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

15. Grace

GRACE

The barn door’s heavy slam was deafening. Howling wind wailed at being shut out, but I exhaled, sagging my shoulders, weary and relieved at once. The air in here was only slightly warmer, and the smell of hay and manure struck my nostrils with full force.

Taking a few moments to catch my breath, I glanced around the dark barn.

There was enough light to see two wooden stalls in here, and something large hidden beneath a thick black covering, but that light was fading fast.

Boone guided Hazelnut into one of the stalls.

“It’s okay, girl,” he said, comforting the hesitant horse. “We’re home now. We’re safe.”

The creature puffed air out of her nostrils. Her ear flickered. Boone rubbed his gloved hand against her neck, speaking softly. Soon enough, she obeyed, allowing him to step out and close the stall door behind him.

Stepping past me, he moved through the darkness and flicked a light switch near the door, but nothing happened.

“Dang it,” he said. “Power’s out.”

I glanced up to the high rafters and to what looked like a hayloft, then to the horse’s stall and the bucket of feed Boone currently readied for the horse. I was surprised he had electricity this far out at all.

I also didn’t want to sound like a total snob, but when he’d said, “cottage,” this wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured.

“Just getting Hazelnut settled in, and then we’ll trudge our way over to the house,” he explained over his shoulder.

With the bucket ready, he reentered her stall.

“Is the cottage close by?” I asked.

“Just next door,” he assured me. “It was hard to see in that blizzard out there.”

That was a relief.

He removed his gloves, placing them in his coat pockets. I watched as he carefully removed Hazelnut’s bit and bridle. He then relieved the horse of her tack, brushed her down, and placed a woven blanket on her back.

“There’s a good girl,” he said, patting the horse with a gentle hand and holding the bucket to her snout.

I had to say, I was surprised to see him acting this tender. After his gruffness over the radio and the box I’d dropped—and the way he’d snapped and stormed from the room—I suspected he was all prickles.

But he’d been calm and kind while speaking to that little girl the day we’d met. Our conversation during the sleigh ride today, his quick thinking in the danger of the storm, and the care he was taking of his horse led me to believe there was more to Boone than what he showed.

What made him be so callused one moment and then so kind another?

Maybe it was what I’d suspected before. Maybe he’d just been having a rocky few days and was back to his normal self.

“It’ll be a rough night,” he told the horse. “But all storms pass. You’ll be safe in here, girl.”

The horse released a chuff and blinked at him with wary eyes.

“I can tell you take good care of her,” I said.

Boone kept his back to me, his attention on the mare. He rubbed his knuckles along the horse’s jaw and rested his other hand on her forehead.

“Yeah, well. She’s a good horse. Always has been.”

This time, he rotated and sniffed. His nose was rosy-red, but the traces of snow had blinked away from his lashes.

Wind slashed against the barn’s sturdy exterior. I hugged my arms around my torso, listening for a few moments before Boone spoke.

“We’ll have to leave the sleigh out there and unbury it in the morning once this all dies down.”

“Will it be okay?” I asked.

“It’ll be fine.” He sniffed and raised his gaze to the rafters as if trying to see the wind ravaging the barn’s boards. “This old place has withstood many storms.”

A statement like that packed a punch. It conjured all kinds of theories in my brain, making me picture how old the barn was—and if the cottage was just as old, that meant it had probably seen many storms come and go, too.

I wondered about the people who’d been through those storms.

After ensuring that Hazelnut was fed and that she had plenty of water in her trough, Boone secured his hat onto his head.

“Ready to head back out there?” he said.

“You said your cottage is close, right?” I wasn’t exactly warm, but I did appreciate the barn’s shelter from the wailing wind and whirling snow.

“Yes.”

His cottage was undoubtedly more comfortable than this. Probably smelled better, too.

“Ready when you are,” I said.

Joining his side, I helped push the barn door open wide enough for each of us to squeeze through. The wind had changed direction, making the door too stubborn to close this time, where before, closing had been all it wanted to do.

“Push!” Boone shouted.

Feet deep in the snow, I braced my hands against the door and pushed with everything I had. Together, we finally got it to slide closed.

“Hopefully, we won’t have to dig too much to get it back open in the morning,” he shouted through the storm. “Come on.”

He pointed to the left where a small but sturdy stone cottage peeked through the snow’s swirling flurries. His hand then captured mine—and the touch knocked a shock of surprise into me like a tongue to a battery. The gesture plunged right through to my stomach.

“So we don’t get knocked over,” he said.

By “we,” he probably meant me. Fair enough.

I nodded, and he tugged me along through the shin-deep snow, helping me until we stomped toward the snow collected against the cottage’s front door. Working together, kicking snow aside, I helped clear the drift until soon, we stepped inside.

