“It’s a travesty to drink this pinot noir in such ugly glasses,” she said as she held up the offensive glasses to the firelight. The vintage was brilliant ruby in the glow. It smelled as advertised, with notes of cherry, anise and sandalwood.
“What do you mean? My maw maw has these glasses,” Erik said, settling into his chair, tugging the blanket around his knees. He balanced the plate of cookies in his lap.
That made Emma laugh.
“You’re so different now,” he said. The teasing in his eyes had disappeared and he stared at her thoughtfully.
“How so?”
“I don’t know. It’s like you’re Emma, but you’re not. Just different.”
“Did you expect me to stay the same? I was a teenager. You should know that when you feed and water them, they grow up to become adults,” she joked, swiping a chocolate off the plate and biting into it. “Mmm, these are so good.”
She felt him watching her and something zipped in the air. Like the crackling of static electricity. Or the prickling of hair at the nape of her neck. She chewed the decadent candy she’d bought at Belvedere’s when she’d gone shopping in Denver.
Turning, she caught him watching her, hunger present in his eyes. He blinked, cleared his throat and said, “I’m going to grab one of those jigsaw puzzles.”
* * *
ERIK WAS IN TROUBLE. Not because he was stranded in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no electricity and no way to communicate with the outside world. No. The danger wore diamond earrings and fuzzy wool socks. And she smelled like exotic perfume and had hair soft as spun silk. Not that he even knew what spun silk was. But it was probably soft since everyone compared soft stuff to it. Everything about her was womanly. She had curves that begged to be traced, plump flesh ready to yield to the hardness of a man.
Yeah, little Emma Rose was big-time trouble.
“You really want to do a puzzle?” she asked, her tongue darting out to take care of the small chocolate fleck in the corner of her luscious lips.
No, I really want to do you.
But he couldn’t actually say that to her.
“Uh, sure. We can drag the table in front of the fire. It would be easier to set the glasses and cookies on the table, too.”
Emma made a face. “Okay, if you really want to.” She struggled from the grasp of the scratchy blanket and padded in her socked feet to the small bathroom. A few minutes later she emerged with a water-stained box.
Erik jumped up and set about hauling the kitchen table as close to the fire as was safe. Then he moved the wingback chairs, already warm from their bodies, over to the table. He’d found a couple of candles on the back of a shelf in the kitchen, which he set on the table and lit.
The overall effect was very cozy.
Maybe too cozy for two single warm-blooded people drinking wine by candlelight.
“This was the best puzzle in the bunch.” She held up the box showing a large whale breaching an Alaskan bay. Or somewhere cold. As if they needed something else to remind them of being cold and wet. Why couldn’t the former owners of the cabin have bought a tropical-landscape puzzle?
“That’ll work,” he said, settling in the chair, pouring another slug of wine. Normally he went for beer, but he couldn’t deny how warm the wine made him. “Let’s try to create the border first.”
Emma started flipping puzzle pieces. “I wonder if Alexis got my message. I started to text my parents, but they’d have been too worried. They would have canceled the dinner. Ugh, it was so stupid to forget to charge my phone.”
“You were out of your element,” he said, finding two pieces that fit and tapping them down.
“I’ve been out of my element for a while now. Ever since I finished my master’s, I’ve lived with my parents. It was easy. I taught high school, worked on my thesis and my mom cooked every night. It’s not like I’m spoiled, but this past month of moving and starting a new job has been difficult. But I know I’m settling in to where I’m supposed to be.”
“In academia?”
She nodded. “Hey, I’ve always been a nerd.”
“Nothing nerdy about you, Emma. You’re a beautiful, accomplished woman. I know your folks are proud.”
Emma glanced up at him. “You’re being awfully kind to the girl who broke your Stratocaster.”
Laughing, Erik passed her a few pieces that looked as if they would fit the border she worked on. “I forgot about that. You should have stuck to air guitar.”