“Barb’s probably started cooking by now; they have breakfast fairly early. She’s going to cook pancakes today, she said so last night while we were cleaning up. Pancakes and bacon.” She sighed, the sound blissful with anticipation. Then she gave him a look as serious as any he’d ever seen. “I need bacon.”
Mentally he slapped himself upside the head. “I brought a can of bacon for you, too; I forgot about it and left it in the truck.”
She sat up in the blankets, her expression excited. “You did? We can have bacon here?”
He kissed goodbye to his fantasy of lying there in the warm blankets for an unspecified length of time, though the blankets were now pooled around her waist and her pretty breasts were exposed, her nipples tight from the cold. His fantasy also included getting back on top of her, something else that wasn’t going to happen right away. He got up and began putting on his clothes. “I’ll get it.” And if he hadn’t forgotten the night before, he would still be lying there beside her, which proved the point that forgotten details could come back to bite you in the ass.
Unfortunately, she got up and began dressing, too, signaling an end to the naked lazy-day cuddling. He hadn’t known he liked naked lazy-day cuddling until now. Sela was making him rethink a lot of things, making him consider details he’d never considered before.
One of those details had him pausing at the door, assessing all of the variables of their relationship. What he was assuming and what she was thinking might not be the same thing. The valley people weren’t prudes and wouldn’t shun her for letting him spend the night, but they would talk, and that might embarrass her. Cautiously, not certain at all how she’d reply, he asked, “Do you want me to start my truck and let the windows defrost, so it won’t look as if I’ve been here all night?”
She’d been in the process of making coffee and she stopped cold, her mouth falling open as she stared at him. His gaze was steady, though he unconsciously braced for her answer. If she wanted to keep their relationship on the down low, that wouldn’t mean anything more than that she was cautious. That was what he tried to think, but his gut was tight as he waited.
“That depends,” she finally said, her tone careful, and his gut tightened even more. “Is this just a booty call for you?”
That answer was easy. “No. Not even close.”
A slow, radiant smile curved her mouth. “It isn’t for me, either. Don’t bother with the windows.” She turned back to the task of measuring coffee into the percolator.
His muscles relaxed, and the weight of dread lifted off his shoulders. Ben found he was smiling as he went out to the truck. The thin layer of snow crunched under his boots and an icy wind cut through his clothes, but he could see breaks in the clouds that promised the snow was over. He looked around, by habit checking for movement, but the early morning was still except for a few birds. The smell of woodsmoke was familiar and cozy, resonating with some cellular memory. Humans had huddled around a wood fire for thousands of years more than they had an air vent.
He unlocked his truck and retrieved the can of bacon. They might have nothing but bacon and coffee for breakfast, but he was good with that.
But breakfast was more than he’d expected. She unearthed some pancake mix that required only water, and though she didn’t have butter, she did have a half-empty bottle of butter-flavored pancake syrup in her cabinets. Soon the bacon was being crisped up in a heavy-ass cast-iron frying pan, then while he wrestled the mattress back into the bedroom to clear the space, she knelt in front of the fireplace and carefully made the pancakes, one at a time.
They ate sitting on the floor in front of the fire, though there was a perfectly good table with four chairs, as well as the couch. But the rug was fine, and it kept the percolator within reach. For some reason sitting on the floor felt more intimate, and that made him happier than it should. He was a little amused and bemused at himself, turning into such a sap.
Afterward she heated some water to clean the dishes, then more water for them to wash