Marco and Jonah left after a quick hug, too, and soon, her guests were gone. Well, all except one. Sophie turned to Wolfe, who was lurking like a malodorous shadow, and made a monumental effort to keep her tone civil. “I hope you had a nice time tonight.”
“I did,” he said after a pause, sounding almost surprised. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, the other one holding his Secret Santa present from Sophie. His scarf lay across his shoulders, and his peacoat was still unbuttoned. “I liked getting to know the person behind the novelist.” He smiled a lopsided smile that made her heart flutter at the same time as acid pooled in her stomach.
Sophie narrowed her eyes. “Huh. So maybe remember the person behind the novelist the next time you want to talk about my unrealistic, totally over-the-top happy endings.”
Wolfe’s smile faded. “Look. I didn’t mean to offend you with anything I said—in my column or tonight. That was never my intention. I was just … anyway. Sometimes I can be pretty blunt.”
Sophie crossed her arms slowly. “You don’t say.”
“Yeah. So. I’m sorry.”
Wow. An actual, real-life apology. “Thanks.” Sophie paused. “And, ah, I’m sorry I said what I did about your belief in UFOs and little green men. You should be able to believe in whatever weird stuff you want.”
He pursed his lips for a long moment as if considering arguing with her again. “Sure. Okay,” he said finally, in a voice as tight as a piano string, as if he was holding back something he really, really wanted to say. He got as far as the front door, even put his hand on the doorknob. Then, wincing, he said in a rush, “Just to be clear, though, I don’t believe in little green men.”
Taking a page from his book, Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Oh. So you didn’t like UFO Primer?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “No, I did. I do. It was well researched. What I’m trying to say is that aliens aren’t like Hollywood’s portrayals.”
“Have you seen one? An alien, I mean? In real life?” Sophie asked, cocking her head.
“What? No.”
“So then how do you know they aren’t like Hollywood’s portrayals?”
His giant hand tightened around the present. “Because. They aren’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t have to look like little green men to be aliens! They could be tiny microorganisms!”
Sophie considered this. “So you mean like bugs.”
Wolfe thrust a hand in the air. “Yes. Like bugs. Among other things.”
“So not little green men, but little green bugs piloting spaceships.”
Wolfe stared at her in complete silence for a long minute. Sophie would’ve laughed, except she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was joking. “You’re … You—”
“What?” Sophie stepped closer, smirking. “I what? Spit it out, Wolfe. You have no problem completely destroying me with your words in your column.”
He gazed down at her, his expression smoothing out. “So that’s what this is about. You can’t take a bad review.”
“Oh, I can take a bad review.” A spark of irritation lit Sophie’s words. Apparently Wolfe’s apology for his bad behavior only went so far. “I just don’t appreciate emotional diatribes from supposed industry professionals. Especially when you post one every time I release a new book, several times a year.”
Wolfe huffed a laugh. “‘Emotional diatribes’? That’s a little bit of an exaggeration. And what about you? ‘Kevin Wolfe’ ring any bells? You killed him off in a library. Buried under an avalanche of books when the shelves collapsed, as I recall.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “A little petty for an author, Ms. Hart.”
Sophie’s cheeks warmed; he had her there. But tamping down on her embarrassment, she leveled a look at him. “You want to talk about petty? ‘Noelle and Luuk come together as two dim-witted halves will to make a whole (lot of nonsense).’ Remember that one?”
He grinned, apparently pleased by this. “So you have my reviews memorized.”
Sophie blinked. “What?”
“You just quoted a line from my review almost verbatim. Do you have them all memorized? Do they keep you up at night?”
All Sophie could manage was a series of outraged squawks. Wolfe’s grin widened. “Right. I get it now. It’s all making sense.”
“What’s making sense?” Sophie heard, but wasn’t able to mask, the defensive edge in her voice.
“You’re obsessed with me. That’s what this is all about. Did you tell Will to bring me as his plus-one? Is he in on this?”
Sophie’s mouth popped open. “You’re out of your damn mind! How much of a megalomaniac do you have to be to even conceive of something like that?” He may be laughing, but was he joking? She thought of the scrapbook of his reviews and her cheeks burned. Suddenly, Sophie decided she wanted him out of her home, now, and she wanted to take a hot bath with a nice glass of wine in her clawfoot tub. Brushing past Wolfe, she wrenched open the front door. “Get out.”
But he was staring past her, out the front door, his eyes wide.
Sophie turned to see what he was looking at and stopped short. “Oh, shit.”
It was a whiteout. The entire world had been plunged into snow. Absolutely nothing was visible; she couldn’t even see their cars in the driveway. There were at least eight inches of snow on the ground, with even more being dumped from the sky at an alarming rate. As if to drive the point home, a giant gust of wind blew in, coating her and Wolfe in white. Shrieking, Sophie slammed the door shut.
Wolfe pulled his cell from his pocket and tapped the screen. “There’s a severe winter storm advisory for Starlit Grove,” he said a moment later, his voice tense. “Apparently the road out to Portland is closed now. The storm’s expected to last at least until the morning; they don’t expect it to open until then.”
Sophie glanced at the clock. It had been twenty minutes since the last of her guests had left, so
