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“Can we call the station now?” She peered at the dials. “I don’t want her to worry about me any more than she already has. I listed her as an emergency contact when I put my info into the website form, and Felix knows her and my dad anyway. He can easily get in touch with them.”
Sam flipped a few more switches and took the microphone from the holder. Crackling static emerged from the speakers. He depressed a button and spoke into the mic. “Station twenty? This is Sam Donovan up at the Eagle’s Nest.”
A man’s gravelly voice emerged. “Read you, Sam.”
“I’ve got Brooke Castle up here too. Can you call the Eagle’s Nest owner, Felix Milford, for us? If you can’t reach him through the rental company, try Metalworks Hardware in Bliss Cove. Tell him to get in touch with Brooke’s mother, Helen Castle. Brooke is fine, but we’re dealing with the snowstorm and there’s no cell service.”
More static, before the man responded with, “Metalworks…Helen Castle. Ten-four. Hunker down, it’s getting worse out there. We’ll—”
His voice disappeared into a crackle of noise. Sam turned a few more switches and spoke into the mic again, but the static persisted. He flipped off the radio.
“Thank you.” Brooke stepped toward him and rested a tentative hand on his arm. “I just knew there had to be a bright side to this whole mix-up, and so far you’ve rescued me from a fall and helped me call my mom. I really appreciate it.”
He nodded shortly. Though her touch was light, he felt the pressure of her palm clear through his shirtsleeve. Around her slender wrist was the bracelet she’d bought yesterday morning—a braided purple band holding a disk with the wordCourage.
She was the reason he stocked useless trinkets like that at Title Wave. He’d intended only to sell books at the bookstore. But last spring, Brooke and her mother had come in, yammering about putting together a “book-themed gift basket.”
Brooke had been both surprised and disappointed that Sam didn’t have a stock of non-book gifts. Next thing he knew, he was placing orders forAlice in Wonderlandteacups andPride and Prejudicenecklaces—and getting irritated with himself for doing so.
“And thanks for worrying about me,” Brooke added. “That was really sweet.”
He scowled. “I’m not sweet.”
“I knowyou’renot sweet, but the act of worrying about me was sweet.” She skimmed her gaze over his shirt and jeans, which were now damp from melting snow. “You should change and warm up. I’ll make you a cup of coffee this time.”
Turning away from her earnestness, he grabbed clean clothes from his duffle and stalked to the bathroom. After showering, he pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. His back and shoulder muscles ached from his cramped sleep. If the storm broke soon, he’d get outside and do some kind of workout to loosen up.
When he returned to the living room, the air was filled with weird music—drumming and something that sounded like rain—and a vanilla-orange scent. A cup of fresh coffee rested beside his laptop.
Brooke, dressed in purple sweatpants and a T-shirt displaying a floral peace sign, was seated in front of the fire with her eye closed, her legs crossed, and her hands resting on her knees. A lit candle rested beside her. He suspected it was the source of the fruit-based smell.
“You’re welcome to join me,” she said without opening her eyes. “I’m working on a new routine that includes half an hour of meditation every morning.”
“It’s five a.m. It’s notmorning.”
“Of course it is. If it weren’t snowing, we would be bathed in dawn.”
He snorted, even though her remark brought up an image of Brookebathing.
“What’s with the music?” he muttered.
“Nature sounds and a tribal drumbeat intended to awaken my subconscious.”
Suppressing a groan, Sam sank onto the sofa and picked up his laptop. A week off the grid to work on his book. That was all he’d wanted when he’d booked the cabin. Instead he was contending with a perky, pretty reporter who was apparently here to channel her inner moon child.
He tried to focus on his manuscript, but his gaze kept slipping past his computer screen to Brooke. Her long brown hair glowed in the firelight, and her thick eyelashes created crescent-shaped shadows on her high cheekbones. She had a little mole right at the corner of her left eye, like a tiny punctuation mark.
He jerked his attention back to his computer. He didn’t have even thirty seconds to spend ogling Brooke, not if he was going to make his deadline—and he’d be damned if he missed it. Not only had he never missed a deadline, his publisher had already pushed back the publication schedule for his new trilogy. Sam wouldn’t be responsible for screwing things up even more.
He scraped his hands through his hair and eyed the stack of romance novels Brooke had left on the table.For research, she’d lied.
Sam had never been a genre snob—as a thriller writer who’d incorporated everything from fantasy to time-travel in his books, he had no reason to be. But while he knew romances were a massively successful genre, he’d never actually read one.
He grabbed a well-worn book from the top of the stack and studied the cover, which bore an illustration of a guy with digitally enhanced abs clutching a voluptuous redhead to his bare chest.Mists of Love.
He skimmed through the book, pausing when he caught a glimpse of the phrase“throbbing loins.”
Seriously?
