Winter's Thaw Read online




  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  Winter’s Thaw

  ISBN # 9781781848722

  ©Copyright Stacey Lynn Rhodes 2013

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright November 2013

  Edited by Rebecca Douglas

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2013 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

  This story contains 83 pages, additionally there is also a free excerpt at the end of the book containing 6 pages.

  Seasoned Women

  WINTER’S THAW

  Stacey Lynn Rhodes

  Book three in the Seasoned Women series

  Sometimes in the depths of winter, warmth can force an unexpected bloom.

  In shock after the death of her ex-husband, Maggie Winter gives in to her need for comfort with a near-stranger, but immediately regrets her impulsive act. With her young daughter to raise alone, it’s time to start acting her age.

  Something about Maggie puts all of Nick’s protective instincts on high alert, but that isn’t all he feels for her. So when she makes it clear she needs space, he isn’t put off by her cool act and has no problem biding his time.

  However, when the slow simmer between them stretches on, it’s just a matter of time before one of them decides to turn up the heat.

  Dedication

  For Rebecca—thank you for all you do.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Muzak: Muzak, LLC

  Scrabble: Mattel, Inc./Hasbro, Inc.

  Monster: Monster Corporation

  Chapter One

  God, I hate Muzak. Maggie switched her cell phone to the other ear and pushed her fingers through her dark, irritatingly frizzed-out hair, automatically loosening yet another snag. She normally straightened and smoothed the mop, preferring it sleek, but hadn’t had time this morning, so it fell in kinky twists, closely framing her cheeks.

  It would probably be better covering her face entirely. She knew she looked like crap right now, between the lack of sleep and no makeup. She had just spent most of yesterday flying halfway across the country with her nine-year-old daughter, Cassie, to her mom’s farm for an extended summer visit. Normally once they were there, they’d stay in and not see the light of day for a while until they started to go stir-crazy.

  Then after dinner, just as they were settling in to watch a movie, the call had come about her husband, Wade…

  Well, technically he was her ex-husband, but one month of ‘ex’ versus almost fifteen years of marriage made it hard to automatically add the prefix.

  It had been the Highway Patrol with the shocking news that Wade had been transported to St Vincent’s after a multiple-car accident. They hadn’t given her any other details, instructing her to call the hospital for more information. She’d immediately left the room to keep from alerting Cassie to the problem and got on the phone to St Vincent’s. She’d been redirected a couple of times from the switchboard to the Emergency Room then had finally gotten through to someone who could answer her questions. Once they’d confirmed her identity, she’d learned Wade had been admitted and was in critical condition in the ICU. He’d been unconscious since his arrival.

  Stunned and worried, she’d booked a flight for first thing the next morning, deciding to leave Cassie with Mom instead of dragging her right back home. Maggie had then spent a mostly sleepless night getting frequent updates from the nurses before driving alone in the bleak pre-dawn to the closest airport. It was a bit surreal to be back in the same place she’d just been through less than a day prior.

  The first short commuter flight to the bigger regional hub had gone fine, and a voicemail message to call the ICU had been waiting when she turned her cell phone back on after disembarking.

  She continued to wait on hold, listening to the light jazz music, and glanced up automatically as an extremely tall man stepped over her stretched-out legs before dropping into the seat next to her. Mouth going dry, she could only just keep from gawking.

  You don’t see a guy like that every day. Wow, talk about the total package.

  She made a mental note to tell her best friend, Sam, that she had sat right next to a Total Stud. Maybe even a Fallen Angel, their highest ranking for hot über-alpha male.

  She gave him a quick, furtive once-over out of the corner of her eye, her clearest view of his body his lap, where jeans that looked older than him lovingly clung.

  Holy smokes. And ‘package’ was certainly right on the money.

  He might have gone with comfort on the lower half, but had dressed it up with a button-down shirt and sports coat, and the combination definitely worked on him.

  More than just an Angel. They might have to invent a whole new category just for him, she mused. Maybe ‘God on Earth?’ She searched her imagination for a title worthy of him as she continued to hold. The two friends had played this game for years, ‘collecting’ and describing in detail the yummy, unattainable eye-candy they ran across. They were married, they always joked, not blind. Though, Maggie had to remind herself once again, she was single now, not that it made much difference. Scenery was all it was. Guys like that never looked twice at middle-aged moms.

  At least she had something to keep her mind occupied while she was stuck in phone purgatory.

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry,” the older woman’s impersonal voice rang through the brutally clear cell connection. This was breaking it to her gently? “Someone from the discharge planning office will be calling about making arrangements and getting your husband’s effects back to you.” The delivery was rote, as if she was reading from a mental script. “Mrs Winter?” she prodded.

