Stranded in the Woods Read online

  He was the only one who looked like his father.

  Scott was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, and he was smiling as Russ lowered the car from the jack.

  Something was different about him. Kent hadn’t seen his brother very much for a couple of years, but he could see very clearly that something was different. “What’s going on with you?” he muttered.

  Russ snorted. “He’s in love.”

  “He is?”

  “Yep. He’s been as disgustingly happy this week as Phil has been for the past five months.”

  “I’m standing right here, you know.” Scott was trying to frown but not doing a very good job. He was brimming with something warm and bright.

  Love. Hope. Joy.

  No other explanation for it.

  “Olivia?” Kent asked.

  “Yes. Who else?”

  “How did that happen? That night in the snowstorm?”

  “Yeah. Well, it started long before then, but that’s when we figured it out.” Scott reached out and gave Kent a light punch on the shoulder. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Kent took a step back.

  “Have you figured out anything yet?”

  “What am I supposed to have figured out?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  Kent just frowned.

  “We’re not idiots, you know,” Russ put in. “You spent the night with Penny, and she came back all upset.”

  “We didn’t—” Kent cut off his own objection since it wouldn’t have been true. They had spent the night together—in every possible way. “She’s upset?”

  “Of course she’s upset.” Russ clearly wasn’t happy with him, and it bothered Kent more than it should. “She’s usually the happiest person around, and I’ve never seen her this subdued.”

  Kent shifted from foot to foot. “What does she say happened?”

  “Nothing,” Scott said. “She won’t say anything. That’s pretty strange for her too. Why don’t you go talk to her, see how she’s doing?”

  “I... can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You just won’t. And it’s an asshole move.” Russ’s face was serious. “You know it too.”

  Of course Kent knew he was being an asshole, but it was better than risking something worse.

  “I don’t think she’s expecting you to change overnight,” Scott said, his tone a lot gentler than Russ’s. “She’s not a demanding or judgmental person. She’ll let you stay holed up in your cabin a lot if that’s what you need.”

  It wasn’t what he needed. It wasn’t even what he wanted anymore.

  But it was the only thing he could do.

  “Hey,” Scott added, giving Kent another light punch. “Say something. Talk to us. What are you so afraid of?”

  For some reason the mild question was like a shove from behind, pushing Kent into speech at last. “What if—” He broke off when his voice cracked. He cleared this throat and tried again. “What if I... try it... What if I try it and then end up like...”

  Scott pulled his brows together, obviously deeply concerned by Kent’s stilted, half-finished question. “End up like what?”

  “Like your dad,” Russ said quietly. He’d always been incredibly quick, incredibly perceptive, and he’d somehow managed to read between the lines of Kent’s stumbling fears. “He doesn’t want to end up like your dad.”

  Kent turned his head away, rubbing his beard obsessively, unable to stop.

  “Why would you end up like Dad?” Scott asked, confused now and even more worried. “You’re not like Dad at all.”

  “Yes, I am. I am.”

  “You look like him, but that doesn’t mean...” Scott looked over at Russ, urgent now. “He’s not like Dad. Tell him.”

  “You’re kind of like he was when he was younger,” Russ said. He wasn’t going to lie to Kent. That much was clear even though his words were like a knife in his heart. Russ met Scott’s eyes. “He is.”

  “Fuck, Russ, don’t tell him that! He’s upset about it. It’s stopping him from doing what he wants, being happy. You’re not like Dad, Kent. Not in any way that matters. You’re not.”

  “Thanks for saying that,” Kent said hoarsely. “But I don’t believe you. And I’m not going to be a husband and father like he was. I will never do that. If it means I have to be alone, then I’m going to be alone.”

  “No. That’s not right at all. You’re not like him.” Scott turned to glare at Russ, who was watching Kent thoughtfully. “Damn it, Russ. Say something. Say something helpful like you did with me. I’m not smart enough to help him. He’s not like Dad. He’s not. He’s never been like Dad.”

  “He’s like him in some ways,” Russ said slowly. “Your dad wasn’t always so hard and cold and... mean. Like I said, Kent, you’re like him when he was younger. Then he made choices and became the man he became, and that’s where you’re different. You’ve never made choices like he did. Even right now, as stupid as you’re being, you’re thinking of other people more than you’re thinking about yourself.”

  “Yes,” Scott said, reaching out to hold on to Kent’s upper arm. “You’re not like him. Dad never really took care of us, but you took care of us. Even when you were a kid, you tried to take care of Phil and me.” He made a strange, soft choking sound. “You spent almost every penny you earned on us, and you always tried to defend us. Even if it meant he hit you, you tried to take care of us.”

  For a moment Kent couldn’t breathe.

  He literally couldn’t breathe around the ache in his throat.

  He stood perfectly still, his hands clenched at his sides, and he tried to contain a shuddering that had begun deep inside him.

