brown leather bomber jacket that made him look sexy as hell…as usual. “I was here a couple of weekends ago and left something behind. I came to get it.”
“Were you alone?” The words had rushed out before she could hold them back and immediately she wanted to smack herself. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she cared…even if she did.
He hooked his thumbs in his jeans and continued to hold her gaze. “Would it matter to you if I weren’t?”
She couldn’t look at him, certain he would see her lie when she replied, “No, it wouldn’t matter. What you do is none of my business.”
“That’s what I thought.” And then he walked off toward the bedroom and closed the door.
Sienna frowned. That was another thing she didn’t like about Dane. He never stayed around to finish one of their arguments. Thanks to her parents she was a pro at it, but Dane would always walk away after giving some smart parting remark that only made her that much angrier. He didn’t know how to fight fair. He didn’t know how to fight at all. He’d come from a family too dignified for such nonsense.
Moving toward the kitchen to see if there was anything of hers in there, Sienna happened to glance out of the window.
“Oh my God,” she said, rushing over to the window. It was snowing already. No, it wasn’t just snowing, there was a full-scale blizzard going on outside. What happened to the seventy-two hour warning?
She heard Dane when he came out of the bedroom. He looked beyond her and out the window, uttering one hell of a curse word before quickly walking to the door, slinging it open and stepping outside.
In just that short period of time, everything was beginning to turn white. The last time they’d had a sudden snowstorm such as this had been a few years ago. It had been so bad the media had nicknamed it the “Beast from the East.”
It seemed the beast was back, and it had turned downright spiteful. Not only was it acting ugly outside, it had placed Sienna in one hell of a predicament. She was stranded in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains with her soon-to-be-ex. Things couldn’t get any more bizarre than that.
Four
Moments later when Dane stepped back into the cabin, slamming the door behind him, Sienna could tell he was so mad he could barely breathe.
“What’s wrong, Dane? You’re being forced to cancel a date tonight?” she asked snidely. A part of her was still upset at the thought that he might have brought someone here a couple of weekends ago when they weren’t officially divorced yet. The mere fact they had been separated for six months didn’t count. She hadn’t gone out with anyone. Indulging in a relationship with another man hadn’t even crossed her mind.
He took a step toward her and she refused to back up. She was determined to maintain her ground and her composure, although the intense look in his eyes was causing crazy things to happen to her body, like it normally did whenever they were alone for any period of time. There may have been a number of things wrong with their marriage, but lack of sexual chemistry had never been one of them.
“Do you know what this means?” he asked, his voice shaking in anger.
She tilted her head to one side. “Other than I’m being forced to remain here with you for a couple of hours, no, I don’t know what it means.”
She saw his hands ball into fists at his side and knew he was probably fighting the urge to strangle her. “We’re not talking about hours, Sienna. Try days. Haven’t you been listening to the weather reports?”
She glared at him. “Haven’t you? I’m not here by myself.”
“Yes, but I thought I could come up here and in ten minutes max get what I came for and leave before the bad weather kicked in.”
Sienna regretted that she hadn’t been listening to the weather reports, at least not in detail. She’d known that a snowstorm was headed toward the mountains within seventy-two hours, which was why she’d thought like Dane that she had time to rush and get in and out before the nasty weather hit. Anything other than that, she was clueless. And what was he saying about them being up here for days instead of hours? “Yes, I did listen to the weather reports, but evidently I missed something.”
He shook his head. “Evidently you missed a lot if you think this storm is going to blow over in a couple of hours. According to forecasters, what you see isn’t the worst of it, and because of that unusual cold front hovering about in the east, it may last for days.”
She swallowed deeply. The thought of spending days alone in a cabin with Dane didn’t sit well with her. “How many days are we talking about?”
“Try three or four.”
She didn’t want to try any at all, and as she continued to gaze into his eyes she saw a look of worry replace the anger in their dark depths. Then she knew what had him upset.
“Do we have enough food and supplies up here to hold us for three or four days?” she asked, as she began to nervously gnaw on her lower lip. The magnitude of the situation they were in was slowly dawning on her, and when he didn’t answer immediately she knew they were in trouble.
