The rain let up while they spread the pieces out. There was just barely enough room on the table for all of them and still have a little space to get started on the assembly.
Conversation turned desultory as rain swept through in bands and they worked to put the first pieces of the puzzle together. Sky enjoyed it. She seemed to have a knack for matching the colors, equaled by Craig’s knack for matching the shapes. Surprise struck her when she realized the entire morning had passed so swiftly and that she was growing hungry.
“I need to eat,” she announced. “Let’s see what we have.”
Cold cuts in one of the coolers and a loaf of bread provided the answer. She’d need to go into town tomorrow, though, Sky decided. They were getting low and the remaining ice would probably only make it one more day.
Of course, with only the one table they had to clear some of the puzzle pieces. It wasn’t as if this place ran to conveniences like a counter. Well, why would it? It had a chemical outhouse and a gravity shower, and a woodstove. Not exactly the height of conveniences.
The rain became a steady downpour while they washed up afterward. Despite the oil lamps, the cabin seemed to grow even darker, almost nightlike. Craig slipped out to check on Dusty again, but this time Sky remained inside.
A long, lazy day, she thought. Enjoyable in its own right, but her awareness of Craig was growing steadily. Awareness of his masculinity, his wide shoulders, narrow hips. She had even grown fascinated by the strength of his large hands as he handled the puzzle pieces and wished they were handling her instead.
She sank onto the armchair and tried to reason herself back to reality and sanity. He had said she was tempting, then had turned to working a puzzle with her. Slow and gentlemanly were fine, but what if it wasn’t that at all? That was a nice excuse she had manufactured for him, but it didn’t help her one whit. Not really.
And it might not even be true. But then why had he kissed her, especially that kiss on her neck this morning? That had promised something he now seemed to have turned away from. It had been deliberate and deliberately sexual.
So what was wrong with her? But again she shied away from the question because she didn’t want to know. The possible answer terrified her.
Chicken. Yes, all right, she was chicken. Hector had left huge scars. Only a fool would ask for another wounding.
Resting her elbow on the arm of the chair, she put her forehead in her hand, and picked absently at nonexistent lint on her new jeans. No oil paint there. Yet.
She needed to stop this. In a few weeks she was going home, back to her life and her job. This was a momentary escape, and she shouldn’t be complicating it with needs and wants that could only bring pain. Sooner or later they would, too. Because even if Craig didn’t decide she was a lousy lover, she would be leaving anyway. Then what?
She should focus on her reasons for coming here, to heal from Hector and refresh herself for her clients at the center. Taking her life back, not giving it away in some mad fling.
She was far too old now to be thinking like a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush. Much as she had been trying to ignore these feelings since she had met Craig, they seemed to be growing increasingly insistent. Maybe, for her own sake, she ought to just pack and go find some other place to paint.
Maybe for Craig’s sake, too. When she thought it over, she decided he wasn’t feeling much more comfortable with any of this than she was. In fact, if it weren’t pouring today, he’d probably mount Dusty and take off to his solitary woods, woods that seemed to give him so much peace.
He’d said he didn’t usually mind being out in this weather. She stiffened a little as she wondered if he thought she needed a babysitter after yesterday. Well, it would hardly be surprising. He struck her as taking the “protection” part of his job very seriously.
How humiliating! She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She didn’t need him to hang around. Unlike a lot of people, she was well-trained in self-defense, and it would take more than a couple of men to get the best of her.