Page 199 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

“You’re a very opinionated woman,” he said.

“Show me somebody without opinions and I’ll show you somebody who doesn’t have enough thoughts in their head.”

“Well. Perhaps that’s my problem.” She didn’t believe that either. Whatever he was, it wasn’t honest.

She wasn’t sure why she was so certain of that, but she was.

The man was entirely full of it.

“I’m going to melt some snow. We can’t go eating the snow, or that’s a one-way ticket to hypothermia. I don’t know that this fire is going to be warm enough to sit around to actually…counteract being outside, but… Well, we have it.”

“I’m not going to chance sitting down in the snow,” he said. “I may not get back up. But I would like to stand for a while.”

“The bleeding didn’t continue on?”

“No. The tourniquet and the bandage seem to have helped. But I imagine I should keep my movements to a minimum.”

“Very likely.”

“You look worried.”

“Well, the prospect of infection worries me quite a bit. Not trying to be grim, just…”

“Practical.”

“Practicality is sort of the linchpin of survival, I would say.”

He nodded slowly. “And you don’t find the stock market to be practical.”

“I surely don’t.”

She put some snow into the pot, and held it over the fire. She switched hands back and forth, trying not to scald herself, but the snow melted quickly.

Then she set the pan aside, in the snow, hoping it would cool enough for them to drink quickly.

She lifted the pan to her lips, and drank. “Thankfully,” she said, handing the pan to him, “this will be a renewable resource. For a while.”

“A good thing.”

She looked around. “I’m going to make a way for us to sit around the fire. At least until the wind conditions pick up again. Right now it’s not any cooler out here than it is in the plane.”

She went back inside, and continued to dig through the boxes. There was a camping chair, and then another. More sleeping bags. She went outside and set them up as close to the fire as possible, and he managed to get himself sat down in one. She got sleeping bags, and wrapped one around his shoulders. His mouth turned up into a half smile, and he looked up at her. She was immobilized for a moment by those mesmerizing blue eyes.

“Thank you,” he said. “I can’t recall ever having been cared for quite so nicely. Maybe there was a nanny that I’m struggling to place.”

She felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for him. And also, recognition. It had been a long time since anyone had cared for her, and she missed it. Very much.

She went back inside, and grabbed the meat and cheese they had eaten last night. She speared some of the meat slices on a stick, and held it out over the fire. It might not need to be cooked, but they would both enjoy something warm.

He reached out. “Let me,” he said. She handed him the stick with the meat slices, and he turned his attention to roasting them.

“Do you cook?”

“Not often. I’m busy. And typically have someone do it for me. I make a decent breakfast.” He looked up at her, and grinned.

“Was that supposed to make me think of something?”

“Yes. That I have many women I make breakfast for after entertaining them in my bed.” Her stomach went tense. And then he tilted his head to the side and frowned. “That would be a lie, though. They don’t stay the night. Though I have been known to make an omelet late at night before a woman goes back on her way.”

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