At Arm's Length Read online

  Deciding that I could only take so much, I leisurely dropped my hand, my mood suddenly on a downward spiral.

  “You know what I think?” Holden spoke while his eyes captured mine. The lump reappeared, and I could only shake my head at his question. “I think you take too much time making sure everyone else is happy and taken care of. But I wonder, Marlee, who takes care of you?”

  My immediate response was to deny his allegations, but I kept my mouth shut. It wouldn’t do either of us any favors to get each other riled up.

  “I do.” I don’t know why I actually answered his ridiculous question. Two words and he now knew more about me than most people. It was daunting to know that this virtual stranger knew more than the people I called my closest friends and family, who should know me inside and out.

  Everyone depended on me, and I always came through no matter what. Who could I depend on?

  Myself.

  His head slowly descended toward mine as he closed up the distance between us.

  My hand gripped the countertop, and I just as quickly released it in a last ditch effort to keep my body loose and not tense up. I wanted this. Good lord did I want this.

  I closed my eyes and waited for his lips to press against mine.

  And I waited.

  Expecting to feel his breath against my skin, I opened my mouth to say something, but Holden beat me to the punch.

  “Marlee?”

  “Hmm?” I asked, trying to sound hopeful and not the least bit discouraged because his lips had yet to meet my own.

  “The power is out…”

  Only then did I open my eyes and was met with the complete darkness of the kitchen.

  “Son of a bitch.” I began feeling around on the countertop toward the outlet that I knew was to my left that held our flashlight. I did this all while thinking a window in this stupid kitchen would be helpful in this situation since it was light out.

  A window would’ve alleviated this desolate hole I felt in the pit of my stomach. Maybe with a window and without my slip of memory I would’ve finally had my kiss.

  “Do you have a generator?”

  I snorted my response before saying, “Oh yeah, we do.” If he only knew, but I guess he was about to find out.

  “Well, when will it kick on?”

  Eureka! My fingertips touched the rough plastic of the flashlight, and I jerked the contraption from the wall. Pressing the switch to turn the damn thing on, I pointed the illuminated end in Holden’s direction lighting up his face.

  This way I could see him, but he couldn’t see the shame on my face.

  “It won’t,” I stated, referring to the generator that wouldn’t come on and mentally kicking the shit out of myself.

  I just couldn’t win these past few days.

  “What do you mean, it won’t?”

  The tone of his voice changed into a bit more menacing, and I could actually see his anger rising. It was a difficult pill to swallow to witness the harsh lines of his face harden and all because of me.

  I guess he didn’t appreciate my vague responses.

  Sighing, I said, “It’s a wood-powered generator, and since I was fretting over everyone else getting home to their families yesterday, I must’ve forgotten to bring in the firewood. I’m sorry.”

  “You were so worried about everyone but yourself that you blatantly disregarded your own safety. I thought you said that you take care of yourself, Marlee.”

  He actually had the audacity to mock me.

  I was done with this conversation. The temperature inside Tate Manor was rapidly decreasing which meant that it was much colder outside than I anticipated. I needed to get wood in the generator and fires built in the fireplaces.

  “Here.” I thrust the flashlight in Holden’s direction so I could go out and grab some firewood. But first I needed shoes… Winding toward the back door, I found my extra pair of snow boots that were left right next to my dad’s, and I slipped my wool sock-covered feet into them.

  Holden sat the flashlight down on the table being that we had all the light that we needed from the vast number of windows in the sunroom. Hence the name, sunroom. He picked up Dad’s old winter coat that was kept here and shrugged it on before sitting down next to me and grabbing the extra pair of snow boots.

  “What’re you doing now?” My voice took on a high-pitched tone. This man was infuriating; if he actually thought that he was coming out to help me, he had another thing coming.

  “I’m gearing up to run a marathon,” he deadpanned. “What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” He snapped, tugging on the shoestrings with a bit more force than was necessary as he laced up a boot. “I’m helping you bring in firewood.”

  I opened my mouth to refuse his help, but as apparent to Holden fashion he wasn’t having it.

  He ground his jaw together. “If you tell me that I don’t need to because I’m a guest, I swear to God I will spank that pretty ass of yours.”

  My eyes bulged, and I couldn’t help it, I whimpered. I whimpered like the brazen hussy that I was, and as incredulous as it was, the idea actually appealed to me!

  What the hell was going on with me for crying out loud?!

  “Ah, I see that you like that idea. Maybe later, sweetheart.”

  I stopped in my tracks and whipped around to face the cocky asshole. “Why you arrogant…”

  “Bastard?” he announced, clearly proud of himself.

  “I was going to use asshole, but if the shoe fits. I think I liked you better when you grunted your responses.”

  He zipped up the borrowed coat, which was a bit on the small side since my dad wasn’t Lurch. It would be comical if I wasn’t so pissed.

  Holden turned the handle on the back door and walked through the opening as if he owned the damn place. He threw over his shoulder, “More working and less talking, Marlee.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I stepped onto the covered porch and directly into the frigid air, bending to retrieve the canvas log tote. Then I noticed Holden had already stacked multiple logs in the crook of his arm.

