Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“You pulled my hat down over my eyes, and then you took off.”
“Had to,” he says soberly. “If my father or your mother’d caught us like that…”
“I know,” I whisper.
We both look out the window.
“Let’s go outside, Owen. Let’s play in the snow.”
He smirks, eying my half-eaten breakfast. “Finish yer breakfast before I’ll allow you to play, woman.” He leans forward. “Maybe a pretty, blocked American novelist needs to keep her energy up so she can have what it takes to unblock herself, aye?”
I snort and finish my breakfast. “Now can we go out?” I feel like a little girl again, in the best possible way. Safe and hopeful. Excited.
There’s a long pause, then a slow nod.
We rustle around the closet in the cabin and find an oddball assortment of clothes and shoes. He helps me into a thick parka, pulling the zipper all the way to my chin like I’m a child.
His fingers linger on my collar. My breath clouds between us.
“Don’t run this time,” he murmurs.
I almost laugh. Running is the last thing on my mind. If anything, I want to run from everything… but him. Even though I know this is temporary.
Even though I don’t really know who Owen Callahan is.
He tugs on his winter gear. Why is that so hot? The knit hat pulled snug brings out the green in his eyes. He looks so much… bigger. Stronger. Immovable. I turn, push the door open, and walk out.
He growls behind me, something about “locked door” and “not a care for safety,” but his words are swallowed in the great outdoors.
It smells clean and crisp out here, the sky a dazzling shade of white blue, a winter wonderland.
It’s quiet in that surreal, snowy way. Every sound is muffled. The world is white and soft and infinite. My boots crunch down into at least a foot of snow. Flakes catch in my lashes, melting on my lips.
I turn. Owen stands just behind me, his arms crossed, eyes narrowed but dancing at me.
And I throw the first snowball. It hits him square in the chest.
He blinks, then looks down at the wet patch spreading across his coat, then up at me. His eyes are flat. Amused. Dangerous.
“You want to play?”
I grin and throw another. He dodges it and steps forward, fast.
I squeal, my heart racing, and I’m quickly smacked with a snowball of his. It’s light and fluffy, but it slides down past my collar and freezes my neck.
Another hits, and then another. How does he make them so fast? I stumble and make a clumsy, quick ball to toss back at him, but it isn’t packed like his were and disintegrates well before it hits him.
I’m way over my head here, so I do the only sensible thing.
I run.
Snow flies up around me as I sprint toward the trees. My lungs burn. My heart is a fist pounding against my ribs. But I don’t get far.
I dodge a stunning birch, her long limbs graceful and majestic, ducking under a thick branch heavily laden with snow. I yelp when I slip and tumble because I know it’s over now. I can hear him heavy and fast behind me.
He tackles me into the drift with terrifying precision. I land with a gasp, my back hitting the powder, cold slicing through my layers. He’s on top of me in a blink, his knee between mine, one gloved hand beside my head, the other catching my wrist.
I’m breathless, frozen… trapped. Just like the first time.
He’s staring down at me, his face unreadable. Snow clings to his lashes, and his cheeks are flushed. His mouth—
God, his mouth.
He kisses the tip of my nose. “I could kiss yer mouth, and we’d freeze together. They’d find us like that, frozen together forever.”
“A peaceful way to die?” I suggest with a giggle.
He bends his mouth to my cheek and gives me a gentle peck before he lets me up.
“Give up, little Emma?” he asks. He has to tack on that little, knowing full well he’s twice my size, especially when we’re like this. “I’ll remember that.”
My belly flips.
I shake my head, trembling with something that isn’t just cold.
He leans closer. His nose brushes mine. Then he reaches up slowly and pulls my hat down over my eyes, just like before.
Darkness.
I shriek and laugh, twisting under him. But his weight lifts, and he’s already gone. I hear his footsteps crunching away.
When I sit up and push the hat back, he’s standing a few yards away, watching me with that look that turns my bones to ash.
I remember it so vividly.
And just like that, I’m eighteen. Snow in my boots. That same stupid laugh. I’d hit him with a snowball back then too. He’d chased me down, pinned me in the exact same way. Only back then, I didn’t have the words for the way my stomach flipped under his weight. The way my breath caught when he pulled my hat down and vanished.