Page 69 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

And I spent the rest of the night crying until I had no more tears left.

Even now, just the memory of that night still managed to bring tears to my eyes. I turned around, not willing to let him see.

I heard the bathroom door close as I rubbed at my eyes. He must have gone in to change. For the benefit of my virgin eyes, I supposed. I went over to the armoire, digging through the clothes. Amanda had left some things there, things she probably hadn’t worn since high school. Taking off my wet shoes and socks, I pulled off Rafe’s sweats and put on a pair of hers. They came mid-calf on me and were tight, but they were dry.

Her shirts were out of the question. Every single one was too tight and too short for me to put on and wear around Rafe.

I settled on the smallest T-shirt of Max’s I could find. It was green and had the outline of the state of Iowa on it, and said, “Kiss me, I’m Iowish.”

The zipper on my dress caught. Oh no. I tugged at it, but my fingers still felt cold and didn’t work quite right. I wanted to get changed before he walked back in the room and saw parts of me I had no intention of showing him. I twisted at a weird angle, trying to hurry.

“Problems?”

My heart slammed into my throat as I straightened up. When had he opened the door? He leaned against the doorway, wearing pants that were too big and too short, and a red-and-black plaid flannel shirt that made me giggle.

“What?”

“Your shirt looks like you’re about to go hunting wabbits.”

That reference he didn’t seem to get. He pointed at the shirt I’d laid out on the bed. “Probably better than a blatant invitation.”

Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. My cheeks colored.

“Turn around. I’ll help you.”

I did as he asked and turned, lifting my hair up to give him easier access. He messed with the zipper until it slid easily, smoothly, with his knuckles running over my exposed skin as he did so. My pulse was beating frantically. I stepped away, holding my dress against my chest. It was too much.

“Thanks,” I said before running into the bathroom like a coward. A big window at the top of the shower gave me enough light to see.

After I got changed and hung up my dress on the shower rod to dry alongside his clothes, I searched for a blow dryer until I realized how truly dumb that was, given that we had no electricity.

He had left a pair of dry socks for me on the bed. He was crouched over the fireplace. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making a fire.”

“How do you know how to make a fire?” I asked as I went into the kitchen, looking to see if there was anything to eat. Rafe had mentioned after we left the club that he was hungry, and I’d made him drive home. If I had just gone to a restaurant with him, we would have discovered the flat tires while still in civilization and would never have ended up here. Since I was the reason we were in this situation, the least I could do was feed him.

Despite my expectation that the cabin would be fully stocked, the fridge only had condiments and a dozen eggs that were so far past their expiration date that I worried they might fight back if I tried to cook them. The cabinets were no better. They had been totally cleaned out except for some cans of dog food for Max’s pet. I did find an unopened box of Cheez-Its, but they’d been there so long that the crackers had disintegrated into a kilo of Cheez-It powder.

“I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos since I got here,” Rafe explained, and I turned my attention back to him and his fire-building efforts.

“Do you want me to help?”

He gave me a look of displeasure. “You’re implying that I lack the basic abilities of an average caveman. I can make a fire. You do realize that you’re slandering my masculinity, don’t you?”

I bit the inside of my cheek so that I wouldn’t laugh.

There was a noise outside that couldn’t be from the wind. It sounded like a door slamming shut on a car. My throat closed in as my heart beat desperately against my ribcage, like it wanted to break free. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.

Rafe took one look at my expression and went over to the door, yanking it open. The cold air rushed inside, but I didn’t move. He went out onto the covered porch, holding the lantern up. There were no further scary sounds. Just the wind.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said as he came back in.

“I swear I heard something,” I murmured. I was freezing, so I pulled the quilt off of the bed and wrapped myself up, sitting on the couch. Had I imagined it? What if right now John-Paul was closing in on us? We were totally helpless out here. Stranded.

Straining my ears, I kept listening as Rafe went back to making the fire. After several minutes passed and I didn’t hear anything else, I started to calm down. It must have been my overactive imagination.

Eight matches later, he managed to get the fire going past the kindling stage and caught the actual logs. He surveyed it with satisfaction before coming to sit in the chair next to the couch. We watched the fire for a while, the way it danced and burned over the logs.

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