Get a Clue

this particular house weren't as prepared as they should have been, and two- and this was the biggie, in Breanne's opinion- there was a dead body.

Dead bodies changed everything.

No longer did the house feel cute and quaint-if it ever had. And getting out of here, storm of the century or not, had become a requirement. She stood wrapped in a borrowed stadium-length down coat, a leftover from some forgotten guest. She also had on one of Dante's beanies, and wool socks courtesy of Patrick.

Ever so helpful, her staff.

Huddled in her borrowed gear, she let out a breath that crystallized in front of her face as she took in the scene.

White as far as the eye could see.

And more white.

From here, the humongous mountain peaks that surrounded them in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vista looked innocuous and breathtaking. The flakes fell with an odd gentleness, and utterly silently, stacking on top of the banks of snow that had already fallen, piling up against the house, against the shed, against the garage, so that the three-story log-cabin house appeared to be only a little more than one.

Thanks to the lack of electricity, the house itself was dark. No sparkling lights shining from the windows, no scent of cooking food, nothing but a rather disconcerting hollowness that made it seem lifeless. There was four feet of snow on the roofs despite the fact that they'd unloaded themselves at least twice, leaving huge drifts stacked alongside of each structure, some more than eight feet high, making it impossible to get close to the shed or the garage until they moved the snow.

There were two power lines along the driveway, coated in white and sagging nearly to the ground. The trees were completely covered, and swaying from the weight as if alive. Four of the pines in the front yard had split or collapsed under the tremendous weight of the snow, and would undoubtedly have to be removed. The windows on the north side of the shed had shattered inward.

And still the snow came.

They all shoveled. Or rather, Dante, Patrick, and Cooper shoveled, while Breanne, Shelly, and Lariana watched. Mostly because there were only three shovels, but also because it was damn hard work, and Breanne for one wasn't very good at hard work.

'Look at that sky,' Shelly breathed.

Lariana and Breanne both looked up. In San Francisco, Breanne had rarely ever noticed the horizon. In fact, the last time she'd looked up at all had been on one of her first dates with Dean, when he'd taken her to the roof of his building to show her the summer constellations.

What he'd really wanted to do was impress her, and then get into her pants. Damn it, she had been impressed, but she hadn't let him into her pants.

Not that night, anyway.

The point was, though, she wasn't an anal person, or rushed for time on a daily basis, and still, she'd never really spent much time sky-gazing.

Leaning back now, she staggered back a step, found her balance, and stood there in awe as the flakes fell onto her face, cool to her heated skin. It was like an explosion in a mattress factory the way the white flakes, not round, not any particular shape, really, drifted down from the sky like fluffy pieces of cotton in no particular hurry.

Cotton that sure piled up into not-so-innocent drifts that needed to be moved.

By them.

'It's making my mascara run,' Lariana said. 'I'm going in.'

Watching the guys work, Shelly nodded. 'Me, too, but wow, look at 'em. They're all…'

'Hot,' Lariana agreed. 'Very, very hot. But even the hottest of the hotties is not worth freezing to death. Let's go.'

Breanne stayed behind. The cold temperature speared right through her but the guys were sweating. Dante wore a black sweatshirt nearly coated over in snow now. Patrick wore his Abominable Snowman outfit. He wasn't as effective a shoveler as Dante, taking smaller shovelfuls and half the time dumping the contents in his own way, swearing with gleeful abandon as he did.

Cooper moved with a steady, easy precision that made it look extremely easy. He wore the blue sweatshirt he'd given Breanne that first night, now also crusted over with snow, but he didn't appear to notice as he labored. Breanne felt entranced watching him, mesmerized by the way his body worked as if poetry in motion. He was like that in bed, too. She figured he was like that in everything he set his mind to, and for a moment, her mind wandered.

What would it be like to see him outside of here, in the real world? Before the answer could come to her, Shelly came back out with bottles of water for the guys.

Breanne looked at the shovel Cooper leaned against a post. Feeling extremely aware of his gaze as he drank, she lifted the shovel. Wow. All by itself, the thing was heavy. But he was watching her, so she dug in, filling the bucket, then attempting to lift it.

It didn't budge.

Okay, no problem. She tipped half of the snow off. That worked.

By the third shovelful, she was panting. By the fourth, she couldn't lift it one more time.

A big hand closed over hers. She raised her gaze to Cooper's | 'I'll get it,' he said.

She could see the exhaustion in his face. 'I'm sorry,' she murmured. 'I wish you didn't have to do this.'

'You feel bad?'

'Very.'

That seemed to perk him up. 'Enough to make it up to me?”

She had to laugh at the teasing light in his eyes, but as he turned back to work, her smile faded. Because she found she did want to make it up to him. She wanted to do that, and more.

A lot more.

***

Breanne went inside to get more bottles of water. Shelly would have gone but Breanne insisted, needing a moment alone. In the kitchen, she set the tray on the counter and loaded more water bottles onto it. As she did, her eyes strayed to the cupboard beneath the sink.

Was the towel still there?

Heart in her throat, she nudged the door open with her toe. Yep, bloody towel still in place.

Her stomach lurched sickly, and she considered staggering weakly back to a chair but heard something behind her.

She spun around fast enough to get dizzy but realized the sound had come from beneath her.

Beneath her.

Whirling back, she peeked out the kitchen window. Dante, Patrick, Cooper, and Lariana were there. Shelly, too.

Everyone was outside.

Every single person.

At least every single alive person.

Oh God, don't go there. This wasn't the movies. There had to be a perfectly good explanation for that noise, and she was going to find out what. Yes, she was. She grabbed a flashlight, and on second thought, another knife from the butcher block.

Just in case.

Just in case what, she had no idea.

The hallway to the servants' quarters was going to give her nightmares for the rest of her natural-born days.