Christmas On Crimson Mountain

That’s how it worked with writers, right? A quiet cabin in the woods, an idyllic setting to get the creativity flowing. What Connor understood, but wouldn’t admit, was that his inability to write came from the place inside him that was broken. There was simply nothing left, only a yawning cavern of guilt, regret and sorrow. Emotions he couldn’t force himself to mine for words to fill a manuscript, even one that was seven months past due.

He shut the laptop and headed downstairs, the scent coming from the kitchen drawing him forward. That was as unexpected as everything else about April Sanders, since food was no longer something from which Connor derived pleasure. He ate for energy, health and to keep his body moving. He didn’t register flavor or cravings and lived on a steady diet of nutrition bars and high-protein meals that were bland and boring.

Nothing about April was bland or boring, a realization that fisted in his gut as she turned from the stove when he walked into the room.

“How’s the writing going?” she asked with a smile, as if they were friends. She wore a long-sleeved shirt that revealed the curve of her breasts and waist, with a pair of black yoga pants that hugged her hips. April was slim, with the natural grace of a dancer—someone aware of her body and what it could do. Her hair was still pulled back, but the pieces that had escaped to frame her face were curlier than before.

“I could hear the kids playing outside,” Connor said, and watched her smile fade. This was who he was now, a man who could suck the warmth out of a room faster than an arctic wind.

“We stayed on the far side of the caretaker’s cabin and the girls weren’t loud,” she answered, pulling a plate from a cabinet.

“I still heard them.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Were you pressing your ear to the window?”

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Not his ear, but he’d held his fingertips to the glass until they burned from the cold. The noise had been faint, drifting up to him only as he’d strained to listen. “Why were they outside? It’s freezing up here.”

“Shay wanted to play in the snow.” April pulled a baking tray out of the oven and set it on the stove top. “They’re from California so all this snow is new for them.”

“Join the club,” he muttered, snapping to attention when she grabbed a foil-wrapped packet on the tray and bit out a curse.

She shook out her fingers, then reached for a pair of tongs with her uninjured hand.

He moved closer. “You need to run your fingers under cold water.”

“I’m fine,” she said, but bit down on her lower lip. “Have a seat and dinner will be—”

He flipped on the faucet as he came to stand next to her. Before he could think about what he was doing, Connor grabbed her wrist and tugged her the few feet to stand in front of the sink. He couldn’t seem to stop touching this woman. He pushed up her sleeve and positioned her hand under the cold water from the faucet. “If the burn is bad enough, it will blister your fingertip.”

“I wasn’t thinking, but I’m not hurt,” she said softly, not pulling away.

She was soft against him, the warmth of her both captivating and an irritation against the shell he’d wrapped around himself. She smelled subtly of lavender, and Connor could imagine April standing in a field of it in the south of France, her red hair a beautiful contrast to the muted purple of the plants. Fanciful thoughts for a man who’d become rigid in his hold on reality.

“It’s better to be safe.”

He didn’t want to examine why he kept his grasp on her wrist and why she didn’t pull away. She wasn’t going to blister—the burn from the foil was a surface injury at most. That meant... He met her gaze, gentle and understanding, then jerked away as if he’d been the one scalded by the heat.

“What do you know about me?” he asked through gritted teeth.

She took a moment to answer, turned off the tap and dried her hand before looking up to him. “Only what I’ve read in old news reports.”

Gripping his fingers on the edge of the granite counter, he forced himself to ask, “And what did they tell you?” He’d purposely not read any of the press after the crash.

“Your wife and son were with you during the promotional tour for your last book release three years ago. There was a car accident on the way to an event—another driver crossed the median and hit you head on—they were both killed.”

“We all should have died in that wreck,” he whispered.

“You were thrown from the car. It saved your life.”

She didn’t dispute his observation, which he appreciated. Part of why he’d initially cut so many people out of his life after the accident was that he couldn’t stand hearing any more theories about why he’d lived while Margo and Emmett had died. That it was fate, a greater plan, some universal knowing to which he wasn’t yet privy.

Connor knew it was all nonsense. If there had been any sense in the tragedy, it would have been for him to perish while his beautiful wife and innocent son survived. Anything else was blasphemy as far as he was concerned.

“Unfortunately, it did,” he agreed, wanting to shock her. He’d spent hours wishing and praying for his own death in the months after the accident. His whole reason for living had been stolen from him, and he hadn’t been strong enough to save either his wife or son. He’d wallowed in grief until it had consumed him. The pain had become a part of his makeup—like another limb or vital organ—and it pushed away everyone and everything that didn’t make it stronger.

Eventually, the grief had threatened to destroy him, and Connor had shut it down, his will to live stronger than his wish to die. But in excising the pain, he’d had to cut out other parts of himself—his heart, the connections he had to anyone else in the world who he might fail with his weakness. Perhaps even his creativity. The ability to weave stories was so much a part of him that he’d taken the gift for granted. Except, now it was gone, and he had no idea how to get it back.

The feel of April brushing past pulled him from his thoughts. She placed a plate of food on the table at the one place setting and bent to light the candle that sat in the center of the table.

“That’s not necessary,” he told her, his voice gruff.

“I light candles for all the guests.” She straightened. “Would you like wine with your meal?”

“Water, but you don’t have to serve me.”

“Actually, I do,” she said with a wry half smile. “It’s my job, and I’m good at it.”

“Why aren’t you asking me questions about the accident?”

She studied him for a moment, a hint of pink coloring her cheeks. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“That’s why,” she said simply, and walked back to the kitchen to fill a glass from the water dispenser in the refrigerator.

The fact that she wasn’t pushing him made Connor want to tell her more. As soon as people started asking questions, whether it was his editor, the therapist his publisher had hired, or one of his sisters or his mother, Connor shut down.

Yet the need to share details of the nightmare that had defined his recent life with April was almost overwhelming in its intensity. His chest constricted, an aching reminder of why he kept silent. To talk about Margo and Emmett was to invite pain and sorrow back into his life. Connor couldn’t do that and continue to function.

“I’m going to check on the girls,” she told him after placing the water on the table. “I’ll be back in a few minutes—”

“What if I want you to stay while I eat?”

She paused, meeting his gaze with those big melty chocolate eyes. There was something in them he didn’t understand, not pity or wariness as he would have expected. It looked almost like desire, which he couldn’t fathom. He had nothing to offer a woman like April, someone so full of light and peace. The darkness inside him would blot her out, muting her radiance until she was nothing. That’s how the darkness worked, he’d realized, and there was little he could do to stop it.

“Then I’ll stay,” she said.

He let a sneer curl his upper lip. “Because it’s your job?”

She didn’t blink or look away. “Because you asked me.”

A lightning-quick bolt of emotion passed through him, forcing him to take a step back when all he wanted to do was move closer to her. The unfamiliarity of that urge was enough to have him piling the silverware and napkin on the plate, then picking it up along with the glass. “I’m going to eat in my room. I have work to do on an important scene for the book.”

“You can leave your plate outside the bedroom door,” she said in that same gentle voice. What would it take to rattle a woman like April? “I’ll clean it when I get back.”

“Fine,” he said, purposely not thanking her or acknowledging the effort she’d put into the meal that smelled better than anything he’d eaten in ages. His rudeness was another shield, and he’d need as many as he could create to resist the things April made him feel.

Chapter Three (#udac9bcac-cf99-5439-9fb5-561fd171eee9)