  “Phil would say the same thing,” Russ murmured. “If you could do that when you were just a boy yourself, if you could try to protect your brothers and make sure they had everything they needed, then you’re going to be able to do it even better as a man.”

  The three of them stood outside in the dappled sunlight next to the pickup truck on a winter afternoon, and they stared at each other with emotion too deep to put into words. Kent could feel it. He knew they felt it too.

  He’d never had a conversation this deep in his life—not with anyone but Penny.

  But it meant something. Changed something.

  Maybe they were right.

  Maybe it didn’t matter that he’d had bad moments, that there were ways that he was uncomfortably similar to his father.

  It didn’t mean he had to become him.

  The silence stretched out too long. Kent had no idea what he should do or how to break it. But someone needed to soon.

  He was about to completely fall apart.

  Finally Russ did it for them. “Anyway,” he said dryly, his mouth turning up in a half smile, “I don’t think Penny is looking for you to be a husband and father quite yet. I’ll bet she’d be very happy with just a date.”

  “A date?”

  It sounded so simple.

  So life changing.

  “Yes. A date. For God’s sake, Kent, if a woman like Penny will go out with you, don’t throw it away. Some of us don’t even have that.”

  That was vaguely interesting to Kent. He wondered what Russ was talking about. But he didn’t have room in his mind to pursue it at the moment.

  His head and heart were full of something else. Something so big he could barely contain it.

  “Drive back with us,” Scott suggested. He was smiling again, that inner joy returning now that the emotional tension was over. “Just talk to her. Ask her out. See what she says.”

  Kent made a weird sound in his throat.

  “What was that?” Scott asked.

  “That was an okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  And with that, Kent had evidently come to a decision.

  He was terrified. And ridiculously excited at the same time.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, he was walking into the huge Christ
mas store at Holiday Acres, which was in a building as large as a soccer field.

  He’d never liked the Christmas store. It was too big, too chaotic, filled with too much stuff. It had disoriented him as a child, and it did even more today since it was packed full of people.

  He never would have set foot in this store had Penny not been in it somewhere.

  Olivia had come out to greet Scott on their arrival, and she’d looked thrilled to see that Kent was with them. She’d immediately told him that Penny was in the store, tweaking some of the displays, but she didn’t know exactly which part of the store she would be.

  So after years alone in his cabin, Kent had to wander through a crowded Christmas store filled with aisles and aisles of ornaments, decorations, and collectibles.

  He could have been asked to run an ultramarathon, and it would have been easier and less stressful for him to do than this.

  But he was doing it anyway because Penny was in here somewhere.

  After five minutes, he was sweating and out of breath. People kept running into him, and one little boy evidently found him fascinating because he was stalking Kent’s steps, darting to hide behind shelves every time Kent glanced back.

  And still no Penny.

  Kent kept going, searching for another five minutes until he was literally about to knock down displays in frustration.

  He’d seen every person in the world except for Penny in the aisles of this store. Where the hell was she?

  When he got to the far wall and still hadn’t found her, he finally reached the end of his patience.

  “Penny!” he bellowed.

  The two dozen people who were in his range of vision all whirled around to look at him.

  “Penny!” he called out again, as loud as he could.

  If she was here, surely she’d be able to hear him.

  “Penny, if you’re here and you want to see me, I’m standing by the pink Christmas tree!”

  People were laughing now, but he didn’t care.

  He stood where he was, panting and sweating, and he waited.

  Eleven

  PENNY WAS ADJUSTING the crocheted elves in one of her displays in a far corner of the store when she heard someone bellowing her name.

  She knew immediately it was Kent.

  At the sound of the loud, deep voice echoing through the crowded store, her heart jumped and then started to race.

  What the heck was happening here?

  Why was Kent shouting for her in the middle of the store?

  He wasn’t supposed to be at Holiday Acres.

  He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere but his cabin.

  He wasn’t supposed to want to see her again.

  At least that was what he’d told her.

  He called her name again, and then told her he was by the pink Christmas tree, which was at the end of the big aisle that ran down the center of the store. So, confused and jittery, she set down the elf she’d been holding, propping him up against a ceramic gingerbread cottage, and then hurried in that direction.

  When she turned the corner, she almost ran into Martha, who was crouching down stocking one of the shelves. Martha laughed and said, “Sounds like someone is looking for you.”

  Penny flushed for no good reason. Obviously the whole store knew Kent was looking for her.

  What on earth was he doing here?

  She was breathless when she reached the big aisle and looked to the left to see Kent standing at the very end of it, right in front of the pink Christmas tree.

  He was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a flannel shirt hanging open over a T-shirt. His beard was too long, and his body was too big, and his scowl was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen her in her life.

  “Kent,” she called out, moving even faster now because it looked like he was about to shout out her name again. “I’m right here.”

  He turned toward her voice with a jerk of his head, and his features relaxed slightly. He was still frowning as she approached him, however.

  Penny was so disoriented that, when she reached him, instead of doing the normal thing and asking what he was doing here, she frowned back at him. “You don’t have to shout. You could have just looked for me.”

