Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“Absolutely not, sir—”
Thorne moves faster. One step, two, and he’s between me and the masked thief, big hands out like he’s facing down a suspect. “Back off,” he orders—at me.
“At me?” I sputter. “That criminal just mugged my Snickers!”
The raccoon bares teeth. Thorne bares bigger ones. For half a second, I’m sure he’s going to growl.
“Scoot,” he tells the raccoon, dead calm.
It doesn’t scoot. It takes a caramel and sits on the stove like a gremlin.
I grab the nearest weapon—a roll of paper towels—and wave it like a baton. “Shoo!”
“Try using your inside voice, witch,” Thorne says dryly, edging to the back door.
“My inside voice is extremely effective,” I inform him, then hiss at the raccoon again. “Sir. Leave.”
It hisses back. I squeak and scramble onto a chair. The chair wobbles. Thorne’s hand shoots to my waist, holding me steady like I’m a flight risk.
“Get down,” he says, voice a command I feel in my knees.
“Not until you relocate the bandit.”
He steps into the raccoon’s space without fear, opens the back door, and whistles low. A sound I don’t know lives in my bones until I hear it.
The raccoon pauses, considers, then clambers down with the caramel in its mouth and waddles toward the night like it owned the place and decided we were boring.
Thorne shuts the door and turns to me.
“Happy now?” he asks.
I slide off the chair, still breathless with adrenaline. “I was emotionally attached to those caramels.”
“You’re emotionally attached to chaos.” He tips his chin at the scattered candy. “You leave food out, you invite trouble. Rule two.”
I plant my hands on my hips. “Rule two didn’t mention cat burglars in bandit masks.”
He steps closer. I don’t back up, even when my heart does a weird flip. “Rule two assumed you had sense.”
“And you assumed you could cut my power any time I get happy.”
He almost smiles. “I can.”
“Don’t test me.”
“You’re the test.” His gaze drops to my mouth again, heated now. “You walk in, you make everything loud, and then you look at me like you want me to fail it.”
“I don’t want you to fail,” I say, softer than I mean to. “I want you to play.”
“What game?” he asks, voice unreadable.
“The one where you stop pretending you don’t like it when I push you.”
He doesn’t move for three long, pulsing seconds. Then he reaches past me, plucks the poison apple lollipop from the counter, and holds it to my lips.
“Open,” he says.
I do.
He slips the candy into my mouth slow, eyes on my lower lip as it glides over the glossy red. Heat spikes everywhere. I suck the tip on instinct.
His jaw ticks. “Inside voice,” he murmurs, like I made a sound. Maybe I did.
“See?” I manage around the sugar. “Effective.”
He takes the stick back, bites the other end clean off with a snap and tosses the stick. “Break’s over. You decorate. I work.”
“That your way of saying thank you for the theft deterrent?”
“That's my way of saying stop leaving bait.” He moves toward the door, pauses. “And lock the porch. Night brings everything hungry.”
I stare at his back. “Including you?”
He stops.
Turns.
“Especially me,” he says, and disappears down the hall.
The next hour is a standoff disguised as productivity. I hang cobwebs and rearrange the mantel three times. He repairs a hinge, tightens screws, mutters to himself like a sinner reciting prayers. Every so often we orbit close enough to brush shoulders. Every time, I feel it.
Electric, combustible, inevitable.
I’m on the step ladder again when he returns to the room, wiping his hands on a shop towel. “You’re tilting that skull like it’s flirting,” he says.
“It is flirting.” I adjust it a hair. “With your self-control.”
“Cute,” he deadpans, but he doesn’t walk away. “You sure you know what you’re doing up there?”
“Are you offering help?”
“I’m offering supervision.” He plants a hand on the ladder again.
“Bossy.”
“Capable,” he says for the second time, and I hate that the word turns my spine liquid.
I reach too far for the last hook, lose balance, and swear. His hand catches my waist, the other wrapping my thigh to steady me. For a breath, we’re chest to chest, heat to heat, nothing between us but the pretense of inconvenience.
I look down.
He’s already looking up.
“Thorne,” I say, not a warning.
“Aspen,” he answers, not an apology.
We don’t move.
Then the porch light flickers and pops with a tiny burst. I jump. He drags me off the ladder like it insulted me and sets me on my feet.
“The electrical system is old,” he says again, eyes still on my mouth. “Remember?”
“I’ll be careful,” I murmur, and I mean the electricity. I don’t mean him.
“Doubt it,” he says, softer, and backs away like it costs him.
As night falls the lodge settles into creaks and sighs. The wind scrapes the eaves like ghosts craving entry. I line velvet stockings under the mantel and tape the contest entry card—Aspen & TBD—onto the side table.