Snowbound with the Santas (Forbidden Fantasies)

10. Archer

10

ARCHER

“ W e can’t take her.”

Nick and Frankie look at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“We can’t leave her here,” Nick replies, glancing at Rayne as she slowly resumes eating. “It’s not safe for someone to be here alone.”

I refrain from telling him that I’ve done it plenty of times before because that’s a discussion I don’t want to get into. Frankie’s sorrowful expression the first time he learned I locked myself away here for half the year still haunts me all these years later.

“It’s too dangerous. Hiking in that snow, up that mountain, with her leg?” I fight to keep my attention away from Rayne and on Nick. “It’ll fuck up her leg even more.”

“I don’t know,” Frankie pipes up. “It looks pretty good. As long as we’re careful, I think we could manage.”

“She hobbled in here like an invalid.” This time, I do look at her. “No offense.”

“None taken.” Her striking, crystal blue eyes lock briefly on me, and I’m jolted back to last night. Standing in the unforgiving light of that bathroom, she looked so small and frail, so far from her family, tossed into our world because she was running from something.

I know people, and I’m not entirely convinced she even wants to go back.

“Maybe,” Frankie says with a soft sigh. “But leaving her here is an even worse idea.” He stares at me, and I know what he’s thinking because the same plan is in the back of my mind even if I don’t like it.

“Can one of us stay?” Nick asks, tossing the dregs of his coffee into the sink.

“We need three to access the tower,” Frankie says. “Plus, if there’s a disaster here when she’s alone, we wouldn’t know until it was too late. Same if something happened to us on the hike. She’d be left here with no clue.”

He’s right. I hate that he’s right, but we have no choice. She can’t come with us and she can’t stay here.

Which means we somehow have to take her with us and hope for the best.

“I don’t mind staying,” Rayne says finally, scraping the remains of her bowl. “If it’s too dangerous to go, I’m more than happy to stay. I saw you have lots of books, so I can just read.”

“And if the power goes out?” I snap slightly. “If the storm comes and blocks you in? How will you break the ice in the water pump? What will you do for food?”

“Archer,” Nick scolds sharply, cutting off my words before I can really get started.

Rayne frowns at me, then turns her attention to Frankie who cleans up her bowl.

I’m not trying to be a dick. I just need her to understand that it’s dangerous here. Just because we’re inside four sturdy walls doesn’t mean we’re safe from the will of the mountain, especially at this time of year.

“You can’t stay,” Nick decided, patting Rayne’s shoulder as he moves past her. “While it would be ideal, we’d have no way to contact each other if you needed help or if we ended up falling down the mountain.”

“Makes sense.” She nods.

“Staying together is best,” Frankie agrees, glancing at me with concern in his eyes.

I grit my teeth.

So be it.

“What about a sled?” Frankie asks. “We could get her up the mountain that way.”

“Oh, please, no.” Rayne chuckles. “I can walk. I don’t want to be a liability.”

“That’s stupid. You already are one. Walking risks making you a bigger one if you make that wound worse,” I say tightly.

“What’s stupid,” Rayne snaps suddenly as she locks eyes with me, “is being in the mountains closed off from everyone like fucking Santa Claus, so I guess you’re all as stupid as I am.”

The heat in her words sends a swirl of something tight across my gut. She switched from meek to fire within ten seconds, and I’m surprised. I didn’t think she had it in her.

Nick’s amused face only serves to piss me off, though, and I frown deeper.

“We can take the lower trail, then,” Nick says. “It’ll take us longer to reach the tower, and we’ll have to camp halfway, but we should still make it back before the storm hits. That’s all that matters.”

“Unless the second storm knocks us back to square one.” Frankie snorts, earning a swift shove from Nick.

“Don’t you fucking jinx us.”

With the decision made, Rayne heads back to her room with instructions from Frankie on how to use the shower.

“Hey.” Nick catches my elbow as I move toward the back door. “What’s got you so sour?”

“I’m not sour.”

“Yes, you are. Ever since we found her, you’ve been acting like she’s personally offended you or something.” Nick’s grip softens on my arm slightly and concern bleeds into his eyes. “Are you alright?”

