Merry Mended Hearts (Santa’s Radio Christmas Romance #1)

14. Grace

GRACE

My mind was going all kinds of places it shouldn’t. With him talking about seeing the mountains in the summertime, that sounded too much like an invitation to come back and visit. To see him again.

Was I reading too much into this?

It was just a sleigh ride. A one-time thing like an attraction at an amusement park.

Get it together, Grace!

His apology had been sweet, but I hadn’t completely forgotten his previous rudeness, or the questions those interactions had arisen like steam from boiling water.

What about the necklace he’d yanked from my hand? Had the radio played for him since we’d heard it? Or how about—where had he managed to stash the radio when he’d stormed off with it?

We’d reached a kind of camaraderie that I didn’t want to spoil, and something told me if I took the conversation in that direction, it’d make him about-face this contraption and cut our ride short.

“Tell me about your rides,” I said. “Do you ever take big crowds?”

I’d seen a much larger sleigh than this one in the barn. I was glad we hadn’t gone out in that one. It would have felt too weird to be the only passenger in something that big.

“Sometimes, I just take a single couple out,” he said. “Depends on the request. You can’t believe the number of marriage proposals I overhear.”

My laugh was belly deep. It echoed off the mountainside. “I’m sure you do.”

Boone cracked another timid smile only to fight it down again. Why did he do that? What made him want to act like a safe where he was the only one with the combination?

The cold air kissed the bare skin of my cheeks. This reminded me of reading Little House on the Prairie, and how they bundled up and used warm potatoes in their pockets to keep their hands warm while riding on a sleigh through the woods.

Imagine traveling my horse-drawn sleigh as your only means of transportation. I liked the heater in my car, thanks. And while I didn’t need to make much use of them, I’d bet heated seats would come in handy at a time like this.

“I worried about spending money on snow gear like gloves and a hat before I left, but now, I’m glad I did.”

“Where are you from that it doesn’t get cold enough for hats and gloves?” he asked, holding the reigns in his gloved hands.

“Scottsdale, Arizona.”

Broone grunted in displeasure. “Too hot for my blood.”

I quirked a brow. “Have you ever been there?”

“Yes. I visited my brother during a real estate scheme he tried talking me into.”

He directed a scowl toward the horse’s backside and the snow her hooves kicked up as if he didn’t like the memory of that instance.

“Let me guess. You didn’t pursue the scheme.”

Boone angled his head. His face lightened as if at some inward joke. “I couldn’t take care of my horses if I was busy flipping houses or attending auctions.”

This time he let his gaze linger, and his direct glance stilled my blood. His eyes roved over me with a calculating quality, bringing Arizona right to my cheeks.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. Did he like what he saw or something? Did he feel the way he became the gravitation pull that held me to him instead of the ground when he looked at me like that?

“What?” I asked.

“That’s a Santa Claus hat,” he said, turning his attention back to the horse.

I clapped my hand over my soft, slouchy beanie. “It’s not red.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

I held my hands to my mouth and blew on my hands. Warmth seeped through my thin gloves.

“You talk about him like you still believe in him,” I said.

He’d mentioned as much at the inn, but I didn’t think he was being serious.

“I never stopped believing,” he said. Then after a few seconds and the sound of jingling bells, he added, “Journey told me not to.”

The dry joke joined ranks with the gentle snow and descended slowly. I laughed when it landed.

“That is one of the best songs.”

He darted another glance in my direction, his lips tweaking just enough at the corners.

“Agreed.”

Feeling encouraged by the ease of our conversation, I sat up a little straighter. If Boone was fighting back smiles, that was progress, too.

New scenes began skimming through my mind. The princess, caught in Demon Boone’s tallest tower, gets sick. She needs to be cared for, and he won’t allow anyone else but him near her.

As he brings her soup day by day, he begins to spend longer and longer time at her cell, until one day, the cage he kept around his heart breaks free…

Soon, their conversation shifts. He reveals himself to be more than she thought he was…

Snatching my notebook out of my bag, I jotted a few ideas down and returned it once I finished.

“Okay, then,” I said, brushing away the fantasy and dropping my pen into my slouchy bag. “We both like words and their definitions. We both like Journey.”

“But I can’t get around all that heat in Arizona,” he said.

“Sometimes, I can’t either,” I admitted, inhaling the cool, winter air and staring at the dense trees around us. The horse followed a trail that lined its way through several trunks. “I’ve always wanted to come to a place like this. To see snow like this.”

