Steady as the Snow Falls (3 page)

Beth swallowed. “But…how would you know that? I don’t—I don’t understand.” She heard the tremble in her words, and wished he hadn’t.

He shook his head, nothingness replacing the heat of seconds before. He raised a hand, and just as quickly let it drop. “You don’t need to. But when you leave here, Beth, and you do your research, just remember that you already signed a contract to write my story. There is no backing out at this time. It’s too late.”

Shocked to hear her name pass his lips, and not sure why, she lowered her gaze. Her pulse beat out of tune, electrocuted into a song it didn’t recognize. Beth’s name on Harrison’s mouth sounded like an endearment to her ears, which was silly. It was her name. All he did was say her name. But that voice, with just the right inflection, and it went from a name to more.

“You’re a football player.”

“Was.”

She crossed the room to put greater distance between them. Standing that close to him felt dangerous to her. He’d suck her up into his vortex, and that would be the end of Beth; she might not even care. She stopped near the door, her limbs firmer with an escape only a few steps away.

“I don’t know a lot about sports, but aren’t you young to be retired?”

He didn’t reply, moving toward her. Beth went still, her pulse escalating. He got closer. And closer. His face was a mask, giving away nothing of his emotions, but his eyes did. They burned, scalded. Made her body weightless, spun her heart around and around in her chest. Her lungs were singed, and she feared if she didn’t break eye contact soon, there would be nothing but a pile of ashes in her place. And yet her eyes remained a hostage of his.

When he was close enough to touch her, he abruptly turned and left the room. She blew out a noisy breath of relieved air and rubbed her forehead. He made her jumpy, and she couldn’t breathe properly when he looked at her a certain way—the way he just had. Beth dropped her hand and frowned, studying how it trembled. She clenched it into a fist, refusing to consider what her reactions to him meant. They weren’t all bad. His words told her to stay away, but his aura said otherwise.

“Are you coming?” Harrison called, irritation prickling his words.

She flinched at the barbed tone and went in pursuit of him, finding him back in the initial room in which they’d met. Her eyes flicked to the coffee in longing. Coffee was good on cold days, but coffee was just as good on all the days.

He stood facing the bookcase, his long fingers traveling along the spines of the books. It was a gesture that could be easily overlooked if someone wasn’t paying attention, but she was. It was reverent, loving. Harrison was a reader, which meant he was a thinker.

She’d always felt a certain kind of loneliness, a trickle of sadness, with Ozzy, who didn’t read. Beth was never able to discuss books with him and how she interpreted them, or find out what he thought they meant. Beth wasn’t able to talk about likes and dislikes of the story, and what knowledge was learned from reading it. She read, and she kept the magic of the stories locked inside her, cherished only by her. Books needed to be shared with others. She longed for that connection, however small it seemed. It meant something to her.

Beth was a thinker as well, a dreamer. Knowing she and Harrison had something in common made her head spin. She was in the presence of an anomaly, a contradiction. There were words, and there was tone, and there were expressions, and there was body language. All of his were at odds with one another.

“Help yourself to the coffee.”

Not needing further encouragement, Beth poured a cup of the steaming black liquid, adding a hefty amount of creamer and sugar. She stirred it, the coffee tone changing from black to milky chocolate. Biting back a moan of ecstasy at the strong, smooth flavor, Beth resumed her place near her laptop. The coffee warmed her, muted the cold clinging to her frame.

Harrison’s fingers paused on a black, hardcover book, and he pulled it from the row, leaving a slim crevice to mark its spot among the others. He paused with the book in hand, his head bowed. Time ticked off a nearby clock, holding his large body enthralled. Though he stood stiff and unmoving, Beth noticed weariness about him, possibly bleakness. His shoulders weren’t straight; a twist of discord seemed ever present on his mouth. She shook the illusion away. Her eyes were malfunctioning, probably from the lack of coffee needed to jumpstart her senses.

Harrison turned and outstretched his hand, nothing but shadows and blankness meeting her gaze. “I want you to read this until it’s time to go.”

“But I’m not—I’m here to write, not read.” Beth set down the coffee cup and stared at the book. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes. You’ve said that. I remember, and I hope that isn’t your favorite saying, but if it is, find a better one.” He looked from the book to her, carefully motionless while the energy around him hummed with the need to move. “Take it. And read it.”

“You’re giving me homework?” Confusion formed a line between her eyebrows. Beth barely got through having to do homework during high school and college, and that was to graduate. Homework from anyone else was abhorrent, even if she was getting paid to do it.

“Think of it as a personality enhancer.”

Beth studied his hand as she stood and slowly accepted the book. The palm was wide, the fingers unbelievably long. It was a graceful hand, elegant and strong. A dusting of red and gold hairs covered the base of it. His hand fell away, like an unfelt caress against fevered skin, and Beth swallowed, feeling the touch in the air between them.

Impossible
, she told herself.

“Yours or mine?” Beth grumbled.

Harrison blinked. “What?”

The book was heavy, bulky with unread words. Beth took a much needed breath of air and trained her attention on the book. Her eyes traced the gold cursive letters that spelled ‘In the Storm’. Just looking at it made her depressed. She was betting it was dull rubbish that made the reader either contemplate life a great deal, or fall asleep—not the kind of light, fun entertainment she went for. Beth wanted to read about happy things, because reality was full of a lot of unhappy ones.

“Nothing. Why am I reading this?” she asked, her eyes down.

“Before you can write about me, you have to understand me.”

