Snowed in with the Scoundrel, page 1
SNOWED IN WITH THE SCOUNDREL
KAT STERLING
Copyright © 2023 by Kat Sterling
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, organizations, events, and products are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and not to be construed as real.
To anyone who has ever questioned their worth.
You are more than enough.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Kat Sterling
CHAPTER 1
December 1908
When the seat of Tommy Solberg’s union suit flapped open in the howling wind, he knew his luck had officially run out. It wasn’t enough he’d already lost his horse and most of his clothing—the bare minimum required for safe passage through the Cascade Mountains in the dead of winter—now his dignity was gone as well.
“Damn you, Miss Wigglesbottom,” he shouted into the frozen, desolate forest.
He’d known the shrewd-eyed, garlic-breathed innkeeper’s daughter would land him in trouble. He’d heard tales of such young women who, aided by equally conniving mothers, sought to entrap affluent men traveling alone. Of course, had the Wigglesbottoms succeeded, they would have been sorely disappointed. Tommy was far from wealthy—he just had to look the part while he transported stolen goods. He’d learned at an early age the police were far less likely to question a man whose attire shouted I dine with the Rockefellers.
He’d been peacefully asleep when the daughter crawled into his bed. Thank Christ he slept in his union suit or she would have gotten an eye-full. But what he could not fathom was why neither the daughter nor the mother had let the innkeeper in on their plan. The graying, potbellied man surprised everyone by whipping pistols from his robe pockets and ordering Tommy to skedaddle. He fingered the bullet hole in the brim of his hat, a sobering reminder of how close he’d been to losing his noggin over a woman he would rather dropkick than tumble.
His only consolation was that he’d secured the oilskin containing the valuable first edition book before fleeing the inn. The cursed book that had been his impetus to enter the godforsaken mountains to begin with, a rumor whispered about in the bookshops of Seattle he hadn’t been able to ignore. The money obtained from its sale would provide the final payment needed to put his dream into action.
“One last job,” he grumbled as he tried in vain to cover his bare ass. The button holding the wool together was long gone, and the wind was vicious and unerring. “All I needed was oooone more.”
Six years of flawless thievery gone in a puff of snow powder. If he didn’t find shelter soon, it wouldn’t matter how many books he’d stolen or what he planned to do with the profits. He’d just be another frozen hunk of meat in an unforgiving land.
“Keep going.” His voice was growing thready and he strove to control his panic. “Think about all the hot toddies waiting for you at home. All the baths. All the—”
The ground beneath him collapsed.
He threw his weight forward, flinging both arms out as he fell. His torso collided with the edge of the pit. His legs dangled over empty space. Breath lodged in his throat, he dared not look down. Slowly, carefully, he wiggled his fingers through the snow. An exposed root scraped against his cold-stiff hand. He clutched it with relief, using it to haul himself from the pit. He rolled onto his back and drew great gasps of air.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered.
Fumbling at the buttons on the front of his union suit, he withdrew the oilskin and brought it close to his face. Somehow, it was undamaged. His gut must have taken the brunt of the fall. He staggered to his feet, teeth chattering like marbles in a tin can. Each indrawn breath of frigid air burned his nostrils. His toes were numb inside his boots. It didn’t matter that he’d avoided death by snow pit; his frosty clothes would finish the job soon.
“Now what?”
He squinted at the stark canvas of whites and grays around him. Perhaps he was delusional, but it was quite beautiful. Snow glistened on splashes of evergreen. Branches creaked and swayed in an eerie symphony. Muted sunlight cast an ethereal glow on the slope of a rooftop in the distance.
He blinked. Rubbed his eyes.
It was a rooftop.
He staggered forward, his boots sliding clumsily through the snow. The structure came into view. It was not a hunter’s shack, but a cabin of the finest timber, clever woodwork adorning the eaves and railings. Two matching windows graced the front of the cabin and a chimney ascended from the roof in a blend of rich, earth-toned stones. He must have stumbled across one of the retreats belonging to Washington’s elite.
He pounded on the door with an aching fist. “Anybody home?”
Silence.
He lurched to the window and pressed his nose to the glass. Strange shapes blocked his view of the dark interior. But it was dark. No smoke rose into the sky. He stepped backward, then flinched as an avalanche of snow and rocks fell from the rooftop and filled the space he had been occupying.
There was no doubt about it. Nature had it out for him.
He hurried to the door and shouted, “Last chance. I’m coming in.”
The handle turned easily, and the door swung open with a low squeak. He eased his way inside. Something whispered against the back of his head and he ducked with a curse. He chanced a look upward, steeling himself against finding a ceiling enveloped in cobwebs.
