Page 4 of A Heart of Winter (Fairy Tale Retellings #4)
Crush(ed)
K ai insisted on driving me back to the cabin, and it was . . . nice.
Not that I put up an argument when he offered, but it was nice to have someone think about my comfort. Morwenna still did, of course, but Michael had stopped—hell, I couldn’t even remember when he’d stopped caring about my feelings.
“So,” Kai said as he came around and opened the truck door to let me out, leaning on it and holding out a hand to help me down. “We spent more than an hour talking about me. And then Minnesota. You haven’t said why you’re here.”
I scrunched up my whole face at the reminder. I’d just been thinking about Michael, sure, but that was somehow different from having to talk about him.
His expression went sympathetic, and like he’d read my mind, he asked, “Bad breakup?”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Mmm”—he waggled a hand back and forth—“You’re sad.
You left the whole state you live in. You don’t love it here, but you came to be alone.
It’s a little obvious. I get paid to figure out what makes people tick.
I know, the eternal joke is about lawyers not being human, but I’d argue the problem is that we know humanity too damned well.
It tends to make us jaded after long enough of seeing the worst people have to offer. ”
I quirked a brow at him, but took his hand where he was holding it out to help me down. “I’m the worst humanity has to offer?”
His smile at that was soft. “No, but I think you’ve been through it, and recently. Only a really ugly breakup has a person leaving the state and going to a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere.” He winked at me. “Or the middle of a frozen hellscape, as you prefer.”
“Sorry about that. I know it’s your home?—”
“Oh no. Minnesota hasn’t been my home in more than a decade.
” As my feet hit the ground, he tucked my hand into the crook of his arm like I was a debutante and we were headed for the ball, and turned to walk me up to the door before continuing.
“I left for college and never came back other than to visit my family. When I’m done selling the house, I’ve already accepted a new job offer with a firm in San Diego.
No more snow for me. I’m going somewhere tropical and gorgeous and never chopping wood again. ”
“You won’t miss the roaring fires? Snuggling under a blanket when it’s snowing out?”
He turned to meet my eye again, gaze sweeping over me like a physical presence. “I promise, you can snuggle under a blanket in a Southern California winter just as easily as a Minnesota one.” Turning as we reached the door, he stepped into my space. “Maybe you’ll let me show you sometime.”
My lips parted and I sucked in a deep breath. Clearly, I hadn’t been imagining the connection between us. He was flirting. “I . . . I haven’t ever been to San Diego.”
He ducked forward, into my space, until I could feel his warm breath on my cheeks. “I’d love to share it with you.”
It wasn’t a wedding proposal, obviously. We’d only just met. But . . . this was a man, interested in me. A gorgeous one. Unless I was so out of practice with socializing that I didn’t know anything about modern human interaction and people were always right in each other’s spaces now.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d missed a major change in society. The first time I’d seen Morwenna in pants had shocked me to my core, as silly as that seemed now.
So I tilted my head up toward him, like a flower to the sun.
Like permission.
And he took it for what it was, leaning forward just another inch to brush his lips across mine, soft and perfect and fleeting.
Then he pulled back, licking his bottom lip as though to catch the taste of my skin there.
He pressed something into my hand, paper and rectangular—a business card.
“Call me anytime.” Then he took a step back, biting his lip and looking me over again.
Somehow, even bundled up, I felt naked before him.
“I’d better go unload this firewood around the back, and I’ve got a meeting with the realtor this evening so I need to go.
But I hope I hear from you soon, Johannes. Anytime.”
“You will,” I agreed without even considering the wisdom of the idea. “I’ll call.”
To my surprise, I found that I meant it.
Not even a whole day in Minnesota, and I was already flirting with new men, making plans to call them. That had to be good, right? Sure to get my powers back under control soon, so I wouldn’t keep causing snow and chaos wherever I went?
I let the door close behind me and leaned against it, my head hitting the heavy oak with a thump, and sighed like a schoolboy with a brand new crush.
I didn’t move until I heard firewood start to thud against the back wall of the cabin as Kai stacked it up there.
I’d offered to help on the way back, but he’d told me it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of him to make me carry my own firewood.
Far be it from me to make someone feel like he wasn’t a gentleman, especially if it involved not having to do manual labor.
Maybe I could make him some cocoa, though. Or tea. Would he like tea? A lot of people in New York thought making tea was hopelessly old fashioned and only drank coffee.
There was a tea kettle in the kitchen, thankfully, but the selection of tea Morwenna had was decidedly slim pickings.
Jasmine and another kind of jasmine. It was the only kind she drank when she wasn’t at my house, so it made sense.
But would Kai like jasmine tea? Was that a weird thing to offer someone?
My thoughts of tea evaporated when I grabbed the tea kettle and it instantly froze solid.
The temperature probably wasn’t important for a piece of machinery—I didn’t know if any of the electronic bits were susceptible to breaking in the cold—but more obvious, there was suddenly a solid cube of ice where once there had been water inside it.
I wasn’t making tea anytime soon.
Worse still, my mood had improved, but somehow, my powers were even more out of control than before.
What the hell was wrong with me?