Beth looked up, found Harrison’s dark eyes locked on her. There was tightness around his eyes, and again she noted the purple underneath them, the tiredness evident in the lines and bleakness of his face. He ran an absent hand through his hair, disrupting the vibrant red and blond locks and making his appearance more appealing. What kind of a life had he lived, to bring him to where he was? Secluded, shut off from everyone. By choice, or because he had none? He was giving her clues she could either ignore or chase down.

“I’m supposed to learn about you from reading a book?”

“That is my favorite book,” he specified. “It could be worse. Don’t make me point out that I am paying you to read.”

“You just did.”

One pale eyebrow arched, giving Harrison arrogant appeal. He had the features of an aristocrat, highbred and pompous. She fought to keep a smile from her face, somehow knowing he wouldn’t appreciate her present characterization.

“I’d rather learn about you from asking you questions than reading a favorite book,” she pointed out.

“Work with what you’re given.”

With the book in hand, Beth sat back down on the couch, wiping away the scowl before it completely formed. She put everything she’d taken out of the laptop case back into it, closed it, and opened the book. The print was small, the first lines blurring as thoughts raced through her brain. What was the point of this? Reading a book wasn’t going to help her learn anything useful. Confusion and frustration built inside, but she tramped it down. The questions wouldn’t cease, and along with them, came anxiety.

If Harrison wasn’t going to tell her anything about himself, how would she know what to write?

If she wasn’t producing words, how would the book ever get written?

If the book wasn’t written, how would she get paid?

“You’ll get the first of six payments within the next two weeks.”

Beth’s eyes flew to his. He’d accurately read her thoughts on her face. “I haven’t done anything yet. You can’t pay me for doing nothing.”

A flash of humor lit up his eyes. “I can do whatever I want. And you can relax and not worry about the money. You’ll get it regardless of how fast the book gets written.”

Respite loosened her shoulders, but her conscience wouldn’t let her be okay with that. “No. It feels wrong. I can’t accept it. Not until I’ve written something, even if it’s only a few pages.”

“Do you need the money?”

She pressed her lips together, not wanting to answer that.

Harrison waited, unmoving, his eyes locked on hers.

Sighing, she admitted, “Yes.”

He took down another book, settled onto his chair, and opened it. Head bent, mouth formed in a thin slash of pale color, Harrison seemed to forget she was there. His pose was casual, but he sat stiffly, as if in minor pain or unable to completely relax. She didn’t know which.

When the minutes ticked by and he didn’t say anything, she realized the conversation was over. Beth closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and opened them, resigning herself to spending the next few hours reading a book in a room with a man she didn’t know and was pretty sure she didn’t like—even if she might like certain things about him.

Harrison glanced up.

His eyes.

She dropped her gaze to the pages of the book, her face burning with the knowledge that he’d caught her studying him.

Beth liked his eyes.

EYES TRAINED ON the book in his hands, he told her, “Whatever you’re trying not to say or ask, do us both a favor and get to it. Your fidgeting is distracting.”

Beth lowered the book to her lap. Her coffee was long gone, the clock ticking off the minutes until it was time for her to go. There was half an hour left to her designated time of departure—and eight minutes, she silently added. It had gone by peacefully, quietly, the periodic sound of flipping pages the only shared conversation. Occasionally she’d glance up to find him watching her, and he’d do the same, each of them studying the other in the way something shiny and new was considered. Curiously. Raptly. Obsessively.

“Do you ever get told you’re rude?” Softly spoken and shaky, the words were out before she could bite them back.

Half of his mouth lifted, and seeing that made her glad for saying it. It was the promise of a smile, at some point. “Not by anyone who matters. That isn’t what you wanted to ask me.”

No. It wasn’t.

She wondered what he thought when he looked at her. Did he see her blonde hair and blue eyes, and if so,
what
did he think or see? Beauty, indifference, plainness. Did he find her appealing? Did he not? Did he think her features were too childlike, too unoriginal? Did he even really see Beth at all? She didn’t want to think the things she was, or wonder what he thought of her, but she did. He was intriguing, mysterious. Far too fascinating with his standoffish attitude and his secrets. A box of mystery and ribbon she itched to untie.

Without really knowing Harrison, she knew she had never met a man quite like him before.

“I’m not getting any more interesting while we wait,” he said.

Startled by his voice interrupting her unfortunate thoughts, she hastily said, “Don’t biographies usually get written when someone’s life is about over? When they’re old and gray and think it’s time to get the good stuff down before it’s too late? You can’t be over thirty-five.”

“Age has no bearing on death.” The words were low, flat.

Beth’s fingers tightened around the book, the hard edges of the cover digging into her flesh. Wow. She hadn’t expected those words, or that lack of emotion. They resounded with emptiness, vibrated with whispers of unspoken discontent. Told her the barrenness was a lie. Life, and death, and everything in between—that was Harrison Caldwell. She inhaled sharply, tipped upside down by his comment. His eyes were chips of black ice and she forced her gaze away, her chest tight.

“We’re done for the day. Come back tomorrow.”

She turned her head and gazed at him.
I want to know you more. I don’t want to know you at all.

“What is it?” he demanded harshly.

“I don’t…” Beth watched as his eyes hardened, the impatience in them causing her cheeks to warm.

“If it’s going to take you five hours to produce one sentence, this association is going to become quite tedious. I don’t have time for timidity. Say whatever you’re thinking.”

Anger sparked through her, the words fast and loud as they left her. “I don’t think I like you. You’re rude without being provoked and you act like everything I have to say is a chore for you to listen to.” Her eyes went wide at the unintended confession.

Satisfaction bracketed his mouth as his lips relaxed from their hard line. “Just the silence. The silence I can do without. And I’m your employer. You’re not supposed to like me.”

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I’m sorry,” she finished quietly.