Five
Dane saw the panic that suddenly lined Sienna’s face. He wished he could say he didn’t give a damn, but there was no way that he could. This woman would always matter to him whether she was married to him or not. From the moment he had walked into his father’s study that day and their gazes had connected, he had known then, as miraculous at it had seemed, and without a word spoken between them, that he was meant to love her. And for a while he had convinced her of that, but not anymore. Evidently, at some point during their marriage she began believing otherwise.
“Dane?”
He rubbed his hand down his face, trying to get his thoughts together. Given the situation they were in, he knew honesty was foremost. But then he’d always been honest with her; however, he doubted she could say the same for herself. “To answer your question, Sienna, I’m not sure. Usually I keep the place well stocked with everything, but like I said earlier, I was here a couple of weekends ago, and I used a lot of the supplies then.”
He refused to tell her that, in a way, it had been her fault. Receiving those divorce papers had driven him here, to wallow in self-pity, vent out his anger and drink his pain away with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. “I guess we need to go check things out,” he said, trying not to get as worried as she was beginning to look.
He followed her into the kitchen, trying not to watch the sway of her hips as she walked in front of him. The hot, familiar sight of her in a pair of jeans and a pullover sweater had him cursing under his breath and summoning up a quick remedy for the situation he found himself in. The thought of being stranded for any amount of time with Sienna wasn’t good.
He stopped walking when she flung open the refrigerator. His six-pack of beer was still there, but little else. But then he wasn’t studying the contents of the refrigerator as much as he was studying her. She was bent over, looking inside, but all he could think of was another time he had walked into this kitchen and found her in that same position, and wearing nothing more than his T-shirt that had barely covered her bottom. It hadn’t taken much for him to go into a crazed fit of lust and quickly remove his pajama bottoms and take her right then and there, against the refrigerator, giving them both the orgasm of a lifetime.
“Thank goodness there are some eggs in here,” she said, intruding on his heated trip down memory lane. “About half a dozen. And there’s a loaf of bread that looks edible. There’s some kind of meat in the freezer, but I’m not sure what it is, though. Looks like chicken.”
She turned around and her pouty mouth tempted him to kiss it, devour it and make her moan. He watched her sigh deeply and then she gave him a not-so-hopeful gaze and said, “Our rations don’t look good, Dane. What are we going to do?”
Six
Sienna’s breath caught when the corners of Dane’s mouth tilted in an irresistible smile. She’d seen the look before. She knew that smile, and she also recognized that bulge pres
sing against his zipper. She frowned. “Don’t even think it, Dane.”
He leaned back against the kitchen counter. Hell, he wanted to do more than think it, he wanted to do it. But, of course, he would pretend he hadn’t a clue as to what she was talking about. “What?”
Her frown deepened. “And don’t act all innocent with me. I know what you were thinking.”
A smile tugged deeper at Dane’s lips, knowing she probably did. There were some things a man couldn’t hide and a rock solid hard-on was one of them. He decided not to waste his time and hers pretending the chemistry between them was dead when they both knew it was still very much alive. “Don’t ask me to apologize. It’s not my fault you have so much sex appeal and my desire for you is automatic, even when we’re headed for divorce court.”
Dane saying the word divorce was a stark reminder that their life together, as they once knew it, would be over in twelve days. “Let’s get back to important matters, Dane, like our survival. On a positive note, we might be able to make do if we cut back on meals, which may be hard for you with your ferocious appetite.”
A wicked-sounding chuckle poured from his throat. “Which one?”
Sienna swallowed as her pulse pounded in response to Dane’s question. She was quickly reminded, although she wished there was some way she could forget, that her husband…or soon-to-be-ex…did have two appetites. One was of a gastric nature and the other purely sexual. Thoughts of the purely sexual one had intense heat radiating all through her. Dane had devoured every inch of her body in ways she didn’t even want to think about. Especially not now.
She placed her hands on her hips knowing he was baiting her, really doing a hell of a lot more than that. He was stirring up feelings inside of her that were making it hard for her to think straight. “Get serious, Dane.”
“I am.” He then came to stand in front of her. “Did you bring anything with you?”
She lifted a brow. “Anything like what?”
“Stuff to snack on. You’re good for that. How you do it without gaining a pound is beyond me.”