  “I did look for you. I couldn’t find you.”

  “Well, I was there to be found if you’d looked a little harder.”

  “I looked.” He was scowling again. “I was about to have a panic attack in this place.”

  Scanning his face, she realized he was telling her the truth. He was as breathless as she was, and he was also pale and sweating. Immediately worried, she took his arm and dragged him off to the right, where she opened the door to the smallest of their storerooms and turned on the light before she closed and locked the door behind them.

  Kent took a deep breath and let it out as his body relaxed slightly. “There’s a lot of people in there.”

  “Of course there are a lot of people here. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.” She stepped closer to him and took a handful of his shirt. She felt unsteady and needed to hang on to something. “Kent, what is going on?”

  “Oh.” He blinked a couple of times. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted to talk to me?” She wasn’t sure why she was repeating the words or why her tone was so sharp, but she couldn’t seem to help it. Something big, powerful, was rising inside her, and it was taking all her control to contain it.

  The corners of his mouth turned down again behind his beard. “Are you not hearing me?”

  “Yes, I’m hearing you. You wanted to talk to me.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  She sighed. “No, I’m not—” She broke off the words abruptly and instead burst out. “Yes, I am mad at you!”

  “Why are you mad at me? I thought we were okay when we said goodbye.”

  “We were okay, but okay isn’t good enough. Why should we just be okay? Why should you just be okay? You can be so much better than okay, Kent, if you would just let yourself.”

  “Penny—”

  “Don’t Penny me! I’m mad at you, Kent Matheson, and I’m allowed to be mad. Because you’re being really stupid. You’re afraid of turning into your dad. Don’t tell me you’re not because I know you are. I understand why. I understand that your dad really messed you up and so you’re afraid of... of being close to people now. But that doesn’t give you an excuse for hiding yourself away from the world. If you’d just get the balls to talk to me about it, then I’m sure we could work it out. You like me, Kent.”

  His tone was different—rough and urgent—as he began, “Of course I like you—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “You like me a lot. You always have. And a few days ago we discovered that we’re also attracted to each other. What’s so scary about that? It’s an amazing thing to happen to a person—to discover that they can have great sex with a friend as good as I’ve always been to you. We have the beginnings of something really good here, and you know it as well as I do. And you’re standing there refusing to even give us a chance because... because... I don’t know even know why. But it’s stupid. And I’m not a bit happy about it.”

  Something new was happening to Kent’s face now. His amber eyes had started to smolder in a way that would have taken her breath away had she had any left to take. “Penny, if you’ll just let me—”

  “I’m not going to let you do anything, Kent. I’m still chewing you out. You don’t get to show up here and talk to me if you’re going to keep being stupid. You want me, Kent. I know you do, and you know you do too. If you stand there and try to tell me that you don’t, I’m not going to believe you.”

  “Of course I want you, Penny.”

  “Then what the heck is your problem, Kent? If you want me, then just take me. I’m right here.” She gazed up at him, dazed and flushed and panting. “I’m right here.”

  He stared back at her for a tense moment, both of
them trapped in the intensity of the gaze. Then he made a guttural sound and grabbed her face in a hard kiss.

  The move caught her by surprise, so she didn’t respond immediately. She was still clutching at his shirt with one hand, and her body was flooded with pleasure and excitement and an astonishment that paralyzed her.

  After a minute, he pulled back from her mouth slightly and met her eyes with an obvious question. “No?”

  She reached up with both arms and pulled his head back down toward her. “Yes!”

  He was smiling when he met her lips again, and she was so eager that the kiss deepened almost immediately. She opened her mouth and tried to suck his tongue into her mouth as she pressed the length of her body against his.

  He walked her backward until her bottom connected with the edge of a table. The surface of the table was lined with boxes, but they were all pushed back against the wall, so the edge was clear.

  She huffed when she felt the hard edge against her butt, but she liked how solid it was, how Kent could push her against it in his urgency.

  His tongue was moving in her mouth now, and his beard was rubbing all over her skin with rough, erotic texture. She couldn’t feel enough of him with the difference in their heights, so she stretched up on her tiptoes until Kent reached down, cupped her bottom, and then lifted her up onto the table.

  This helped, although she had to hike up her broomstick skirt so she could free her legs and let him fit between them.

  She was already turned on, and so was he. She could feel a hard bulge at the front of his jeans, and she wanted desperately to rub herself against it. “Kent,” she gasped.

  “What, honey?”

  She loved how he called her that, as if he didn’t even realize he was using the endearment. “Are we really going to do this here?”

  “Fuck, yes.” He started to kiss her again but paused a breath away from her lips. “You locked the door, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  He pressed a sweet kiss on her mouth. Surprisingly gentle. “But what?”

  “But we need a condom.”

  He made a choking sound and ducked his face into the hollow of her neck. After a minute, she heard him muttering, “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”