Page 34 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men
“The kind of snake that can bite from a mile and a half away,” Ryder added.
There was reverence in their voices. Reverence and respect. Still, I had to poke Jaxon anyway.
“So then you were just as lost in the jungle?” I needled him. “Just as surrounded by rebels?”
The scoff he returned was closer to a snarl.
“I don’t get surrounded,” Jaxon returned, evenly. “I do the surrounding. And I bite from nearly two miles,” he said, turning on Oakley. “Maybe even more.”
I tried to imagine it; crawling through the brush, smeared with mud, the animals and insects biting away at you. Lying in filth, in the same position, for days at a time. It took a special kind of person to do something like that.
“Sure seems like a hell of a place to meet someone,” I smiled.
“It was,” Oakley confirmed. “But then he shared a couple of MRE’s with us—”
“And chocolate,” Ryder jumped in. “Don’t forget that part.”
“Chocolate, too,” Oakley grinned. “Sweet fuck, we were hungry. After that, we were in love with the big guy. Been brothers ever since.”
I saw Jaxon roll his eyes. He got up, drained his coffee, and stomped out of the kitchen.
“I guess he’s not very sentimental,” I quipped.
“No. Not really.”
“And what about you boys?” I teased, batting my eyes at them. “Are you going to get all dewy-eyed and slushy over our romantic night together?”
They looked at each other for a moment, then lifted their arms and started throwing signs. By the time I realized they were playing rock paper scissors, they were already shooting for best of three.
“What exactly is this for?” I asked, my stomach going taut with the memory of last night.
Their hands shot out for the tie-breaker. Paper beats rock. Ryder groaned, and spun away.
“Just figuring out which one of us gets to drive you into town,” Oakley smiled in victory.
~ 18 ~
CAMRYN
Snow.
I’d craved it, I’d desired it, and now it was all around me. I’d gone from dreaming what it would be like to stick my tongue out and catch a snowflake, to being buried beneath an avalanche of the white stuff practically every other day. It made walking difficult, and driving treacherous. Worst of all, it made staying warm damn near impossible.
Still, as a lifelong Floridian, I just couldn’t get enough of it. It was too beautiful. Too perfect. Too—
“So… you wanna tell me about this book you’re writing?”
Oakley reached out and turned the heat up; as we rolled slowly down the mountain. Maybe he’d seen me shivering. Or maybe he’d just read my mind.
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
He shrugged, guiding the wheel with one hand while using the other to scratch at the soft brown bristles along his jaw. His goatee was sexy to begin with. But his uniform? Even sexier.
“I dunno. What’s it about?”
“Murder,” I answered immediately, then spent the next several seconds wondering why that was the first word that had come to mind. “Suspense. A mysterious homecoming.”
His mouth — the same beautiful mouth that had been kissing me for hours on end — curled into a smile.
