morning.”
She processed that, reading between the lines and . . . he intended to spend the night here. Every muscle in her began quivering in anticipation.
“Unless you want me to leave. Afterward.”
Had he read her mind, or just her face? It couldn’t be her face, because she felt as if she was blazing with joy, in which case he wouldn’t have asked that question. “No,” she managed to say. “I don’t want you to leave.”
She went to the kitchen and poured some of her water supply into a small cast-iron pot, then took the pot to the fireplace to begin heating it. He took the pot from her, bent to nestle it in the coals and put the lid on it so ash couldn’t fly into the water. “Do you have a generator? I could turn it on, get the house warm.”
“I do, but I took it to Carol’s before the CME hit. I thought she and Olivia would need it more. I sleep here, but that’s about it.” And retreat here, when she needed some alone time. Besides, this was her home, and she was emotionally more comfortable here even without electricity than she was at Carol’s. “It was great today, running the generator and the water heater. Barb helped me get the well pump going. All of us had nice hot showers.” She smiled at him. “I’ve had a shower two days in a row. I feel pampered.”
“You mean aside from being shot at?” he asked, moving his hand to her waist and urging her closer to him. She went willingly, and nestled against his side. This was so new, such an unexpected fulfillment of her silent yearning, that she was caught in a vague sense of astonishment. Why would someone like Ben be attracted to someone like her? On the other hand, she was just as astonished that she was so attracted to him. She felt as if he was her polar opposite—but skin chemistry overruled a lot of things, and she wanted him to touch her, wanted to touch him in return.
“That doesn’t feel real.” She gave voice to her thoughts. Talking was easier like this, not facing each other but watching the flames lick at the wood. “The unusual never does, does it? It’s the normal little things that anchor us.”
“It was real.” His tone was grim, and his hand tightened on her waist. “After a while you get used to it, to looking at everyone to see if they have a weapon, then not being in combat is what feels weird as hell.” He fell silent, as if he’d revealed more than he meant to, or perhaps his own words had taken him back.
What he’d said had skimmed the surface of what he’d seen and done, of what he’d lived through. She couldn’t imagine combat—and then realized that yes, after today, she certainly did have an idea of it.
They stood there in silence for several minutes, each of them lost in the overlap of their shared moment and their private thoughts, watching the fire, nestling together.
“Where’s your bedroom?” he asked.
She jerked in his grip, electrified by the words. “Back there,” she said, indicating the short hallway to the left, past the kitchen. “At the end of the hallway, on the right.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Taking the flashlight, he disappeared down the hall. Sela stood there by the fireplace, flabbergasted. Why would he not want her to go with him? Curiosity got the better of her and she started to follow, only to have him exit her bedroom by the time she reached the hall. He was carrying her mattress, covers and all. She could barely flip the thing, and while he wrestled with the size of the mattress, maneuvering it out the bedroom door and through the hall, the weight didn’t seem to bother him.
Automatically she took the flashlight from him so he had both hands free. “What—?”
“It’s warmer in here than it is back there.”
That was the truth. As the weather had turned colder, she’d begun warming a towel in front of the fireplace, then hurrying to bed and wrapping it around her feet before it cooled. She imagined as winter came on the towel alone wouldn’t be enough, and she’d turn to the old-time method of heating a rock in the fireplace and wrapping the towel around the rock, then putting it under the covers at the foot of the bed. The alternative was sleeping on the couch, closer to the fireplace.
“Push the