Secret Triplets(16)

 

“How do you know I’ve never snowshoed before?”

 

Brock’s amused glance scanned me.

 

“Just do.”

 

I sighed and then cast a worried look at the window, where impossibly huge-looking flakes of snow were falling.

 

“Okay, you got me, but are you sure this is a good idea?”

 

A smile playing on his face, Brock’s glance flicked to where mine was.

 

“Nope, but the best ideas often aren’t.”

 

My gaze flicked from his easy confidence to the window’s raging storm and then back again.

 

“Oh, fine then.”

 

Brock grinned and then strode to the door and opened it. I followed, throwing on my coat and then putting up my hood before looking over my shoulder one last time at the cabin. What was I getting myself into?

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

 

 

 

It was like having big feet, as it turned out. Brock hadn’t been kidding. After he helped me strap the big wooden things to my boots and strapped on his own, we began walking. It didn’t take long for me to see that snowshoeing was just that: having massive, giant-sized feet. Not to mention it was incredibly fun. Though the snow was already deep, our giant shoes crunched atop it easily, allowing us to leisurely tromp our way behind the cabin and deep into the snowy forest.

 

By now the air was alive with snow, the trees emitting a near-constant stream of flakes.

 

I started out treading the path Brock had made with his snowshoes, but soon I ventured out by myself, stomping out my own path in the snow. It was weird, this walking with big feet. It gave me a rush, a strange feeling of warm exhilaration amid all this cold ice. Even when I fell face-first into the snow, I only laughed, although my hands were immediately ice cold and red.

 

“Here,” Brock said, holding out his gloved hand, which I gladly accepted.

 

He lifted me until I was face to face with him. His brown beard was now flecked with snow, but his maple eyes were smoldering with fire.

 

“You okay?” he asked me softly.

 

“Yeah. I think so,” I said.

 

Brock brushed a snow-solidified strand of hair out of my face, and I let him, transfixed as I was by those tender, hazel eyes. His fingers lingered at my cheek, tracing down it and brushing over my lips. Then he was lowering his face to mine, bringing his lips to mine.

 

Amid the cold, swirling snow, touched by his cold, caressing fingers, his lips were warm.

 

When our lips touched, warmth blossomed through me, from my lips, down my throat, to my chest, down my arms, and to my hands, until they were clasping his face eagerly, our lips pressed together. While I had been freezing cold a minute ago, now I was entirely and utterly warm all over.

 

The snowy forest slid away; my job and identity fell to the wayside. All there was were those firm lips and this man—this handsome, dangerous, incredible man—his hands clasping mine and his lips tracing my jawline.

 

I lost myself in it, in the motions, the feelings, the want—which may have been why I stumbled forward and fell again. Brock caught me halfway, but I could see it was too late. He looked at me with a new consciousness of what he’d done, with guilty eyes that escaped my gaze as soon as they could.

 

He helped me up and then stepped back, murmuring, “I’m sorry.”

 

I put my hand on his chest.

 

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

 

But he shook his head and stepped back again.

 

“I meant what I said, Alexa. I won’t be around for long—I can’t be. No matter how much I like you, this can’t work. You don’t know everything about me.”

 

I stared at him, at this cold, unfeeling-looking man who was almost unrecognizable from the warm man who had been kissing me moments ago. The truth bubbled up my throat: how I knew what he was, what he had been, the real reason I was here at all. But it stopped at my lips and then tumbled back down my throat.

 

I looked at him with cold, hard eyes myself and said, “Okay.”

 

We tramped back to the cabin in silence. The magic was gone. All that remained was the cold and the equally frigid realization of my stupidity. Kissing Brock Anderson—the target of all people, the man I was going to turn over to my client. What had I been thinking?

 

The snow was swirling down harder than ever; the whole world was one endlessly white series of trees with white flakes surging everywhere.

 

It seemed like forever had come and gone when we finally came to the snow-coated back of the cabin. I followed Brock inside and took off my coat and boots in silence.

 

“Good thing we have the fire,” Brock said, beelining for it.