Page 17 of Snowbound

Jesus, she’s even more stunning in person than I remember. She’s grown into a full woman now.

Her eyebrows are arched delicately. Cheekbones are sharper now. Her hair is longer and thicker, the waves cascading like silk down her back.

Her body… god, her body’s curvier. A little softer, though she looks like she’s lost weight since her good-for-nothing asshole of a husband fucked her over.

My god, she’s a fuckin’ sight, and my heart doesn’t know what the hell to do with her.

First, I want to go find that deadbeat son-of-an-asshole husband she married. Put him in the goddamn ground.

Then I want to haul her to a chapel and make her mine.

My wife.

My name.

My everything.

But I can’t.

No. This isEmma. And she doesn’t know me, not the real me, anymore. If she did… she’d run.

“I was so dumb,” she says softly. “You drove me home while I sobbed about the boy who kissed me and then hooked up with somebody else. Remember that?”

I nod slowly. “I do. I remember beating the shit out of that boy too.”

Her eyes widen. “Youdidn’t, Owen,” she says, but her lips are curling up into a smile. “Did you?”

“Of course I fuckin’ did,” I reply. “The loser made you cry,” I add, shaking my head. “As if there was any other option for me. Easy enough to track him down, slap him around, tell him to leave you the fuck alone.”

The guy nearly pissed his fuckin’ pants. I don’t tell her I wasalready running contracts for the McCarthy clan. That I made sure the bastard knew what real fear felt like.

Back then, I had dreams I’d earn a spot with them.

Never thought I’d climb the ranks the way I did.

Back then, I was the group heavy.

The McCarthys in Ireland had connections in America, and I was the one who enforced for them.

It helped having someone young, unassuming, and completely off their books.

So it was easy to track the bastard down, and I knew just how to scare him.

“You held my hand the whole way,” she murmurs. “You told me he didn’t deserve me. You remember that?”

I blink, surprised. “Of course I do.”

She looks down, her voice quiet. “I remember everything.”

Does she remember that almost kiss on Christmas? Does she remember the way she wrote about me in her journal, and how her mother lost her fuckin’ mind over it?

How my dad knocked me around, blaming me, likeIwas some kind of damn predator, like I had anything to do with it?

I wonder if she remembersanyof that.

“You’re the only safe place I have,” she whispers to herself. “You always have been. I’ve never forgotten that.”

“Aye,” I start, a smile tugging at my lips. “I remember that night well.”