She shrugged, refusing to tell him that she used to work it off with all those in-bed, out-of-bed exercises they used to do. If he hadn’t noticed then she wouldn’t tell him that in six months without him in her bed she had gained five pounds. “I might have a candy bar or two in the car.”
He smiled. “That’s all?”
She rolled her eyes upward. “Okay, okay, I might have a couple of bags of chips, too.” She decided not to mention the three boxes of Girl Scout cookies that had been purchased that morning from a little girl standing in front of a grocery store. “I hadn’t planned to spend the night here, Dane. I had merely thought I could quickly pack things and leave.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll get the snacks from your car while I’m outside checking on some wood we’ll need for the fire. The power is still on, but I can’t see that lasting too much longer. I wish I would have gotten that generator fixed.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “You didn’t?”
“No. So you might want to go around and gather up all the candles you can. And there should be a box of matches in one of these drawers.”
“Okay.”
Dane turned to leave. He then turned back around. She was nibbling on her bottom lip as he assumed she would be. “And stop worrying. We’re going to make it.”
When he walked out of the room, Sienna leaned back against the closed refrigerator thinking those were the exact words he’d said to her three years ago when he had asked her to marry him. Now she was worried because they didn’t have a proven track record.
Seven
After putting on the snow boots he kept at the cabin, Dane made his way outdoors, grateful for the time he wouldn’t be in Sienna’s presence. Being around her and still loving her like he did was hard. Even now, he didn’t know the reason for the divorce, other than what was noted in the papers he’d been served that day a few weeks ago. Irreconcilable differences—whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.
Sienna hadn’t come to him so they could talk about any problems they were having. He had come home one day and she had moved out. He still was at a loss as to what could have been so wrong with their marriage that she could no longer see a future for them.
He would always recall that time as being the lowest point in his life. For days it was as if a part of him was missing. It had taken a while to finally pull himself together and realize she wasn’t coming back no matter how many times he’d asked her to. And all it took was the receipt of that divorce petition to make him realize that Sienna wanted him out of her life, and actually believed that whatever issues were keeping them apart couldn’t be resolved.
A little while later Dane had gathered more wood to put with the huge stack already on the back porch, glad that if nothing else they wouldn’t freeze to death. The cabin was equipped with enough toiletries to hold them for at least a week, which was a good thing. And he hadn’t wanted to break the news to Sienna that the meat in the freezer wasn’t chicken, but deer meat that one of his clients had given him a couple of weeks ago after a hunting trip. It was good to eat, but he knew Sienna well enough to know she would have to be starving before she would consume any of it.
After rubbing his icy hands on his jeans, he stuck them into his pockets to keep them from freezing. Walking around the house, he strolled over to her car, opened the door and found the candy bars, chips and…Girl Scout cookies, he noted, lifting a brow. She hadn’t mentioned them, and he saw they were her favorite kind, as well as his. He quickly recalled the first year they were married and how they shared the cookies as a midnight snack after making love. He couldn’t help but smile as he remembered that night and others where they had spent time together, not just in bed but cooking in the kitchen, going to movies, concerts, parties, having picnics and just plain sitting around and talking for hours.
He suddenly realized that one of the things that had been missing from their marriage for a while was communication. When had they stopped talking? The first thought that grudgingly came to mind was when she’d begun bringing work home, letting it intrude on what had always been their time together. That’s when they had begun living in separate worlds.
Dane breathed in deeply. He wanted to get back into Sienna’s world and he definitely wanted her back in his. He didn’t want a divorce. He wanted to keep his wife, but he refused to resort to any type of manipulating, dominating or controlling tactics to do it. What he and Sienna needed was to use this weekend to keep it honest and talk openly about what had gone wrong with their marriage. They would go further by finding ways to resolve things. He still loved her and wanted to believe that deep down she still loved him.
There was only one way to find out.
Eight
Sienna glanced around the room seeing all the lit candles and thinking just how romantic they made the cabin look. Taking a deep breath, she frowned in irritation, thinking that romance should be the last thing on her mind. Dane was her soon-to-be ex-husband. Whatever they once shared was over, done with, had come to a screeching end.
If only the memories weren’t so strong…
She glanced out the window and saw him piling wood on the back porch. Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought her day would end up this way, with her and Dane being stranded together at the cabin—a place they always considered as their favorite getaway spot. During the first two years of their marriage, they would come here every chance they got, but in the past year she could recall them coming only once. Somewhere along the way she had stopped allowing them time even for this.
