Doorway man was drop-dead gorgeous. His lithe framed leaned against thedoorway.
“Hel-lo.” My voicecracked.
“Hello,” he replied. “Linda? I like that. I’m Chandler.” He pointed to the man in the chair. “That grump over there’s Griffin. You’ll have to excuse his manners. He hasn’t left this house in a longtime.”
The grumpy Griffin grunted. “I can speak for myself, man. I’m not grumpy. I want to be left alone, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he replied—rathergrumpily.
I took the chance to study him as he spoke. Hair the color of chocolate laced with gold sat atop a face that would break the most stoic woman’sheart.
The left half of his face was angelic, unlined and perfect. It looked like he never spent a day outside of a spa room. But the poor right side of his face was a mess of scars. I’d seen scars like his before. He’d been burned, probably third degree. His face was, frankly, hideous.Beastly.
The hulk of a man rose from the armchair—floral, of all things—and turned away from me. He was most definitely not fat—the man was freaking enormous. He had to be close to seven feet tall and looked like he hadn’t missed a gym day in hislife.
Big enough to be a bodybuilder, when he moved to stand in front of the fire and put his hands on either side of the mantel—easily reached for his large arm span—his bulk actually blocked heat from reaching me. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a man so large and I was the sister of some pretty intimidatingbrothers.
I turned back to Chandler. “Nope, not grumpy at all, is he?” I asked, wide-eyed and overwhelmed. Griffin was the type of man you’d never want tocross.
Chandler must have been able to see the fear on my face. “Don’t be afraid, little Linda. Griffin would die before he would hurtyou.”
“He sure left me out in the snow a long time,” I said, feeling churlish with the stampeding return of my ribpain.
“Whatever he told you, he probably forgot to mention that we would’ve been out there to get you long before you collapsed, but the snowmobiles had to be gassed up. Ellion was supposed to do it the last time we took them out, but of course, hedidn’t.”
“Ellion?” I had no idea who he was talkingabout.
“One of my employees,” Griffin replied from the fireplace. “Along with Chandler here. They spend a lot of time with me at thisestate.”
Estate? What sort of millionaire situation had I stumbled on? I needed to get the hell out of this house before I got mixed in with some rich-person game. If I’d learned anything from what my brothers had gone through, it was that Ellie was the exception to people with ridiculous amounts of money, not the norm. Most of them were backstabbing, conniving monsters, like herstepmother.
“How nice,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “Well, again, thank you for the save. I can go to sleep and hopefully be gone in the morning.” I gave Chandler a haphazardgrin.
“I’m afraid not. There’s a massive and unexpected snow storm headed ourway.”
I blinked at him, not comprehending the problem. “So? This is Alaska. Aren’t you people always prepared for bigsnowstorms?”
Griffin turned away from the fire. “Yes, and we’ll weather this onefine.”
“I don’t know, man. This one looks like it’s building up to be a doozy,” Chandlersaid.
“Can’t I leave now?” I looked from Chandler to Griffin. “Surely I could make it on to my destination before the storm hits.” Anything to get out of that house. The air around me was thick and tense. Griffin clearly didn’t want me here, and I wanted to get away from him, no matter how nice Chandlerseemed.
“Sorry. The snow is already falling. I won’t risk getting stuck out there during blinding conditions.” Chandler’s voice left no arguments. I was going to be with them for a day ortwo.
“Fine, we can surely make do. But I do need to contact my family and work and let everyone know I’m safe. Can I use your phone? I’m currently withoutone.”
Griffin gave me a hard stare. “Don’t you know anything about the area you were to stay in?” he asked. “There’snosignal uphere.”
My stomach dropped. “What are you talking about?” I fought hysteria. I needed to calm myself; even if there was no cell signal, he’d have satellite phones, or some sort of internet or something. Rich people didn’t go withoutinternet.
“There’s no cell signal. There never is up here. But we have internet, you could email,” Chandler supplied helpfully. “And you can video chat overWiFi.”
I smiled at him as he ran his fingers over his close-cropped black hair. “That’d begreat.”
“Come with me. I'll feed you and show you to Ellion’s computerlab.”
So the mysterious Ellion liked computers and forgot to gas things up. I’d already learned more about Ellion than the other two. I stood carefully, aware of my ribs. My entire body was stiff and a step beyondsore.
Chandler waited for me to reach him at the door before taking my hand and placing it in the crook of his elbow, like a chivalrous gentleman that I hadn’t thought existed anymore. I couldn’t help but let my fingers flutter slightly on his arm, a sort of silentflirtation.