Fading sunlight played on the ground’s white surface. The clear sky peeked through gaps in the trees, and a contended sigh escaped my lips.

“Is that what brought you here?” he asked.

“Sort of.” I peered at the slouchy bag rested by my feet. Should I tell him?

What would it hurt?

“I’m here on a research trip.”

His brows rose. He glanced at the forest around us. “West Hills, Montana, is in the boonies. What can you possibly have to research around here?”

“The boonies,” I said with a chuckle.

Speaking of which…

The scents, the sights, the sounds of the forest around us—it all crashed into me, begging to be put to words. I reached for my notebook once more, cracked it open, and poised my pen.

The sleigh slid smoothly across the snow, but not smoothly enough for scrawling down ideas as the sun sank lower. Still, I needed to take advantage of what light was left.

I wrote of the magic in the air as if it really existed. And how the elven princess was falling hard and fast for her handsome, devilish captor—who happened to have dark hair, espresso eyes, an insanely muscular physique, and a voice to rival the dark chimes of the forest’s shadowed places.

Boone peered at me. “You’re on a ride like this, and you’re spending it all writing in a notebook?”

“Oh, I’m taking in more than you know.” I laughed as I took in the harsh, grumpy way he scowled at the horse in front of us.

“So…” The bells jangled in the resulting silence until he continued. “What kind of research are you doing?”

“I’m a writer.”

I couldn’t bring myself to call myself an author. That would mean I was successfully published, and that hadn’t happened yet.

The admission made me think of the gushy thoughts I’d written about Boone before we left the inn. It was so stupid. What if someone found them—read them?

Gasp—what if Boone found them and read them?

It wouldn’t matter—I was leaving tomorrow. Even so, I was with him now, wasn’t I? Which meant I should scratch out every one of them. Or better yet, tear out that page and leave it to meet a wintery demise.

My fingers began flipped through pages, but before I found it, a spray of snow trickled from overheard, dusting my nose and cheeks and catching the light at just the right angle.

A melodic sound floated through the sparkly air, sending chills down my back. They chinked down my spine like a slinky, more distinctive than the cold air already surrounding me.

As I lowered the pen, my back went rigid.

Boone looked startled, too. He pulled on the horse’s reins. Hazelnut slowed, quietening the jingling bells.

“What was that?” I asked. “You heard it, too, right?”

Was someone with a speaker system playing music nearby? From how many trees and the sheer amount of snow and wilderness out here, I’d guess we were the only ones around.

The music tinkled again, and more snow dusted across my face as though a breeze had swept loose powder toward us. But, for the record, there was no breeze. My hair didn’t stir. I felt nothing.

NOTHING.

“Whoa,” Boone said, rotating. He cocked his head as if peeling his ears for the source of the sound.

“I’m not sure. Is that…music?”

This time, the sound picked up again. A melody rose on the air, swirling with sound that was soft enough to be mistaken for something playing in the distance. Maybe there were people nearby blasting some melodies in the middle of nowhere. Unless…

I checked my phone. Sometimes my playlists would accidently start if my phone bumped my leg or something.

“No one’s there,” Boone said mysteriously.

He was right—I saw nothing. No one else was around, yet the music drifted like a lost descant made of tinkling piano and soft…flute? No, clarinet, maybe.

The wind smacked us like a rushing, winter hurricane. Snowflakes were in a sudden hurry, picking up speed. Faster and faster, they flurried. The abnormal gust of wind swirled my hair. A strand caught in my mouth, and I spat it out with a small squeal.

“Where is this coming from?” Boone’s voice elevated.

I lifted an arm to shield my face. “I don’t know!”

He squinted, attempting to see through the psychotic, zooming flurries.

“We’d better head back,” he shouted. “I didn’t read any signs of a storm earlier. There weren’t any signs in the sky before we left the inn.”

Who was this guy, Bear Grylls? He read the sky for signs of upcoming weather?

His shock factor climbed a few notches. There was something just plain impressive about a man who could rough it without a strand of hesitation.

Lifting the reins, Boone guided the horse around—or he tried to, anyway. The trees’ density made carrying out a U-turn difficult, and instead, we wove through more trees, some I didn’t see until they’d already passed or their branches skimmed my face.

“Ouch!” I shrieked, placing a hand on my face and feeling the sting of a new scrape.

“Hang on.”

The wind wasn’t the only thing that had gone crazy. Coldness bit through my clothes with a vengeance. The sky grew thicker with snow, practically blinding me.

