I saw the reason that everyone left me.
Chose to go away.
It was because I was cold. I always had been.
The ice queen strikes again.
Don’t get too close, I’ll freeze you, like that queen in Emma’s favorite Disney movie.
I glanced around the restaurant, seeing all the people around me, and I wanted to bolt. To get out of there, away from everyone.
From the possibility that they’d get frozen too—
“I can always light a fire,” Shaun said, interrupting the crazy train my thoughts had leaped on.
I blinked.
The sorrow that had been in his eyes over his wife was gone, replaced by a stark, well, knowledge.
I could see it.
And it made me shiver.
Because I was pretty sure he knew exactly where my mind had been going. And I wondered what tells I’d given him.
“You can’t burn ice.”
“You can if you do it right.”
* * *
After the meal,we headed outside, and normally I would have walked away and got in my car, happy to be over this.
But I couldn’t bring myself to walk away right away.
“Walk you to your car?” Shaun asked.
I shivered as a gust of wind hit me. “You don’t have to.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Actually, you kinda did. When your voice raises like that at the end of a sentence, that means it’s a question.”
“Well, I changed my mind. I just will.”
I should have been offended.
Some part of my independent woman thought I should be. But that part was stamped down by the little part inside me that was glad I had someone to grab onto if the ground got too slick.
The only lighting outside was the streetlights, and the wind howled.
Cars crunched over the snow- and ice-packed parking lot, making a noisy backdrop to the world.
Shaun put his hand on my arm—not in a horribly possessive way, but in that, “here, let me help you” way.
Odd, because I wasn’t used to that. I couldn’t even remember my husband doing that very often. Hell, I think my son did it more than my husband did.
One of the side effects of being the oldest—you’re expected to help take care of everyone else.
