Page 18 of Damaged Billionaire Daddy (The Lanes Series #1)

Chapter seventeen

Kandis

I awoke to chill daylight streaming though the cabin windows. Big clumps of snowflakes continued to fall outside. Richard lay beside me, the whole gorgeous length of him.

He was on his back, breathing easily, with one arm flung up over his head. A man who didn’t snore? There had to be some kind of bonus point for that.

I thought about waking him up. But he had driven up here last night, gotten the fire and generator started, and still had enough energy for totally amazing sex before we went to sleep. He had to be tired, and besides, I could use a little thinking time to myself.

I slid out from under the covers and padded over to the sink to get a drink of water, then slipped into the cabin’s pint-sized bathroom. At least I wouldn’t have to use a bucket or shovel my way to an outhouse. Richard’s grandfather might have built the place, but it had obviously been renovated.

The water to the sink was cold. Apparently, renovations did not run to water heaters. Still, it was better than scooping snow and melting it.

Although . . . hadn’t there been a bottle of maple syrup in the supplies? I vaguely remembered a children’s book where they had made candy by pouring syrup into cold snow. If we got bored, it might be something fun to try.

I rummaged through the cabinets. In addition to the huge shopping cart of food Richard bought yesterday, the cabin was already well stocked with staples.

I found a coffee grinder and coffee beans. Flour, salt, baking powder, and even a bottle of dried yeast. Would we be here long enough to make it worthwhile to bake bread? Or make sourdough?

I shook my head at myself. We were only here for the weekend, not moving in. With the snow falling outside, it was easy to forget that there was anyplace else in the world.

In the name of domesticity, I went over to the small stove, and opened its door. A few coals remained among the ashes. Thanks to the furnace in the basement, the house wasn’t cold, but a little added warmth wouldn’t hurt. Besides, I didn’t see any other place to cook.

Before long, I had beans ground and the percolator on the stove with liquid beginning to splash up into the clear dome at the top.

I was just stirring up some pancakes using a mix, eggs and water, when Richard stirred, turned over and grunted. “What is that heavenly aroma? Is it you, or is it coffee?” he asked, swinging his feet to the floor.

“That would be coffee,” I assured him, even as my cheeks grew warm at the innuendo. I tried not to stare as he made his way to the bathroom. He had not put his shirt back on after our under-cover adventures last night.

His shoulders were broad, well-muscled, indicating the many hours he probably spent in the gym to maintain his physique. His plaid flannel sleep pants covered his hips and rear but did little to disguise that this area was also toned.

There was no question about it. Richard Lane might not play football any longer, but he was still a hunk, and continued exposure was not toning down my desire for him.

What would I do when he got tired of playing house in the mountains and went back to his normal social life?

It had not escaped my attention that he’d had to buy jeans.

I turned my attention back to my pancake batter before I put in something extra or left something vital out. It was difficult to mess up pancake batter, but it could be done.

Richard returned in a few minutes, smelling of aftershave and mint toothpaste. I wasn’t sure whether to admire his clean-shaven jaw or to mourn the sexy scruff with which he had awakened.

“Mmmm . . . coffee and pancakes? Kandis Quinn, if I knew you a little better, I might ask you to marry me.”

I snickered. “If you knew me a little better, you might run. Is there maple syrup?”

He grinned like a kid about to impart some special secret. “There is. What’s more there are two bottles of it, so after we have pancakes, we can make snow candy!”

“That sounds fun!” I said. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”

After we chowed down on the pancakes, Richard volunteered to wash up since I had cooked. Back in the days when she was herself, Mom taught me how to keep my kitchen clean as I went, so there wasn’t much cleaning to do beyond our plates and cups.

Before he got started, he put a small pan on the stove and poured one bottle of maple syrup into it. “It needs to cook down some,” he explained, at my wide-eyed look of astonishment.

Since he seemed to know what he was doing, I graciously allowed him to clean the kitchen while I changed into thermal underwear, flannel lined jeans, and a gorgeous cable knit sweater.

While Richard changed into similar gear, I rummaged in the cabinets and came up with three square cake pans. We then donned hats, gloves and coats, picked up our candy making gear, and prepared to brave the wilderness.

Richard opened the door, and we stepped out into a winter wonderland. There was a thin film of clouds overhead, letting through an occasional ray of sunlight that made the snow sparkle.

The wind was out of the south, and we could already hear water running under the snow.

“It isn’t going to last long,” Richard said. “So we might be able to get out of here tonight, or maybe early in the morning. The day after at the latest. The snowplow ought to be along after a while. Folks got to go to work tomorrow unless everything is called off because of the snow.”

Work. I hadn’t even thought about it. Pops would forgive me for not showing up on time, but it would have been nice to be able to call and let him know.

I shook off the reminder of responsibility and said, “Then I guess we should make the best of this.” I scooped up a panfull of the beautiful, pristine snow, and drizzled maple syrup on it. The syrup sank through the snow. “Do you think it’s supposed to do that?” I asked.

“Set in the pan on the top of that drift,” Richard said. “While it is setting, let’s make a snowman.”

“A snowman?” I asked. It had been years since I’d made one.

“Sure. The snow is perfect for making snowballs.” Richard grinned at me, scooped up a handful of snow, and compacted it into a ball before tossing it at me.

“Oh, really?” I scooped up a handful of snow and made a ball of my own. My throw caught him in the shoulder and broke into powder.

We indulged in a snowball fight for a few minutes, then rolled a huge ball of snow across the path to the house, and down the driveway behind the jeep. It made a broad trail in the deep snow.

