Page 55 of Snowed In with Benefits

“Do you? Tell me.”

“Well, you know how I said that people told me I’d end up in prison.”

She nods, letting me talk.

“Nobody ever told me what would happen after that. Guess they thought I’d go to prison for life, or that telling me I’d go to prison at all would be enough to deter me. But I was only in for three years. Only… I mean, that’s a long time. That’s long enough to build a routine. It’s long enough to learn to rely on the system that takes care of all your basic needs and your only direction is, ‘follow the routine and don’t get into any more trouble.’”

“So when you did get out, what happened?”

“I struggled with it. That’s a big part of the reason I ended up out here. The real world is a lot harder to navigate now. I didn’t function too well in the real world for a while.”

She’s quiet for a second. Then she says, “I get that. The culture shock of going from having your life dictated to suddenly being free.” She bites her lip again, and I know she isn’t thinking about prison. Not in the traditional sense. She’s thinking about the prison that Preston built for her.

“You know,” I say, trying to be gentle. “In the grand scheme of things, driving up a mountain and having a one-night stand with a couple of guys is honestly not that crazy, considering how your life plans changed so drastically.”

She blushes and her body unwinds slightly. She seems to be reassured by that. “You know, even though I’ve never had a one-night stand before… definitely not with two guys… it was something I really needed. So thank you.”

One-night stand. She said it again. She’s already filing this away as something that happened once and won’t happen again. Something she needed, past tense. Something she’s grateful for the way you’re grateful for a stranger who helps you change a tire. Thank you. Like I did her a service.

I don’t like it. I don’t like the neatness of it. I don’t like that she’s already building the box she’s going to put this in. But I’m not going to stand here in a cold barn and tell her that, because I don’t even know what I’d say instead. Let’s try it again, see where it goes? Maybe you don’t have to leave as soon as the roads clear? That’s not something I know how to ask for. I’ve never asked for it. I wouldn’t know where to put the words.

So I do what I always do. I put the armor back on. I smirk at her.

“Our pleasure, duchess.”

23

JOSIE

We crunch back through the snow together. I can’t help but glance at Beau as we walk. Knowing more about him has made me feel better, knowing that he went to prison for an honorable reason, even if he did say that he could have done something else. I’m sure he could have. I’m also sure that, in the moment, his body was working faster than his brain.

I know how that goes. I know it as well as I know my own feet, sliding around in someone else’s boots, a sensation that’s becoming more and more common these days. Boots are going on my list of things I need to keep in the back of my car. You know. Just in case.

I glance up at him again. The line of his face, the curve of his jaw, the hardness that I found so scary before. Knowing that he went to prison saving an innocent person from harm is warming me from the inside. Unfortunately, knowing this about him, knowing about his childhood, knowing him more deeply as a person… it’s all making him infinitely more attractive. I find myself drawn to him even more strongly than before.

It was easier to keep my walls up, to keep myself from being too attracted or curious about these men when I didn’t know them as well. When I saw them as blank-slate hosts, and not as full people. That’s changing, and I don’t know what to do about it.

We go inside and I kick off the boots. It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, they were trying to come off anyway. I slip out of the coat and hang it up on the peg where I got it from, then head into the kitchen behind Beau. Hunter catches my eye and raises his eyebrows, silently asking if everything’s okay. I nod with a little smile, my cheeks still warm.

He looks satisfied. Emmett glances between us. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I never can with him. He’s an enigma, a mystery. I still can’t tell whether he dislikes me, and I still kind of feel like he might, but something has shifted in the room between all of us and maybe he’s tolerating me a little bit better than he was before.

It’s a good shift. For the first time, I’m glad I ended up here after running from my wedding. I’m glad that I got snowed in with these guys, glad that it ended up like this. I get a wild impulse and grin at the group.

“I’m cooking lunch,” I announce.

Hunter immediately jumps from his seat, grinning. “What do you need? I’ll show you where it is. What are you cooking? It’s going to be delicious, whatever it is. Let’s see what we have. Carb base? Pasta? Rice? What are you thinking?”

He’s so over-the-moon excited about it that it’s almost embarrassing. Behind him, Beau rolls his eyes and Emmett coughs a little laugh.

“How come you never go nuts like that over my cooking?” Beau asks with a mock scowl. “My cooking’s just as good as hers.”

“Hell, my cooking’s just as good as hers,” Emmett says with a laugh.

Now I’m a little more sure that he’s simply tolerating me, but I don’t mind. I know my cooking is just adequate. It’s nothing special, but the way Hunter is acting makes it seem like Gordon Ramsay himself just offered to cook. I chuckle softly as the guys give him shit.

Hunter shrugs. “Her cooking just hits different,” he says.

I laugh at that. “My cooking is genuinely nothing special,” I say, but I can’t stop smiling. I kind of love how much he likes my cooking. “But, to answer your question, let’s start with rice.”