Jessica Lemmon - A Snowbound Scandal

“Coat, Mimi.” He came down the stairs to hover over her, his nostrils flared. “Then walk past the living room, take a right and you’ll see the kitchen.”

“I’ll follow you,” she snapped, but slipped her coat off and draped it over her arm.

He could do without the attitude, but at least she’d met him halfway.

He settled the containers—one with the sweet potato pie she’d showed him at the gate and the other two overflowing with Thanksgiving dinner.

A long would you get a load of this whistle of appreciation came from behind him.

“Wow. Every inch of this place is more amazing than the last.”

She turned a one-eighty as she inventoried the kitchen: the wide island in the center, the floor-to-ceiling cabinets, six-burner gas stove, and a shiny, double-doored fridge. She tossed her coat over one of the stools at the island. Slim jeans accentuated her mile-long legs and a cranberry sweater with a scoop neck revealed creamy, pale skin. No cleavage—a fact she’d bemoaned plenty when they were together a decade ago. He couldn’t have cared less. The sight of her in a string bikini, and the way the chilly lake water caused her nipples to point from behind the bright blue top, had been more than enough to pique his interest.

“Yeah, so turkey, stuffing, green beans. All the basics.” She folded her fingers together while she talked. “Sweet potato pie is for dessert, though, I suppose you’re grown-up and could spoil your dinner if you wanted. Did you eat?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Mimi?” he repeated.

At his tone, she narrowed eyes as brown as the forest floor. Deep mulch in color and blasting him with an accusation she hadn’t spoken yet.

“I’m here—” she pointed at the ground, seeming to gather her courage “—to show you that I’m no longer the besotted twenty-three-year-old you left on an airfield in Dallas. You may be a billionaire oil tycoon politician with a mansion the size of your hometown, but I became someone, too.”

“Is that so?” He came out from behind the island in the center of the kitchen and Mimi took a hesitant step back. He wouldn’t allow her to make him out to be some billionaire asshole without an argument in his own defense. “Tell me, then, how you’re the next incarnation of Mother Teresa.”

She snapped her mouth shut then opened it to let out a little tut of surprise. “I didn’t say I was Mother Teresa.”

“No, but you implied I’m the devil incarnate, so I assumed...”

“You have no idea what I implied. You don’t know me. You knew me.”

“Likewise.” He scanned her from chestnut hair to the toes of her knee-high boots. She dressed differently than she used to and not just because the season had changed. There was something more formal about her. Less playful than he remembered. “You grew up. I grew up. It happens.”

“Unlike you, I don’t sit around counting the zeroes in my bank account. I actually help people.”

“So do I. Are you going to cut the crap and tell me why you’re here?” It was the last time he was going to ask.

“I just did! You weren’t listening on the phone, so I had to come here in person to—”

“Bullshit. You made a twenty-minute drive—”

“That took over an hour.”

“—in this weather carting cold Thanksgiving dinner and my favorite pie. Don’t tell me you came all this way to put me in my place.”

Her pink tongue touched lips painted cranberry red to match her sweater. He knew too well that unlike the tart fruit, she tasted as sweet as honey.

“I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“I do. But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

She shrugged with one dark eyebrow and tightened plush lips he’d kissed more times than he could recall. He’d made every attempt to kiss the sunshine off her skin that summer. Back then he could’ve buried his nose in her coconut-scented hair and never come up for air.

Until reality had intruded.

“I tried to invite you to dinner at my family’s house so you wouldn’t have to eat alone,” she huffed.

“So I’m the equivalent of a stray dog in need of a bone.” He spread his arms to indicate the expansive room in which he was standing. “Do I look like I can’t fend for myself?”

“You said no!” she practically shouted.

“As was my prerogative.”

What was she up to? He kept his voice even, his tone neutral. He’d been yelled at by a great number of people in his career, and it was his second nature to tamp down any emotions that didn’t lead to an effective solution.

The line of her mouth softened. Her eyebrows lowered. Naked vulnerability bled into her expression.

Then he figured it out. It slapped him upside the head, jarring his brain.

I’m an idiot.

“I hurt your feelings,” he stated. Could he have been more obtuse? “That’s why you’re here.”

She made a pfft sound but he was right. He could tell by the way she shifted her weight onto one boot—almost squirming in his presence. Some things about Mimi had changed in the last ten years, but some things hadn’t. She was the same stubborn, beautiful, hopeful woman he’d made love to back then, but with an even sturdier backbone and harder head. She brought him Thanksgiving dinner tonight not because he was a charity case but because—

“It bothered you to picture me eating alone,” he told her.

“Why would I care about a pompous, overblown—”

“Admit it.”

He heard a deep sucking sound as she pulled in a lungful of oxygen.

“Fine,” she blew out on an exhale. “I was sitting in front of a dressed turkey thinking that if you weren’t such a stubborn jackass, you would’ve been there enjoying the spoils of a home-cooked meal. Rare in your case, as I recall.”

It was true. Eleanor Ferguson didn’t cook. She catered.

“I took it upon myself to deliver both dinner and a message, planning to turn and drive straight back to my family’s house knowing that you were both fed and informed.” A crease appeared between her brows. “Only now I’ll be heading to my apartment instead of back for dessert with my family.”

He could see and feel the regret coming off her. The expression didn’t erase the elegance of her features, and accentuated the firmer, straighter line of her backbone. She was a confusing whirlwind of attributes, but Chase saw through her air of confidence. She couldn’t hide behind the one quality she’d never possessed: ambivalence.

Mimi had never been ambivalent or calloused to the needs of others. No matter how badly they’d treated her in the past.

“Tell me more about what you do,” he said, turning to lift the lids of the containers.

“What I do?”

“Yes.” Even cool, the food was an inviting array of holiday fragrances. Thyme and sage and butter.

“Um. Okay. I’m the director of student affairs for the Montana Conservation Society. I work mostly with teenagers, but I’ve also spearheaded a recent and very important recycling campaign with a local apartment complex.”

He punched the buttons on the microwave—first removing a small plastic container of cranberry sauce thoughtfully included “on the side.”

“One of many,” Mimi added.

“You’re as passionate as I remember.” He pulled two forks from a drawer and laid them on the island.

“Is that a nice way of saying I’m misguided?”

“Not at all. The world needs more advocates like you.”

Her mouth was frozen in a half gape, like she was shocked he’d paid her a compliment. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They stood on opposite sides of the island—what a metaphor for how they’d left things—in silence as the remainder of the seconds ticked down on the microwave before it beeped. He set the containers between him and Mimi, grabbed an open bottle of wine and two glasses and poured himself one.