Page 64 of Merry Mended Hearts

“I’ll leave this here in case you need it,” I said.

“Thank you.”

I bobbed my head and stepped away toward the door. This time, without incident. “Well, then. Good night, Grace.”

“Good night, Boone. Thank you for all your help.”

I smiled and closed the door, shutting out both heat and light and leaving her alone. Leaving me with the raging desire to burst back through that door and give in to every wayward thought jerking me in her direction.

GRACE

I wasn’tsure I’d ever recover from the impact of colliding with Boone. My body hummed at the idea of sleeping where he usually did. With the flashlight in hand, I drew back the blanket, sank onto the mattress, and slipped my feet in.

The sheets were like plunging into a frozen river. I curled my legs up close to my torso, waiting to warm up before stretching my legs out, but every time I tried, the bed only seemed colder.

Eventually, I managed to convince my legs to straighten out. While part of my body warmed beneath the thick quilt, that warmth refused to spread to my heels and toes. Even my shoulders shivered. It didn’t help that inordinate amounts of chilled air seeped in from the window where the sound of wind howled by.

Try as I might, I couldn’t make myself get any warmer.

I rubbed my feet against each other. There was friction in the moment, but as soon as I stopped, my feet went right back to being cold.

I’d always had the opposite problem in Arizona. Everything was so blasted hot. I usually relished the coolness once I stepped inside any building and out of the soul-crushing heat.

“I’ll never look at air conditioning the same way again,” I muttered to the silence.

Again, I waited, huddling my legs close to my chest, waiting for the promised warmth to spread and allow me to relax enough to sleep—which my tired body craved.

But the longer I lay there, the colder I became.

My jaw was juddering again.

I fluttered my lips. Boone was being a generous host, but this wasn’t working. It was as though the cold had gone bone-deep, falling into the underside of me where heat couldn’t penetrate.

I’d love that hot tub back at Harper’s Inn right about now…

Shivering, I sat up. Movement was my best chance of getting warm now. Unless…

The front room had been nice and toasty during our fish dinner. Did he still have a fire going? Maybe Boone would be willing to trade places. After all, he slept here all the time. The cold in his room probably didn’t bother him as much as it did me.

Light gleamed from beneath the door, so I decided to chance it.

The minute I opened the door, heat instantly enveloped me. It was so welcome, tears nearly sprang to my eyes.

But that wasn’t the crux.

The real getter was the sight of Boone sitting on the couch. He was beneath the quilt he’d retrieved, wearing a pair of glasses and reading a book by firelight.

And he was shirtless.

The firelight’s fading orange glow emphasized the shadows in the curves of his biceps and shoulders. I swore his chest glistened, calling out the definition in his pecks and abs and stealing the sense from any thought I’d ever had.

He was mouthwateringly beautiful.

“Hey, there,” he said in surprise, lowering his book. “Everything okay?”

I had to manually close my jaw.

I had a reason for coming in here, didn’t I? A valid excuse for standing here like a bamboozled idiot.

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