Page 16 of Santa's Girl
That grin—infuriating, rugged, and smug as hell—did something weird to my insides.
Annoyance. Definitely annoyance. And maybe something else I refused to name.
I turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. The old recliner patched with duct tape. The wood stove. The stack of logs by the door. A rifle mounted over the fireplace.
And that rotary phone.
My pulse ticked up.
Protein powder, guns, isolation…
I swallowed hard.Oh no. What if he’s a serial killer? Like, actual Dateline material?
Because really, who lives like this?
“Something wrong?” His voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.
I spun, clutching my coffee cup like a shield. “Nope! Totally fine! Just, you know, admiring your… rustic lifestyle.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Rustic?”
“Yeah. Like, very—uh—off-grid-chic. Minimalist. Early psycho survivalist cabin.”
That got a quiet sound out of him — not quite a laugh, more like a low rumble. “If you got a problem with my hospitality, sweetheart, you’re welcome to go back out in the snow.”
The air between us tightened.
He wasn’t angry exactly… just blunt. Solid as the log walls around us.
I met his gaze, chin lifting despite the fact that every inch of him radiateddon’t test me.
“Okay, Bear,” I said, slow and careful, dragging out his name. “Message received.”
He just stood there for a second, watching me with that unreadable look again — like he couldn’t decide if I amused him or annoyed him.
Then he turned back to the stove. “You hungry or not?”
“Depends,” I said warily. “On whether the next words out of your mouth are ‘human flesh.’”
That earned me another almost-grin. “You talk too much.”
“And you talk too little.”
“Guess we’re even.”
By midafternoon, the wind had picked up, whistling through the trees hard enough to rattle the windows.
Bear disappeared outside not long after lunch—or what passed for lunch, which was two cups of coffee and a handful of trail mix he tossed my way like he was feeding a zoo animal.
Now the cabin felt too quiet.
No hum of electricity, no TV static, no phone notifications. Just the steadytick...tick...tickof the woodstove and the occasional crack of a log shifting in the flames.
When the lights flickered once, twice, then went black completely, my heart sank.
Perfect.
I lit the only candle I could find on the counter—half-burned, smelled faintly like motor oil—and sank into the armchair by the fire. TheJohn Grishamnovel I’d pulled from his shelf earlier was surprisingly good.
