A Very Grumpy Lumberjack Christmas

3. The Mistletoe Grinch

3

THE MISTLETOE GRINCH

T he driver keeps her head down against the steering wheel, unmoving, hands wrapped around the black fake leather in a death grip that makes her knuckles as white as the snow around us. But I can’t tell if she’s pinned there, passed out due to some medical issue, or just trying to get her bearings and gather herself after the crash.

Shit.

Each second that ticks by that she doesn’t move or react to me approaching the car makes unease coil tighter around my spine.

Tightening my grip on the axe, I rush to the driver’s side door and tug on the handle, but it doesn’t budge.

Locked.

Dammit.

“Hey!” I pound on the window, trying to see through the glass that’s starting to frost over now that the car isn’t in motion and cold air is reacting with the moisture inside. “You okay?”

Muttered cursing barely reaches me through the barrier between us, mingling with the familiar sounds of Mariah Carey belting out “Here Comes Santa Clause.”

Fucking great.

Some tourist up here to experience Mistletoe just flew off the damn road in the one spot I can rescue them, but in order to do it, I have to be subjected to this audio trash I’ve managed to avoid so far this year.

She releases another couple of curses and shifts slightly in the seat, belt still pulled across her chest.

At least whoever is in there is conscious.

Even if she does have questionable taste in music.

The windows fog up even more, the crystals inching in from the corners of the glass with each breath she releases. She may appear okay right now, but if the tailpipe is blocked by the snow, the engine could be pumping poisonous fumes straight inside. “Hey, unlock the door!”

Blondie shakes her head, keeping her face low, but she peeks at me from between long, pale, wavy hair. Not enough for me to really see her. But she can definitely see me.

Christ.

It starts to click together in my head.

No wonder she’s reluctant to open the door for me.

A complete stranger wielding an axe immediately after she runs off the road.

That would scare anyone.

Especially a visitor to town who doesn’t know the area or me.

Hell, even some locals would be afraid of me these days.

I rest the axe head down in the snow and lean the handle against my thigh, holding up my hands to indicate I’m not a danger to her. “Ma’am, please open the door so I can help you. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Shit, shit, shit!” The woman slams her palms against the wheel, and the sharp blare of the horn makes both of us flinch. “Shit.”

Well, she doesn’t seem appeased by my statement.

I open my mouth to try to make another argument for her to act before I have to, but she slowly lifts her head and stares out the windshield.

She still doesn’t look my way.

Maybe she’s dazed.

Perhaps she struck her head against something during the spin-out.

I don’t want to have to break into this fucking car…but I can’t leave her in here like this much longer.

Fucking hell…

This is what I get for offering to work the lot.

I glance back toward the house, hoping to be rescued myself by someone far better equipped—at least mentally—to handle this situation and woman, but there isn’t any sign of Mom and Dad.

They were probably inside before the crash happened and didn’t see anything—which means I won’t get any help from them. And the driver doesn’t seem keen on accepting my assistance or responding to any of my requests.

I press my palm flat against the window, trying to control my voice so I don’t further terrify this woman while still conveying the urgency. “Ma’am, I can’t help you if you don’t unlock the door.”

Her head turns slowly toward mine, and through the partially frosted window, familiar bright-blue eyes I used to swim in meet mine.

My heart stops, my breath catching in my lungs.

Fuck.

I stagger back a step, then stand frozen in place as Noel turns off the engine, then hesitantly reaches over and presses a button on the door. The lock clicks, the sound somehow deafening in the quiet stillness of the falling snow.

Seconds tick by like hours.

Blood rushes in my ears, the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh , the only evidence that my heart has resumed beating even while I struggle to make my lungs function again.

Her door slowly swings open on the embankment, and she uses one hand to keep it propped wide while she reaches down and unbuckles her seatbelt with the other.

She climbs from the car on shaky legs. “Of all the places this could have happened—”

Noel staggers slightly, slipping on the snowy incline, her knees hitting the ground, and I reach forward and grasp her upper arm to steady her before she falls any farther.

Her eyes cut up to meet mine, a mixture of annoyance and something else even more unsettling flashing in her gaze, and she jerks herself from my hold. “I’m fine.”

She isn’t.

And neither am I.

The second I realized who was behind that wheel, my entire world became laser focused on one thing—ensuring she is all right and quelling the panic seizing me.

I grit my teeth to keep myself from tearing into her for being so reckless and running off the road. And from tugging her into my arms to hold her and smell her and feel her again. And to stop from saying the other things I’ve wanted to for so damn long.

