Janice Kay - Snowbound

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw he’d washed our clothes. It’s like…”

“The shoemaker and the elves.” Tabitha nodded. “The bread tasted like it was right out of the oven. Do you think he slept at all?”

“I don’t know.” Fiona scrutinized them. “He loaned you some more clothes.”

“They are so too big.” Amy gazed down at herself with comical dismay. Actually the flannel shirt she wore draped becomingly, giving her a waifish look but for the swell of breasts.

“I’m going to go borrow something, too,” Fiona declared. “And then take a bath. Don’t let Willow or Erin beat me to it if they appear.”

“We won’t.”

She’d barely reached the first floor when John Fallon materialized in front of her.

“Oh! You scared me. I didn’t see you.”

“I was adding wood to the fire.”

Their host was even better looking in the light of day. He’d shaved and wore a heavy, cream-colored, Irish knit sweater over jeans. His dark hair, brushed back from his face, was just long enough to curl over the collar of the sweater.

“Thank you for washing our clothes.”

He nodded. “I set some more out in the kitchen, if you want to borrow something. Once everyone’s up, I’ll run another load.”

“Are we leaving you anything to wear?”

“Enough.”

Was he always so closemouthed, or was it just Fiona who brought it out in him? Weren’t innkeepers supposed to brim with bonhomie?

“Um…I think I’ll go pick something out.” She started toward the kitchen.

He followed. “Breakfast?”

“I’m going to take a bath first, before the kids use up all the hot water.”

“The lodge has several water heaters. It’s not good for business to make guests take cold baths.”

“No, I suppose not. I should warn you, though, that unless they’re reined in, my group may challenge your capacity. Have you ever had a lodgeful of teenagers before?”

He seemed to shake himself. Or had he shuddered?

“Yes.”

“They shower a lot. They’re awfully conscious of how they look.” And smell.

“I remember.”

She sniffed. “Did you bake that bread fresh this morning?”

“Figured we’d need it.”

“Did you ever go to bed?”

His big shoulders moved. “I get up early.”

She opened her mouth.

“No more thanks.” Was that a trace of humor in his eyes? Or was she imagining it?

Like the living area with its enormous, river-rock fireplace, the kitchen was vast, the cabinets rustic, the floor slate. There was plenty of room in the middle for a table that would seat at least twenty.

Almost at random, she chose a red plaid flannel shirt from the neat piles on the table. “If you’ll excuse me…?”

He stepped aside.

Clutching the shirt, she hurried upstairs. Ugh. Nothing like letting a man you’d barely met see you first thing in the morning.

Willow had joined the others, and called after her, “I want a bath, too!”

“I had dibs on it.”

She locked the door and started water cascading into the tub before she noticed a cut-glass bowl of bath beads on an antique wood commode situated perfectly to hold a glass of wine, say, or candles.

The tub was definitely big enough for two.

She dropped a white bead in, and soon the scent of gardenias filled the steamy air.

She ached as if she’d competed in a triathalon yesterday. Sinking into the hot water was heavenly. The foot of the tub was slanted, and she barely held her chin above water. She actually floated, and gave a moan of pleasure. Someday, she, too, would have a bathtub like this.

If the water hadn’t cooled, she might never have been able to make herself get out. That, and the realization that her stomach was rumbling. She’d barely had a bite or two last night, and the hamburger she’d eaten at three-thirty or so yesterday afternoon seemed like an awfully long time ago.

Her bra would do for another day or two, but she added her panties to the pile in the corner and slipped on the jeans. She would offer to do the wash; somehow, the idea of the handsome, scarred stranger downstairs plucking her dirty panties from the pile and dropping them in the machine was too much for her.

The flannel shirt, well-worn, hung to midthigh and she had to roll the sleeves four or five times. Fiona dried and brushed her hair, leaving it loose around her face, then hung her towel on a rack and left the bathroom.

The sound of running water came from behind the closed door to the boy’s bathroom. Someone else was up, then.

When Fiona stopped in the door to the girls’ bedroom, Willow jumped up. “My turn.”

Erin had appeared now as well, and she shrugged. “I have to go get something clean to put on first anyway.”

As usual, she looked exquisite this morning, her black hair glossy in a plait, her skin smooth. Fiona had never seen her break out in acne, sweat or even frown. The only adopted child of a cardiac surgeon father and a mother who designed exquisite linens that sold at high-end department stores, Erin was invariably composed and quiet. She was a straight-A student and the star of the Knowledge Champs and Hi-Q teams, but no more than a ripple on her brow would show when she made a mistake or was outmatched. Fiona often wondered if she was anywhere near as serene as she appeared, or whether she suffered from the pressure of having to live up to such high-achieving parents.

Fiona made a face. Big assumption on her part. Maybe Erin’s parents were easygoing despite their career successes. Fiona had only met them once.

“Sleep well?” she asked, as they went downstairs.

Erin nodded. “Except Willow kept talking in her sleep.”

“Could you understand what she was saying?”

“Once in a while. But it didn’t really make sense. Like once she said, ‘Why did you fall down?’ And when I asked what she was talking about, she said, ‘You fell over that blue thing.’”

Fiona laughed. “That sounds pretty normal. Dreams hardly ever make sense.”

“I guess that’s true.” At the foot of the stairs, she looked shyly at Fiona. “Do you ever have ones where you can fly?”

“Not fly, but bounce. And stay up for a long time. Do you actually soar?”

“Uh-huh. Everything’s tiny below.”

Somehow that seemed rather aptly to symbolize Erin, who often kept herself apart from her peers. Fiona didn’t remember, for example, ever seeing her with a boy.

“Does the dream worry you?” she asked carefully, as they entered the kitchen.

“No.” Her voice was very soft. “Except I’m scared of heights. So it seems weird.”

Yes. It did.

“You okay rooming with Willow?”

“Sure. Are these the clothes we can borrow?” Far and away the most petite of the girls, she lifted garments until she found a turtleneck that was clearly a woman’s. More from the lost and found, Fiona surmised.

Unless it belonged to John Fallon’s currently absent wife.

“Come and get some breakfast after you’ve had your bath.”

Erin nodded and left Fiona alone in the kitchen. She sliced bread and popped two pieces in the toaster, then gazed at the small paned window beyond which she saw nothing but floating white flakes.

“Can I get you some eggs?”

Fiona jumped, turning. “You should clear your throat when you come into a room.”

He lifted his brows. “Like a butler? Ahem, ma’am?”

She laughed at him. “Exactly.”

“I feel like a butler some of the time. Invisible.” He looked surprised at his own admission.

“You own the lodge,” Fiona protested.

“But guests feel as if they’re paying for me to wait on them. Which puts me in the servant class.”

“Really? Do they talk as if you aren’t there?”