The mug of cocoa smells delicious, and when the warm liquid slides down my throat, I hum in appreciation. She was right when she said it would warm my insides, but it’s making me even more sleepy.
“Good, isn’t it? It’s my mom’s recipe.” The green-eyed girl says with a smile and motions for me to keep drinking. “It’llget you warm and the sugar will help you feel better.”
“Marley, will you wrap one of those around her shoulders?” The deep baritone in the big guys chest vibrates through me as he talks.
“Did you walk here?” The green-eyed woman asks.
A warm blanket is draped across my shoulders and covers my back and I nod. “My car slid off the road a couple of miles away.”
“You walked for miles in this?” Her eyebrows shoot halfway up her forehead in surprise and her eyes lift over my head to look at the person I’m sitting on.
The blond sits in an overstuffed leather chair with another blanket still clutched to her chest, “Gray, she’s probably exhausted, maybe we should let her lie down for a little bit.” Her voice is soft and comforting, and I take a deep breath as the darkness shrouding my mind pulls me into comfortable darkness and my eyes start to droop.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GRAY
MASON ANDDad are already in the office when I go back downstairs. I asked them to wait for me when I carried our unexpected visitor up to my bedroom. I wasn’t sure what to say when Marley suggested we let her lie down, but it was only seconds later that Sloane barely caught the mug of cocoa as it slipped from the woman’s hands, and her head slid forward.
At first, I wondered if she passed out, but when Marley rushed to her side to check for a pulse, she startled and held her head up again, but only for a few seconds. She was just exhausted from walking in the freezing wind and ice. And probably hypothermic. After I laid her on my bed, I left Marley and Sloane to do the rest.
I thought about putting her in my younger sister, Kinley’s, room since she mainly stays in the old foreman’s cabin tohave space and privacy for her art, but in the off chance she might need her room, I know she would have a piss fit if a stranger were using it.
“What the fuck? I told her not to come back.” Mason says in his low voice as I shut the door. He’s standing close to the window behind Dad’s desk with his hands on his hips. He must have filled Dad in on the visit she paid us yesterday and our exchange before she left.
We started getting letters of offers to buy our land about a year ago, Dad didn’t tell us about them until after he had his heart attack a few months ago. Well, he didn’t come out and tell us; I found the letters in his desk drawer in the stables. We suspect they may have contributed to his heart attack.
Thinking they would lose interest if we show none, we have been ignoring them, but the offers just keep increasing.
“I don’t fucking know.” I set one hand on my hip and scrub the other down my face. “She said her car slid off the road a couple of miles away.”
“Miles?” Mason’s eyes go wide and then he turns and looks out at the landscape that’s slowly turning more gray and white from the sleet and ice. “It’s fucking ten degrees outside with a strong north wind, how the fuck did she walk that far? In the fucking ice?”
“I wondered the same thing, but she’s stuck here for now.” I slump in the chair on the other side of Dad’s desk and let my body relax, my knees falling apart. My shoulder blade hurts from landing on my back in the driveway when I caught her, but I know I would do it again.
“Who would drive in this? Why would they send her out in this?” Mason’s face is twisted in disbelief and frustration.
Dad has been sitting in his chair quietly listening. He may be in his sixties, but he works as hard as the rest of us. The deep lines in the tan skin around his eyes and the strands of gray in his thinning brown hair are the two things that give aclear indication of his age.
“Now hold on, son,” he holds his hand up, his gravelly voice is deep, “it’s possible she may just be a pushy agent, and she thought she could drive out here to try and persuade us but underestimated the weather. Don’t forget, she’s probably not be from around here.”
I cock my head to the side and pull a face. “It doesn’t make sense, Dad. The weather alerts have been running on every channel since yesterday, everyone with sense knows they’re gonna be stuck home for a few days.”
“Everyone with sense,” Mason mumbles on a huff as he stares out the window, his fingers scratching at the hair on his chin, his other hand tucked under his arm.
Dad links his fingers and leans on his desk, “Maybe she doesn’t watch TV.”
I narrow my eyes at him, “Why are you defending her?”
“Just playing Devil’s advocate before the two of you turn her into Satan himself and treat her as such while she’s here. I don’t want her here any more than you do, but she’s still a guest, and an injured one at that. We’ll not forget our manners, but we’ll be cautious at the same time.”
Dad’s heart attack a few months ago scared the hell out of all of us, but I’ve noticed some of his sharp edges have dulled a bit, especially toward family. It doesn’t surprise me that his reaction toward the woman is more protective than suspicious.
Shifting my gaze to Mason as he turns from the window to face me, I say, “She was damn near frozen, that fall would’ve been her last if she hadn’t been here. I don’t think she would’ve got up. I think Dad’s right, she probably underestimated the weather.” I rub my thumb and fingers over my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “We just need to be careful while she’s here.”
Thinking about her lying on the road in the cold as her lifeslowly freezes out of her makes my heart squeeze and a pang of sadness grips my throat. It also makes me angry at her lack of forethought. I push the thought away and give my brother my full attention.
“In the meantime, let’s just be careful what we say around her and remember why she’s here,” Dad says and leans back in his chair looking between me and Mason.