By now, the sun had fully set. Darkness greeted us, and I blinked, letting my eyes adjust. Once more, the wind was shut out, and this time, its whirling howls didn’t penetrate the cottage’s thick, stone walls the way it had the barn’s thinner boards.

“We made it,” I said breathlessly.

I was ready to sink to the floor. Between the fear of frostbite and wolves, and the prospect of getting lost in such frozen circumstances—and the adrenaline and energy pumping through me as a result of getting Hazelnut into the barn and making our way through more snow than I’d ever stood in—my body was beyond weary.

“That we did.” Boone removed his hat and gloves. He parted a pair of curtains that were more feminine than I would have expected a rugged grouch like him to have in his home. “And none too soon.”

He left the curtains open. The darkness outside accentuated the snow’s bright bursts through the air. It was like fluffy white rain.

My thin gloves were soaked clear through. I pried them off the icicles that used to be fingers, set my snow-drenched bag on the carpet, and blew warm air onto my frigid fingers.

“Where did that storm come from, anyway?” I asked. “The sky earlier had been completely cloudless.”

A memory of the floating melody I’d heard refused to leave me alone. The music had sounded exactly like what I’d heard before I’d found that necklace in my room.

Why would we hear it out in the middle of the forest?

I wanted to see what Boone would say. I knew he’d heard it, too.

Boone removed his coat and hung it on a peg by the door. Then he sat at the small, round dining table just off from the door and began unlacing his heavy-duty boots.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

Once his boots were removed, he stalked to a cupboard and removed a pair of candles, lighting them. Traces of light flickered, adding shadows to the kitchen’s ceiling.

He glanced my way.

I hadn’t moved from my spot on the rug. Snow clustered on my heels, and my pants were as soaked as everything else on me was. My chin juddered from sheer coldness.

I could hear Dad’s voice now, griping about having to wade through piles of snow to get to school in the mornings and how cold he was on a permanent basis until spring arrived.

I’d never completely understood how someone could be this cold .

Until now.

“Please,” Boone said, gesturing to the chair across from the one he’d taken. “Have a seat. I know it’s not much, but we’ll be warm in here once I get a fire going.”

“Thanks,” I said through my shaking jaw, bending to unzip my boots. “And actually, it’s really cute and cozy in here.”

Slipping my feet free, I glanced around the dim space. A small living area was on one side. It had a couch in front of the window and a rocking chair by the fireplace, which was stocked with fresh logs.

The kitchen where Boone had sat was small as well. It had an outdated stove and a mini fridge nesting on a short counter.

I couldn’t see much through the shadows, but I saw enough to know the décor was dated at best. Nothing was coordinated or staged for anything but functionality. The pictures on the wall were mostly painted landscapes or old black and white photographs of people behind discolored glass.

One thing was extremely lacking, however—considering the season.

“No Christmas tree?” I asked, sliding my feet from my useless boots.

I wiggled my toes just to make sure I still could.

I was really looking forward to that fire he mentioned. Or maybe a shower and some dry clothes. Would he lend me some clothes?

Did he have a shower—or hot water, for that matter?

“No Christmas tree,” Boone said, retrieving a towel from a drawer in the kitchen.

He returned to my side and bent to mop up the snow puddling on the floor. I tried to help and was amazed that my feet could hold my weight with how numb they were.

My jaw chattered again, but I clenched my teeth, attempting to make it still.

“How come?” I asked. “The tree is one of my favorite parts of Christmas.”

“I don’t do Christmas,” he said in true grump fashion.

“How do you not do Christmas?” My words were stilted, coming out with more interruptions, thanks to my chattering jaw.

Boone eyed me. Another time, his scowl might have made me recoil, but I was too cold to care.

“You’re freezing,” he said, not answering my question. “Let’s get a fire going. You can lay your wet things near it, so they dry out. I’ve got some clothes you can change into, if you’d like. I also have space heaters, but with the electricity out?—”

“A fire will be great,” I said.

Every part of me was cold, from my fingertips to the spaces where my ribs met my spine. I was cold in places I didn’t even know I could be!

Boone moved one of the candles to the side table in the corner between the couch and the fireplace. He gathered some logs from a basket and assembled them, stuffed some newspaper in the crevices, and after retrieving a match from the box on the shelf, struck it.

Kneeling in front of the hearth, he blew on the flames, urging them to take to the wood. Then, he added a few more logs on top. Within minutes, a fire was going, blazing its heat into the room.

There went another sexy notch in my mental calculations. He was really racking up those points.

Little by little, he was transitioning from Demon Boone back to book boyfriend material. From his confident carriage, the way he knew exactly what to do, and the way his muscles strained against his shirt, attractiveness and manly know-how were written into his genetics.

The fire wasn’t the only source of heat with that thought. It seeped into me, melting the ice from my fingertips.

