Saving Mr. Bell

Chapter Seven

Rudolf

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’d embraced my incarceration, but like Arlo had pointed out, there was no escaping it until the weather cleared. So it was rage against it or make the best out of a bad situation. And all raging against it had achieved the previous day, was to bring me closer to wolves than I’d ever dreamed possible, and to give me a sneak preview of what hypothermia might feel like.

Besides, I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t had to field calls from Jade and a million other people, most of them either wanting something from me, or keen to voice their disapproval over something I’d done, was about to do, or hadn’t done. There were far too many people in my life with opinions who weren’t afraid to air their views.

Where would they think I’d gone? I’d told Jade just before Arlo had grabbed my phone that I was in a car. The nightclub must have had cameras. Would they check CCTV and see me getting into Arlo’s car? Would they look for it? Or would they assume I was just up to my usual tricks and had gone home with someone? That we were screwing each other’s brains out, and I’d re-emerge in a couple of day’s time. I wasn’t sure which of those scenarios would be preferable, but either way, eventually, they’d realize something was up. The question was whether they’d care.

“Rudolf?”

I took one last look at myself in the mirror. I’d helped myself to a pair of Arlo’s sweatpants and a T-shirt. Both were a little large on me, but nothing baggier than someone might choose to wear, anyway. I’d scraped my hair back off my face and I’d left my feet bare, the cabin warm and cozy enough for socks not to be required.

“Are you expecting me to bring you breakfast in bed?”

“You should,” I shot back. “It’s the least you should do.” I might be resigned to my plight, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t remind Arlo every chance I got that I was here under duress, my stay as temporary as I could make it. As soon as the weather cleared and enough of the snow melted, he could drive me back to Salzburg and I could get on with my life.

He appeared in the bedroom's doorway and I met his gaze in the mirror as he studied me. “Why do you look better in my clothes than I do?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you’re fishing for compliments, you kidnapped…” His expression had me self-correcting before he could get his knickers in a twist about me flinging that word out there again. “…you borrowed the wrong man.”

“Borrowed?” Arlo’s lips twitched. “You make yourself sound like a cup of sugar.”

I winked. “Well… I can be quite sweet.” Shit! Was I flirting? Did I want to flirt with Arlo? He wasn’t my usual club bunny twink with gym-honed muscles, but there was no disputing him being good-looking. Arlo was more your classically handsome male with chestnut brown hair, blue eyes and symmetrical features all rounded off with good bone structure. Would he flirt back?

“I just came to say your breakfast is getting cold.”

That was it? I flirted with him and that’s what I got. It was probably as well, but it rankled. It might be a tad egotistical of me, but I was used to more of a reaction. Whether because of my looks, my fame, or a combination of the two.

After the fry-up yesterday, breakfast was a healthier affair of home-made porridge, making me think the previous day’s had been a deliberate attempt to counteract some of the alcohol in my system. Which was… Well, it was damn thoughtful was what it was. It was good porridge, Arlo not bothering to hide his pleasure when I told him as much.

Once breakfast was done with, both of us happy to concentrate on eating rather than talking, I retired to the sofa while Arlo unpacked one of the boxes he’d pointed out the previous evening with a childlike enthusiasm far more charming than it had any right to be. “Do the stars of some of those hard-hitting documentaries of yours know you go giddy over glittery snowmen?”

Arlo lifted his head from his scrutiny of what was indeed a glittery snowman. A pink one at that, although there appeared to be blue ones as well. From what I could tell, it was a tree ornament. I decided not to spoil Arlo’s fun, as he held it between finger and thumb and watched it spin, by pointing out that there was no tree to hang it on. He was an intelligent man; he’d work it out eventually. It was possible an unopened box might contain one, but I doubted it, none of them big enough unless the tree was tiny. In which case, the hulking snowmen would dwarf it.

Arlo grinned. He had a nice smile. I’d thought so six years ago, and it hadn’t deteriorated since, probably because that wasn’t a thing with smiles. “Are you asking if I shared my love of tacky Christmas ornaments with the head of the mafia? Funnily enough, it never came up.”

“He was Italian,” I mused. “They’re big on family, right? I bet they really go for it at Christmas. You missed an opportunity there. You could have bonded and got him to admit some stuff that would have won you accolades.”

Arlo’s response was to throw the snowman at me. I snatched it out of the air one-handed and subjected it to scrutiny. Up close, it looked more classy than it had from a distance, and I could see why it had mesmerized Arlo, the sparkles catching the light. “My mother loved Christmas,” I said, unable to keep the note of melancholy out of my voice.

“I know, Rudolf Bell ,” Arlo said.

Yeah, my name was a nod to just how much she’d loved the festive period. Not the Bell part obviously, although it had crossed my mind that with her and my father being such polar opposites, that it was possible she’d married him for his surname. But definitely teaming a name already linked to Christmas because of a certain red-nosed sleigh-pulling creature with a surname that also had a link. And then, of course, there was my middle name. My middle name that no one in the world apart from my father and me, and possibly some other relatives, knew. Which made the next words out of my mouth, especially to someone who made his living by ferreting out facts from people, difficult to understand. “You should hear my middle name.”

Arlo dropped the miniature Christmas tree he held like it was a hot coal to stare at me like I’d just fed him the juicy tidbit to end all tidbits. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a Christmas-themed middle name as well.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“What is it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He shuffled closer, the boxes forgotten for the time-being. “Yeah, I would.” His brow furrowed, like he was thinking hard. “The notes I had on you when I was making the documentary never mentioned a middle name. I would have remembered.”

I smirked. “Well, there are certain things you swear everyone to secrecy about. As far as I’m concerned, when people ask, I don’t have one.”

