Free Love Story for a Snow Princess (Siren Publishing Classic) by Beth D. Carter

stairs.
    At first her knocks went unheeded, so she banged harder. The door was abruptly opened by a disheveled looking Paden who only blinked at her a few times, as if testing if she was a figment of his imagination.
    “If you don’t mind,” she said, trying hard to keep her teeth from chattering, “it’s cold out here.”
    He didn’t say anything as he stepped back to allow her to enter. He closed the door with a solid thump behind her.
    A fireplace blazed with warmth through the barren room. She saw stairs off to the left behind a glass door, leading to a brightly lit loft. She couldn’t see what was up there but the lack of decoration or even furniture gave the whole scene a touch of surrealism. The front room extended into a large, modern kitchen, with a huge island and open floor plan that segued into the dining room. A hallway extended past with several closed doors beyond that.
    As the warmth of the fire and the house seeped into her, she slowly took off her coat, gloves, scarf, and goggles.
    “What are you doing here, Thea? And whose snowmobile is that?”
    “Miki let me borrow Hank’s. I wanted to check on you, since you’ve not been in for three days. I was, um, a little worried.”
    He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and she focused on the absence of the bandage on his arm. A long red line had already started to scab over.
    “I’m fine. I’ve just been working on deadline.”
    She blinked and brought her eyes up to meet his gaze. “Oh! I didn’t realize. Well, I guess I should, um, go?”
    He raised an eyebrow to her question then abruptly pulled her into his arms to lean his cheek against the top of her head.
    Her heart jumped into overdrive as she snuggled into his arms, content for the first time in three days. She closed her eyes and simply sank into him. He felt solid, strong. She snuggled into his embrace, loving how protected she felt. She had missed this.
    “You shouldn’t worry about me, Thea.”
    “Don’t you like someone worrying about you?”
    He was silent for a moment. “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-three.”
    “I’m thirty-five.”
    “So?”
    “I came to Alaska to be alone.”
    “From where?”
    He pulled away to stare at her. His fingers swept away some stray hair from her cheek. He rubbed a patch of skin near her temple, his fingertips brushing lightly in soft caresses. She leaned into his touch, wanting more, wanting so much more of him than mere feathery strokes. But the moment was lost when he dropped his hand and turned away to go into the kitchen. She followed, sitting on one of the barstools at the island. He pulled a beer from the refrigerator and held another out to her, one eyebrow raised. She shook her head. He put it back then popped the top on his and leaned a hip against the counter.
    “I’m from Miami.”
    She blinked, confused by the randomness of the answer to a question she had forgotten she’d asked. “Oh, right. Where you’re from. Wow, I hadn’t pictured you from Florida.”
    “People can’t help where they’re born,” he replied in a cryptic, cutting tone. His lips were a bitter slant of amusement. “You said you lived on the ocean. Which one?”
    “Pacific. I grew up in Malibu.”
    “You didn’t want to stay in the place you knew so well?”
    “That was the reason why I had to leave. Did you design this home yourself?” she asked, changing the topic swiftly.
    “I picked out the design, and it was built for me. I’m not much of a decorator, as you can see,” he replied, waving his hand toward the great room.
    “You work upstairs?”
    He nodded. “What did you do before you came to Alaska?”
    “I was studying to be a teacher,” she said softly. “Elementary grade.”
    “You still want to be a teacher?”
    She shrugged. “Someday, maybe. I don’t know.”
    They fell silent as he drank his beer. He watched her, studying her, making her nervous and excited at the same time. But she held