A Hamilton Family Christmas - Donna Kauffman Page 0,15
it stoked so it lasts till morning. You don’t have to hunt for candles.” She had no idea how easily she was keeping things stoked already.
He really needed to get the hell out of this room. “I’d just feel better if we had more alternate light sources. If we need to move around during the night. Restroom calls, refrigerator raids…”
“Okay.”
So dismissive. The epitome of casual disinterest. Very “I’m not even paying attention to you.”
Yeah. Right.
Clearly, not true. Well, not clearly, but certainly he wasn’t the only one with the whole heightened awareness thing going on. Just moments ago, she’d looked at him like a woman craving a sugar rush, and he’d been a giant Everlasting Gob-stopper.
He really needed to refocus. “Okay, then,” he said, because apparently his ability to be a witty conversationalist had vanished. Right along with his common sense. “I’ll check back in with progress reports.”
“Fine.”
He stared at her bent head for another too-long moment, frustrated that she didn’t seem to be having as much difficulty fighting this…whatever it was, as he was. That, and he was wondering what her smooth, bare skin would look like by firelight. Which, when he realized what he’d been thinking, had him swearing under his breath and ducking abruptly out of the room. Considering she could have presented a major obstacle to him getting what he’d come here for, she was making his premeditated plan perfectly easy for him to execute. Even with the added problem of the power loss, he couldn’t have asked for a better resulting scenario. Candle hunting. It was a brilliant off-the-cuff plan, if he did say so himself. So, why in the hell was he not racing to take full advantage of it?
“Because,” he muttered, as he wound his way back to the main stairs, “the only thing I want to take advantage of is Lionel’s hot little pet sitter.” Except there was nothing little about her. And, on any traditional scale, she wasn’t exactly pretty, much less hot.
So why was he smiling as he went down the stairs and made his way to Lionel’s personal study? He wasn’t sure, not entirely. But maybe it was because, although she looked at him like forbidden fruit, she talked to him like he was an annoying fly in her pet-sitting ointment.
God, he’d never thought himself perverse when it came to women, but apparently, there was a first time for everything.
Well, he’d simply use that as motivation to find the proof he’d come for as quickly as possible, and get the hell out. Complications he didn’t need. And he didn’t want to complicate things for her. She didn’t know what she was possibly getting into by just being here at the same time as his little visit. And he was sure as hell not going to tell her. Find the Bible, get out of the house. Simple plan.
He let himself into Lionel’s study and flashed the thin beam of light around the room. He groaned. Simple, huh? He’d been in this room many times, but he didn’t remember there being quite so many books. Possibly because he’d never faced searching through them before.
The room was octagonal and formed part of the corner tower built into the mountain retreat. Four panels of the room contained floor-to-cathedral-ceiling bookcases, each crammed full of books. This library section of the room came complete with rolling ladder to climb to the upper echelons of each stack. He supposed he should be grateful for that much. Another panel contained the nine-foot-high door he presently stood in, and the remaining three contained windows that started around two feet from the baseboards, and, in multiple panes, covered the entire length of each section of windowed wall. Heavy curtains were drawn over them, but they barely muffled the sound of the ice pinging against the many panes of glass. In fact, the sound was far more prominent in here, possibly because the room itself protruded away from the rest of the structure of the house, making it more vulnerable to the elements. The rapid-fire tattoo of ice pellets brought with it the disturbing reminder that, even if he did find what he sought, he might not be able to get out in the morning.
In fact, given that the rural roads weren’t high on the county’s list of what to plow or treat in inclement weather, he could be stuck here for a few days.