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She trudged to the door. Lifting her freezing hand, she knocked, wincing at the pain radiating through her arm.
The door swung open. The wooly-looking man filled it. His eyes widened in disbelief. Some heat worked its way around his mass to reach Laurel. She huddled in her damp coat.
He snarled, “What’re you doing here?”
ChapterTwo
Brandon Wheeler had putanother log on the fire, then held his hands out to warm them. Since he’d been gone, he needed to warm the place and himself as well. It would snow again tonight.
The banging on the door had startled him. People didn’t come to his cabin. He’d seen to it visitors were discouraged. Keeping his damaged hand out of sight, he whipped the door open. A gust of cold air hit him. The last person he expected to see again stood in his doorway. Still he had thought of her more than once in the last few hours.
Everything about the woman screamed big city gone wrong. She was inappropriately dressed for the weather. She wore an expensive looking red coat, but it appeared more for looks than function. Jeans covered her legs. Designer ones would be his guess. And heaven forbid, she’d worn some fashionable boots with pointed high heels. How had she managed the uneven ground wearing those, he had no idea. Her uncovered hair hung in wet ropes. She could compete with Rudolph for the reddest nose.
“What’re you doing here?” He looked past her. “Come to try to kill me again?” Where had she come from?
Her teeth chattered. Her wide eyes held an appeal for help.
“Are you lost, or have you just lost your mind?” He took her arm and tugged her into the cabin, kicking the door closed. “We need to get you by the fire.” After stationing her close to the heat, he asked, “Can you speak?”
“Yes.” A word barely recognizable through the clink-clink of chattering teeth.
Brandon sighed deeply then nudged her toward the recliner. “Sit.”
She fell back more than sat.
“Your boots need to come off. What made you think stomping around in a snowy forest in these would be a good idea?” Dropping to his heels, he used his good hand to take her foot by the heel and pulled, dropping a boot to the floor. He repeated the action with the other boot before he stood. “You need to rub them to help get the blood flowing again. “Now that you can speak, would you mind telling me what you’re doing so far from town?”
“I’m sorry I almost hit you.” She chattered. “Thank you for letting me come in.”
“Today must be my knight in shining armor day.” She still hadn’t answered his question about why she was here. Was she dodging it? What was the woman up to? “And you followed me all the way up the mountain to tell me that.”
“Well, no. You don’t think very highly of me, do you?”
She looked around his one-room cabin.
Glad he had closed the curtains blocking the sight of his workroom, the space he never entered, he watched as her gaze returned to him. “Rub. While I find you some dry clothes.”
Brandon couldn’t believe she’d followed him from town. He didn’t know what to do with company. Being in his cabin alone suited him just fine. Despite being on friendly terms with the community, he still kept himself on the outside as much as possible. At one time he was in the middle of the glitz and glamour of the art world, and now he lived a simple life in the mountains. Those closest to him accused him of hiding after the accident. His parents complained he had started to like living in the woods and not shaving too. Others thought he had become a hermit. It was easier that way.
It had been a long time since he’d wished things in his life were different. When he saw the wide green eyes of this woman through the windshield, something stirred in him. An emotion he’d not felt in a long time. Desire.
His disfigurement kept him from pursuing a woman. His ex-fiancé had seen to that. He had more scars than the long one on his hand. She’d shivered while she told him it made her skin crawl to have him touch her with his injured hand – that had been the end of their relationship.
To compound the matter, the accident had robbed him of his livelihood. Nothing he tried to produce after the accident looked right. Felt right. He crammed his injured fist further into his pocket. An action that had become a habit since his surgeries had been completed.
This woman sitting in his chair was so tiny, she only reached his shoulder height. Did he own anything small enough for her to wear? Going to his chest of drawers in the corner, he removed a pair of wool socks and returned to her. “Put these on.” He moved the footstool closer to the fire. With the socks on, he cupped her heel and place her foot on the stool. He repeated the process with the other all the while making sure she couldn’t see his wounded hand.
Once again, he went to his chest and rummaged around, taking out clothing. He might not enjoy having company but he couldn’t stand to see her uncomfortable. Over his shoulder he said, “Take your clothes off.” He heard a small gasp. “It’s not what you think. You need to put on warm dry clothes.” He laid the garments he’d picked out on his bed. “Change. I’m going to warm up some stew. I’m hungry and I assume you are too after that hike.”
“Can I go behind those curtains to change?”
He snapped, “No.” He adjusted his voice to something more congenial. “I’ll turn my back.” He went to the crockpot where he’d put all the stew fixings that morning.
“Oh, okay.”
He glanced at her. She had stood. Her head moved as if she were studying the place. No doubt the obviously fancy-pants woman from the city wasn’t impressed by the bed with a homemade quilt or rustic chest of drawers beside it. The pile of wood next to the fireplace and his kitchen in one corner of the cabin with the two mismatched chairs beneath it couldn’t be up to her usual standards.
Her brows drew together as her gaze lingered on the black curtains.
