Sneak Peek From "Snowed In at the Archive"

SNEAK PEEK

A gust of wind blew down the stairwell, sending the glass door to the stairs wide. The cool air hit Mila straight on, sending chills up her spine and several papers flying. Jack grabbed one paper mid-air, while she rushed to pick up the others. Several papers lay strewn across the floor under the table, and she dropped to gather them.

Two separate set of footsteps clunked down the stairs, one set lighter than the other.

“Mila?” Father Terri called out. The man’s soft voice still carried. With a soothing voice like his, she could understand why he was a man of God.

She grabbed another paper. “Under here, Father,” she said.

Then Freddie spoke, his tone shocked, “Alec?”

Mila froze as laughter came from Freddie, Jack, and a third party. Freddie pushed off his stool and rounded the table, his feet in brown loafers met up with Jack’s tennis shoes, Father Terri’s black dress shoes, and a fourth set of brown steel-toed winter boots, still wet from being outside.

“How are you guys?” The deep baritone of the man she was trying to forget seemed to ooze under the table and wrap around her.

“Good, good,” chorused her traitor best friends. Thumping sounds came next and she could picture the men hugging and patting each other on the back.

She stayed stock still under the table, papers clutched in one hand, the other reaching out.

“I’m going to go see to our other guests.” Father Terri turned, retreating up the stairs in his black dress shoes. She wished she could go with him. Vanish into the walls. Seep through the floors. Evaporate. For the first time since high school, she understood why Jack had always chosen invisibility as his superpower when they were picking powers as teens. She’d wanted to fly Santa’s sleigh, and deliver presents, but that would help her not at all right now.

“What are you doing here?” Jack asked.

Yeah, what was he doing here? She didn’t ask him to come. Didn’t want him to come. Had said the bare minimum, in fact. Had been intentionally succinct and to the point. She wouldn’t have contacted him at all if she’d found any information that might have been helpful to her cause without him. But she hadn’t, so she had made a sacrifice.

“Got a text from Mila,” Alec spoke, and she cringed.

“You did, did you?” Jack said in that annoying way of his. The way he did when he thought she liked someone and he was teasing her.

“Thought I’d better get back here and make sure you were all okay,” Alec said.

Someone cleared their throat. “Yeah, we’re all okay,” Freddie said.

She’d wring his neck. What happened to best friend solidarity? Did it even exist right now?

“Where’s Mila?” Alec asked.

Silence filled the room, and her heart raced. She couldn’t see Jack and Freddie, but she knew they’d pointed her out, betrayed her, the moment Alec’s boots made a sharp turn in her direction.

She sucked in a quiet gasp.

The man slowly rounded the table, then stopped directly across from her. He tapped a toe, then dropped to a squat. Impressive, given his bulky, tall frame, and came into full view.

She gasped a second time, but now for an entirely different reason.

Alec kept one hand on the table above him. His brown locks were wet, yet still neatly disheveled, and his crystal blue eyes twinkled, accentuated by the light blue shirt he wore under his leather jacket and gray hoodie. He cocked a brow, his right brow with the scar through it.

She shrank back.

He grinned his stupid sexy grin, the one that always drew her gaze to his lips. “Thomas,” he said by way of greeting. He often called her by just her last name.

She swallowed.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a slow, deliberate timbre that sent tingles up her spine.

That snapped her out of it. What was she doing? He had the nerve to ask her what she was doing? He’d up and left three months ago, she’d heard from him once, maybe twice after that, then he showed up unannounced and wanted to know what she was doing? She clenched her jaw and snatched up the last piece of paper she’d been reaching for.

“I’m working,” she snapped, then backed up on all fours. She went to stand and slammed her head into the underside of the table. She grabbed her head. “Ouch.”

Freddie was at her side in an instant. Hand on top of her hand on her head and his other hand under her arm to help her stand.

Jack was reaching across the table toward her, eyes wide. “You okay?”

She slapped at Freddie’s shoulder to get him to let go of her arm, and he dodged away from her, hands up. “Hey, just trying to help.”

Jack chuckled.

She glared. Yeah, trying to help make this situation even more embarrassing than it needed to be. They were so on Santa’s naughty list.

Alec stood again with impressive agility and grace for a man so tall and broad. She stared at his shoulders, impressed despite herself, then shook her head to clear it of the impertinent thought. Her head ached from where she’d hit it; shaking it made it worse, so she rubbed it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Alec glanced at Jack and Freddie.

The men stared at Alec, at each other, then at her.

Jack said, “We’ll wait upstairs,” at the same time, Freddie said, “I’m out of here.” They turned and rushed the stairs, disappearing up them in as fast a walk as they could muster without actually running. She’d throttle them.

Alec leaned against the table, sexy smirk still in place. “Well, that wasn’t at all awkward.”

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