“Come on. Come back inside,” Vaugh shifts restlessly. I look down, the snowdrift he’s standing in is higher than his calves now, almost to his knees. “Claire, please.”
I don’t like his tone. It’s even and quiet. It’s disconcerting. Why is he out here trying to get me to come back inside? I hate him and he hates me. Our families loathe each other, and he should be happy there’s a possibility of imminent death waiting for me in this car if I choose to stay in it through the storm.
Snow peppers my hands and arms, and a strong wind shakes the car. If it weren’t so packed under with snow, I think the gusts of wind might be strong enough to topple it over.
I blink up at him. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance. Both of us look up, toward the sound. I never heard of thunder in a blizzard. Can this day get any more bizarre?
“Claire, we don’t have to talk about anything. We could stay in opposite sides of the place, for all I care. Just come back inside with me where it’s safe.” Even though his head is almost through the window, his voice is barely audible in the wind.
Logically, I know he’s got the right idea, but I’m too irrational right now, too angry with everything spiraling down around me. Why won’t my car just start? I turn the key again.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Vaughn pushes his hand through the opening in the window, grabs up the lock on the inside of the door, and yanks it open. It gets stuck in the snow halfway.
“I hate you,” I shout over another low rumble of thunder.
Vaughn looks away. Fast. His eyes fall somewhere off in the distance, his lips dipping low into a frown. What the hell is wrong with him? Why did he come out here? To humiliate me? I can’t believe he went through my phone. What a pervert! What an invasion of privacy! Ugh. And now he’s trying to be all heroic and save me from a little snow? I don’t need him saving me from anything. I don’t want him near me.
My heart drums hard, hammering and skipping into an unsettling rhythm. I want to escape to the backseat, but I think he’d just come in after me. Then we’d both be crammed in a small space together. I don’t want to chance smelling his stupid cologne again.
He shoves his body into the narrow opening of the door and bends down low. Keeping his hands on the hood, he levels his face with mine. “I’m well aware of how much hate there is between us. But it’s too dangerous for you to drive in this or stay in this car overnight. You’ll freeze to death.”
I don’t reply right away. I have nothing to say, no words to conjure more than another I hate you. I don’t want to do anything he asks of me. I don’t want to make it easy for him. It’s petty and stupid, but I’m way too angry and overwhelmed to think straight. I don’t want his cologne, or his gray eyes and deep rumbly voice, or any of his perfect Montgomery charms to affect me. I’m not my mother, and no kind of Golden Montgomery Dick is going to have me falling for his advances. And I’m well aware that while I have this entire crazy conversation in my head, he is probably thinking I’m insane.
We stare at each other.
His cheeks are bright red and his lips are starting to look a little bruised.
His eyes run over my face, inch after inch. What is he thinking exactly?
“Claire, come on.”
The wind picks up, it whips a gust so strong it slams against the roof of the car and I could almost swear it moves us. I grab onto the steering wheel and he stumbles closer to me.
Something hard batters down on the car. There’s a swift intake of breath from the both of us as hail, the size of baseballs, smash into my windshield, cracking through the glass. How the hell am I going to pay for that? I hate him even more now—for showing up here when all I needed to do was collect some of my mother’s things and find some stupid useless bank account. Why couldn’t he have left me alone?
“I’ll be fine out here. Alone. Go back inside your father’s love shack and leave me be.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds weak, whiny, and childish.
“You either come back inside with me or I’m coming in there with you.” He barks out a loud laugh, “Just think about the gossip that will go wild about our families then, when they find both our dead bodies frozen in your shitbox of a car a few feet away from a warm cabin.” Then his hands are on me, strong and rough, grabbing me and pulling me out into the storm.
“Get away from me!” I scream and fight against him, slapping at his chest and arms. His body is solid, it’s like I’m hitting an ice sculpture.
We tumble and flail into the cold wet snow, and I swear a handful of boob is grabbed. “Don’t even think you could lay your hands on me, Vaughn. And you can’t caveman me back into that brothel of your father’s.”
“My father’s brothel?” His lips twitch like he holding back laughing at me, which fills me with even more wild rage.
“You think you could come out here and save me and I’ll jump all over your stupid Montgomery bones. The only way you’re getting laid tonight is if you crawl up a chicken’s ass and wait!”
“Well, look at you, all high and mighty yourself. Do you really think your hatred for me will keep you warm in there?” He points back to the car, which is now nothing but a lump of snow with a half-open door. “Do you really think your anger and hate will fuel the fire and make you live through this blizzard in a car all night? You’re a tough girl, aren’t you, don’t need help from anyone, right? So badass.”
We glare at each other, and the air between us fills with electricity and something fierce and alive. I want to tell him I do hate him that much. I want to tell him that I don’t need anyone, that I am tough, that I’m the biggest badass he’ll ever get to see. I want to shout that I’ve kept every stick and stone his family and their gossipers have ever thrown at me and built a fortress with them, and they will never get inside to hurt me again. Ever.
But I don’t get a chance to say any of those things.
Because a low rumbling, like an accelerating freight train, echoes out around us. Rumbling and trembling from under the ground.
A shiver unlike no other crawls over my scalp and tingles the icy hairs at the back of my neck. “What’s that noise?”
And then a loud sharp crack rips over the mountainside. It reverberates in my bones and shakes the ground violently.
We both scramble back to our feet, climbing up each other.
“That was probably just a tree coming down with the wind,” he says.
“Vaughn, I think you’re really, really wrong.”
Chapter 9
Vaughn
I know I’m wrong, but there’s no chance in hell I’m going to admit it. I’ve heard the quick snap of a falling tree before. I’ve lived on an estate surrounded by woods my entire life. I’ve spent dozens of winters in ski lodges and vacationed in snow-heavy, mountain terrain. This rumbling sound—it’s not a good one. It’s a very, very bad one.
There’s too much stress on the mountain. Too much snow and wind.
I grab Claire’s upper arm and pull her closer to me. The sleeve of her shirt is drenched with melted snow and sticks to her cold skin. She looks up at me, her bright blue eyes wide with fear narrow and fill with anger. “Get your hands off me,” she says raggedly.