Page 3 of Snowed In with Benefits

Heaving a heavy sigh and cussing myself out, I step out into the snow.

3

JOSIE

I want to run, but all I can do is trudge as fast as I can through the thick snow. These boots keep slipping off my bare feet and I have to keep stomping them back on, and it’s making my progress a lot slower than I’d like. The coat that I stole off that carved wooden coat rack is huge on me. It’s clearly a man’s. It comes down to my knees and the sleeves go well past my fingertips, which is great for keeping most of me warm, but the awkward penguin flap I’m forced to do to keep my balance is slowing me down too. I keep looking over my shoulder to see if the mountain man is following me, but I’m starting to get turned around. I need to find my car. Where did the lane go? Damn this snow!

I find the general direction I need to go in. It’s slightly to the left of where I am and I find that going diagonally is much harder than chugging straight ahead. I put my head down and focus, my legs and lungs burning with the effort, but at least I’m warm. If I can just find my⁠—

I run smack into something and bounce back. It’s another man, this one even bigger than the last, with a big thick beard and big broad shoulders. I try to catch my balance. His brows furrow.

“Why the hell are you wearing my coat?” He looks down at my feet. “And why the hell are you wearing my boots?”

My eyes widen. Shit. He must live at the cabin too. I didn’t think there would be two of them out here! Without waiting for an answer, the man reaches out and grabs the coat, pulling it open as he tries to take it off me, exposing my bare flesh to the elements. Gasping, I pull the coat tighter around me.

“Uh…” He clearly saw that I’m naked under his coat. In his momentary stunned silence, I come up with a plan. I start digging around in my tech bag.

“I’ll pay you for them. The coat and boots, I’ll pay you if you let me keep them. I just need to get to my car, I need to get off this mountain.”

“You won’t be doing that.”

Chills run down my spine. First the other guy’s comments, now this… what do they do to strangers up here, anyway?

“The pass is closed,” he continues. “The roads are a mess. You can’t go over, and you won’t make it back.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What do you mean, I won’t make it back? How do you know which way I came from?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugs. “Whichever way you’re going, you’re not going to make it.”

“I don’t believe you.” I can’t get stuck here. I can’t stop moving. Something in me has been running since the altar, and I can’t stop now. Not for this guy, not for the weather, not for anything. I have to keep moving. I try to step around him, but he moves in front of me.

That’s not fair. His boots fit him.

“Get out of my way. I need to get to my car.” The cold is starting to creep up my legs and into this coat, and I move to go around him again. He blocks me, again. I try to huff at him, but my teeth are chattering. As soon as I get to the car, I’ll turn the heater on.

He’s staring at me with a strange look on his face. I can’t really blame him. I’m soaking wet, wearing his coat like a tent, bare from the hemline down, and shaking like a chihuahua. Starting to get exhausted, I try to get around him again.

This time, he picks me up, right out of my boots. His boots. The boots, they are on the ground, and I am not.

“Put me down, you, you… lumberjack! What are you doing?”

He curls me against him and I am viscerally aware of just how big he really is. His scent surrounds me, pine and flannel, just like I’d imagine a lumberjack to smell. Not that I’d ever imagined being carried through the snow half-naked by one. I feel tiny in his arms. Tiny and helpless.

I hate it.

“Beau!” His voice rumbles in his chest, vibrating my whole body.

“Emmett! What do you have there?” I turn to see who he’s talking to. It’s the first man from the cabin. Looks like he did come after me, after all.

“This little lady.” He hoists me like I weigh nothing at all, and I yelp. “She was in the cabin. She’s wearing my coat.”

“Nice deduction, Sherlock.” The sarcasm is thick. They talk to each other like brothers. Did I crash a family reunion or something?

“You were about to let her run away like this?” The heat in Emmett’s voice warms me in a way I don’t really understand. I resent that he caught me, I want to get away, but his anger on my behalf makes me feel… something.

“I was coming after her.” Beau crosses his arms defensively. He was definitely only coming after me because he knew that this Emmett guy was out here. Maybe that’s not charitable, but that’s how it looks from where I sit.

“Right. She was practically to the road before she ran into me. You were going to let her try to drive out of here on these roads, weren’t you?”