any reason… Oh, dear.”
Great. He’d been a jackass again.
“That’s all right. I…hinted.”
“If you need help you can get it from the Veterans
Administration, can’t you?”
“I don’t need it.” The gravel in his voice startled
even him. He cleared his throat. “What I need is to…decompress. This is my way of doing that. Be around people in limited doses. Get over being jumpy without
a barrage of noise around me all the time.”
She looked doubtful even though he could tell she
was still embarrassed. “Is it working?”
Some days he thought so. On others, when he awakened from a nightmare with his heart pounding and a bellow raw in his throat, he wasn’t so sure.
“I feel better than I did when I tried to go back to
work at Robotronics.” Which was truth, so far as it went.
“It is peaceful up here.” Shouts from outside drifted
up, and her mouth curved. “Or was, until we darkened
your door.”
“You’ve been good guests,” he forced himself to say.
“Why, thank you.” She sighed. “I suppose I’d better
go check on the kids.”
He stepped aside and let her pass him, a flowery
scent lingering for a moment even after she’d disappeared into the hall. Had she brought perfume…? No, he realized; she’d used one of those fragrant bath beads.
John glanced toward the old-fashioned tub, picturing her letting her bra drop to the floor, then slipping off her panties before stepping in. He’d seen her long
legs when she changed yesterday in front of the fire.
Imagining the rest of her naked body came easily. Had
her hair been loose, to float on the water when she sank
down into the tub? Or had she bundled it up?
Loose. Definitely loose. Her hair had still been wet
when she came down for breakfast.
A groan tore its way from his throat. Damn it, what
did he think he was doing? He had a shaky enough hold
on reality.
He forced himself to scan the bathroom with a
practiced, innkeeper’s eye before following her
downstairs.
As predicted, Amy was the one to have come in and
was shedding her outerwear in front of the fire. Water
pooled on the plank floor around her boots.
“It’s freakin’ cold out there.” She shivered and
hugged herself.
“It was nice of you to go even though you didn’t want
to, for the sake of everyone else,” Fiona said.
Reaching the foot of the stairs, John paused to hear the
girl’s answer to the teacher’s kindly retooling of motives
he was pretty damn sure hadn’t been that altruistic.
“Even though I went out to be nice, Troy, ” she said
the name with loathing, “made this big snowball and
smashed it against my face. He’s a…a creep. ”
“Well, you did go out to have a snowball fight.”
“But he walked right up and did it! He’s such a jerk.
Him and Hopper, too.”
How sad romance was when it died. A grin tugging
at his mouth, John crossed the huge great room, opened
the heavy front door and went out on the porch.
Snow still floated from the sky, obscuring the landscape. The steps he’d shoveled last night had disappeared again.
There seemed to be a free-for-all going on, snowballs
flying, accompanied by shrieks and yells. With the snow
still falling, the teenagers were indistinguishable from
each other, all blurred in white. They were thigh deep and
higher in the white blanket that enveloped the landscape,
the shed and the cabins he could usually see from here.
John raised his voice. “Time out!”
The action stopped and heads turned his way.
“When you get cold and decide to come in, everyone
go get an armful of wood and bring it. Pile’s just around
the side of the lodge.” He jerked his thumb toward the
north corner.
“Girls, too?” a voice squeaked.
“Girls, too.”
He went back inside, where Amy was elaborating on
what pigs all boys were, while Fiona soothed with
common sense. As far as he could see, the girl was a
spoiled brat, but what did he know?
Not that much later, the kids did all carry in wood,
and all three boys and one of the girls willingly went