  “Yes, fine,” Maggie managed to croak out. “Thank you.” What am I thanking her for? For telling me that my husband just died? Talk about a social oddity. The call disconnected, apparently from the other end, and Maggie was left leaning back in the hard airport seat, cupping her cell phone loosely in a slightly trembling hand.

  The whi
te noise from the endless mass of humanity around her was a surreal backdrop to the chaos in her mind. Maggie sat there motionless for an untold measure of time, until a sudden, energetic surge of movement around her brought her back to the current situation. Apparently, they were boarding.

  Stay or go? The call had been an abrupt ending to a flurry of planning and rushing about which had started about fifteen hours earlier when she had gotten that first unexpected call from the Highway Patrol.

  Now, she was sitting here in the Minneapolis airport, standby the best she could do for this upcoming flight, and suddenly, she wasn’t even sure if she should continue to Oregon or return to her daughter.

  Cass.

  A fresh burst of pain hit and Maggie sighed wearily at the prospect of breaking the news to her daughter. She rubbed her forehead, feeling the tension headache that had been growing all day tighten, digging its claws in. Poor baby was going to be devastated. Regardless of the difficulties Wade and Maggie had gone through lately as a couple, Cassie was very attached to her dad. Maggie flashed on a recent memory of Wade, energetic and in the prime of life, hoisting Cassie up in the air and mock-complaining about how big she was getting. Then tried to picture him lying on a hospital bed, still, unmoving, not breathing…

  Maggie teared up and blinked, firmly pushing the impossible image away, swallowing hard as she debated her next move. The prospect of flying home alone and walking into the house they’d once shared was just disturbing. She should probably just go to customer service and catch the next available short flight back to her mom and daughter.

  Her name being forcefully announced penetrated her mental anguish. “That’s passengers Ingram, party of two, and Winter, for Portland. Please come to the podium,” the gate attendant repeated over the intercom, and Maggie stood to automatically obey. Taking a step to the right, she collided with something immoveable and began to wobble. Before gravity took over, a firm grip caught her elbow and steadied her. She looked gratefully down into a pair of intense blue eyes. Ah yes, the God on Earth.

  “Thanks.” Maggie shook her head, feeling disconnected to reality. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” Blue-Eyes returned sympathetically. “Least I could do. My bag, my bad.” He continued to hold her arm in a gentle grip. Maggie raised an eyebrow, and he released her with a faint, apologetic smile that had her smiling slightly in return.

  She sobered abruptly with a mental slap that felt almost like a physical blow. Your husband is dead, Mags, nothing to smile about right now. She wondered numbly how many hundreds of times the reality would brutally hit her like that before she remembered.

  Maggie shouldered the mom-sized leather purse which was her only bag for the trip, a deliberate attempt to avoid having to battle for overhead storage. She worked her way through the maze of legs and bags to the counter, waiting behind an older couple with matching wheeled luggage who had gotten there just ahead of her.

  “Hi,” the male gate attendant greeted the couple. “Ingram?” The pair nodded in sync, the frowning wife bellying up to the counter. “There’s one seat in first class that I can put you in, and the other is in coach.”

  “Aren’t there two seats together?”

  Maggie mentally rolled her eyes at the woman’s pointless question. The harried attendant looked irritated. “Well, there are two seats in coach, however, they aren’t right next to each other. Middle seats”—he glanced down at the screen—“only two rows away from each other. I assumed one of you would prefer the first-class seat.”

  “But we’re traveling together. There must be something you can do.” She leaned aggressively across the counter. Mr Ingram stood back, apparently accustomed to letting his wife duke it out on their behalf. “I’m not going to sit between two strangers for four hours. Aren’t there two first-class seats?”

  This time, Maggie did roll her eyes, and let out an audible sigh that felt really good. Yes, just for you, lady, we’ll put an extra row in the plane. Her head was really starting to pound.

  “Honey,” Mr Ingram timidly chimed in. “Why don’t you take the first-class seat? I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I do!” She rounded on him. “This is ridiculous. Just because you didn’t make sure we had seat assignments when you reserved this trip…” She turned her ire on her husband, and Maggie tried to tune them out, though it was hard at this close range.

  The airline employee looked past them to Maggie. “Winter?” he queried, and she nodded. He typed for a few seconds without further comment, then the sound of printing came from under the counter. He reached down and extracted a boarding pass, which he stretched over the counter to pass to Maggie. So simple. She glanced down. Seat two-F.

  “Thank you.” She offered the gate attendant her first genuine smile of the day.

  And there you have it. Flies, honey, vinegar. Point proven.

  He smiled back and gave her a conspiratorial wink. Maggie strode to the dwindling line to board. She wanted to make sure to get into her seat before the arguing couple realized that the first-class seat was history.

