Page 25 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men

CAMRYN

A midnight snack.

There was nothing in the world like it, really. Nothing as guilt-free and wholly satisfying than stuffing your face with free calories at one, two, even three in the morning. In those wee hours, no one was watching, and accountability was out the window. Even your conscience was sleeping.

Standing in the kitchen, warming my ass before the glowing embers of last night’s fire, I was happily crunching down on waffles and bacon. The latter I’d folded into the former, but not before layering my waffle bacon taco with real maple syrup, from a real glass jug.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” I sighed, licking my fingers.

True maple syrup was one of the first things I’d discovered upon moving up from Florida.

It never occurred to me — at least not until I’d tasted the real thing — that the chemical amalgam of high fructose corn syrup and cellulose gum I’d been consuming my whole life had been nothing more than maple-flavored bullshit.

There was lots more I’d learned about since moving to the mountains, too. Real milk, for example. Fresh eggs. Was it weird that most of these were breakfast foods? I shrugged, not really caring. Some of life’s mysteries weren’t meant to be solved.

My belly sated — among other things — I turned my attention toward the cabin’s front door. For a brief, insane moment I considered stepping outside and looking around. I could find out what the boys were doing, maybe. See what the hell was going on.

Do they have an alarm system?

Not likely. When it came to the cabin’s technological amenities, the guys were up to date, even cutting-edge.

But for some reason, security was lax. There were no cameras that I could see, no alarm keypads on any of the walls.

I chalked it up to them being a trio of badass Marines.

Wherever they’d roamed, they’d seen much more dangerous shit than this.

My thoughts drifted back to upstairs, and the delicious depravity of the previous evening’s sexual circus.

Once again, I’d been seriously spoiled. I’d passed out this time, possibly in the middle of my umpteenth orgasm, only to wake up in Oakley’s bed, his strong arms wrapped around me.

Apparently, he’d carried me there, because my own bed was ‘messy.’ His words.

It was a point I really couldn’t argue.

One more time I looked at the door, remembering the piles of dirt and rubble scattered around the house.

At first I thought they were pouring a new foundation, but that made no sense.

They weren’t digging footings because there were no form tubes.

There was no concrete mixer, no pump truck.

Besides, it was way too fucking cold for that.

No, the boys were either digging something up or they were burying something. And there were just too many holes, dug way too haphazardly, for them to be burying anything. Anything but…

A body.

“Really, Camryn?” I scoffed at myself. “Or should I say, Nancy Drew?”

I took the last bite of my waffle, and tucked the rest of the bacon back into the fridge. Then I wiped down the counter, cleaned up the crumbs, and eliminated every last trace of my midnight snack attack.

The door beckoned one last time, but sanity quickly took the reins again.

I was barefoot. Barely dressed. And it wasn’t just freezing outside, it was outright deadly.

With the wind chill it had to be twenty below.

No, it was definitely best to head back to bed.

If I moved quietly enough, I could slip back into Oakley’s bed before he even knew I was—

My whole body froze at the bottom of the staircase. I’d barely placed a hand on the banister, when suddenly every hair on the back of my neck stood straight on end.

There was a figure standing in the corner of the room.

It was behind me and to the right, just at the edge of my peripheral vision. It could’ve been a trick of the shadows, only it wasn’t. It could’ve been an optical illusion, except that illusions didn’t have arms and legs.

Keep moving!

The voice in my head screamed for me to lift my leg; and start up the staircase. I could pretend I’d never seen him. I could make like I was oblivious, head upstairs, and alert the guys.

Only I had seen him. Or at least I think I had.

Against my better judgment, I slowly turned my head. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness at the far end of the living room, relief flowed over me in a giant wave.

“Holy shit, Jaxon!” I gasped, clutching my chest. “You scared me!”

I kept watching, expecting him to emerge from the shadows. Only Jaxon didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t do anything, except make this incredibly strange sound.

And then I realized, he wasn’t even facing me. He was facing the wall.

What the—

He was shirtless, dressed only in boxer-briefs. Moving but not moving. That wasn’t the creepiest part, though. If I listened carefully, I could hear the sound was coming from deep in his throat. It was a low, lingering growl. More of a thrumming noise, or a frog-like croaking.

“Jaxon… are you okay?”

I ran over to him, and even more details emerged. Jaxon’s legs were moving steadily, as if he was walking, but he wasn’t going anywhere. And that’s because he was walking into the wall.

“Jaxon?”

He reminded me of every video game NPC I’d ever encountered, stuck in some sort of movement or clipping glitch. The noise he was making grew louder, creepier. I reached out to touch him, but he didn’t flinch.

“JAXON!”

His eyes blinked open, and that was the scariest part of all. They’d been rolled all the way back. For a full second or two, I saw only the whites of his eyes…

And then all of a sudden, he was in control again.

“Camryn?”

He looked confused. Helpless. Vulnerable.

“Yes, it’s me,” I smiled. I took his hand. “It’s only me.”

His expression went from confusion to embarrassment and then, shockingly enough, to one of anger.

“W—What’s going on?”

“You were sleepwalking,” I told him. “I think.”

His eyebrows knitted together even further. Was he angry at me?

“I—I know you’re not supposed to wake sleepwalkers,” I said apologetically. “Or at least that’s what I’ve heard. But you were moving around, and I was worried you might hurt yourself. And you were making this weird noise…”

Jaxon put both hands to the sides of his head, then rubbed at his eyes. When he looked at me again, he seemed disappointed in himself.

“Thanks, then,” he said glumly. “I appreciate it.”

He moved past me, in the direction of the stairs. But I refused to let go of his hand.

“Is this something that happens often?”

For some reason I knew the answer to the question before I even asked it. In the dim glow of the dying fire, I saw his jaw clench tightly. Beneath that thick black beard, he frowned.

Jaxon pulled his tattooed arm away, as politely but as firmly as possible. Then he stomped up the staircase and disappeared, leaving me stranded in the shadowy silence.