’s not the snow keeping me frozen in place.
It’s her.
Standing there.
In my cabin.
Like she belongs.
Chapter 9
Noel
It’s colder than the Arctic out here, but I can’t bring myself to go back inside.
Not when the porch lights Nash strung are casting this golden halo over the front steps like something out of a dream. The air’s sharp, stinging my nose, and the snow’s falling again—soft and slow, like feathers from a busted pillow.
And he’s standing right there, five feet from me, gazing out into the trees like he belongs to them. Like he is one of them. Tall, still, carved out of mountain rock and bad intentions.
Neither of us says a word.
Because right then—just beyond the edge of the woods—something sings.
A low, eerie groan that vibrates through the trees like the earth itself is sighing.
“What was that?” I whisper, wrapping my arms around my body.
Nash lifts his head. “Phantom River.”
“It sounded like a cello under water.”
He jerks his chin toward the woods. “C’mon. You’ve never heard it crackle?”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Only if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh good. Because following a shirtless mountain man into the dark woods after hearing ghost noises is exactly what I pictured for this Christmas.”
He glances over his shoulder and smirks. “You coming or not, city girl?”
I grumble and follow, boots crunching behind him through the fresh snow.
The trees open up like a cathedral, bare limbs reaching toward the moon. Down below, the Phantom River stretches wide and pale, blanketed in ice. Steam rises in wisps where it isn’t frozen solid, and the wind whistles through the pines like they’re telling secrets.
But it’s the sound that makes me stop in my tracks.
It starts low. A groaning rumble that rolls beneath our feet, like a giant exhaling in its sleep. Then a sharp crack, followed by a high-pitched whine that arcs through the silence like a haunted violin string.
“Holy crap,” I breathe.
Nash doesn’t say anything. Just stands next to me, looking out at the ice like it’s an old friend.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
He nods. “Happens every winter. Ice expands and shifts. Cracks under pressure. But it holds.”
“That’s poetic.”
He shrugs. “It’s just physics.”
“No,” I say, “it’s poetry. The earth making music.”
He glances at me, something unreadable in his eyes. Then he says, “This is my favorite time of year.”
“Really? Mr. I-Hate-Tinsel likes the holidays?”
“Not the holidays. The quiet. The solitude. The way the world slows down when it’s buried in snow.”
I wrap my arms tighter around myself. “I’ve never heard silence like this. In the city, even the silence is loud.”