“Interesting!” He narrowed his eyes. “I bet I can guess it.”

“I bet you can’t.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes taking on a hard glint that, despite it having been years since I’d last seen it, I recognized as his professional stance. “Angel?” I shook my head. “Holly?” Another shake. “Snow? Icicle?”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t that be more winter themed than Christmas?”

The suggestions came thick and fast after that until they bordered on things more ridiculous than the truth. Which was impressive, considering.

“Blitzen?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I drawled with a derision the suggestion deserved. “My middle name is the other twelve reindeer.”

“Imagine,” Arlo said with a laugh. “There wouldn’t be room on the birth certificate.” He gave a sigh. “I give up. Tell me.”

Now that the moment had come, I was having second and third thoughts about telling him. I shook my head. “You must have Stockholm syndromed me.”

“I think it takes longer than twenty-four hours.”

“Maybe you’re just really great at it.”

“I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or an insult.” Neither did I to be honest, so I settled for a shrug. Arlo returned to the boxes, looking thoughtful as he removed more objects from them. “What if I promise not to tell anyone?”

“You’d better not because if you do, I’ll know where it came from.” I took a deep breath. “Wenceslas. As in the good king.”

Arlo tried to keep a straight face, but it only lasted a couple of seconds before he gave in to his amusement. “Rudolf Wenceslas Bell,” he announced with some gravitas. “Now that is a doozy.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You are definitely one of a kind.”

Now I was the one unsure whether I was being complimented or insulted. Arlo picked something out of the box with a frown. “What?” I asked, my curiosity piqued, and keen to talk about something other than my name.

He held it up. “Nothing says Christmas like an elephant.”

I laughed. “The elephant in the room.” I wouldn’t get a better opening for something that had been on my mind ever since we’d arrived at the cabin and I’d realized Arlo’s intention for the two of us to stay here. “Speaking of which… I can’t imagine your husband is too happy about you being here.”

Arlo’s first reaction was surprise, like it was okay for him to know everything about me, but I wasn’t supposed to return the favor, even though he was in the public eye, too. His marriage might have come as a shock to the public, coming out of the blue as it had, but that had only meant more speculation, not less. The media had given a surprising amount of column inches in their gossip columns to theorizing how the two men had met, and how long they’d been seeing each other before they’d tied the knot, probably made worse because neither man had given an interview.

After surprise came a reflex movement of right hand to left, his fingers attempting to toy with a ring that wasn’t there. I’d already clocked its absence but had thought little of it. Some people chose not to wear one. The third reaction of a rigid back and tense shoulders clued me in on that probably not being the case. “It’s a valid question,” I pointed out to lessen the tension. “Most men wouldn’t be keen on their husband holing up in a cabin with another man. No matter how innocent their intentions might be. Don’t tell me you found a rare unicorn of a man who doesn’t get jealous, or I’ll be the one getting jealous. No wonder you married him so quick.”

My comments didn’t make things better. Instead, they made things worse, Arlo standing, like the contents of the boxes no longer held any interest for him and spending an inordinate amount of time dusting off jeans that didn’t need it. “We separated.”

“Oh?” I frowned. “That wasn’t in the newspapers.”

“No.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, marching into the bedroom and coming out with a pair of boots that he put on. After the boots came a scarf and then his coat, all donned in silence. I cracked first. “I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Then we don’t have to.” I might have said the words, but the way he’d clammed up only made me more curious. They’d only gotten married in February, which, given it was early December, meant it hadn’t even lasted a year. A separation didn’t mean it was over, though. They might just be giving each other space. Or something might have happened. Had one of them cheated? I couldn’t picture Arlo as the cheating type, but all I knew of his husband was that he was an actor, the two of them presumably meeting because they moved in similar circles. “You don’t have to leave the cabin to get me to stop talking. I am capable of realizing that I’ve put my foot in it and shutting up.”

Arlo managed a smile. “Good to know.”

“So, where are you going?”

“I thought you might fancy a wolf sandwich later and we’re missing the key ingredient.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you don’t want to answer, just say zip it, Rudolf.”

“Zip it, Rudolf.” He laughed when I narrowed my eyes at him. “We have tree ornaments, but we’re missing a tree.”

“And?”

“And there are loads out there.”

“Christmas trees?”

“Yep.”

Were there? I tried to remember from the previous day, but I hadn’t taken much notice of the trees except to note that there were far too many for my liking, and that they’d made seeing where I was going during my bid for freedom difficult. “And you’re what? Going to chop one down?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Do you have an axe?” The look Arlo gave me said that was too stupid a question for him to waste time answering. I changed my question. “Have you ever chopped a tree down before?” Arlo’s shrug wasn’t reassuring. “It’s a yes or no answer. There’s no I might have done, but I can’t remember. There’s no I started once, but then I got distracted and did something else instead.”

“Then, no, but how hard can it be?”

“If you have some nasty tree-related accident, where does that leave me?”

“Here. Alone. With a good story to tell.”

“I don’t even know where the car keys are.”

Arlo went over to the bureau at the side of the room. He pulled the drawer open and lifted a bunch of keys out. He jangled them for a few seconds and then dropped them back in the drawer and closed it. “There you go. Now you know where the car keys are in case I chop my leg off because I can’t tell the difference between that and a tree trunk.”

I stood. “I’m coming with you.”

Arlo’s gaze dropped slowly to my bare feet. “I get it. You didn’t give yourself frostbite yesterday, so you want another crack at it.”

“You said you had spare boots.”

“I do.”

“Do you have a spare coat?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then.”

“I don’t need supervising.” Arlo looked genuinely indignant at the accusation that he might.

“Can you carry a tree on your own?”

He sighed, but I could tell by his expression that I’d won the argument.