She sighed deeply recalling how important it had been to her at the beginning of their marriage for them to make time to talk about matters of interest, whether trivial or important. They had always been attuned to each other and Dane had always been a good listener, which to her conveyed a sign of caring and respect. But the last couple of times they had tried to talk en
ded up with them snapping at each other, which only built bitterness and resentment.
The lights blinked and she knew they were about to go out. She was glad that she had taken the initiative to go into the kitchen and scramble up some eggs earlier. And she was inwardly grateful that if she had to get stranded in the cabin during a snowstorm that Dane was here with her. Heaven knows she would have been a basket case had she found herself up here alone.
The lights blinked again before finally going out, but the candles provided the cabin with plenty of light. Not sure if the temperatures outside would cause the pipes to freeze, she had run plenty of water in the bathtub and kitchen sink, and filled every empty jug with water for them to drink. She’d also found batteries to put in the radio so they could keep up with any reports on the weather.
“I saw the lights go out. Are you okay?”
Sienna turned around. Dane was leaning in the doorway with his hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans. The pose made him look incredibly sexy. “Yes, I’m okay. I was able to get the candles all lit and there are plenty more.”
“That’s good.”
“Just in case the pipes freeze and we can’t use the shower, I filled the bathtub with water so we can take a bath that way.” At his raised brow she quickly added, “Separately, of course. And I made sure I filled plenty of bottles of drinking water, too.”
He nodded. “Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
“So have you. I saw through the window when you put all that wood on the porch. It will probably come in handy.”
He moved away from the door. “Yes, and with the electricity out I need to go ahead and get the fire started.”
Sienna swallowed as she watched him walk toward her on his way to the fireplace, and not for the first time she thought about how remarkably handsome he was. He had that certain charisma that made women get hot all over just looking at him.
It suddenly occurred to her that he’d already got a fire started, and the way it was spreading through her was about to make her burst into flames.
Nine
“You okay?” Dane asked Sienna as he walked toward her with a smile.
She nodded and cleared her throat. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Because you’re looking at me funny.”
“Oh.” She was vaguely aware of him walking past her to kneel in front of the fireplace. She turned and watched him, saw him move the wood around before taking a match and lighting it to start a fire. He was so good at kindling things, whether wood or the human body.
“If you like, I can make something for dinner,” she decided to say; otherwise she would continue to stand there and say nothing while staring at him. It was hard trying to be normal in a rather awkward situation.
“What are our options?” he asked without looking around.
She chuckled. “An egg sandwich and tea. I made both earlier before the power went off.”
He turned at that and his gaze caught hers. A smile crinkled his eyes. “Do I have a choice?”
“Not if you want to eat.”
“What about those Girl Scout cookies I found in your car?”
Her eyes narrowed. “They’re off-limits. You can have one of the candy bars, but the cookies are mine.”
His mouth broke into a wide grin. “You have enough cookies to share so stop being selfish.”
He turned back around and she made a face at him behind his back. He was back to stoking the fire and her gaze went to his hands. Those hands used to be the giver of so much pleasure and almost ran neck and neck with his mouth…but not quite. His mouth was in a class by itself. But still, she could recall those same hands, gentle, provoking, moving all over her body, touching her everywhere and doing things to her that mere hands weren’t suppose to do. However, she never had any complaints.
“Did you have any plans for tonight, Sienna?”
His words intruded into her heated thoughts. “No, why?”
“Just wondering. You thought I had a date tonight. What about you?”
She shrugged. “No. As far as I’m concerned, until we sign those final papers I’m still legally married and wouldn’t feel right going out with someone.”
He turned around and locked his eyes with hers. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel right going out with someone else.”
Heat seeped through her every pore with his words. “So you haven’t been dating, either?”
“No.”
There were a number of questions she wanted to ask him—how he spent his days, his nights, what his family thought of their pending divorce, what he thought of it, was he ready for it to be over for them to go their separate ways—but there was no way she could ask him any of those things. “I guess I’ll go put dinner on the table.”
He chuckled. “An egg sandwich and tea?”
“Yes.” She turned to leave.
“Sienna?”
She turned back around. “Yes?”