He straightened, mouth agape. Hand-cut paper snowflakes dangled on strings, rotating slowly in the disturbed air like a snowstorm suspended in time. He shut the door and stepped farther inside. Wreaths of twisted vines and dried flowers framed the windows, and holly decorated mounted antlers on the far wall. A small Christmas tree sat in the corner of the room, covered in delicate glass baubles and popcorn garland.
Faint traces of an aromatic stew hung in the air, cut with a harsh chemical smell that Tommy couldn’t place. A plain screen blocked a corner of the room, and its strange placement gave him pause. It reminded him of a setup he’d once seen in a photographer’s studio, but that would be unlikely out there in the wilderness.
Then he saw the bed.
Not a hunter’s cot, but a real bed. The solid oak frame was covered with an absurd amount of patchwork quilts and plaid flannel blankets, even a sheepskin fleece. Plump pillows lined the headboard while others were scattered carelessly across the bed. It beckoned to him with promises of a profound, healing sleep.
Barely believing his good fortune, he placed the oilskin on a nearby table and set to removing his clothing. He closed his eyes in bliss as he draped a warm, thick fur over his bare shoulders. Hugging it close, he squatted before the fireplace. The firewood rack was nearly depleted, unusual for the inclement weather. Whichever eccentric owned the cabin must have recently departed. Surely, they wouldn’t begrudge him a life-saving fire.
As the small flame slowly suffused the cabin with warmth, he used his remaining energy to clean up after himself. He carefully draped his union suit over a chair and moved his boots to the stone hearth. The wet marks on the floor where he’d walked around also had to go.
At last, trembling with exhaustion and relief, he crawled into the bed. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he buried his face in a pillow to stifle a groan. He’d come too close to losing everything. Too close to death.
He adjusted the blankets around him, sifting through them until he found a soft flannel that smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. The comforting scent eased the tension from his muscles, and he tucked the cloth close to his face.
“Get warm,” he ordered himself, his words slurring. “Get energy. Get back to Seattle.”
Then he fell into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER 2
Miss Imogen Radford glowered at the large boot prints leading to the hand-carved door of her family’s hunting cabin. Boot prints that continued over the threshold and into her private sanctum, the one place available for her to stew in a vat of well-earned misery.
“Haven’t I dealt with enough lately?”
Jilted by her fiancé—check. Lackluster reception at her first photography exhibition—check. Artistic block and crippling self-doubt ever since—check.
And now an intruder.
Whoever it was, they’d better be bleeding. Sore at the very least. She and her Aunt Judith hadn’t spent hours setting booby traps around the perimeter of the cabin for nothing. That had been part of their agreement: Judith would stay in the nearby town and give Imogen time to sulk in privacy and rediscover her muse. But only as long as she stayed within the confines of their protective traps and returned to Seattle in January. The alternative—attending a slew of holiday parties hand-selected by her parents that would surely be equal parts mortifying and insufferable—had her leaping headlong into accepting Judith’s terms.
“Prepare. For. Pain.” Each whispered word was punctuated by a quick jab into the icy afternoon air.
Well, more like awkward thrusts.
She tried once more, then shrugged. It was hard to make proper fists while wearing thick wool mittens. Besides, what were fists compared to her aunt’s prized Remington double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun?
The intruder wouldn’t know Imogen had never fired it in her life.
She quickly removed her mittens and unhooked the leather strap securing the abhorrent thing across her back. She hefted it to her shoulder with both hands, then nudged the door open with the toe of her brown leather boot.
“Hello? Is someone there?” The wobble in her voice made her wince, so she squared her shoulders before adding, “I’m armed.” She shuffled inside, the shotgun aimed upward, her pointer finger curled around the trigger as her aunt had showed her.
No movement but the tremble of the barrel in front of her.
No sound but her own half-swallowed gasps and the muffled crunch of snow where her boots met the wooden floor.
She pirouetted in a slow circle, each new frame of empty space easing the tightness in her chest. The photography equipment appeared untouched, the bed was still the same chaotic jumble of all her favorite blankets—
No. Not the same.
A man lay sprawled in her cozy den. A head covered in bright red hair rested on her goose-down pillow. Pale, freckled—and, dash it all, gorgeously muscled—shoulders peeked from the cocoon of wool and flannel. And was that...? Yes, her nightgown was tucked under his chin as if he’d cuddled it in his sleep.
Unacceptable.
She closed her eyes and called forth the voice of righteous indignation her mother used on gardeners who didn’t properly prune her roses. On her only daughter who preferred doing things her own way.
A ragged snore ricocheted through the silent room like a gunshot. Imogen jumped, every muscle in her body tightening at once. The ensuing explosion—an actual gunshot this time—was deafening.
