Same Time, Next Christmas

The man glared down the barrel of that rifle at her. “What do you think you’re doing in my cabin?”

“I, um, I was on my way back to Portland from my father’s farm,” she babbled. “I parked at the fish hatchery and started hiking along the creek toward the falls. The rain came. It got so bad that I—”

“Stop.” He swung the business end of his rifle upward toward the loft. “Anyone upstairs? Do not lie to me.”

“No one.” He leveled the weapon on her again. “Just me!” she squeaked. “I swear it.” She waited for him to lower the gun. No such luck. The barrel remained pointed right at her. And, for some incomprehensible reason, she couldn’t quit explaining herself. “I was hiking and thinking, you know? The time got away from me. I’d gone miles before the rain started. It kept getting worse, which led me to the unpleasant discovery that my waterproof jacket is only water resistant. Then I found your cabin...”

“And you broke in,” he snarled.

Had she ever felt more naked? Highly unlikely. “I was just going to stand on the porch and wait for the rain to stop. But it only came down harder and I kept getting colder.”

“So you broke in,” he accused again, one side of his full mouth curling in a sneer.

Okay, he had a point. She had broken in. “I jimmied a window and climbed through,” she admitted with a heavy sigh.

Still drawing a bead on her, water dripping from his coat, he stepped beyond the threshold and kicked the door shut. Then he pointed the gun at her pack. “Empty that. Just turn it over and dump everything out.”

Eager to prove how totally unthreatening she was, Sabra grabbed the pack, unzipped it, took it by the bottom seam and gave it a good shake. A first-aid kit, an empty water bottle, a UC Santa Cruz Slugs hat and sweatshirt, and a bottle of sunscreen dropped out.

“Pockets and compartments, too,” he commanded.

She unhooked the front flap and shook it some more. Her phone, a tube of lip balm, a comb and a couple of hair elastics tumbled to the floor. “That’s it.” She dropped the empty pack. “That’s all of it.” When he continued to glare at her, she added, “Dude. It was only a day hike.”

“No gun.” He paced from one side of the cabin to the other. She realized he was scoping out the upstairs, getting a good look at whatever might be up there.

Apparently satisfied at last that she really was alone, he pointed the gun her way all over again and squinted at her as though trying to peer into her brain and see what mayhem she might be contemplating.

Hands still raised, she shook her head. “I’m alone. No gun, no knives, no nothing. Just me in my underwear and a bunch of soggy clothes—and listen. I’m sorry I broke in. It was a bad choice on my part.” And not the only one I’ve made lately. “How ’bout if I just get dressed and go?”

He studied her some more, all squinty-eyed and suspicious. Then, at last, he seemed to accept the fact that she was harmless. He lowered the rifle. “Sorry,” he grumbled. “I’m overcautious sometimes.”

“Apology accepted,” she replied without a single trace of the anger and outrage the big man deserved—because no longer having to stare down the dark barrel of that gun?

Just about the greatest thing that had ever happened to her.

As she experienced the beautiful sensation of pure relief, he emptied the shells from his rifle, stuffed them in a pocket and turned to hang the weapon on the rack above the door. The moment he turned his back to her, she grabbed her Slugs sweatshirt and yanked it on over her head.

When he faced her again, he demanded, “You got anyone you can call to come get you?” She was flipping her still-damp hair out from under the neck of the sweatshirt as he added, “Someone with four-wheel drive. They’ll probably need chains or snow tires, too.” When she just stared in disbelief, he said, “That frog strangler out there? Supposed to turn to snow. Soon.”

A snowstorm? Seriously? “It is?”

He gave a snort of pure derision. “Oughtta check the weather report before you go wandering off into the woods.”

Okay, not cool. First, he points a gun at her and then he insults her common sense. The guy was really beginning to annoy her. Sabra had lived not fifteen miles from this cabin of his for most of her life. Sometimes you couldn’t count on the weather report and he ought to know that. “I did check the weather. This morning, before I left on my way to Portland. Light rain possible, it said.”

“It’s Oregon. The weather can change.”

His condescending response didn’t call for an answer, so she didn’t give him one. Instead, she grabbed her still-soggy pants and put them on, too, wishing she’d had sense enough to keep driving right past the sign for the fish hatchery. A hike along the creek to the falls had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to lift her spirits a little, to clear her troubled mind before going on back to Portland to face finding a new apartment during the remaining two weeks and two days of her vacation from work—a vacation that was supposed to have been her honeymoon.

