Devoted to the Blizzard: A romantic winter thriller (Tellure Hollow Book 3) by Adele Huxley Page A

half-kidding, my cock stirred a little at the thought. I sat content. My belly full, my body warm and relaxed from the beer, and the promise of a sexy woman in my arms. For a few moments, all was right in the world.
    Then Liz screamed. “Motherfucker!” It was half shout, half cry. I jogged to the living room and found her at the computer desk.
    “What’s wrong?”
    With her jaw set and cheeks pink with fury, she waved a piece of paper in the air. “Another one. Another freakin’ letter! How did they find us?”
    I took the stairs to the living room two at a time, ignoring the twinge of pain in my hip. She practically threw the paper at me with a sob of frustration.
    At the top of the letter was a clipping from a newspaper, a headline that read, “Winter Storm Fizzles Out.” Below, in an ornately drawn script was the number eight.
    “I wouldn’t worry about…” I tried to comfort her but I was at a loss for words. About what? What does this even mean?
    Liz looked up at me with dark, worried eyes. “It’s a countdown. What the hell are they counting down to? Christ, this is the last thing I need! Who is doing this? Do you think it’s Nicole? She called me Winter Storm in the airport before we left.”
    I put the letter face down on the desk and crouched in front of her. “We’re gonna ignore this happened and go take a nice, long shower. There’s nothing we can do about it right now, right?”
    Liz looked away, chewing the inside of her cheek so hard I thought she might start to bleed. “Hmmmm…”
    “Talk to Josh in the morning, get him to help us go to the police with it. It’s probably nothing, just some weirdo wanting to mess with you. The last thing you want to do is let them get in your head, right?”
    Deep in worried thought, she stared at the clipping again and nodded. “Sure. Tomorrow.”
    With as much as she relied on me for emotional support, I couldn’t reveal how freaked out the letter really made me. I gritted my teeth and led the way to the shower, hoping to pull her away from the stalker and any further distraction.
     

After several restless hours of staring at the ceiling, the room was undoubtedly beginning to brighten. Despite my fatigue from training, it’d taken me forever to get to sleep. When my eyes finally did shut out of pure exhaustion, my rest had only lasted a few hours. I rolled over, glanced at the time. As the minute ticked up, I was reminded of the countdown this stalker held over my head. My brain was kind enough to immediately pick up the thread of worry right where I’d left it the night before.
    Positive there was no chance of finding any more rest, I slid quietly from the huge bed. Bryan stirred as I opened the bedroom door, so I was careful to step lightly out of the room and down the dusky hallway. The silence of the house was broken only by a few exotic sounding birds chirping about the coming daylight. I opened a half dozen cupboards before finding the ingredients for the one thing I desperately needed… coffee. A few minutes later, I sat at the kitchen island with a warm cup pressed between my hands, my thoughts jumbled and confusing.
    I picked through a magazine that had come in the mail and recognized it as a local publication Josh said wanted to do an interview with me later in the week. I nibbled on a bran muffin, played solitaire on my phone, but try as I might, I couldn’t take my mind off the letter sitting by the laptop. It called to me, begged to be addressed in some fashion. All I wanted to do was tear it to shreds or burn it, like I’d done to all those Sports Illustrated magazines. Fire was cathartic, but it wouldn’t help catch this psycho.
    I understood Bryan’s logic. We couldn’t do anything about the letters and they probably were nothing more than some overzealous fan. I had to ignore it and not give them the satisfaction, yet something about it just didn’t sit right. After the last couple years, it was understandable I’d have a