We rolled the big snowball past a satellite dish, and Richard paused to brush it off. “No need to be without communications,” he said. “Just in case of an emergency.”

It didn’t take long to create a medium sized snowball, then a smaller one. Richard made sure the snowman was situated on the lawn rather than on the drive. “No point in having to move it so we can get out,” he said.

There was plenty of snow, so we built a snow fort around the snow man, then engaged in another snowball fight, taking turns defending the fort.

We made snow angels and threw more snow at each other. Richie sneaked up behind me and put snow down my collar. I retaliated by putting snow down his collar, then ran away from him while he chased me with another handful of snow.

Our outdoor fun came to an end when Richard slipped and came down heavily on his side.

“Are you all right?” I asked hurrying back to him.

He tried to smile at me. “Came down on my bad side,” he said. “It kinda smarts, ya know?”

“Maybe we should go in,” I suggested. “I’m starting to get cold.”

Richard carefully clambered back up onto his feet. We collected the pans of snow and went inside.

Richard shucked off his coat, dropped it on a chair, then flopped across the bed, his boots hanging off the edge. “Wow. I think I’m done,” he said. “Where do you get the energy?”

“Clean living,” I quipped, busily fishing the chilled syrup bits out of the snow and arranging them on a paper plate. Then I took a good look at him. “Richard? Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Just need to let the hip warm up a little and take some pain meds. Fortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to get out before tomorrow, so I won’t have to worry about driving.”

I went over and helped him remove his boots so he could pull his feet up onto the bed.

“Thanks,” Richard said. “I didn’t want to get the bed wet or muddy. I didn’t get any spare blankets.”

I considered him a minute. I remembered something in the news about an accident. “Are you comfortable?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t say comfortable,” he said wryly. “I came down on the hip that has the pin in it. But if you’ll get my shaving kit and a glass of water for me . . .”

“Of course,” I said, understanding at once what he wanted. When the kit was in his hands, he took out a prescription bottle, and carefully shook out one pill. I handed him a glass of water to go with it.

“Thanks,” he said. “That should take the edge off. I’ll just rest a minute.”

“Ok,” I said. “I’ll make some hot cocoa, and maybe we should try the maple candy.”

By the time I had the cocoa made, Richard scooched himself up on the window seat, and was looking much better. “There’s some TV trays in that closet over there,” he said, nodding toward an area that I thought was a blank wall.

The door to the closet was not hidden, just cleverly disguised as part of the shiplap wall covering. It contained the promised TV tray tables. In addition was a treasure trove of board games and smaller boxes of card games.

“You’ve got Candy Land,” I exclaimed. “When I was little, I thought the game was named after me.”

Richard laughed. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I did,” I said. “Oh, and you’ve got Chutes and Ladders, and is that box Squirm? One of my cousins had it, but eventually all the cards got lost.”

“It is,” he said. “We can play a game of it, if you like. But we’d best get out the rest of the TV tables because it gets pretty big. We used to set it up on the floor.”

“I’ll put together some lunch,” I said.

“There’s stuff for sandwiches,” Richard pointed out, “Unless you just want to make something.”

I opened the refrigerator and looked inside. “Oh, wow. You’ve got all the good stuff.” There was ham and turkey, as well as liverwurst and small containers of stuff that I did not recognize. “How did I miss seeing this last night?”

“Probably because then you were putting dry goods away and making hot chocolate. I’m not sure how you missed it.”

I brought over the loaves of bread — whole wheat, pumpernickel and sour dough, along with toppings and sandwich fillings. I set them on the table so we could each make our own sandwiches. With the snow candy, cocoa, and a package of chocolate chip cookies, it made a pretty good spread.

I discovered that I had worked up quite an appetite after our romp in the snow, and Richard made two sandwiches for himself.

I couldn’t resist trying the snow candy before starting on my sandwich. It was sweet and chewy, almost like a caramel.

“Good, isn’t it?” Richard asked, picking up one for himself.

“My grandfather and I visited a sugar farm in Vermont when I was a kid. One of his old army buddies owned it. I was ten or eleven at the time. It seemed the strangest thing to me that sugar would come from trees. This is good, but he cooked the syrup down to the point that the snow candy was more like hard candy.”

“It sounds fun,” I said. I then bit into my sandwich. It was just turkey and ham on slices of the rye bread, but nothing had ever tasted better. It must have been the mountain air.

After lunch, the sun went back behind a cloud, and it began to snow again. We played Chutes and Ladders for a while, then shoved four tv tray tables together and played Squirm.

The rules were not well explained, but we had a good time creating dragons with variable numbers of legs, dragons with two, or three heads, and — of course — dragons with two or three tails.

“What a cute game,” I said. “I wonder why it never took off?”

“No idea,” Richard replied. “Maybe too many parts and too many rules to remember. I think I’m gamed out. Want to watch a movie?”

“Sure,” I said. “But how? I still don’t even have much cell reception, so I know we can’t stream anything.”

He grinned. “Look in the top shelf of the closet.”

I had to drag a kitchen chair over to look in the top shelf. One side of it was stacked full of paper backs, the other side had DVDs and VHS tapes.

“Now,” he added, “Press that switch.”

I did. A wall panel to the right of the wood stove, where it would be perfect for viewing from the Murphy bed, slid aside revealing a large screen TV and just about every possible type of player.

“Oh, wow!” I exclaimed. “What should I get down?”

“Any DVD or VHS you like,” he said. “I went through them a year or two ago and only kept my favorites.”

These were his favorites? The big football hero was a closet romantic? I settled on Goonies, Princess Bride, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Maybe I should get snowed in with a football hunk more often.