  With that distraction gone, she began thinking again about Wade. They’d had a solid marriage up until the past year when things had crumbled. But even during the amicable divorce, which had become final last month, for the most part they’d been able to keep things happy and friendly for Cassie’s sake. After well over two decades together, he was still a huge part of Maggie’s life. Yet she felt completely numb. Shouldn’t I be crying or something?

  Maggie remembered bursting into tears immediately when she’d learned her own dad had died. She’d literally cried for days. Still did sometimes, five years later. But in the unexpected face of her loss today, her eyes remained dry.

  She clenched her jaw, miserable and furious with herself. What the hell’s wrong with me? And why am I even going to Portland now? She stopped abruptly on her way down the gangway as that thought penetrated. She had forgotten all about deciding she should probably just go back to Mom’s. The sole reason she had been going home was to be with Wade while he was in the hospital. Now…

  Maggie groaned. The overwhelming scope of all she suddenly had to do in the next few days began to whirl through her aching head. She pushed it aside and tried to focus on this trip. Might as well go home at this point, she decided wearily. Surely some of the details would be easier to handle there in person rather than over the phone. She finished her descent down the gangway, stepping onto the plane without acknowledging the cheerful generic greeting of the flight attendant. Two-F, she recalled, looking to the left at the numbers along the overhead bins then looking down…to meet the now-familiar blue eyes belonging to the man in the aisle seat next to hers.

  Blue-Eyes had evidently been watching her approach—she’d caught him in the process of rising from his seat. Her eyes followed him up, her head tilting slightly upward as he continued to rise well past six feet. He’d lost the jacket somewhere along the way, so this time she got a perfect view of his wide, developed chest, well-displayed by his fitted white shirt tucked into those impossibly faded jeans. She forced herself to look away, mentally chiding herself as he stepped into the aisle.

  Geez, quit panting like an idiot over this hard, young kid, Maggie Jean. Drooling is very unbecoming at your age. And hardly the time or the place for it.

  He made a gentlemanly gesture toward the window seat, and she slid past him, only a breath away from that wall of chest, before twisting to sit heavily. As he settled in next to her, she automatically bent to tuck her purse under the seat. After sitting back up, Maggie slumped as she realized she needed to, at the very least, tell her mom the news. She bent again with a sigh, rummaging for her cell phone.

  Blue-Eyes was quiet beside her. There was nothing to keep her from making this call. Nothing except the fact that it would make all of this real.

  With another, heavier sigh, she speed-dialed her mom.

  “Hello?” The breathy greeting came just when Maggie was sure it would go over to
voicemail and she wondered what Cass had roped Grandma into doing.

  “Hey, Mom,” she responded. “How’s everything going with Cass?”

  “We’re just fine, honey. Finished breakfast a little while ago and we’re playing Scrabble out in the sunroom. Have you heard anything new?”

  Maggie took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. She couldn’t believe she had to say this. “He died, Mom.”

  “What? Oh, Mags…”

  She closed her eyes as her mom’s shocked exclamation was mostly lost under the announcement from the flight attendant telling everyone to stow their electronic devices. “I’ve got to go,” she managed to get out through her tight throat. “I’m on the plane to Portland and they’re closing up. And Mom?” she added quickly. “Please don’t tell Cass yet, okay? I’ll talk to her when I get back in a few days. I…want to do it in person.”

  “Oh my God, honey, I’m so, so sorry. Call me as soon as you get home.”

  “Okay, will do. Bye, Mom.” Maggie closed the phone, then popped it back open again as another detail occurred to her. Home. Crap, I am so unprepared for all this.

  She dialed her friend. And this time she did get voicemail. Damn. “Hey Sam, it’s me. Uh, I’m on my way back home. Long story I don’t want to go into right now, but I was looking for a ride from the airport this afternoon. I’ll just go ahead and grab a taxi or something. I’ll call you later, okay?” She disconnected then turned her phone off and tucked it back into her bag. Now without any connection to the outside world, she would have around four hours of quiet during the flight before she arrived home and had to dive into this mess. Maggie heaved a deep sigh, sagging bonelessly back against the seat. She closed her eyes for a few seconds before the flight attendant made a loud announcement about passengers needing to finish stowing their luggage and take their seats.

  When she dragged them back open, she blinked in surprise. She’d nearly forgotten about her seatmate.

  Now on rotation for her viewing pleasure were Blue-Eyes’ long legs, stretched out under the seat in front of him and crossed at the ankles. His large, strong hand rested on the armrest between them, long fingers drumming occasionally. He was tan, as though he either worked outdoors or had just spent a lot of time in the sun. For some reason, the way his forearm and hand moved as he fidgeted sent a spike of feeling shooting through her gut.