Instead, I scan her from the tops of her fluffy UGG boots, which are barely visible in the deep snow of the ditch, up her skin-tight jeans, now covered in snow, and over the baggy sweater falling off one shoulder, exposing her pale, elegant collarbone to the elements.

She shivers, biting her plump, pink bottom lip in a way that sends a zing of heat straight to a spot that should not be loving it so much.

“What the hell happened, Noel?” I search her face for any signs she might be injured or in pain—by anything other than my presence. “Are you all right?”

Releasing a huff visible in the chilly air, she reaches down and brushes the snow off her knees. “Fine, just a little…shaken…” Her eyes dart up to the road and narrow on the spot where she spun out. “Did I hit the rabbit?”

“What?”

“There was…” Her brow furrows, like she’s having a hard time focusing. “A rabbit, I think. It darted out in the road in front of me.”

I glance around at the snow falling around us, more rapidly than earlier today, for any signs of anything that might have been on the road. But all I find is the same barren stretch of desolate asphalt that has always been there, covered in several inches of slippery slush that was more likely the culprit than a stray bunny. “I didn’t see anything, Noel. Are you sure you didn’t just lose control?” Stepping back slightly, I scan the vehicle. “This isn’t even four-wheel drive. What the hell are you doing coming up here with a blizzard on the way without a four-wheel-drive car or even snow tires?”

She crosses her arms over her chest defiantly, which only draws my attention to the luscious curves she hasn’t lost over the last eight years. If anything, the time has filled her out in a way that makes me want to run my hands across every inch of her. “It’s a rental, okay? It’s all they had available.”

I snort and look away from her, trying to contain my warring reactions to seeing this woman—and under these circumstances, that merely seem to enflame both my protective instincts and my ire. “And you couldn’t rent a jacket with this piece of shit?”

It has to be near thirty degrees outside at the moment, and standing along the road that acts like a wind tunnel, there is no reprieve from the way it batters us.

And she’s out here in nothing but a damn sweater.

Her eyes widen, and she motions back. “It’s in the car! ”

“You still got out without putting it on.” I scan her up and down again, knowing how fucking cold she must be. She always used to snuggle up against me anytime we stepped foot outside, seeking my body heat, even when it wasn’t the dead of winter. “You need to drive more carefully next time.”

Those beautiful pink lips I spent so many hours devouring twist into a scowl. “First, look who is talking about being dressed appropriately for the weather. And second, I was driving carefully. I’m telling you”—she points toward some seemingly random spot near where she lost control—“there was a rabbit.”

I glance at the road again, unable to see any signs that what she’s saying is true, and my gaze drifts back over to the farm. “Are you sure you weren’t looking at something else ? Maybe distracted?”

By me…

Maybe it’s stupid to think it.

To even consider that she might have been watching me rather than what was in front of her, especially with the roads already this bad…

But that tiny glimmer of hope lights in my chest, warming me from the inside out until I see her response.

She presses her mouth into a firm line, anger coloring her cheeks—or maybe it’s the brutal wind and her lack of proper clothing. Either way, they flare the same way her eyes do. “There was a rabbit, Luke. And I’ll prove it to you.”

Good God…

Apparently, the passage of time hasn’t dimmed Noel’s fire in the slightest .

She storms past me, intentionally slamming her shoulder against my arm, and stalks over to the place in the road where she spun, the tire marks still visible in the fresh snow cover.

“What the hell are you doing?” I follow after her, scanning up and down the slushy pavement to ensure no cars are coming—since the lunatic is standing in the middle of the fucking street. “Noel, get out of the road!”

Bending over, she examines the tire marks. “Not until I find what I’m looking for.”

“Which is what, your sanity?”

Those icy-blue eyes cut up to mine. “Funny, Luke.” Noel returns her focus to the area around the edge of the ditch on the other side. “Aha! Right there!” She points, a smug smile crossing her lips, lighting up her already beautiful face even more. “Rabbit tracks.”

I rest the axe head into the snow, squat down next to her, and examine where she’s indicating. “Those could have been left days ago.”

Gasping, she stands and crosses her arms over her chest again, defiant, tapping her foot. “Bullshit! They’re fresh. Look at them and the snow around them.”

Fuck.

When I do and see what she does, I can’t argue with her anymore. At least, not about this. If she were some idiot from the city like Mr. Audi, I could expect cluelessness about the wildlife.

But not Noel.

She knows Mistletoe too well—the animals, the way the land works, the snow, and how to track things in it after years spent on the mountain with me.

And these are definitely fresh rabbit tracks that haven’t even begun to fill in yet despite the rapid accumulation.