There aren’t enough words to explain how I have never been alright. How my years are haunted by the men who died under my care, or how I couldn’t save any of them, and rescuing Rayne from the snow has brought it all back up like vomit.

I can’t express how much anxiety bleeds into my heart at the thought of putting her in any danger because the last people I tried to save ended up dead. And each step we take here with her risks her meeting the same fate.

I can’t find the words, and instead, Nick and I stare at each other in silence until he releases my arm.

“You’re not alone,” Nick says quietly. “Try to remember that.”

I brush him off and head outside.

The cold is painful but I embrace it as I trudge through the snow toward the generator. If we’re leaving for a day or two, I need to make sure this survives the cold.

As I check it over, my mind dwells on Rayne.

She’s… impossible.

A beautiful, gentle hiccup in my otherwise simple struggle for survival. Seeing her in the snow haunts me almost as much as my life before this, and my concern for her comes from a place of desperation.

That doesn’t make me a dick, does it?

Playing back the conversation and our interaction the night before, I can’t decide. I’ve never been one to beat about the bush about things, and I excel at keeping people at arm’s length.

Yet, I find myself wanting Rayne to look at me the soft way she looked at Frankie. I want to see those eyes lock on me with the same twinkle she has when she looks at Nick.

But I haven’t helped her. I haven’t patched her up or tended her wound. I dug her out of the snow, but she was unconscious and it hardly counts. How fucked up is it to crave gratitude from a stranger when such acts are supposed to be selfish?

Anger at myself suddenly pulses through my arms, hot and tight, so I focus on setting the generator to run hotter over the next two days and trudge back to the house.

Inside, Nick organizes the tents while Frankie packs the food. The pipes aren’t clunking, so Rayne must be out of the shower.

I head for my room and rummage through the old hiking gear I’ve collected over the years until I find a smaller set I purchased one year when Nick made the suggestion of inviting his ex-wife here one Christmas.

That never happened, thankfully. I’m sure I would have ended up on a hit list because of her for the shit she’s put Nick through, but I bought her gear just in case.

It should fit Rayne.

Clothes in hand, I grab one of my old support bandages and head to Rayne’s room. However, my thoughts are so jumbled about what to say to her that I stride into her room without thinking.

“Rayne,” I bark. “I brought you some?—”

“Archer!” Rayne spins to face me, and she slams her hands over her torso, trying to hide her almost-naked body from view. She stands in her underwear with red flushing over her cheeks and her eyes wide.

“Shit.” I immediately spin on the spot, turning my back to her. “I’m sorry. I thought you would have been dressed.”

“Don’t you knock?” Rayne gasps.

“It’s my cabin, and I don’t usually have naked women here.”

“Oh.” Rayne pauses and then she laughs softly. “You’re telling me there aren’t secret mountain women skulking around out there? Like Nymphs or something?”

“Fairy tales.”

“Hmm. Every fairy tale is based on reality. Like Santa.”

I stare hard at the wall, willing myself to drop the gear and stride from the room. I wait for her demands for me to do exactly that to spur me into action, but to my surprise, she doesn’t.

“You can turn around,” Rayne says. “You all pulled me from the snow, have patched me up more times than I can count. I’m not exactly shy.”

Slowly, I turn to face her and avert my eyes the second I see that she’s still in her underwear. Black lace panties and a black bra that stands out stark against her golden skin.

I shouldn’t stare, but out of the corner of my eye, I can’t help but admire her. Her abdomen has some bruising, and her full breasts draw my attention each time she takes a breath. She places one hand on her hip and flashes me a smile.

“Are those for me?”

I glance down at the pile in my arms and then nod, quickly dumping them on the bed. “Should be more your size.”

“You have women's clothes here but no women?”

“They were for Nick’s ex, but the bitch never showed.”

“Bitch, huh?” Rayne lifts one brow. “Good to know. Is this your way of saying sorry?”

I fix her with a steady stare. “I have nothing to apologize for.”

“Oh, really?” Rayne crosses her arms over her chest, forcing her breasts to rise over her forearms. “So, you’re just a dick, then?”

