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Thawing the Ice
    by Shyla Colt
    Untamed Series
    Thawing the Ice
    © 2014 Shyla Colt
    Cover by Dreams 2 Media
    Disclaimer
    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the author. The story and its characters and
entities are fictional. Any likeness to actual persons, either living or dead,
is strictly coincidental.
     
     
    Dedications
    For you dear readers, who travel with me on journeys like this
one into the frozen terrain of Alaska. Without you I’d be nothing. :* And
always, thank you to the man upstairs for everything.
     
     
    Chapter One
    Leighton Pulver paced the length of
the small cabin, furious over her current situation. I should have gotten a
handle on this when it first started . Her bare feet coasted over the carpet
as she wore a path from the door to the living room and back. Why did I let
it get this far? So stupid . She’d out of her way to take the high road, and
now the bitterness and backup from biting her tongue and feigning detachment.
The ignored emotions rushed up, choking her. Her hands shook. Heat spread
across her face as she worried the beige carpet. This life had twisted the
optimistic girl she’d once been and had opened her eyes to the horrors,
hypocrisy, and deceit people doled out at an alarming rate. I guess I found
my breaking point . Fear clung to her brain like cotton candy.
    What will they say when I spill
my guts? When they see the weak woman beneath my tough girl front? Her soft
underbelly wasn’t pretty, and they had enough on their plates running the
Lodge. Her stomach rolled and knotted like pretzels waiting to be baked. She
didn’t do sharing. People had a way of breaking your heart, and using your
weaknesses against you. But this had already waited too long. She nibbled the
bottom of her lip, fingering the threadbare material of the gray shirt she’d
borrowed from Ryan to do the laundry.
    A key turned in the lock, and she
paused in the middle of the living room. Ryan and Casey walked inside. For a
moment, her vision swam. She curled her feet into the carpet beneath her to
ground herself.
    “Lei.” Ryan’s gruff voice made her
jump.
    “What’s going on? Something
happen?” Casey shut the door behind him, and they tensed, launching into
protective mode. Anderson, Alaska was a wild, rugged area. It wasn’t unusual
for animals to wander the property, and after the way her Dad died, extra
caution became the norm. Rabid bears were a one in a million chance. She
slammed the lid shut on the horrific memories and focused on the boys.
    She took a deep breath and forced
the words repeating in her mind out. “I can’t do this anymore.” Tears hovered
in the corner of her eyes, and she struggled to keep them back. I refuse to
be remembered as a crybaby. Her chest ached, and pain crept into her
temples, a dull pulsing she knew would quickly escalate to a paralyzing throb
if she didn’t end this soon.
    “You can’t do what?” Ryan shook his
head. His brow creased with confusion.
    “Exactly.” She snorted.
    “We’re not following you,” Casey
said slowly. His dark brown hair swung side to side, and she drank in his
beauty. He had large, soulful brown eyes set in a masculine face. A broad
forehead, strong jaw, and dimpled cheeks rounded out the total package that
kept the females in the town swooning. The sparse city boasted two hundred and
fifty people on a good day, so pickings were slim. Everyone knew the Boyer
boys, whose father ran the only Lodging Hotel in town. Since their fathers had
been best friends, Leighton grew up beside them, fishing, hunting, and not
realizing how attractive they were until much later in life. She gulped.
    “Does it matter?” Leighton’s voice
cracked.
    “You come at me talking crazy,
yeah, it kind of does.” Ryan stalked forward, and she