I handed her the mug of chocolatey goodness, and she took it with both hands, the oversized mug too large for her.
“Thanks,” she said, voice low.
“Sit,” I said, gesturing to my armchair.
She hesitated, but I grabbed my own cup and pulled up a chair from my kitchen table and sat down on it, leaving the armchair for her. She shrugged, put her drink down on the side table, then climbed onto the chair.
“This chair’s huge,” she said, feet dangling.
“I had it custom-made. Let’s see if we can get a call out to the garage.” I dug in my back pocket for my phone.
“Unless you’ve got a landline, I don’t think it’s going to go through,” she said.
Sure enough, I had no connection. “They’ll fix it once the storm slows enough to get someone out there.”
She picked up her hot chocolate again and took a sip. “My family’s waiting for me. I told them I was making a quickdetour to Darlington when the weather started getting bad, but I promised to call them once I check in at a motel. They are going to freak out if I don’t call.”
Ah, so Darlington was just a pit stop.
“If the lines are down, they may not have a signal either. They’ll understand.”
“I hope so.” Her brows remained furrowed.
“They worry about you a lot? You look like they might send the National Guard if you don’t check in.”
That earned me a dry laugh. “Maybe not the National Guard, but yeah, they worry about me. It’s my first year making the drive on my own.”
She tucked away her phone, and I couldn’t help noticing the band of discolored skin on her ring finger, like she recently removed a ring she’d worn constantly for years.
“Recent breakup?”
Her suspicion spiked again. “How would you know?”
I gestured to her finger. “And it would explain why it would be your first time making this drive alone.”
Her shoulders dropped. “I guess so. But the breakup isn’t that fresh. Just the ink on the divorce papers. I’d figured out he was a cheating bastard last year,andhe gambled away our savings. I’m more than over him.”
Good. That meant I didn’t need to make him disappear, though I still might if he ever showed up here.
She waved her hand like she wanted to shoo away the topic, so I let it go. She placed her drink down on the side table again and started to remove my jacket. I stood, helping her, then tossed the jacket over the back of the nearby couch. Her coat came off too, since it was getting warm in the cabin. I tossed it over mine.
“Thanks.”
Her hair was damp from the snow, the orange-red strands clinging to her cheeks, framing her gorgeous hazel eyes. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, pink and round, and her nose had that slight upturn that made her look younger than she probably liked. I’d never take her for someone who’d already gone through a divorce. She had full lips, ones I’d love to kiss. But they looked like they’d been frowning a lot more than smiling recently. I wanted to change that.
“I didn’t plan on company, but I bought plenty of supplies in case I get snowed in again.”
“Again?” she asked, unsure.
“They plow the main highway, but it takes them time to actually get to my road. Don’t worry though, it’ll be a day or two at most. You’ll be with your family in time for the holidays.”
She relaxed, and I felt the shift in the air.
Ella didn’t know it yet, but this storm had brought her to me for a reason. Storms always did things like that around my kind,and this time it had brought my mate. Our lives were about to change.
Chapter 3
Ella
