“You look shaken up.”
He leaned back in his chair, spaghetti piled high in a bowl. I felt shaken up. Reality had set in. Tonight could have been a tragedy. I loosed my hair and let it fall to my shoulders, relieved to ease the pressure from the hair tie.
“I am shaken. I almost didn’t get her.”
“Well done, brother. You saved her.”
He decked me lightly in the arm as he dove into his food. My mind wandered to Lizbeth. She still seemed to be in shock. Her overall mien was a bit too calm. I wasn’t the one who’d dangled over a white-capped river, seconds away from death, and even I felt it all the way to my gut.
“I made you some hot chocolate,” I said. “It’s in the microwave staying warm.”
“But not because you made it in there.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“You’re the best brother ever. Real, made-from-scratch hot chocolate on a blizzard night? You’ll always be my fave, JJ. What would I ever do without you? Fortunately, we never have to know. Hey, I had an idea tonight and started putting out some feelers. You want in on it?”
His voice faded into the background as I turned my attention back to my food. Mark rarely wanted me to respond—he just wanted a listening ear—so I let my mind drift.
Thoughts of a certain terrorized redhead circled my brain in an endless loop for the rest of the night.
5
Lizbeth
When I woke up, my neck felt as tight as the spine of a new book.
I straightened carefully. My collarbone protested each millimeter where it had pressed against the seat belt. My stomach felt a bit sore from lying on the windowsill before the car fell. A quick inventory confirmed I was fine. Alive.
A wooden ceiling loomed overhead. Behind me, the warm crackle of a dying fire filled the air. I blinked away a dream of tangled steel, grating metal, and deep ravines.
Yet here I sat in . . . Adventura.
Memory returned quickly. With a groan, I rubbed a hand over my face. At some point in the night, I’d slipped out to the living room, too cold to sleep. The Bailey brothers had already gone to bed, so I’d made a little nest on the couch closest to the fire and slept there.
Nightmares had replayed every second of the crash in excruciating detail all night long. As if my brain wanted to process it in slow motion. In the dream, my car hadn’t just been sliding. No, I’d dangled on the edge, one finger on a rock. I screamed and screamed and screamed, stuck in the awful sensation of almost dying.
It left me feeling cold.
I blinked and forced my thoughts back to the present moment. The clock said 7:34, but the room lay in shadows. Little light made it past the ongoing storm outside. But the wind seemed to have lessened. A quick look at the windowpanes confirmed that snow had frozen to the glass.
What a perfect setting for a romance novel.
I’d read my fair share of mountain romances. Handsome stranger fetches feisty woman from inevitable death in a whirling snowstorm. Forced to stay in the same cabin, they secretly connect and realize they’ve never been so disarmed by someone else before.
I stared at the ceiling and blinked.
Odd.
I’d read almost every romance novel in existence. Dreamt of the day I’d live my own because, frankly, I’d dated almost no one in college. Now I sat in a literal storyline for a perfect romance. And all I could think about was my pale eyelashes. Or the awkward fact that, when I read romance books, I often pictured JJ as the love interest.
Which just made all of this totally surreal and weird.
A quick review confirmed it: I was definitely stuck in a cabin, in a storm, having been saved by the one man I couldn’t have but always wanted. Last night should have been far sexier. Really, it had just been terrifying.
So . . . when would the ultra-giddy romance vibes hit me?
Soon.
Maybe after the crushing reality that I’d almost lost my life—and definitely lost my car—faded. Not only the car, but my phone with pictures of little baby Shane. The keys to the coffee shop. Some newly purchased winter clothes. My laptop.
The surge of panic that swelled in my chest ebbed quickly this time. All of that didn’t matter. The pictures were backed up to the cloud. I could replace my car and laptop . . . eventually. There was car insurance, even if it wasn’t the best because I’d limped by as a college student.
At least I hadn’t died.
Regardless, the romance books never covered braless nights and invisible eyebrows. They sped right to the sparks and fireworks. But this? This was crusty reality. My car and accoutrements had just plunged into an icy abyss.
Besides, the idea of anything between me and JJ was a literal dream. Not only was he nine years older, but a declared perpetual bachelor. He wouldn’t fit anywhere in my ultra-specific, very-much-happening-soon plans.
After landing my dream job at my favorite social media company, Pinnable, I would have a storybook romance, get married, and have babies. That’s when I’d settle into the sort of magical romance that Bethany and Maverick had.
The one I craved all the way to my bones.
I would have marriage and babies while armed with a college degree—because Mama never did care about education, and I’d die before I ended up like her.
But first, I’d make breakfast.
For the next ten minutes, I shuffled through cupboards and the mini fridge, tiptoeing around so I didn’t wake the Bailey boys. The open floorplan transmitted sound like an empty cave.
Finally, I settled on pancake mix made with water instead of milk and the last of a dozen eggs. No bacon, sausage, or OJ in the fridge. Some old, frostbitten breakfast sandwiches lingered at the back of a tiny freezer, but I wasn’t putting my hand back there. Only bachelors would run out of food in advance of a blizzard. I bet they only had one roll of toilet paper, too.
Pancakes were easy enough, although I really wasn’t into the food scene. But making them on a hot plate in the middle of what should have been a camp office?
Not my kind of party.
Still, I endured. Because JJ deserved a light, happy breakfast to counter the intensity of last night.
The hot plate smelled like burnt iron as it warmed, and I wafted away a few initial fumes while I stirred batter with a plastic spoon. The first two pancakes were a total flop, so I set those aside. The third came out half-decent. Just then, someone appeared from the attic.
“Lizbeth?”
JJ languorously stretched his arms above his head, eyelashes heavy against the morning light. My heart gave a little whomp at the adorable, sleepy way he smiled. Why did men always have the biggest eye fans? Mine were so light they were almost translucent. Putting on mascara changed me incalculably.
“Smells good down here.”
There it was—the rush of giddiness at the sound of his still-sleepy voice didn’t disappoint. The way his muscled arms reached overhead in taut perfection gave my heart a second reason to race. Romance books had something perfect, all right: there was definite beauty in the male form.
“Good morning,” I said, gaze averted.
He paused. His gaze dropped to the semi-chaos around me. I prayed there wasn’t batter on my face.
“Are you . . .”
“Making you breakfast. I guarantee nothing. But I . . . I wanted to do something nice for you. It’s poor thanks but . . .”