She stares at me like she sees me. As if she sees beyond all the walls I’ve spent a decade crafting. Last night, I hadn’t considered she’d see my scars until the moment I turned my back on her.

“I won’t apologize for keeping you safe.”

“Careful, it almost sounds like you care.”

“The mountain is dangerous,” I say, fighting to keep my attention on her stunning eyes. “I don’t need the stress of picking up your slack.”

“You make it sound like this is my fault.” She glances down at her leg, which reminds me why I brought the support bandage.

“Speaking of.” I rummage through the hiking gear until I find it, then approach Rayne. She steps away from me until the bed hits the backs of her knees, and she sinks down onto it. I expect her to tell me to back off since there’s clearly friction between us, but she doesn’t say a word when I kneel before her.

“This is a support bandage. It’ll be tight and it will hurt at first, but it’ll help you walk better. Keeps everything tight… y’know?” A sudden flutter rustles through my stomach as I look up at her, and Rayne nods softly. Her long, black hair drifts across her shoulders, and I fight the urge to reach up and brush it away.

“Can I?”

“You ask to touch me, but not to enter my room?” Rayne smirks slightly. “You’re a strange man, Archer.”

I send her a withering look.

“Fine,” Rayne says, and she stretches out her injured leg to me.

My mouth is suddenly dry when I lightly touch her bare calf and place her foot against my thigh. It’s difficult to focus on unrolling the tubular bandage when miles of naked leg stretch before me. I force a deep breath, and Rayne smells like citrus, flooding my lungs. My stomach tightens as I caress her calf.

Sliding the bandage over her bare foot and ankle is easy. I’ve gauged enough that as the fabric grazes up her calf, it only begins to tighten at her knee.

I glance up at her, and words fail me. She’s watching me intently with her head cocked to the side. In just her underwear, she looks so beautiful. I want to touch her, to taste every inch of her and remind myself what the soft warmth of a woman feels like.

But I can’t.

Men like me don’t deserve someone so gentle.

“This will hurt,” I say gruffly. My fingertips skim past her knee to the shower-warmed skin of her thigh.

Rayne makes a soft noise, and I glance back up to see her jaw protruding as she grits her teeth. The tight bandage begins to catch against her thigh, and her foot slides to my crotch as I shift for a better angle.

Then her hands fly to my shoulders and she curls toward me just as I force the tight bandage further up her thigh and over her wound.

“Ahh!”

Her cry pulls my heart to my gut, and for a moment, we stay like that. She clutches at my shoulders and her breath rushes hot past my ear while she pants. The sole of her foot flexes slightly over my crotch. I swallow hard, waiting for Rayne to collect herself.

“Ow,” she murmurs finally.

“The pain will pass,” I assure her tightly.

“Mmhmm.” After a few deep breaths, Rayne leans backward. “Thanks.”

I pull my hands back, slide her foot back to the floor, and stand. “No problem. Make sure you put on all the layers.” I indicate toward the clothes and then flee the room as fast as I can.

I don’t stop moving until I’m back in the kitchen and can will away the tightening at my core. Just a few touches and I’m like a fucking teenager again. This isn’t the time or place for that.

Frankie and Nick are outside, laughing and joking about something I can’t hear, and just beyond them, the sun stretches into the sky.

This is… insane. Rayne is like some spirit here to test me. The Ghost of Christmas Temptation or something. And I want to give in. I want to run back in there and kiss her breathless until she never makes another noise of pain ever again.

But we’re strangers.

The sooner we get the tower fixed, the sooner we can send her back to where she came from, and the temptation will go with her.

I grab my rucksack from the table and stride outside, letting the biting cold chase away the heat Rayne left in my heart.

Until she steps outside half an hour later with a smaller rucksack in her hands and a broad smile on her face.

Just one look and I can feel her soft skin underneath my fingertips once more.

“Ready?” Nick beams, oblivious to my turmoil.

“As I’ll ever be,” Rayne replies. She glances at me and her smile widens.

Or that’s my imagination. I can’t decide.

“Enough time wasting,” I snap, turning on my heel. “Let’s go.”