As If You Never Left Me (Crimson Romance) by Katriena Knights Page B

usually headed straight to work. It felt good, though, to hold her hands in the growing warmth and think about nothing. Nothing to worry about today, no plans to make, nowhere to go. Maybe she could work on some of those sketches she’d started, though it didn’t look like she’d be able to get to the workshop —
    Then it hit her. She was going to be stuck in this house all day. With Rey.
    This was not necessarily a good thing.
    The bathroom door squeaked and Rey came back out. There was a strange cant to his gait. It was the contorted, uncomfortable walk of a man too macho to let himself shiver. He made his way into the living room and sat on the couch, kicking open his suitcase.
    “At least it’s warmer in here,” he muttered, then did a double take, squinting at Joely. “You’re not dressed. Don’t you have to go to work?”
    “Look out the window.” In the kitchen, the teapot whistled. Joely went to answer its call.
    Rey pulled on his jeans, then picked up a sweatshirt and went to the sliding doors leading to the small deck. He opened the blinds and stared.
    “When did that happen?”
    “Last night. It was in the weather forecast. Would you like some tea?”
    Shaking his head, he continued to gape at the backyard, as if the snow might disappear if he looked at it long enough in disbelief. “They said two to three inches. This is closer to two feet.”
    “Not quite. Do you want tea, Rey?”
    Joely left a cup for Rey on the kitchen counter in case he wanted it and walked back into the living room with her own tea. “That was the Denver forecast. We’re not in Denver.”
    He yanked his sweatshirt on, then grabbed a pair of socks from his suitcase. “So you’re just going to stay home and lose a day of business? Can you afford that?”
    She shrugged, checking the stove. It was heating up nicely. “It’s a snow day. Like school. Nobody’s going to be out shopping for knick-knacks in this, anyway.”
    “I guess that’s true.” He looked at the stove, then held his hands out to it casually, as if he were just experimenting instead of desperately searching for some kind of warmth. Joely hid her smile behind her teacup. “Is there any coffee?” Rey went on. “I could use a cup.”
    “I made tea,” said Joely. “Have you not been listening to me? And there’s a cup on the counter.”
    “Oh. Okay.”
    He went into the kitchen to retrieve his tea.
    • • •
    It hadn’t quite registered with Rey until this morning how small Joely’s house really was. He’d thought maybe there was another bedroom or a study or something lurking around a corner, but there wasn’t. Kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, deck, garage. That was it. Oh, and that tiny linen closet.
    That was good, though. Because it would be extremely hard for her to get away from him.
    Things had already gotten comfortably domestic. He helped himself to cereal out of the cupboard while she drank her tea and ate toast with that all-fruit jelly she’d always liked. She thumbed through a magazine while she ate, not talking to him but not really ignoring him, either.
    The whole scenario was far more comfortable than he’d expected.
    “So what do you usually do when you’re snowed in?” he said suddenly. The silence was comfortable in its way, but it was starting to worry him. He’d never get anywhere with his planned seduction if they just sat around doing their own thing all day.
    She looked up from the magazine. “I thought I might work on some sketches. It’ll be hard to get to the workshop through the snow. Once it settles down a little, Rob from up the road will come by with his snowplow and clear the road and the driveway.”
    “Really. Rob, huh?” Was Rob a new wrinkle in the situation?
    “Yeah, the whole neighborhood pays him a sort of retainer, salary, whatever, and he clears all our driveways for us, plus the road. The county doesn’t maintain this stretch.”
    “I see.” When you lived in the middle of nowhere,