Page 30 of Solstice

“Gas range. And I always have p-plenty of candles. Hell, I’m starting to shiver.”

“Yeah, me, too.” He put the car into gear and drove.

Chapter Eight

She heeled off her hiking shoes as soon as she got through the front door, peeled off her coat and ran in damp socks into the living room while Jason was still shucking his frozen outerwear. The fire had burned low. Glowing coals gleamed from the hearth and were the only light in the room.

Dori removed the fire screen, set it aside and knelt to take logs from the nearby stack and toss them onto the coals. Tongues of flame licked up around them, and the room grew brighter. She replaced the screen as Jason’s footsteps came closer.

“Get warm by the fire,” she said. “I’ll go find you some dry clothes.”

“Change first,” he said. “Here.” Something clicked, and a light appeared. “Take my flashlight with you.”

“Thanks. There are some candles on the mantel. Matches, too.”

“Got it.”

Dori took the light and headed up the stairs to the loft bedroom, still shivering. She opened dresser drawers, pulled out items, happy to have the flashlight to help her find a warm pullover, plaid flannel pajama pants and, best of all, a pair of thick, cushy socks. She set the light on her dresser, then sat down on her bed to remove her frozen socks. The bottoms of her jeans were stiff and icy. She stripped everything off and put on the comfortable clothes. Then she went to the closet where she’d packed away the clothing Uncle Gerald had left behind. Suits hung in a fat garment bag, but the more practical items were packed in boxes. She found sweatpants, a sweatshirt, socks, put them on the bed and then found her way back down the stairs with help from the flashlight.

She’d only been gone a few minutes, but Jason was efficient. He’d lit every candle he could find. She heard him rattling around in the kitchen. “Jason?”

He appeared in the doorway, lit by the glow of the ancient hurricane lamp that had hung from a nail beside the front door for as long as she could remember. “Sit by the fire,” he said. “I’ve got water heating.”

She went to him and took the lamp from his hands, replacing it with the flashlight. “I’ll finish the cocoa. Go on upstairs and change. I left some clothes on the bed for you.”

He was about to argue, so she held up a finger. “Go on.”

Smiling, he obeyed.

By the time he came back into the living room, she had two mugs of hot cocoa sitting on the coffee table, and she’d pushed a rocker and an overstuffed chair up closer to the heat. She was sitting in the rocker, a blanket from the back of the sofa draped around her shoulders.

“I smell chocolate.” He flicked off the flashlight and set a bundle of clothes on the floor near the fire before sitting down. “Getting warm yet?”

“My feet have thawed out. Now they hurt. You?”

He lilted his cup of cocoa from the table and stretched his feet out, so they were closer to the fire. “Getting there.” He sipped his cocoa. “So.”

“So,” she said.

He took a breath. “So, you really thought I stopped asking you out because you’re a Witch?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. I really did. It wasn’t such an illogical conclusion, was it? You asked me several times and then you stopped.”

“I stopped right after you shot me down the first time. And then we had that talk the other day. The one where you told me you still planned to leave here as soon as you could.”

She tipped her head to one side. “I never made any secret about that. I always planned for my stay here to be a temporary one.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I was a little too dense to get that. Or maybe I was hoping you’d change your mind. But when you put it to me the way you did...well, I realized I was deluded.”

“Maybe I was the one who was deluded.”

He stared at her in the firelight. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, every resume I’ve sent out has resulted in a response of ‘Thanks, but no, thanks.’” She shrugged. “Maybe I’m not supposed to go back to Manhattan.”

“But you still want to.”

She frowned at him. “I thought I did. All this time, I thought that was all I wanted. My old life back. Now…now I don’t know what I want.”

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