Not afraid.
Huh.
The aroma of fresh bread and soup filtered from the kitchen, a few families arriving at tables.
“This reminds me of winter camp,” he said quietly. “We’d earn our outside badges during the day, play games at night.”
“What games?”
“The classics. Monopoly. And Risk. I loved Clue.”
“Of course you did. I saw a Clue game in the bookshelf.” She pointed to the long bookshelf on the opposite side of the room. “But I’m not sure it’s fair.”
“What’s that?”
“Challenging a cop to Clue.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How about Battleship? I saw that over there too.”
“Oh, I’d kill you in Battleship.”
He smiled, and it reached in, stirred her.
She blamed the magic of the storm and the blue of his eyes.
“Where’s Caspian?”
She glanced around. “I don’t know. Last I saw, he was sitting outside the bathroom door, whining.”
He sighed. “That dog. I got him from a friend who decidedthe dog belonged with me. Shep travels a lot, so I figured why not. But he’s not trained.”
“He seems pretty trained to me.”
“It’s weird. One minute he’s like a soldier, watching my six, sometimes running out ahead of me, as if he’s scouting out the territory. The next, he’s leaning against me, his big brown eyes on me, almost like he’s worried about me. Or scared. I can’t figure him out.”
Oh, he possessed such a nice smile when he wasn’t so dark and grumpy and serious.
In the silence of a blizzard,wherethe world faded to white,
I heard your laughter throughthe storm,a beacon in the night.
She didn’t know where the words came from, but they landed on her heart, along with a tune, and she hummed it.
He glanced at her. “You have a nice voice.”
“It’s better when it’s not broken.” She didn’t know why she said that. Not that she wanted to hide Bliss, but she didn’t hate being free from her, just for now.
“How’d it break?”
“Virus. And then I developed a node on my voice box.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds serious.”
“It was. And still could be if I don’t take care of it.”
“Hopefully you won’t have to save my life again.” He winked at her.
Oh. And the crazy of his words simply swept her up. Ignited something inside her. Still, “I’m no hero.” So far from it, it seemed almost laughable that she had to speak it.
