next time—he was going to make sure that nothing got knocked off their perch.
On the bright side, at least they still had the blankets.
“Hurry,” she urged, preparing to slip into the black, frothy water. “We’ve got to get to the breakwater before the tide comes all the way in.”
They picked their way over slippery rocks covered in sharp barnacles that scratched their feet. The icy saltwater itched Matt’s skin and soon made his lower body go numb.
“This water’s cold!” He didn’t bother mentioning which part of him found it the coldest.
“Tell me about it,” Eve said.
Matt could hear her teeth chattering. The water wasn’t deep, but each wave submerged her to the waist before receding. She’d draped one of the blankets around her neck to try and keep it dry. He carried the other two around his own.
A slimy object wrapped around his ankle, something that normally wouldn’t have bothered him, but in the darkness it was decidedly unsettling. He hoped it was seaweed.
He could see the breakwater outlined against the night sky, and just above it, moonlight glinting off the side of the car. He steadied her elbow, helping her stay upright against the determined tug of the undertow. “It’s not much farther.”
They reached the car without any serious missteps, thank goodness. All Matt could think about was getting Eve warm.
“Give me the keys,” he said. “I’ll start the car and crank the heater up for you.”
She clutched a blanket around herself, shivering. “I don’t have the keys. They were in my pocket.”
And her pocket was in her shorts, which were probably half way to New Brunswick by now. He slumped against the car. Only Eve could have gotten them in this situation. He raised an eyebrow. And then he had to laugh. “Have you noticed that all our evenings together seem to end in some kind of disaster?”
“We still have our shoes.” She pointed to them, neatly lined up beneath the car’s bumper. “The moon is out, and it’s only a twenty-minute walk.”
A twenty-minute walk on a dirt road in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but sneakers and smiles. Matt again gave thanks for the blankets. “That’s what I like about you, Eve. You’re such a problem solver.”
He rubbed her legs with a blanket to warm them before they started off, then insisted she wrap two of the blankets around herself.
Crickets chirped in the fields, and every once in a while, small animals could be heard rustling through the raspberry bushes along the side of the road. Eve, however, was much too quiet for Matt’s liking. She wasn’t already regretting the evening, was she?
How could she possibly regret it? As far as he was concerned, tonight was a win. He’d tried his best to be sensitive and not rush her to say things she might not be ready for, but he loved her so much his whole body throbbed with the force of it. He couldn’t believe he was the only one feeling it. Maybe she just needed more time.
The minute he got her home to Halifax, he was going to find a way to show her that he loved her. He had a business to run, and he’d put off that trip to Toronto for far too long, but he needed her to understand that he planned to be there for her. One thought cheered him immensely: construction projects never ran on schedule.
They took a shortcut through a dew-soaked meadow of thigh-high timothy. By the time they reached the house, only the front light remained on. Eve and Matt kept to the shadows.
Matt looked down at his blanket-wrapped body. “How are we supposed to get inside without anyone seeing us?”
“I’ve done this lots of times,” Eve assured him. “We’ll slip around the side of the house. I’ll crawl up the trellis and in my bedroom window, then toss out some clothes for you. You can come in the front door.”
On the surface there didn’t seem to be any serious flaws with her plan—until she handed him her blanket. He tried to close his mouth. She was braver than he was. A little nudity didn’t seem to bother her in the least. Matt wouldn’t even consider the possibility of scaling that trellis with his bare backside—among other things—hanging out.
“You’re climbing up naked?” he whispered.
“How do you expect me to hold on to a blanket?” she whispered back, preparing to hoist herself up.
Good point.
“Hurry up, then.”
The trellis didn’t look too sturdy as she climbed. Matt breathed a