The place feels smaller than it did earlier.
Warmer too.
Like everything inside these four walls knows exactly what happened between us tonight and intends to be difficult about it.
Lexie pushes her hair back from her face and turns to me. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
The wind rattles the windows hard enough to make her jump.
My jaw tightens.
I know these storms. I know what roads look like ten minutes after the first bad hit. Ice under snow. Visibility gone. Trees dropping limbs where they please. And I’m damn sure not getting back on the road in this.
I’m not leaving her here alone in it, either.
“I’m staying,” I tell her.
Her lips part.
“Road’s too bad already. I’m not making it down the mountain in this.”
That part, at least, is true enough.
The weather may be keeping me here, but it isn’t the reason I want to stay.
Lexie studies me for a second, then nods. “Okay.”
No argument. No nerves. Just that soft trust that makes me want to be ten times the man I already try to be.
I take off my jacket and toss it by the door, then step out of my boots. She slips out of her coat and toes off her boots. The green sweater dress is still there underneath, hugging every sweet curve that’s been tormenting me since I picked her up.
Christ.
She catches me looking.
A flush creeps up her chest.
“You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
I step closer before I think better of it. “You don’t like it?”
Her breath catches.
“That’s not what I said.”
No.
It isn’t.
Another crack of thunder shakes the cabin, closer now. The lights flicker once.
Lexie glances toward the window, then back at me. “I’ve never liked storms much.”