  Showoff.

  “Easy there, Rocky, this isn’t a competition.”

  “We’re back to that are we?”

  I gave him my best hasty side eye that I could muster, which on anyone else would work, but Holden just grinned. “Did we ever really leave it?”

  “Huh, I guess not. But for the record Rocky had a last name. It was Balboa.” I felt as if we were actually five-years-old, like we were acting, he would’ve stuck his tongue out at me in closing.

  I ignored his retort as I bent down again and began neatly stacking logs in my tote just as I’d done countless times before. Wood burned better when it wasn’t wet, but we really didn’t have a choice in the matter. It didn’t escape my attention that he still hadn’t revealed his last name. He wasn’t to the point of trusting me yet, which I understood. But he would.

  Holden’s arms were full, and he looked around through the sparse trees deep in our woods while he waited for me to finish up.

  “Do you think the snow will get worse?”

  I finally took the time to look out into the yard at the flakes of snow that were still steadily falling along with what had already accumulated. I could tell from the porch that it was deep, well up to my hips, and if the wind picked up anymore we would have more snow drifts than we already did. I was thankful that my dad always thought ahead and had a hefty supply of firewood stacked under the covered porch. Even if the wood was damp, it was better than having to trek out in this snow just to survive.

  “You really aren’t from around here are you?”

  “No, I’m from South Carolina.”

  He was far away from home. What on earth brought him to the backwoods of Colorado?

  “Well, whatever amount we do get will only be worse down here for us. Tate Manor and our surrounding woods sit down in a valley. If the snow continues to fall the way it has been, and I believe it will, we’ll definitely need to be dug
out.”

  “If you knew the storm was going to be this bad then why didn’t you just close?”

  I placed my last log in my carrier and stood. My hands were no longer numb due to the blood boiling through my veins. “Look, I know being stranded here with me isn’t ideal, but if I hadn’t kept our doors open where would you be?”

  Stranded. Cold. Hungry. I didn’t even want to begin to think about the other possibilities. He was a grown man and could clearly take care of himself, and while he pissed the ever loving shit out of me, the thought of something bad happening to him didn’t sit well with me. It actually made me feel sick to my stomach.

  “This just proves that no one takes care of Marlee, but you sure as hell always take care of everyone else, including a stranger from South Carolina who is a downright dick. Being stranded here with you is no hardship, sweetheart. I’m just not used to people being so…”

  “So what? Nice?”

  “Yeah, that and so…caring without any preemptive notions or wanting something in return.”

  My lungs immediately deflated. I lost my luster when my anger dissipated. “Who said I want nothing in return?” I couldn’t believe I actually said that, that those words came from my mouth. When did I grow a pair?

  Holden’s expression turned predatory, the hunger that I was feeling was shown on his face. “Do you, want something, Marlee?”

  And apparently I was strictly all talk and no action as my newly discovered balls disappeared, and I ignored his question. I decided I was going to take a different approach, use a new tactic. “You know that actually makes sense. You seem to hold people, well mainly me since we are the only two here, at arm’s length. Do people often take advantage of you for their own personal gain? If so, then you’ve been hanging around with the wrong people, mister.” I started to walk back into the Manor but stopped short. When I turned around to see if Holden was following me, I actually found him frozen and his eyes were boring into me with almost what seemed like amazement.

  “That’s kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, Marlee. You say I’ve been hanging around all the wrong people when they take advantage of me, but what about the people who constantly take advantage of you?”

  And he continued to completely strip me bare. How much longer until I’d have nothing left?

  I carried my log tote stacked full of wood in through the doorway without a word or even caring if he was following or not. He could find his own way.

  Against my own better judgment, because I evidently didn’t have much anyway, I found myself saying, “Never fear, I’m going to bust down your defenses and show you that there are still good people out there. It’s time I showed you some real Colorado hospitality.”

  “You mean Marlee hospitality.”

  “Well, yeah,” I shrugged as I smiled to myself as I made my way toward the basement, grabbing the discarded flashlight along the way.

  Watching a woman take charge was beyond the hottest thing I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life. And even more so than that, it gave me honest to goodness goose bumps. Who knew that I would have a thing for voyeurism of manual labor?

  It took little to no effort for Marlee to hoist those logs into the wood burning generator. You could tell that it was something she’d spent plenty of time doing in her life. It would’ve been a better show if I could’ve actually seen some of her body movement without the hindrance of her baggy hoodie.

  And she did it all without breaking a sweat while still in her pajamas. I couldn’t do anything but stand there holding the flashlight in her direction with what I assumed was a look of pure astonishment plastered on my face. I also could’ve sworn that I needed to wipe some drool off of my mouth a time or two.

  Once she threw the last log into the generator, she brushed the wood shavings off of her hands and blew an errant hair out of her face.

  Oh and the wood generator, and I was using that term loosely because it was anything but, it looked straight up like something out of a museum or a movie. I’ve seen wood generators before, but this thing was massive.

  I thought things were only bigger in Texas, but it was good to know Colorado thought along the same lines. I couldn’t even find the right words to describe this thing.

