I turned away to grip the edge of the farm-style sink. The burning anger I recognized. I tried to bank it. She didn’t deserve it—she certainly didn’t know what she’d triggered. And for fuck’s sake, I was never this sensitive. It was just these particular days that messed me up—Christmas Eve and the day itself. I stayed away from people for this exact reason.
She touched my arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Obviously, it’s something.”
“Just leave it, Miss Kane.”
She took a step back. “Miss Kane? Seriously?”
She pushed and it was all I could do not to snap at her more. My silence was a far better option. I just didn’t know how to tell her that.
She whirled away and went back into the living room to grab her book, then fled to the library with a slam of the door.
“Fuck.” I pushed over the heavy cast iron pan and matching griddle. When the sturdy white mug I’d had for ten years shattered in the sink, I growled. “Motherfucker.”
I stalked to the front door and shoved my feet in my boots and grabbed my parka on my way out the door.
I never should have brought her here. It was beyond stupid and my brain was chaos covered in missing parts. She deserved better than me, but I’d selfishly wanted her even when I’d known I was stupid to make the deal.
I’d been out of sorts since I’d put on that damn suit.
The angry caged animal had been tamed with a half dozen orgasms, but as usual I couldn’t get around that word. Any of them. Marry, marriage, married.
Hell, it was the idea of it even more than Sheridan. What she’d taken with her that day was far weightier than a broken heart.
I grabbed the shovel and scraped another layer of snow off the porch. Snow drifts were a neverending reality this close to the water. By the time I got to the driveway and the mailbox, I’d worked up a good sweat. I checked the mail. Some of the local papers were the only ones that would be in there. But it was something to do.
Sure enough, the community paper and a flyer about Christmas Eve festivities in the town was rolled together in the box. I crunched the colorful flyer and trudged over to the recycle bin when a icy ball of snow smacked me in the side of the head.
I turned to see a furious Kay on my porch.
“What the hell, Kay?”
“Oh, now it’s Kay?” She stood with her hands on her hips. “You had to go and ruin a perfectly lovely day after the first sex of my life.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Nothing like shouting it out to the world.”
“Who’s going to hear? A Blue Jay? If they even come out to this corner of the snow palace in the mountains.”
I pressed my lips together. She was glorious when she was mad. I’d worked off most of my anger with physical labor, but it seemed as if she’d been inside stewing.
She stomped her foot and her foot turned a little. She threw her arm out to catch herself since she was wearing my old boots. Obviously pissed, she swiped another handful of snow off the railing.
I held my hand up. “Don’t go there, Miss Kane.” I knew I’d started a war with using her name again, but the wall of frustration and hurt in my chest had cracked again. Just seeing her on my porch with her messy flyaway hair and fury snapping in her bright blue eyes was enough to send me down a path that was probably going to be my undoing.
I bent down to scoop up a handful of snow.
I was going to do it anyway. She was my first bright spot on this date in a helluva long time.
Another snowball landed dead center on my chest. She had a damn good aim. And so did I. I threw one even as I scooped up another. She yelped and skidded behind the railing but half of it skimmed her head. “Bullseye,” I muttered as I heard her shriek.
The sound of snow going down a woman’s top. Especially her with nothing under that cloud-soft sweater.
Soon it would be my cold hands looking to be warmed up.
I packed the snowball tighter as she peeked up with two useless balls that fell apart before getting to me. She’d made them too fast.