Page 20 of Big Package

Her laugh followed me to the door. I stopped there.

“There’s a lock,” I said.

Her smile faded. “On the bedroom door?”

“Yeah.”

I didn’t want her lying in my bed wondering if she needed to worry about me walking in because we’d almost kissed twice in one day.

“Lock it if you want. I won’t bother you.”

Her eyes softened. “I know you won’t.”

She trusted me. I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that.

The couch was exactly as short as she’d said. I stretched out with one foot hanging over the arm.

Sometime after midnight, the ice turned to snow. The sharp tapping against the windows faded until the house became quiet.

Emmy was asleep in my bed. Wearing my sweatshirt. I couldn’t think about anything else. I turned onto my side and shut my eyes.

The bedroom door stayed closed. Good. That was exactly how I wanted it. At least that was what I kept telling myself.

CHAPTER 5

EMMY

For one blissful second, I had no idea where I was. Then I realized I’d woken up in Cole Maddox’s bed, which was not a sentence I had expected to apply to my life. Alone, obviously, but my brain seemed determined to linger on the first part.

Gray light pressed around the edges of the curtains, and my phone said seven forty-two. There were three messages from Janice, one from Delaney, and two from my mother. I turned the phone facedown again. Whatever disaster Big Wood had created overnight could wait until coffee.

Cole’s bed was annoyingly comfortable, and the sheets smelled like the same clean detergent as the sweatshirt I was still wearing. Nothing said excellent decision-making like waking up in a grumpy mountain man’s bed in his clothes after driving into an ice storm to rescue Christmas inventory.

I crossed to the window, pulled back the curtain, and forgot every inappropriate thought I’d had about Cole Maddox.

“Oh my God.”

Snow covered everything. The trees, the porch roof, and even my SUV were buried under several inches of fresh powder. Big Wood didn’t get snow like this often, and when it did, the whole town reacted like civilization had ended.

I smiled until I remembered the shop.

DELANEY: Morning! Jace says roads are still bad. Don’t even think about trying to get back yet. I’ll check Wrapped on Main once they clear Main Street. Tell Cole I said good morning. :)

The smiley face seemed unnecessary.

JANICE: Snow!!!

JANICE: I’m assuming silence means you’re sleeping. At Cole’s. Mm-hmm.

There were no circumstances under which I would answer Janice before my morning caffeine.

When I opened the bedroom door, the smell of freshly brewed coffee reached me halfway down the hall. Bless that man.

A folded blanket and pillow sat at one end of the couch. I’d spent half the night feeling guilty that Cole had given up his bed, but seeing the proof of it made the whole thing feel different. He had spent most of yesterday ordering me around. He had also kept me out of a ditch, carried my orders inside, fed me, given me his sweatshirt, gotten the generator running, and handed over his bedroom without making any of it feel like I owed him something.

Maybe grumpy wasn’t the whole story.

The back door opened, and Cole came in with an armful of firewood, a knit cap pulled low and snow dusting his shoulders.