  “Don’t look at me like that… My dad likes to dabble in the reconstruction of things. He’s had so many inventions that I’ve actually lost count. Our garage is full of his imaginative creations that have failed. While that list is much longer, this is one creation that has succeeded, and he prides himself on it.”

  I wouldn’t say this was necessarily a new invention but rather supersizing an appliance to no less than ten times its normal size. But it did seem to work solely on the fire power of wood with no added electricity and was much stronger than the average woodstove.

  “Interesting,” I said, “why did he insist on a jumbo generator?”

  “He has a severe aversion to not only modern technology but gasoline. He is all about saving an almighty dollar; he’s the very definition of a penny pincher. I remember he threw a fit one year when my mom had to buy me a new winter coat when I already had one.”

  That didn’t seem so out of the norm. “Why did you need another?”

  “Because the coat I had was several years old and about three times too small,” she screeched getting all riled up on the memory.

  I couldn’t contain my laughter as it bubbled up from deep in my gut.

  She balled her hands into fists and threw them down to her sides. “It’s not funny! I was sixteen years old, and the sleeves didn’t reach my wrists because they were four and a half inches too short!” If her frustration was even half as apparent as it was now, I would’ve been fearful of one teenage Marlee Tate.

  The mental image she was painting is what kept me laughing. It was probably along the lines of how I felt in the coat that I was currently wearing; like I was Chris Farley from Tommy Boy. You know exactly what scene I’m referring to. It wasn’t made for a man of my stature.

  “Definitely not seeing the humor here.” She now had her hands perched upon her hips as she tapped the toes of one foot mercilessly against the concrete of the basement. “I didn’t get asked on a date my entire junior year because of that damn coat.” She paused for a moment and twisted her lips in disgust. “In hindsight, I might agree that it could’ve been because I hadn’t grown into my boobs yet, but we’re getting off topic here.”

  My laughter immediately ceased as I sobered up, and I really wanted to stay off topic with the much more interesting direction it was going. My gaze honed in on her sweatshirt-covered chest, and even through the baggy material I could tell that she grew into her tits extremely well.

  We were talking grade “A” fantastic rack.

  And…she totally knew where my mind had wandered. Sometime during my little daydream involving her amazing breasts she had finished messing with all the gears and switches on the generator and the lights were already back on.

  How had I not noticed? Oh right…

  “I honestly don’t get the fascination every man has with breasts. Everyone has them, hell your mom has them.”

  I shuddered at the thought of my mom having breasts. “I guess you have to be a guy to appreciate the power of a good set of boobs.”

  Marlee grabbed ahold of the canvas wood carrier she’s been carting around and began climbing the steps.

  “And that’s exactly something a man would say.”

  Her hips swayed with every step she climbed. She was taunting me by practically shoving her perfectly round ass in my face. My fingers itched to grab ahold of each globe. Who could blame me? I was a man, after all, a hungry one at that. I only had so much control my restraint.

  “Same thing applies when it comes to a great ass.”

  I heard her snicker as she reached the top landing of the stairs just seconds before me. She took the wood-filled carrier and shoved it into my arms and placed a box of matches on top. She circled around me, grabbed my sides,
and pushed me in the direction of a room I had yet to experience.

  “This is the sitting room, a fancy name for a family room, if you will, which my father insists it never be called that.”

  “I won’t tell him if you don’t,” I said loving the fact that her hands were still on me. Her fingers applied the briefest hint of pressure before she took them away completely.

  “Anyway, it’s my favorite room in all of Tate Manor, besides the ballroom.” She shrugged a shoulder as if talking about having a ballroom was among everyone’s conversations. “And the library.”

  “Ballroom?”

  Her tone instantly took on that edge of sarcasm. “Of course, a Bed & Breakfast isn’t complete without a ballroom. It sometimes gets rented out for weddings, and that’s when it’s the best. But anymore it’s used as a conference room for town hall meetings and things of that nature. Anyway, why don’t you get a fire going in the fireplace, and I’ll get us each a cup of hot chocolate to warm us up.”

  Once she left the room, I didn’t waste any time in stacking the wood on the iron grate in the fireplace. After the fire was fully started, I grabbed the poker and shifted some of the logs so it would burn evenly.

  Then, of course, like any man, I had to stand back and admire my handiwork. If I actually talked to my mom, I would’ve had to let her know that all the years of boy scouts paid off.

  Don’t look so surprised, football wasn’t always my entire life. All right, from about the age of ten forward, it was my life. I began learning the basics of the game when I was four-years-old, and my uncles got together for a game of tackle football after Thanksgiving dinner every year. It was tradition, and growing up in a house full of women, something I obsessively looked forward to.

  By the time I was thirteen, I could tackle every single one of my four uncles. It was also by then that I knew I had a real talent for the sport.

  Being a running back was a position that I was thrust into and I have never looked back. My quarterback and I had to be on the same page so the handoff was always the best it could be and didn’t result in a fumble. I have to be agile and constantly on my toes, which was why maybe Marlee was so interesting. She was completely throwing me off kilter from my normal routine. And while I should find it oppressive, I could only think of how refreshing it was.