Chapter 1
Briar
“Ready to see our home away from home for the next two weeks?”
“Does it have coffee?” Maverick muttered, shades keeping the glint and glare from the sun out of his eyes.
The only problem with that was that it kept me from seeing the expression in them, which I hated. His eyes were a ghostly pale shade of blue with an almost haunting glow when light hit them, especially moonlight. Staring into them has been one of my favorite pastimes since we were children. They just reminded me so much of the glass suncatchers and dangly crystal plant hangers my mother hung all over the house that I couldn’t help myself; they just drew me in.
“It will after we carry our supplies in,” I said.
“Told you we should have stopped at the coffee shop with the emoji beans all over it.”
“Did you not see how packed the parking lot was?”
“That’s how you know the coffee’s good,” Maverick grumbled.
“I’d suggest cutting down, but I’ve seen you decaffeinated, and it’s not pleasant.”
“Dear Mr. Twenty-Four Energy Drinks, two for each day we’re at the cabin, you don’t get to comment on my caffeine consumption when I’ve seen you threaten to fire someone for sayinggood morningto you.”
“It was Taylor, and it was not a good morning.”
“Okay, fair, but now he makes himself scarce whenever you’re in the building and holds all his questions for me.”
“Which is probably why he still has a job.”
“Also fair. His last assignment went surprisingly well, though,” Maverick muttered, still making no move to get out of the SUV, despite me having cut off the engine once I’d parked it behind the cabin I’d rented for us.
We needed this getaway, desperately, but he looked melded to the seat, slunk down and slouched against the door, gazing at the shimmering, pristine snow that lay between us and an evergreen paradise.
“How could it not when all he had to do was dress up like a gingerbread man and pass out cookie samples?” I asked, reaching to run my hand up his arm and feel the warmth radiating off him.
He always ran hot, rarely wore a hoodie, never bothered with a coat, and constantly complained whenever someone jacked up the heat in our shop. Because we ran a bakery that specialized in cookies for every season and event, there really was no reason for heat with the ovens always going, though some of our front-of-house people occasionally fiddled with it.
He always turned it back down again and snapped at the offender to step into the kitchen if they needed to warm up. Then he’d stomp off to the office and change into one of the pairsof shorts he kept in there, unless he was already wearing them. Then it was outdoors and into the cold, short-sleeved, bare-armed, and loving every minute of it.
I loved the cold too, but damn, he was obsessed with it, one of many reasons I’d chosen the Winter Wonderland Wilderness Lodge for our little getaway. That and the cell reception was crap, which meant our family couldn’t bug the hell out of us with guilt trips and protests about the way we’d chosen to spend our holiday.
Always with the guilt trips.
“And take pictures with the kids,” he reminded me. “The parents really loved that. Everyone complimented him on what an adorable gingerbread man he was. He was beaming when he came in. He really ate up all the praise they gave him.”
“He does have the adorable factor going for him,” I conceded, leaning into Maverick’s space to nudge him a little. “Come on. The sooner we get everything put away, the sooner we can roll around in the snow.”
Grunting, he glanced over at me, no real heat in his tone when he reached for the door. “I feel like all I’ve heard from you this morning was hurry, hurry, hurry.”
“Because someone was being a sleepy slug. I told you not to stay up so late.”
“It wasn’t my intention; I just got distracted working on flavor profiles for spring.”
“It’s barely winter.”
“It’s always too short.”
“You’re one of the few people I know who complains about five months of snow being too short for him.”
“Meh, humans will never get the beauty of a frozen world; I’m convinced of that.”