She flew backward into a chair with a pained grunt before toppling over. The shotgun skidded across the floor, and a pile of fabric—clothing she’d meant to organize—tumbled from the chair and buried her lower half. Splintered wood chips rained down from the fresh hole in the ceiling, and one of her carefully cut paper snowflakes lost its grip on the rafters and fluttered down to land on her face. She lay stunned, her worldview shrunk to the size of a diamond-shaped pinhole.
“Ouch,” she whispered.
The man flailed about in the blankets, his loud curses filling the room, and then two feet thudded to the floor.
“What the—who the—where are you?”
Imogen twitched her nose and a new view, hexagonal now, revealed a man spinning in a tight circle, a hand clutched over his heart.
Dear God, had she shot him? She thrust into a seated position. The snowflake didn’t budge, somehow stuck in the flyaway hairs at her forehead. She raised both hands to untangle it and called, “Are you hurt?”
The spinning man stopped and faced her. “Should I be?”
The snowflake crumpled in her fist at his tone. It was the same incredulous tone her fiancé had used when she revealed she had no plans to relegate her profession to a hobby once they married. Yanking the snowflake free, she opened her mouth to deliver a much-needed skewering.
“Listen here, you vile intruder—glug.”
Imogen lost her train of thought. She was far too busy staring at the very attractive—and very naked—man illuminated by the fading light shining through the window. She skipped his profile, surely a waste of time when she only had seconds before he covered up. She started at his wide shoulders and worked her way down, devouring him inch by inch. As an artist, she’d seen her fair share of nude models. Had developed a reverence for the human form with all its perfect imperfections.
This man’s body robbed her of coherent speech.
His broad chest heaved with each deep breath, and his clenched hands hovered on each side of his abdomen. She ignored the threatening stance, too intrigued by the pronounced dips between each muscle. But what truly fascinated her were the freckles scattered over his body in random, intricate patterns. Two bands of freckles, dense as the Milky Way, started above the vees in his hips, curved around his groin, and ended mid-thigh.
Two celestial parentheses illuminating his crotch.
So she stared. How could she not?
His cock jutted from its nest of red-blonde curls. She was entranced by its slight upward curve. The man shifted on his feet, and his cock bobbed and dipped like it was waving hello.
She licked her very dry, very numb lips.
“Oh, I see,” she said faintly. “Danger arouses you.”
The man’s large hands shot forward to cover his cock. “Danger does not—I was—” He let out a growl like a bear denied its honey. “I was dreaming.”
“Dreaming about what? Your mother?”
The silence that followed was thicker than a church door.
On one very sane level, Imogen knew it was dangerous to taunt a naked man. Especially when her only means of defense was halfway across the room. But this man had invaded her space. And when had she ever done as expected? Her muscles coiled, ready to spring into action should the man move one hairy toe in her direction. Instead, he broke into boisterous laughter.
“I should have known the owner of this cabin would be a rare bird.”
Biting back her own smile, Imogen finally stopped staring at the man’s solid thighs and met his gaze. An instant later, the room went fuzzy at the edges and her fingers flew to her parted lips.
It had been years since she’d last seen those brilliant blue eyes, but she’d know them anywhere. They belonged to the boy who’d chased away the cruel children teasing her when she was ten years old. The boy who picked her book out of the mud and asked her what it was about. The boy who turned out to be the son of the new hired help, and who had transformed her lonely existence into something exhilarating. Who had been her best friend for six, wonderful years…until he’d broken her heart.
“Tommy?”
The man’s good humor evaporated like water hissing on a hot iron. “Move forward,” he barked. “Show your face.”
Shoving to her feet, she resisted the temptation to smooth her rumpled hair or straighten her crooked coat. If there was one person on earth she needn’t bother to impress, it was Tommy. He’d see right through the attempt, anyway. She lifted her chin and stepped into the light.
“Imogen?”
Her stomach somersaulted at the thread of hope in his voice. “It’s me.”
His teeth worried at his full bottom lip as he continued to stare. The familiar, unconscious habit comforted her. Perhaps a glimmer of the boy she’d known—and loved—had survived after all this time. At last, his lips twisted into a half smile.
“Looks like you finally grew into those big eyes of yours.”
So that’s how he wanted to play their reunion. It didn’t really surprise her. Tommy had always shied away from discussing the harder things in life. Glossed right over them like a polished marble floor. As tempted as she was to flay him open, she would oblige. It would be a nice break from sobbing into her mountain of pillows.
“Too bad I can’t say the same about your ears.”
He barked out a laugh. “Diabolical as ever. That much hasn’t changed since I last saw you.”
The casual mention of one of the worst days of her life knotted her stomach. Her laugh was high pitched. “Goodness, I barely remember.”
Such acting deserved a medal.
“Yes, well…ahem.”
