Page 51 of Love Under Snowfall

“Like I said,” Benjamin drolled. He gestured to the spread. “Breakfast is ready.”

Francesca’s grin lit up the small, shadowy room as she settled into one of the chairs and topped her oatmeal with two heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar. She picked up a raisin, popped it into her mouth and cringed.

He eyed the dried fruit he’d already tossed into his bowl with concern. “Have they gone bad?”

“Nope.” She mixed her breakfast, blowing on it to cool it down. “I hate raisins.”

“Then why did you eat one?”

“What if I liked them today?”

Benjamin felt his face contort in confusion. “If you hate them, what would one day make?”

Francesca leveled a scowl on him that was so exasperated he questioned his own sense of logic for a moment. “Tastes can change, professor.”

“Sure, but in a day?”

“Why not?”

She scooped into her bowl and took a big bite. She smiledcheerfully, cheeks full of oatmeal.

“Sometimes you confuse me, Miss Miller.”

“That’s because you’re stuck in your ways,” she said, wiggling her spoon at him. “A creature of habit.”

She had him pegged.

He did have a tendency to set up his days methodically. Perhaps to an outside observer, they were mundane, but to him, it was a measure of adulthood. Long gone were the random flights of fancy that accompanied youth. At twelve, responsibility had rolled in like a thunderhead. He could either whine about it or grab an umbrella. He chose the latter. Since then, he’d organized his world to follow a carefully curated trajectory. The day-to-day schedule was what kept him on track and allowed him to survive. Even better, it allowed him to find success.

“There’s nothing wrong with routine,” Benajmin scolded.

“To an extent. But you’ll miss out on so much if you’retoorigid.”

“Like eating my version of a raisin?”

“Something like that,” she chuckled through a mouthful. “Thank you for breakfast.”

“My pleasure.”

He found satisfaction in providing something that might ease the burden of their situation. The only thing he’d managed thus far was bandaging her wound and washing a few measly dishes. He tended to be the expert in most of the situations he found himself in, and this adventure made him face his discomfort with feeling helpless. He wanted to contribute. Craved the knowledge that he was pulling his own weight.

“Did you sleep all right?” Francesca scrunched up her face like she already knew the answer.

Benjamin shrugged. “Eventually.”

“I doubt you were comfortable,” she began, scanning hiseyes and furrowing her brows. “If we can’t get out of here by tonight, you can have the bed.”

He warmed momentarily from her generosity then immediately scowled. He wasn’t going to take the bed from her; he’d feel like an absolute rat if he did. The floor was fine. Once he finally calmed his boiling blood last night, he drifted off and slept like the dead, which was probably why he woke up with a crick in his back.

“Thanks, but I’d rather focus on getting out of here before then,” he stated, finally digging into his meal.

“I get that. However,”—Francesca paused, glancing out the window of the rustic log cabin—“we may need to accept that this could go on for a while.”

Benjamin followed her gaze and swallowed a clump of oats, cringing at what he saw.

A whiteout.

Zero visibility.

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