Jennifer Greene - A Groom For Red Riding Hood

“Right here.” Stuffing two bottles under his sweater, he bent under the shadowed branches of a spruce, and then went belly flat in the snow.

More wary than curious, she crouched down, too.

“Can’t see them from that far. You have to get closer.”

Well, geesh. She’d come this far, so it seemed pretty ridiculous to back out now. Snow showered her head when she elbow crawled to his side, protected by ski pants and a double layer of coats, as he certainly wasn’t. She heard him sneeze, and automatically started to respond with a “Bless you” when she saw the silky gleam of tiny eyes.

The nest wasn’t exactly a cave, more like a long, low ledge of a rock that tunneled in several yards, the opening concealed entirely by the spruce and stark winter black brush. Once inside, the darkness was as sudden as night. Her pupils had to dilate to see anything after the blinding glare of sunlit snow. Yet she saw the tiny eyes, and then another pair and another. Milky blue. Baby blue. The fur balls were nestled in a heap, with tiny shiny noses and tiny floppy ears, and one had the same gorgeous white pelt of his father.

The snowball baby tried out a lonely, angry howl, echoing his daddy except that its volume was barely a mewl. He thought he was real tough, for a two-pound bit of fluff. Steve plugged its mouth with the strange-tipped bottle, and the baby instantly quieted. Steve sneezed again—the blasted man was positively going to catch pneumonia on this little venture—but sympathy for him wasn’t the reason for the velvet lump in her throat.

Damnation if he wasn’t right.

She fell hopelessly in love on the spot. Not for him. Good grief! She wasn’t crazy.

But definitely for the babies.

Predictably, as soon as Mary Ellen doused the car lights, she dropped the keys. Bending over and squished, she groped in the no-man’s land of the dark car floor until she found them, then collected her gloves, shoulder bag, hot pads and Crockpot. Holding all of those, she naturally discovered she had no way to open the door. She rejuggled. Eventually she escaped the dratted car, and holding the heavy pot with both hands, gave the door a good swing with her fanny to close it.

It was a lot of trouble to go through, just to bring a man some plain old beef stew. Well, truthfully it was her best ragout, but that point was moot. The dinner was owed. She hadn’t met any Galahads in the nineties. Steve had not only given up his coat for her yesterday, but he’d also saved her from the wolves—both in the woods and the bar. She obviously had to find a way to thank him.

The offer to bring him dinner had been impulsive. Steve had pounced on it. No demurring. No gee-you-don’t-have-to’s. His fast agreement worried her—it was the first time she’d seen Steve Rawlings do anything fast—and she’d chewed a fingernail, fussing over whether he could misinterpret the gesture. Men had a habit of misinterpreting just about anything she’d ever done, no matter how innocent or well-intentioned.

Her arms ached from the weight of the Crockpot as she looked around. He was home, because she could see the edge of his black four-wheel-drive pickup, parked behind the trailer. Yellow light shined from the windows, making lonely patches of color in the snow. Even this early in the evening—six o’clock—the night was blacker than tar. He’d chosen to set the trailer in the middle of nowhere, isolated in a nest of black trees and sooty shadows. An icy, eerie wind shivered through the treetops, making her shiver uneasily, too.

If she were home in Georgia, it’d be warm by the first week in March. Not blizzard-mean-cold like here. In her Georgia hometown, too, no single woman would be visiting a single guy, in his lair, after dark, unless she was volunteering for big-time trouble.

Now that’s ridiculous, Mary Ellen told herself impatiently. She wasn’t staying. She was just going to drop off the Crockpot. Twice now, he’d gone out of his way to help her, and manners required a thankyou. The only danger she was risking was a frostbit tush from standing out here in the dark like a witless goose.

She took a breath, marched to his doorstep and used her elbow to knock. The knock only created a muffled sound, but the door promptly flew open. Warm air flooded out. She only had one quick, daunting glimpse of a giant whose shoulders were never meant to fit in a compact trailer-size door.

“Finally Red Riding Hood arrives. I was starting to get worried, afraid you’d get lost trying to find the place.”

“Red...?” The Riding Hood tag startled her. Could he possibly know how wary she felt about walking into a wolf’s lair? But then she caught the flash of an easy, teasing grin, and it clicked real quick where he’d picked up the fairy-tale association. She was wearing a hooded cherry red jacket and carrying goodies through the woods. Pretty hard to deny she was natural prey for a tease, and she had to smile back. “No, I had no trouble. Your directions were great.”

He reached down the steps to take the heavy pot from her hands. “This smells great. Come on in.”

She shook her head swiftly. “I can’t stay—”

“You have to work tonight?”

“No. I only work four nights a week. It’s just that I only meant to bring you dinner. To thank you. Not to take up any of your time—”

“You’re going to make me eat alone? When you’re already here? And I haven’t had anyone to talk to all day but wild animals?”

His mournful tone made her roll her eyes—he couldn’t pass that off as blarney in Ireland—but damn. He made her feel awkward about taking off without at least sharing some conversation. Gingerly she stepped inside. “I’ll just stay a couple of minutes,” she insisted.

He didn’t seem to hear her, and he hadn’t let go of the pot yet. He sniffed. “I haven’t had a homemade ragout in a hundred years. Is it okay if I admit my undying love for you?”

“It’s just stew,” she said dryly, but drat the man, he was downright forcing her to chuckle.

“Just stew is real food. You don’t understand. I’ve either been opening cans or eating Samson’s cooking for weeks now.” Once he set the pot down, he hustled her out of her red jacket and made it disappear, then gave her white tunic sweater and jeans a once-over. She’d been careful about her choice of clothes. The jeans were old, not tight, not fancy, and the bulky sweater concealed her figure more effectively than a nun’s habit. There was nothing in his view, absolutely nothing, to cause the sudden lazy, masculine gleam in his eyes. “Good thing you’re a shrimp. There’s not a lot of space around here for two of us to move around.”

She chuckled again, and this time felt the tension in her shoulders easing. Would a man call a woman a shrimp if he had seduction on his mind? He was being funny, natural, just plain nice. It was past time she kiboshed the electric nerves she felt around him. She never used to be so paranoid, not until Johnny burned her, and it was ridiculously egotistical to imagine that Steve represented any danger to her. He was positively nothing like Johnny.

“Your place isn’t so small. In fact, it’s a lot bigger than it looks on the outside,” she commented as she looked around.

“So sit and make yourself comfortable. You can have the seat of honor. You want wine, beer, soda?”

“Nothing, really, but thanks.” His “seat of honor” was the only chair, a tweedy recliner in gray hues. A long couch matched it. Both were his size—heck, she could have curled up and slept in the chair—and the small living area overlooked the kitchen ell. The bar-style table was ivory colored, the charcoal-shaded carpeting cushion-thick. A short hallway of closets led to a shadowed bedroom—where he’d tossed her jacket—and she saw the tucked end of a Hudson Bay blanket in the wedge of light.