Page 68 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men
We jumped into action; carrying in our supplies, checking the windows, and prepping the house for whatever came next. There was an air of excitement to everything, at least on my end. It was my first blizzard, my first big storm. This high on the mountain we could be buried beneath an avalanche of snow; trapped inside for days or even weeks, depending upon a hundred different factors we now had no control over.
But damn, to be trapped here withthem.To be made warm and cozy and safe, by these three gorgeous mountain men hellbent on feeding me, protecting me, and keeping me safe. I wanted to cuddle between them on the leather couch, stokingthe fire while the storm raged outside. I couldn’t wait to be wrapped in their arms, and cocooned in their beds.
Moving with purpose I unpacked everything, ran some laundry, and readied the essential emergency supplies. We had flashlights and plenty of batteries. Candles to distribute throughout the house; in the event we lost power. The boys dragged the generator into the garage, along with the cannisters of fuel. A few minutes later I heard the sound of them chopping away; splitting more firewood as rapidly as possible. Up here, this far off the grid, even a Florida girl knew it was the one thing you could never really have enough of.
Eventually I got antsy. I slipped through the garage, and down to the rough-hewn boiler room beneath the house. Oakley was down there, his shirt off, chopping away. The twenty-degree temperature swing had me perspiring almost immediately, but not as much as watching those beautiful muscles, rolling and surging across his back and arms.
“Can I help?”
He looked up at me wordlessly for a moment, then blew an errant lock of hair away from his face.
“Sure,” he jerked his chin to the left. “Open that door and feed the fire.”
Oakley went straight back to work, gripping the axe in both hands and chopping again. His grunts were ridiculously sexy. The sight of his bulging arms, even more so.
Reluctantly I pried my eyes away from them, and grabbed the boiler’s insulated handle. The door swung open easily enough. A fresh blast of heat washed over us, as all new oxygen made the embers glow an angry orange.
“Can I ask you something?” Oakley grunted between swings.
“Sure. Anything.”
I bent to the task of feeding the firebox. Each new log I tossed into the boiler’s gaping maw created new fireworks, in the form of orange sparks.
“Why’d you leave Florida?”
Again and again he brought the axe down, splitting each log into six or eight pieces before grabbing a new one. His every movement was fluid and practiced, the muscles of his body rolling in unison. It was like watching a yummy, sweat-covered machine.
“I told you,” I replied simply. “I wanted a new atmosphere for my book.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he allowed. “But no one drives this far to get somewhere they’ve never been, without much of a plan in mind. Unless…”
He bent again, grunting as he set up a particularly big log. I tilted my head at him.
“Unless what?”
He swung. The log split neatly in two.
“Unless they’re running from something.”
The intense heat was getting to me. I peeled off my jacket and laid it next to Oakley’s clothing.
“I wasn’t exactly running,” I admitted finally. “But I did need to get out of Daytona.”
“Why?”
“Too many memories,” I shrugged. “Both bad and good. Besides, there was nothing keeping me there. Not anymore.”
He stopped swinging, and leaned on his axe. I was nearly hypnotized by the sight of his glistening, sculpted chest, heaving beautifully as he caught his breath.
“I know about your mom,” he said at last. “But what about dad?”
I dropped the piece of wood I was holding.
“Dad passed when I was seventeen,” I told him. “He worked three jobs, and his coworkers found him slumped over his workstation. At first they thought he was sleeping.” I paused, my mouth abruptly dry. “He wasn’t.”
"Shit,” Oakley swore.
“Medical examiner called it a heart attack,” I shrugged, “but I think it was more of a broken heart. Dad had no history of medical problems, no drugs in his system. He didn’t even touch alcohol. He just worked until he was dead, and that was it. He didn’t even punch out.”
