head and without a word sat down on the step beside her. He kept the weapon at hand, though, right beside his leg.
She took a deep, silent breath, caught in the moment with crimson magic above her and him beside her. On a cellular level she realized she’d remember this forever, no matter where life took her or how long she existed. This, now, was ingrained in her being. Red ribbons danced overhead, fading, then pulsing with power again. The red glow bathed them, making it seem as if the heat she felt all along her left side came from the lights in the sky instead of from him. He wasn’t actually touching her but he was so close there seemed to be a mild magnetic field between them, lifting the fine hairs on her arm.
Sela tilted her head and looked upward, permanently giving up the self-fiction that she was uncomfortable with him for any reason other than the power of her own reaction. She felt almost painfully alive at his nearness, her skin heated and ultrasensitive, her nipples pinched and aching. This was pure physical chemistry, lust on the most basic level. Likely it was one-sided, because he’d never looked at her with even faint interest. Her experience in dealing with something like this was basically zero, because she’d never reacted so intensely to any other man; this was outside both her experience and her comfort zone.
After about thirty seconds he still hadn’t said anything. She wanted to bombard him with questions—Had he been in the military? Why had he moved here? Had he ever been married? Did he have children?—but held them all back. She might be ridiculously turned on by his nearness, but instinct told her that the best way to make him retreat was to push. Normally he avoided personal contact. Just the fact that he hadn’t ignored her, that he was actually sitting beside her, was enough for now. She settled for murmuring, “Thanks for the warning. It made a difference.”
She was still looking up, but by the movement beside her she could tell he turned his head toward her for a brief glance, before he, too, gazed upward. “You’re welcome,” he finally muttered, as if he’d had to cast around for the appropriate response.
Wow, at this rate in a year they might manage a real conversation. She wanted to laugh, but she was exasperated with herself, too, because she wasn’t much better than he was. The unfolding crisis was a safe subject, though, so maybe she should stick to that.
“I keep thinking of things I should have done,” she admitted. There, that hadn’t been agonizing; she hadn’t even really thought about what she’d say, the words had just come out.
“Such as?”
She realized she wanted his evaluation of what they’d done, his advice on what else they could do or improve on. She wanted to know if she’d done the right thing, if she should now concentrate on something else. She wanted to hear his voice, deep and slightly rough, and so masculine it gave her the shivers, wanted to keep him talking even if he didn’t think she’d done the right things. Learning what not to do was important, too.
“We concentrated on food, mostly, canning as much as we could. I bought things that will keep, like canned meats, peanut butter, dried beans. I think we’ll be okay there, though we’ll have to cut back, and be careful not to waste anything. I have extra fuel for the generator, wood for the fireplaces, candles and oil lamps, prescription refills and first-aid supplies—but I almost forgot about water for flushing and taking a bath, so we don’t have much on hand,” she confessed. “Right now I have plenty of bottled water, but it won’t last long. After it’s gone I can handle water for drinking by boiling it, but I should have gotten a rain barrel for the rest. Making trips to and from the creek is going to get old fast. I’ve been trying to think what I already have that I could put under the downspouts to catch the rain, and the best I can come up with is some big plastic storage containers.” She made herself stop talking, give him a chance to weigh in.
When he spoke, it wasn’t about her preparations. “We?”
He’d asked a semi-personal question. She was so startled that she blinked. “My aunt Carol and her granddaughter, Olivia. They live together just up the road. The yellow two-story. You’ve