When she opened her eyes and she saw him, her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“I’m not naked under the towel. I mean, boxer briefs aren’t much, but I didn’t want to soak your cushions with my wet jeans and—”
“No, it’s fine. As distractions go, it’s a good one.” Until another flash of lightning made her jump. “I’m not usually this bad. But this one seems really close for some reason.”
“Because itisclose.” And he didn’t want to say anything to her, but it was supposed to last for a while. This wasn’t one of those quick storms that hit hard and fast at the end of a hot and humid day. “Do you want to sit down?”
She looked at the dinette, which had the panoramic windows. Even with the heavy curtains, he could see she didn’t want to sit there. There was a window next to her bed, too. It was smaller, but it would still light up.
Rob looked around, helplessness starting to set in, but then he saw the thin throw made of dark, plaid flannel. He could work with that.
“It’s Blanket Fort of Doom time.”
“Blanket Fort of Doom?” Hannah hugged her arms to her chest as Rob started moving around.
“Trust me. You’ll love it.”
She didn’t really have a choice, since she’d practically begged him to come in. What had she been thinking? Not only did he probably have to check on other campsites besides hers, but he’d stripped off those wet clothes. That meant, at some point, he was going to have to put them back on.
But he seemed content, so she stood back and let him do his thing. As she watched, he took the cushions off the dinette benches and carried them to the back of the camper.
“Oh, nice pillow situation,” he said, referring to her nest. “That helps.”
He stood the dinette cushions on end at the head and foot of the bed. It probably wasn’t easy since he had to keep grabbing at the towel. Another lightning strike, which seemed impossibly close, made her freeze with fear. On the plus side, it kept her from telling him he could drop the towel.
Then he took her flannel throw and draped it over the top of the cushions. It took him a couple of tries to get it to stay, and he used a few throw pillows to anchor the dinette cushions, but he succeeded in making a cozy-looking tent out of her bed.
“Okay, crawl in there,” he said. “We can probably leave the side facing the cabin up so it doesn’t get too hot.”
We?Hannah walked by him, trying not to brush against his naked skin, because if she touched him, she might want to keep touching him. She heard him rummaging around, but by the time she’d climbed into the tent, he was behind her.
“It’s a small space, but I promise I’ll be a gentleman,” he said, crawling in after her.
If she was feeling at all sexy, she might have told him how disappointing that promise was, but she was afraid her voice would be squeaky from fear instead of sultry.
She blinked when he turned on the small LED lantern she kept by the stove. It lit up the small space like a surgical suite. After he hit a couple of buttons on his phone, a country love song filled the silence. And he’d also grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and two granola bars.
“Welcome to the Blanket Fort of Doom,” he said, looking very pleased with himself.
To be honest, she was pretty pleased with him, too. Despite his snack choice. “You even brought granola bars.”
“Just in case you want a snack. I’m not a fan, but no blanket fort is complete without snacks.”
“I’m not a fan of them, either.”
He looked from her face to the granola bars and back, his brow furrowed. “But they’re yours.”
“They’re my emergency granola bars.”
“So you’ll eat them in an emergency? Why not buy emergency Snickers? Or emergency doughnuts?”
“They’re my emergency granola bars because when they’re all I have left, I know it’s an emergency and I have to go grocery shopping right away or I’ll have to eat them.”
His laughter drowned out the storm and Hannah laughed with him, snug and safe in his Blanket Fort of Doom.
“Tell me about your very favorite book,” he said. “Like, if you could only own one book for the rest of your life, which one would it be?”
Hannah should have been able to answer that, but in that moment, she couldn’t remember a single book she’d ever read. The only thoughts in her head were about Rob. The way the heat from all that naked skin was chasing away the chill of her fear. The way he must have showered after working outside all day, because she could smell his shampoo, despite him having gotten soaked in the rain.
