Page 84 of Snowed In with Benefits

“I was right there with him,” I tell her. “Just a second too late. When the cops came, I just admitted that it was me before Hunter could say anything.”

“Why?” she asks. Just the question. The question that I’ve been ignoring for years, although I know the answer the same way I know my own hands. I stare at those hands. Hunter is quiet, letting me take this.

I shrug. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” It’s not an answer and we all know it, but fortunately she lets it go. She takes my hand in one of hers, then takes Hunter’s hand with the other.

“Thank you for telling me,” she says softly. She pauses for a long moment, her soft little hand warm on mine. “It doesn’t change the way I see either of you, as good, protective men. I need you to know that. Hunter, you protected the man. Beau, you protected your brother. If anything, this just makes me more certain that that’s who you really are.”

Hunter brings her knuckles to his mouth and presses his lips there. I do the same, pressing the back of her hand to my mouth, my thumb running over her fingers. We stay like this for a moment and I feel whatever lives between us grow somehow. There’s a weight here that wasn’t there before. It was good before. Now there’s meat to it.

The moment settles into something warm and still. I can hear the fire. I can hear the wind pushing against the windows. I can feel her pulse in her wrist, steady and calm, and I think, this is what it could be. This is what it could feel like, all the time, if the world would just leave us alone up here.

Then the crunch of tires on the snow outside shatters it. The sound of an engine working hard.

I frown. “We’re not due for another delivery.”

Hunter shakes his head. “Not for a while. Who could that be?”

We all get up and go to the window. My shoulders are tight. I don’t like unexpected guests, current company excluded. It’s an expensive black sedan with spiked snow tires, completely out of place against the snow. I stand beside Josie as we look out the window and I’m close enough to notice when her whole body goes stiff. The color drops from her face.

“It’s Preston.”

32

JOSIE

My heart thunders in my chest as Preston’s car rolls to a stop. I can feel Beau and Hunter tense up on either side of me, protective and ready. Ready for what? I don’t know. Preston isn’t much of a fighter, he’s not going to come up here and start throwing punches. He’s more of a words guy. He’s playing in Hunter’s league, and I can only hope that Hunter’s better at it.

I want to text him. To tell him to turn around, go home, leave me alone. I fiddle with my phone in my pocket, but I know it’s pointless. He’s already here. He knows where I am and he’s not waiting anymore. His car door swings open.

We move toward the door as one. I grab Beau’s coat off the peg, wrapping it around me more like armor than protection from the elements. Hunter opens the door and steps through it. Beau holds the door for me, then follows me out. I’m sandwiched between them in one of my most vulnerable moments, and it gives me the nerve I need to face Preston head-on.

He steps out of the car looking as polished and put-together as ever, his pressed slacks and slicked-back hair completely out of place out here in the woods. He looks up at me, and I step away from the guys without thinking about it, putting a tiny bit of distance between us. I don’t really know why I do it—except that, just like I’ve always found myself doing with my ex-fiancé, I don’t want to give him a chance to judge me.

Preston closes his car door, not looking at the guys, just at me. It’s like they don’t even exist to him, and that makes a small, secret part of me just a little bit angry.

“How, how are you here?” I ask before he can say anything.

“I tracked your phone, of course.”

I stare at him. “I’m sorry, you did what?”

“Tracked your phone.” He takes a step toward me, then makes a face when the snow touches his sock. “You weren’t answering my calls, you were barely answering my texts, what the hell did you expect me to do? I wouldn’t have to go to such lengths if you hadn’t been such a⁠—”

There’s a crunch from the side of the cabin that stops Preston’s sentence. Emmett comes around the house, his big axe slung casually over his shoulder. He glances from Preston to me and his expression hardens. He takes a few more big steps toward us, his entire posture changing, the protective mountain man in him coming out in full force. He looks intimidating, even to me. Preston pales slightly.

“Preston, we’ll talk, I promise,” I say quickly, hoping to avoid a big confrontation. “Just not right now.”

He smirks and shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere until we’ve talked.”

“We could make you leave,” Emmett says, adjusting his grip on the axe.

My pulse races. This situation is teetering on the edge of devolving into something messy, and I need to fix it before it gets there. The guys will follow my lead, I know they will. I just need to figure out where I’m leading them to.

“Okay, fine. I’ll talk to you now. I just… I need a few minutes.”

“He’s not welcome in the cabin,” Beau says definitively.

“Okay.” That’s fine with me, I don’t want him inside my bubble either.