Wordlessly, he stepped through a door I hadn’t noticed across from the couch. Minutes later, he returned. He’d changed into a pair of comfortable, plaid pants, and a fresh T-shirt that said, “West Hills, Montana.” He held what looked like flannel pants and an old sweatshirt with a bear on it.

“Here you go. The bathroom is through there and at the end of the hall.” His voice was the smoothest grit of sandpaper, gently rubbing off all of my rough edges.

“Thanks,” I said, caught between wanting to step away from the fire—and him—long enough to change and the desire to get out of my wet clothes.

The latter won out. I followed his directions, using the candle to light my way like I was a heroine from a ghost story wandering through old passages in castles. Which, of course, prompted another scene idea to pop into my mind.

I hurriedly tapped out the few ideas into my phone before shutting the bathroom door. Once it was closed, I held Boone’s sweatshirt. It was soft—so soft. Then I lifted it to my nose and inhaled.

It smelled like cedar, like the inside of my hope chest back home. Was this his cologne? Or the way the inside of his dresser smelled? The scent coiled into my stomach, giving me a shiver as I stripped out of my wet shirt, toweled dry and indulged in his shirt.

Hugging the fabric, I drew in another long inhale before peeling off my wet jeans and slipping into his flannel pants. They were soft, too, and far too huge. Even though there were holes for a drawstring, the string itself was nonexistent.

Bugger. But I didn’t have many other options. I’d just have to manually hold the waistband to keep them from falling off whenever Boone was in the room.

Juggling my wet clothes, phone, and the candle in one hand, while holding my pants up with the other, I made it back through the door and into the living room where the fire added happy orange light.

I stepped in—and as I was closing out the cold from the other part of the house, my pants slipped.

“Ah!” I shrieked.

I grabbed for my pants, dropping my wet clothes on the rug. The candle toppled soon after?—

—and it didn’t extinguish. Instead, the flames made friends with the rug’s fibers. The smell of burning fabric wafted to my nostrils.

That was all I needed—to start Boone’s cottage on fire.

I dove for it, losing my grip on the pants entirely. This time, they slipped down to my thighs. I spread my legs to stop them right as Boone rounded the corner of the kitchen.

“Whoa!” he said.

“Fire!” I called, mortified and panicked, torn between catching my pants and stomping on the small flames.

“I got it,” he said.

With another towel in hand, he dove for the flames eating the fibers of his rug. It was an Olympic effort, really. He landed on his elbows, flattening the beige towel with tattered edges, pounding his palm against the flames.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, making a mad grab for my waistline.

I yanked the red flannel up my legs while full-on embarrassment swept through me like a storm all of its own. “The pants were too big, and I couldn’t carry everything. I was trying to put my clothes by the fire, and I lost my grip?—”

Bent over the fire as though he worried it might start back up again, Boone’s gaze crept its way up my body to my face, which, for the record, was in the seventh level of the inferno.

I’d just flashed my zebra-striped panties at this man. Inadvertently, yes, but that didn’t change the fact that he just saw almost everything of my lower half that there was to see.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m sorry about the pants. I didn’t realize…”

His ears turned pink. He cleared his throat and looked away, pushing to his feet and leaving the towel on the floor.

“I’m so sorry about your rug. I never meant to drop that candle.”

“It’s okay.”

“That would have been so bad if you hadn’t stepped in. I can’t?—”

“Grace.”

“I’m so?—”

“Grace.” His voice elevated.

“It’s too bad my wet clothes didn’t fall on the candle. Who knew everything would catch that quickly?”

Boone rested his fingers on my lips. The touch was soft but insistent. My frantic railings died off, and I lifted my boggling eyes to him, completely taken aback.

He was standing so close to me. He swallowed, and instead of removing his hand, he shifted it and scaled his thumb across my bottom lip. The touch sent tingles all down my body.

A trace of vulnerability flickered in his eyes. He stared at my mouth for several seconds, his eyes darkening.

The heat gathering between us was unbearable, but I’d lost the ability to move. It seized my breath in my lungs and froze every joint I had into place.

“It’s just a rug,” he said in a gravelly tone.

That sound may as well have been a stick stoking the embers of the flames currently stirring in my belly and sending heat through me all over again.

“I’m not attached to it. Let me see if I can find something else that might work better for you.”

Lowering his hand, he again turned and made for the door to the cold part of the cottage. When he was gone, I bent for my wet clothes, but as I gathered them up, it felt like I needed to collect my wits as well.

Boone had stroked my mouth. He’d looked at me with desire in his eyes, with sweet vulnerability that I never would have imagined he possessed. Even though I was in warmer clothes, my bones were still chilled—and the memory of that moment was enough to melt every iceberg that had formed in my veins and keep my ship afloat .

I stared at the fire, at the towel, at the rug. What had just happened? And what was I going to do about it?