The big guy grunted. “And you didn’t answer my question. Got anyone you can call?”

“Well, let me see...” Her mom had been dead for six years now. Her dad was three hours away in Eugene until New Year’s. Five days ago, on the day before she was supposed to have gotten married, she and her ex-fiancé had called it quits for reasons too upsetting to even think about at the moment. And she just wasn’t ready to ask any of her Portland friends to drive eighty miles through a blizzard on the day before Christmas Eve to save her from a stranger with a bad attitude in an isolated cabin in the middle of the forest. “No. I don’t have anyone to call.”

The big guy did some swearing. Finally, he muttered, “Let me get my tree in here and I’ll drive you wherever you need to go.”

Get outta town. Mr. Grouchy Pants had a tree? She was almost as surprised as when he’d kicked open the door. “Uh, you mean you have a Christmas tree?”

His scowl deepened. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”

She put up both hands again. “It’s just, well, you don’t seem like the Christmas-tree type.”

“I like Christmas.” He narrowed his blue eyes at her. “I like it alone.”

“Gotcha. And thank you—for the offer of a ride, I mean. If you can get me to my car at the fish hatchery, I can take it from there just fine. As for the tree, I’ll help you bring it in.”

“You stay here. I don’t need you.”

“Good to know.” She tugged on her socks and boots and not-quite-waterproof jacket as he pulled a tree stand out from under the sink, filled it with water and put it down near the door—and now that she wasn’t terrified half out of her wits, she noticed that he was limping.

His right pants leg was torn up, hanging in tatters to the knee. Beneath the tatters, she could see a bit of bloody bandage—a very bloody bandage, actually, bright red and wet. It looked like he was bleeding into his boot.

He straightened from positioning the tree stand and took the three steps to the door.

She got up. “Do you know that you’re bleeding?” He didn’t bother to answer. She followed him outside. “Listen. Slow down. Let me help you.”

“Stay on the porch.” He growled the command as he flipped up the hood of his jacket and stepped out into the driving rain again. “I’ll bring my Jeep to the steps.”

She waited—because, hey. If he didn’t want her help, he wasn’t going to get it. Still, she felt marginally guilty for just standing there with a porch roof over her head as she watched him limp off into the downpour.

He vanished around the first turn in the road. It was getting dark. She wrapped her arms across her middle and refused to worry about that bloody bandage on his leg and the way he walked with a limp—not to mention he’d looked kind of flushed, hadn’t he? Like maybe he had a fever in addition to whatever was going on with that leg...

Faintly, she heard a vehicle start up. A moment later, a camo-green Jeep Rubicon rolled into sight. It eased to a stop a few feet from the steps and the big guy got out. She pulled up her hood and ran down to join him as he began untying the tree lashed to the rack on the roof.

He didn’t argue when she took the top end. “I’ll lead,” was all he said.

Oh, no kidding—and not only because he was so damn bossy. It was a thick noble fir with a wide circle of bottom branches that wouldn’t make it through the door any other way.

He assumed the forward position and she trotted after him, back up the steps and into the warmth of the cabin. At the tree stand, he got hold of the trunk in the middle, raising it to an upright position.

She crouched down to guide it into place and tighten the screws, sitting back on her heels when the job was done. “Okay. You can let it go.” He eyed her warily from above, his giant arm engulfed by the thick branches as he gripped the trunk. His face was still flushed and there were beads of moisture at his hairline—sweat, not rain, she would take a bet on that. “It’s in and it’s stable, I promise you,” she said.

With a shrug, he let go.

The tree stood tall. It was glorious, blue-green and well shaped, the branches emerging in perfectly balanced tiers, just right for displaying strings of lights and a treasure trove of ornaments. Best of all, it smelled of her sweetest memories, of Christmases past, when her mom was still alive. Ruth Bond had loved Christmas. Every December, she would fill their house at Berry Bog Farm with all the best Christmas smells—evergreen, peppermint, cinnamon, vanilla...

“Not bad,” he muttered.

She put away her memories. They only made her sad, anyway. “It’s a beauty, all right.”