Was this how snow worked?

Feeling my way around, I tucked my notebook back into my back, kicked it beneath the blanket, which I then wrapped tighter around me.

I could barely see. I wasn’t sure how Boone could.

Which didn’t say much for the horse. Could Hazelnut see?

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked.

With his face squinted, keeping the reins in hand, he slowed the horse to a stop and lifted a hand to his eyes to help him see better.

“We’re farther out than I thought,” he said against the wind. “I don’t dare keep riding in this. Hazelnut is scared; she could get us turned around. We could get lost, which is the last either of us wants, especially this late in the day. The sun will be setting any time now, and there are wolves in these woods.”

Wolves. Was he for real?

This was the modern age. We had internet, technology, electric cars, and jet planes. Heck, I even saw a reel recently featuring a piece of machinery that could slice a tree right off the ground, scrape it in its massive jaws to remove all the branches, and hack it into smaller logs in minutes.

And we were still worrying about wolves?

Even so, Boone was the expert here. Dying in a snowstorm was not part of my book research. A nugget of anxiety nestled beneath my ribs, making me have to work that much harder to breathe.

“What do we do?” I asked.

He pointed to the left with a thick gloved hand. “I live in the old cottage off the edge of the property. We’re not far from it. It’s our best bet at this point. We need to seek shelter, and fast. You’ll be there alone with me, but at least we can wait out the storm.”

Um.

Wow.

Holy cow.

And every other explanation my brain could think up. The spastic brain-monkeys made a reappearance, chittering and squeaking and circling my skull like they’d found a horde of bananas for the winter.

Alone with him?

This was a Dickens kind of decision—the best and the worst all in one.

Boone was nice during this ride. He’d given me an adorable gift to make up for his rudeness. Was it really wise to cocoon myself with him until the storm passed?

Then again, that was moot. I couldn’t even see the trees anymore, not with all the whiteness encircling us.

What other options did we have? When night fell, it would get even colder. We needed shelter. Fast.

“Okay,” I said.

Boone gave me a firm nod and then called out a command that hopefully the horse understood because I sure didn’t. The cold whipped at my cheeks and howled its way through trees. A thousand thoughts whirled through right with it.

The stupidest one of them all was the fact that I’d be staying the night at his place without any of my stuff.

My cute new pajamas were back at the inn, along with, oh, a toothbrush and toothpaste, to say the least. I had my notebook, which wasn’t something I could wear—although, that would be an interesting proposition.

If I was going to be staying there…with him…the least I could do was make his mouth water. A notebook wasn’t going to cut it.

Stop that, I chided myself. Despite our discussion about the word “romance,” nothing like that was going to happen. We’d find his cottage and wait out the storm.

That was ALL.

Wind tore through the trees, but we pressed on. The air was so thick with whiteness, it resembled the lace tablecloth beneath Santa’s radio back at the inn.

Minutes—or maybe hours—later, the sleigh slowed in front of a small barn collecting snow on its roof and in the cracks between its wooden planks. Hazelnut stopped, and even though we weren’t moving, it felt like we were.

Boone leaped from the sleigh and with his arm raised against the flurrying wind, attempted to unhitch Hazelnut from the rig.

With my bag in hand, I leaped out into the snow as well. My feet sank. The snow was up to my shins, seeping in through the tops of my boots, which I was starting to realize were proving to be more for fashion than functionality.

“Can I help?” I asked, hooking my bag over my shoulder.

“See if you can get that barn door open,” he called, working with the jingle bells dangling from Hazelnut’s leather straps.

I’d never been around horses much at all—let alone barns. But I circled about and lifted my feet high enough to take the few steps toward the barn door. A long board sat across two holds. I rotated the board, swinging it upward—essentially unlocking the door—and attempted to pull it open.

Snow packed on the ground made that difficult.

I pulled harder. The door wouldn’t budge. I kicked snow away, even bending at the waist to use my hands to clear as much of it as I could. Wind fought the door closed every time, pushing against me with such force it stole my breath.

Several tries—and a few grumbles—later, I finally cleared a triangle of space wide enough to brace the door open.

Boone approached with Hazelnut’s lead rope in hand. White snowflakes had collected on his eyebrows and in his lashes. I wondered if mine were the same.

Digging my heels into the ground, I propped my back against the door, holding it against the gusting wind shoving me from behind, threatening to slam it shut.

Soon enough, the horse was inside. So where did that leave us?