Page 81 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
She squeezed her eyes shut as another gust of wind made her shiver. These boots weren’t meant for this. She could already feel the snow saturating them. Her toes were going numb. Her body was starting to shake.
She crossed her arms around herself.
Stop feeling, Dahlia. Stop caring so much!
Why did she even care?
JJ wasn’t her boyfriend. He wasn’t anything to her except an airport chauffeur, and, okay, maybe a friend. He was her friend. Her ice fishing buddy.
She snorted and shook her head, not wanting to relive those happy memories when her insides were so raw and wounded.
Why did it hurt to know that he’d left his wife?
Tears burned her eyes, and she told herself it was the wind. The cold. The snow.
It couldn’t be the fact that her heart felt like it was splitting in two.
If she cared this much, that could only mean one thing, and she refused to believe it was true. She couldn’t care this much about a man she’d only just met.
Her teeth started chattering as her boots and pants became soaked through. Snow clung to her inept clothes. Why hadn’t she taken the time to grab a jacket?
She was such a fool!
The trees above her were groaning louder now, the storm having a field day as it whipped nature around like a taunting beast.
How fitting. A sob escaped. She felt whipped and battered herself, taunted by life on all sides. She’d been good, hadn’t she? She’d spent her whole life working hard and caring for her family, and for what?
To go and fall for a man who was just like the rest of them.
She opened her eyes with a scowl. “I’m not falling for him.”
But as soon as she whispered the words, she knew they were a lie. She was falling hard and fast…
And it was nothing at all like how she’d come to be with Brady. That hadn’t been so much falling as… settling. Finding a person who needed her. Being the motherly nag he’d needed to keep his life together while he…
What had he done for her? Kept her company? Kept her from feeling the loneliness when Daisy ran off to pursue music and Rose moved out on her own?
She rubbed a hand over her chest. This was so much worse than what she’d felt with Brady. She’d never feared what they had, but what she was starting to feel for JJ?
The way a simple comment about his past relationship had taken out the floor from under her?
That was dangerous. If she let herself fall, JJ would have the power to completely destroy her.
She’d seen the way her mother had crumbled after their father left. She knew better than anyone how dangerous love could be.
“I can’t fall,” she whispered. “I don’t want to fall.”
Her heart ached as if it was trying to protest, but she shook her head and focused on the whirling snow.
JJ came into view. His boots were on, and he wore a coat over top of his sweater, because he was smarter than her. He also wore a look of fury so intense it should have made her quake.
But his anger didn’t scare her.
Hescared her.
Everything he could potentially make her fragile heart feel scared her senseless.
He stalked toward her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