“Fine.” I push up and rest my axe across my shoulder again. “So, there was a rabbit…maybe next time you should worry about your own life instead of its.” I motion toward the woods that it likely darted off into that eventually lead to my closest neighbor’s property—aside from the Jolly’s. “Mr. Niblitz is probably going to trap it and eat it for dinner, anyway.”

Noel gasps, her mouth falling open. “Luke Crisp, you take that back!”

I reach back with my other hand and grasp the handle near the axe head, and her eyes immediately drift over my arms and down my open shirt. Almost as if—despite her earlier dig at my apparel—she is just now realizing how exposed I really am and is taking stock.

But I won’t give her the satisfaction of retracting my comment that is likely true, given Old Man Niblitz’s penchant for eating rabbit. “No.”

“You know”—she takes a step toward me, pointing a trembling finger at me, so close she almost touches my bare chest—“Mom told me you turned into a real grinch, but I didn’t realize how bad it’s gotten.”

“Did she now?”

Her words shouldn’t bother me.

The name shouldn’t.

Grinch.

It’s hardly the first time I’ve been called that, nor will it be the last. But coming from those lips that used to beg me to do unspeakable, unholy things to her, it somehow stabs at my chest as if she’d driven my own axe straight into it.

“Well, my grinchy attitude isn’t your problem anymore, is it?”

Noel flinches, visibly shaking now—from the cold or from proximity to me and the dig I just made remains unclear. “Well, apparently it is , since the rabbit decided it wanted to risk its life right in front of the farm. ”

This isn’t getting us anywhere—except maybe her frostbit, considering she isn’t wearing a coat or any other protection.

Snow has already soaked her hair, darkening the long, blond strands that are now starting to mat around her face. She shivers again, wrapping her arms around herself, and glances back at the car—still lodged halfway down the embankment that she will never be able to drive back up.

I release a heavy sigh and run a hand through my own wet hair. “I’m going to go get my truck and pull you out of the ditch. Then, I’m going to follow you home to make sure you get there safely.”

“Like fucking hell, you are!” She throws up her hands. “I don’t need you to babysit me.”

“Apparently…you do.”

The Noel I knew all those years ago never would have done anything so reckless. She never would have ended up in that ditch or even considered getting out of her car without her coat on. But the Noel I thought I knew never would have broken my heart and walked away, either.

Lowering my axe, I stalk past her up the driveway before she can utter another objection and head straight for the barn where the Crisp Christmas Tree Farm truck sits, protected from the weather.

Unlike the woman who so badly wants to get under my skin today.

I’ll need the winch system to get her out of that damn ditch. Though, getting her out of my head after today’s run-in will be impossible.

I rest my axe against the wall, snag the keys off the hook, and fire up the truck. The roar of the diesel engine fills the space, and I pull out and down the driveway to find her leaning against the car, phone in hand, looking every bit as annoyed as she did when she first opened the door and we saw each other for the first time in eight years.

What does she have to be annoyed about?

All she’s done is manage to fuck up my day and my head.

I maneuver the truck, so the front end faces her car, then climb out and grab the massive pulley from the winch. “You know damn well that thing doesn’t work right there.”

She glances up at me from her phone and frowns. “My mom’s going to be worried.” Her voice softens. “I should be home by now…”

That slight waver that hits her final words makes my chest tighten. I can only imagine what Maryann is thinking, sitting, waiting for Noel to arrive and having her be late so soon after losing Russell.

I attach the hook and move back to the front of the truck to run on the pulley. “You haven’t been home yet?”

The sadness in her eyes when they meet mine is enough to make me regret my attitude this entire time—at least for a split second. “No, I just got into town.”

Perfect fucking timing.

Not for me.

If Dad and Mom had only stayed on the lot a few more minutes…

Sighing, I motion for her to move away from the car. “Your mom will be happy to see you. I know this year has to be…”

I can’t find the right word, so instead, I let myself trail off, watching the tears shimmer in her eyes the same way they did the night she broke my heart.

Fuck.

She stands frozen for a moment before I motion again, and she finally rushes to the other side of the road, giving me a wide berth to drag the car from the ditch without risking her getting caught if the wire were to snap somehow .

Once confident she’s safely far enough away, I throw on the winch, climb into the truck, and slam the door as it starts slowly dragging the car up.

Eight years I’ve managed to avoid seeing Noel Jolly in a town small enough to bump into each other taking a piss.

And now, the woman literally crashes back into my life—at the worst possible moment.

What the hell did I ever do to deserve this?