Page 101 of Snowbound Surrender

“That has to be it.” He stepped away, searching the cluttered room for a chair or ladder. A set of movable stairs that was more than high enough rested to one side, not far away. “Here, hold this.” Randall handed his lantern off to Miranda and cleared a few old boxes and crates aside so that he could reach the stairs.

Part of him wondered if the stairs had been designed specifically to reach the door in the ceiling instead of for a stage show as he rolled them to a spot under the door. They even had clamps that fastened the stairs to one spot. He checked to make sure he had them where he needed them, then mounted. He was only of average height, but once at the top of the stairs, he was able to reach the trapdoor with ease. He sent Miranda—holding two lanterns aloft—a reassuring smile, then used his muscle to loosen the crossbar holding the door shut.

As soon as the bar jolted free, the trapdoor swung open inward with force. Instantly, buckets and buckets worth of thick, wet snow dumped on him. The shock of it caused him to yelp as he was simultaneously drenched and chilled to the bone.

“Randall!” Miranda shouted.

The light flickered and dimmed as Miranda found someplace to put the lanterns, then rushed to his aid. Randall wiped his face to clear the snow out of his eyes and off his head. He continued to make wordless sounds of distress as he batted snow from his shoulders. It had made its way down his back and somehow even into his trousers. But as soon as he could see again, noticed Miranda halfway up the stairs kicking snow away and brushing at his trousers, and felt the icy rush of the wind flying in through the trapdoor, he burst into laughter.

“It serves me right,” he laughed, teeth chattering. “I should have known better than to open that while standing under it.”

“You’ll catch your death of cold,” Miranda scolded. She used her skirts to push the snow off the stairs, then climbed until she was standing level with him. “That breeze is biting.”

“I think it qualifies as more than a breeze.” It wasn’t a particularly intelligent thing to say, but it was all Randall could think of as Miranda leaned closer to him. She brushed his shoulders and arms, even slipping her hands under his collar to clear out the snow that clung to the back of his neck. His shivering was replaced by a deep, pulsing heat that only burned hotter when Miranda tipped too far to the side and nearly lost her balance.

She yelped, and Randall caught her, clamping his arms firmly around her. He held her close, and even the rush of wind from above couldn’t chill him. She wasn’t dainty or delicate. Her body was thin, but it had strength in it. She fit so well against him, matched his contours so perfectly. If he was any other man and she was any other woman, he would have thrown caution to the icy wind and kissed her.

In fact, he hadn’t entirely ruled out the idea when another gust pushed more snow down on them. Miranda squeaked as she was doused with snow and clung tighter to him. For a moment, Randall thanked God for the snow as he held her closer. But all good things must come to an end.

For now.

“Well,” he said, helping her off the stairs. “At least we know the snow isn’t piling up too badly.”

“Isn’t it?” Miranda hugged herself, shivering as they reached the floor and stepped back so that they could observe the patch of grey sky without being blasted by the wind. “That seems like a lot of snow to me.”

“It is.” Randall nodded. “But it won’t accumulate on a roof pitched at this angle. Still, we’d better try to clean at least some of it off.”

“How?”

Randall blinked and laughed as his mind answered her question before he said aloud, “Mendel’s Marvelous Brushes, of course! We’ve got brushes for every occasion, including clearing snow off a roof.”

Miranda laughed, shivery and high-spirited. “You’re joking.”

“Actually, I’m not. The regular brooms will be perfect for this job.”

To prove his point, he headed back downstairs to his tiny bedroom, where he’d left his trunk. Working as fast as he could, he assembled two of the push brooms contained in the sales kit, then ran them back up to the attic. While he’d done that, Miranda had put on her coat and gloves and a hat. She was far more ready than he was by the time they climbed the stairs again to start brushing.

As he’d hoped, it wasn’t difficult to push the snow down the slope of the roof. As soon as the area immediately around the trapdoor was cleared, he hoisted himself up onto the roof proper and began clearing from there. It was tricky work, and after slipping twice he decided it wasn’t worth risking a tumble that would break his neck. He sat awkwardly on the slope of the roof, his legs hanging down through the trapdoor, as he cleared everything he could reach. It was almost a pointless act, since the wind was doing its fair share of blowing the snow off, but the entire exercise did serve one purpose.

“Miranda, you’ve got to see this,” he called down into the attic to her.

“See what?” she called up, coming to stand at the very top of the stairs. She was tall enough that her head and the top of her shoulders stuck out above the line of the roof, but with all the snow, it wasn’t enough to see anything.

“Here, take this, then give me your arms.” He handed his broom down to her.

Miranda vanished for a moment as she disposed of the broom. When she reappeared, Randall reached down and scooped her up. The trapdoor wasn’t particularly wide, so he was able to deposit her on the other side, her legs dangling down into the attic along with his. As soon as she had a chance to look around, Miranda gasped.

“Quite a spectacular view, isn’t it?” Randall grinned.

“It’s not that,” she replied, clasping a gloved hand to her chest. “Look at all the snow!”

Randall glanced around, losing a bit of his grin. Sure enough, as far as the eye could see—which wasn’t half as far as it should have been able to see since snow was still coming down and blowing around—everything was blanketed in white. Not just blanketed, buried.

“I don’t think anyone is going to be able to get out any time soon,” Miranda gave voice to the thoughts Randall was having. “Why, look at the church. It looks as though it’s half gone.”

He followed the line of her pointing to a church that looked like it’d been half swallowed by a sudden hill of snow. Traveler as he was, he twisted to seek out the train station. He couldn’t even find it amongst the lumps of buildings hiding under snow drifts.

Once again, Miranda said exactly what he was thinking, “I don’t think anyone in Mistletoe is going to be going anywhere for quite some time.”