LITMIR.BIZ

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Iceberg, she remembered. The ethereal, aquamariney, underwater part. An old ache spread below her skin. She had never expected to look into those eyes again.

      Will tired of waiting for her answer and broke the spell by moving to the door and opening it wide. Two thick-coated dogs burst in and, behind them, a third. Before Kitty could do more than twist away from them, three more bounded into the room and immediately pounced on her. A seventh held back, lurking by the door.

      ‘Oh…!’

      Will barked their names but Kitty was far too busy protecting herself from the onslaught of their wet noses and tongues to pay attention to who was who.

      ‘You keep your dogs in the house?’ she cried out of surprise as their assault finally eased off.

      Those ice-blue eyes weren’t exactly defrosting as the snow on her blanket had. ‘You think that they should be out in the weather while you enjoy the comfort in here?’

      Well, things were getting off to a great start!

      ‘No, I…it’s just that you kept them outdoors in Nepal.’

      And winters there could be brutal, she was sure. She flinched as doggie claws scraped on her bare arms.

      ‘Churchill isn’t Nepal,’ Will grunted, then made a squeaking noise with his lips and six of the seven dogs happily mauling her immediately turned and grouped around his legs. The seventh needed some manual assistance from Will.

      As he reached around the dog to pull it back, his hand brushed her thigh where her summery skirt stopped. Her skin was too cold and numb even to feel it, let alone to blush at the unexpected contact, but her imagination was in no way impeded by the cold. If anything it was doing double duty standing here in this cabin with Will.

      ‘You’re freezing,’ Will observed, unhelpfully. ‘Not exactly dressed for the conditions.’

      A sense of injustice burbled up immediately, as strong as it had once before. Only this time she defended herself. ‘Actually, I was perfectly dressed for Zurich where I departed, and for Los Angeles where I should be stopping over by now.’

      Two tiny lines appeared between his brows. ‘You don’t have anything else to put on?’

      She shuffled her blanket more firmly around her and wished the fire would do its job more quickly.

      ‘Our luggage won’t be released until tomorrow.’ Assuming it hadn’t been damaged in the fire. As if to make his point, her body unhelpfully chose that moment to shudder from the chill.

      Those glacial eyes stared needles into her but then he broke the gaze by sweeping his thick sweater up over his head and tossing it gently to her. ‘Put this on, my body heat will help warm you faster. Tuck the blanket around your legs while I get you some socks. And stay by the fire.’

      The sweater he removed smelled exactly like the cologne she’d imagined him advertising before. With a healthy dose of man for good measure. Because he’d left the room again in search of emergency socks and because she could disguise it in tugging the thick sweater over her head, Kitty stole a moment to breathe his scent deeply in.

      Her eyelids fluttered shut against the gorgeous pain.

      All the progress she’d imagined she’d made in the years since Nepal evaporated into nothing as Will’s scent filled the spaces between her cells. She’d come to believe she’d fabricated her memory of that smell, but here it was—live and warm and heady—exactly as she remembered.

      Except better for the passage of five years.

      Like a good wine.

      ‘Folk at the airport must be in quite a spin,’ he grunted, returning to the room.

      She abandoned the blanket for as long as it took her to tug the large socks on and pull them almost to her knees. Between their heat from below, Will’s body heat soaking into her torso and the fire at her back, she finally started to feel the frigidity abating.

      From her skin, anyway.

      ‘Not a sight they’ve probably had before, I guess. The plane was bigger than the entire terminal.’

      ‘Oh, it’s happened before,’ Will said, easing himself down onto the edge of his dining table, across the small space. About as far back from her as he could be without leaving the room again. ‘Courtesy of being the best piece of concrete for a thousand miles.’

      Talking about airfields was a close second to talking about the weather. Awkwardness clunked between them like a bit of wood broken loose in the stove.

      ‘I’m grateful you can give me a bed,’ she finally said. ‘And that you remembered me.’

      Those eyes came up. ‘You thought I wouldn’t?’

      She swallowed against their blazing focus. ‘Wouldn’t remember me? Or wouldn’t help me out?’

      ‘Either.’

      Thought. Feared. Potato/potahto. ‘I wasn’t sure whether you’d say yes.’

      His grunt sounded much like one of the six dogs that had settled down into every available corner of the room. ‘And leave you to the bears?’

      She glanced back at him, though he seemed as far away now as Nepal was from this place. The only sounds in the cabin were the crackling of the wood stove and the wide yawn of one of his canine brood. Neither did much to head off her sleepiness.

      ‘So, where should I…?’

      That seemed to snap him back to the present from whatever faraway place he’d gone. Remembering Marcella, she imagined.

      Sudden sympathy diluted her own tension.

      Will had lost so much.

      ‘Second door on the right,’ he said, standing aside to unblock her way. ‘Bathroom is across the hall. Go easy on the water use—I truck it in.’

      The irony of that in a region practically mired in water most of the time—

      She picked her way carefully through supine dogs but stopped just as her hand found the doorknob. ‘Seriously, Will. Thank you. I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping in a waiting room.’

      ‘I’m better than that, at least,’ he murmured, holding her gaze.

      No ‘you’re welcome’. Because she probably wasn’t—again. No ‘it’s lovely to see you again, Kit’, because it almost certainly wasn’t.

      Had she really expected open arms after the last conversation they’d ever had?

      Will sagged against the door the moment his unexpected guest closed it quietly behind her. How far did you have to go to outrun the past? Clearly, the top of the world still wasn’t far enough.

      Five years…

      Five long years and that time had compressed into nothing the moment Kitty Callaghan had stepped through his front door. The moment he’d answered his phone. His heart hadn’t stopped hammering since then. Maybe he should have just let it ring, but he’d recognised the number and he knew that the airport wouldn’t have called him at this time of night without very good reason.

      It had never occurred to him that the reason would be her.

      ‘Shove up, Dexter,’ he murmured nudging the big brown male blocking access to his favourite chair. The dog grumbled but shifted, only to whomp down with exaggerated drama a few feet away, and Will sank down into his pre-loved rocker.

      Old man’s chair, the woman who’d sold it to him had joked.

      Yup. And if he had his way he’d still be rocking gently in it by a roasting fire when he’d been in the north long enough to earn that title.

      Just him and his dogs… As it was supposed

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