He eyed her clothes again. She kicked out of her other shoe, and suddenly, she barely came up to his shoulder. She had nothing on her legs but a tight, short skirt underneath a peacoat in a wild fuchsia color. He couldn’t decide if she was oblivious or just stupid about the weather. Or if she’d planned it this way—planned on getting herself trapped out here with him.
Either way, he was willing to get her some dry clothes. That skirt wasn’t going to keep her warm even if he got his fireplace cranked up. “All right. But,” he said before she could make a move deeper into his house, “these are the rules. I hold on to your phone for as long as you’re here and you stay out of my life. Otherwise, it’s a hell of a long walk to town in this weather.”
He wouldn’t really kick her out—but she didn’t need to know that.
For a second, a sign of toughness flashed over her face and he thought she was going to argue. But just then, the wind rattled the door and the color—what little of it she’d managed to regain—drained from her face. She nodded, looking almost innocent. “Understood. I’m sorry that I’m intruding upon your Christmas.”
He rolled his eyes. “Are you?”
It wasn’t a nice thing to say—thereby proving her wrong. He wasn’t being all that nice to her. Which bothered him, even though it shouldn’t. It especially bothered him when she had the nerve to look so...defeated. Sure, maybe that was the wet clothes and the straggly hair—and the mascara that had started to slide. The woman before him right now was anything but polished.
Before his guilt could get the better of him, he said, “This way.”
This was a mistake because someone like Natalie Baker—he didn’t even know what to call her. A journalist? A reporter? A talking head? Well, whatever she was, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep her out of his life, not if they were going to be stranded here for four or five days. Sooner or later, she’d stumble upon something he didn’t want her to see. His baby book or the awkward photo from eighth grade when he accidentally cut his hair into a mullet while trying to be fashionable.
He hoped she’d take a long shower so he could do a sweep of the house and hide as much of his life as he could.
He passed the thermostat and cranked it up. It might get warm in the house, but with the way that wind was blowing, they would lose power sooner rather than later. If he hadn’t been busy arguing with her, he could’ve gotten the generator going already. As it was, he’d have to wait until the snow stopped. And who knew when that would be.
Besides, when he glanced back at her, she had her arms wrapped around herself as she trailed after him. Her lips were blue—actually, all of her looked blue. Crap. He really did need to get her warmed up.
He led her back to the guest room, which had the advantage of being the room with the least amount of family pictures. As long as they had power, he’d leave her in this room. If he could, he’d lock her in it—but he knew that would only make matters worse. He could see the headline now—Long-Lost Beaumont Bastard Locks Beloved Celebrity in Guest Room.
No, thank you.
The guest room had an attached bathroom. “We’re probably going to lose power in the next half hour, so plan accordingly.” He thought she nodded—it was hard to tell, because she was shaking so hard.
God, what a mess. He went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. “Make sure you stay in there until you’ve returned to a normal temperature.”
The other alternative to get her body temperature back up was to strip them both down and crawl under the covers with her.
He looked at her legs again. Long and, when not borderline frostbitten, probably tanned. The kind of legs that would wrap around him and—
Whoa.
He slammed the brakes on that line of thought something quick. There would be no nudity, no cuddling and absolutely no sex. What he had to do right now, as steam curled out of the bathroom and she shrugged out of her fuchsia coat to reveal a thin silk blouse that was soaked at the cuffs and collar, was remember that every single thing he said and did from this point on was as good as public. He wouldn’t touch her and, what’s more, he wouldn’t allow her to touch him. End of discussion.
“I’ll bring in some better clothes for you,” he said as he headed out of the room. Because if he had a look at her walking around in that tight skirt and that sheer blouse for the next three or four days...
He was a strong man. But even he wasn’t sure he was that strong. Not if she was going to look all soft and vulnerable as well as sexy.
“Thank you,” she said again in that delicate voice.
No, he wasn’t going to think of her as vulnerable. Or delicate. It was probably just an act designed to get him to open up to her.
He hurried to his parents’ room and dug out some appropriate clothing—long underwear, jeans, shirts and sweaters and socks. His mom was a little shorter and a lot curvier than Natalie Baker, but her things should fit. Better than anything of his, anyway. She’d swim in one of his sweaters.
He knocked on the guest room door and, when no one replied, he cracked it open. Good. The bathroom door was closed and he heard splashing. She was in the shower, then. Standing nude under the hot water, maybe even running the soap over her body, her bare breasts, her...
He hoped she’d locked that damn door. He laid the clothes out on the bed and almost scooped up her things to take them down to the laundry room to dry. But then he caught sight of the lacy bra and matching panties—pale pink, like a confection that she’d worn on her body—and he drew back his hand as if he’d been burned. Okay, so now he was going to not think about her body wearing those things. And he also had to not think about her not wearing those things.
Oh, God. This was a disaster in the making.
He forced his thoughts away from the woman steaming up the shower. He had practical things that he needed to get done. It was obvious she had no idea how to ride out a blizzard, which meant it was up to him to keep them both from freezing to death.
He made sure that every other door on the second floor was shut, then he hurried downstairs, pausing to snag the family photos off the wall. He shoved those into the coat closet. Luckily, he’d laid a fire in the fireplace before he’d gone to town this morning, so all he had to do was light it. Once it was going, he went to the kitchen. He had a roast in a slow cooker, but he turned on the gas oven anyway, just to build up the heat in the house. Once the power went, the wind would sap any warmth from this room in a matter of minutes. And if he just left it on, he wouldn’t have to worry about lighting it with a match later.
He scrubbed a couple of potatoes and put them in the oven and then, after a moment of internal debate, dug an apple pie out of the freezer and put it in the oven, too.
Every fall, his mom went into a frenzy of cooking and baking. CJ had long ago figured out that it was her way of coping with the guilt of leaving her only son alone during the holidays. He had an entire deep freeze full of casseroles and cobblers and meals in bags that all he had to do was heat up in the oven or the slow cooker. Pretty much the only thing she didn’t leave him was pizza and beer, which was why he’d headed to the store this morning after sending his hired hands home for the storm and cutting his chores short. If he was going to be snowed in for Christmas, he wanted a couple of pizzas to round out the menu.
Then he did another sweep of the downstairs. He pulled more photos from the wall and the mantel over the fireplace. These he carried back to the office—that had a door he could lock. If he could, he’d put the entire house in that room and bolt the door shut.
The parlor was where most of the photo albums were—it had a door, but not a lock. Well, he’d just have to keep her out of it. Much as he didn’t like it, he would have to stick to Natalie Baker like glue.
Finally,