Page 17 of Snowed In With the Snow Queen
Chapter Twelve
Randy
Is it presumptuous to hold her hand? Is she secretly thinking I’m a creep? Is she thinking I invited her here just to get her alone?
All the cons don’t hit me until her hand is in mine already. She doesn’t say a word, though, as I lace my fingers through hers and hurry us out of the barn. Outside, the snow is coming down hard, and the wind has picked up, swirling around us and making me shiver even in partial shift.
Neither of us says a word as we rush to the cabin the best we can through the quickly growing snow drifts. By some miracle, neither one of us ends up on our asses. I unlock the door as quickly as I can and step back to let her go first. The fire is out, but the temperature difference is noticeable. I move to the fireplace to get a fire going as Soojin looks around.
“Was the cabin already here when your family bought the land, or did they build it?”
I look up from the fireplace to see her running a hand over the logs that make up the walls.
“My grandfather and his brothers helped my great-grandfather build it. It’s been in the family ever since, but Robert and I were the only ones who wanted to keep up the ranch.”
She turns to look at me. “Robert? Zach’s father?”
I nod.
“What was he like?”
I use the poker to get more of the wood going as I think about her question. It’s been so long since I thought about him outside of the accident. “He was short.”
She huffs a laugh. “Little brothers and sisters are always taller. I’m the oldest.”
I smile back. “He was stubborn. Ridiculously smart. Wise beyond his years. He was a good Alpha. The boys would have been better off if they could have known him and this life, instead of the life I gave them.” I don’t know what makes me say that last part. I regret it instantly. Soojin just tilts her head.
“Maybe. Or maybe they would have fought hard against this life. You never can tell with kids.”
The fire gets going, and she comes to sit near me on the couch. The heat seems to magnify her scent, and it takes everything in me not to suck in an obvious breath.
“Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head, kicks off her shoes, and pulls her knees up to her chest. “No. Just grateful to be warm again.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, let me get you a blanket.”
I hurry off to the bedroom to get a blanket for her, grateful for once that Zelda insists on treating me like her 6th son. I’ve got a stack of freshly laundered blankets she insisted I take with me when I left her house last night. I pull out the thickest one and bring it to the couch. Soojin’s eyes light up as I come back into the room. She takes it from me and wraps herself until only her face is visible.
The groan of pleasure she makes as she curls up in it is borderline obscene. “This is the best blanket ever,” she says, curling up on the couch.
“Should I leave you two alone?” I tease.
“Jealous?” she deadpans.
“Maybe a little?” I sit on the opposite end of the couch, a cushion’s worth of room between us. She tilts her head and stares at me for a bit before wiggling around under the blanket.
Her hand emerges from the covers, a yellow piece of paper in her hand. “Did you leave this note for me?”
I take it from her and examine it. It has been gnawed on by something, but it’s definitely my note. I nod. “I left it after church. I was waiting for you, but Zach asked me to help, and I got caught up with that. By the time I came out, you were gone.”
She stares at me for a long moment, then reaches out for the note, taking it back and pulling it under the covers. Finally she says, “Are you sure?”
“Sure?”
“Anytime I’ve shown the slightest interest in you over the past year, you disappear,” she says from the blanket.
“I don’t mean to, it’s just that the pack–”
