Page 60 of Snowbound

I wrap my arms around him.

“Merry Christmas, Owen.”

The snow is still falling. I stand by the window with my fingers wrapped around a green mug with a pine tree painted on the side. It’s warm against my palms, the cocoa thick andsweet—real cocoa, real cream, not powder from a tin. It smells like Christmas.

The fire crackles as he moves around in the kitchen. The floorboards creak as he goes from cabinet to sink, and he hums a low tune when he thinks no one’s listening. I smile to myself. I’m listening. Is it a Christmas one? I can’t quite place it.

“You used to sing in the shower,” I say with a smile. “Still do?”

“Aye,” he says with a wink. I take a big chug of cocoa to hide the way my face heats when he winks at me.

“Breakfast, lass?” He sets a plate on the table. Two slices of toast, golden and buttered, and thick-cut bacon still sizzling at the edges.

“I love that you learned how to cook.”

“I love that you learned not to run.”

I look up at him and blink, surprised. “Run?”

“Aye,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, Em. Every time I got too close, you ran like a spooked little bird, didn’t you?”

I nibble a corner of the toast and shrug. “Suppose I did.”

“I get it,” he says, placing a plate on the table with easily four times as much food as mine.

“I suppose a recluse, giant-sized Irish lumberjack needs to keep up his energy.”

He quirks a brow that makes my stomach flutter deliciously. “Recluse, giant-sized Irishlumberjack?” His snort makes me giggle. “Don’t change the subject, young lady,” he says inthat stern way I crave. “Why did you always run from me, Em?”

I shrug. How do I put this into words? “I… I was embarrassed, I guess. You made me feel things that were unfamiliar and scary.” My voice lowers. “Things my mother made me feel were wrong and shameful.”

“Aye,” he says. “That I get.”

We eat in silence for a bit. Something in his face eases when I chew, when I swallow… when I let him take care of me. Did it before? Or have the years changed him?

Changedus?

Outside, the storm hasn’t stopped, but it’s bright and sunny, like we’ve been transported straight into a scene from a Christmas postcard. Pine branches bend under the weight. Snowflakes drift like fallen stars.

“I want to go outside,” I say.

He raises a brow.

I go on. “Just for a bit. Let’s… play in the snow.”

I smile to myself, remembering a time when I did, in fact, run from him. “Do you remember that time I threw a snowball at you? You’d already graduated from high school. I think I was a senior. It was snowing, and I tossed it straight at you, hit you smack in the face, and you chased me all the way to the little pond behind the house?”

“I remember,” he says, shaking his head. “How could I forget?”

“You got all bossy with me.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says, stern and sexy. “You’ve no idea how badly I wanted to get more than bossy with you. Thought I was a feckin’ deviant for wanting to put you over my knee. Drove me half-mad thinking about it.”

“My god, I would’ve lost my mind,” I say with a laugh. I squirm, instantly aroused. “You would’ve turned me on, and I would’ve confirmed for myself that I, too, was afeckin’ deviant.”

We laugh comfortably together.

“You hit me straight in the damn face,” he says, pausing to take a long swig of coffee as I sip my cocoa. “I chased you. Talk of running? You ran like a scared little rabbit being chased by a fox.”