Page 43 of Snow Bound

“Nothing,” she said, turning to look, and froze.

He walked in the room with Henry trotting beside him, the dog focused on the pizza box Grant held in one hand. He had a six pack of beer in the other, and was wearing worn jeans and a blue flannel shirt that made his eyes pop. His hair was tousled, his cheeks a ruddy pink from the cold. His bare cheeks, she realized with a jolt—he'd shaved, and with his cheeks smooth and bare, when he smiled at her, dimples flashed in his cheeks.

Two of them.

“Oh, come on,” she complained and sat up. “What are those?”

He set the pizza and the beer on the coffee table. “What are what?”

She waved at him. “Those…divots in your face.”

He pulled a stack of take-out napkins out of his back pocket and tossed them on the pizza box. “My dimples?”

"Dimples,” she said, disgusted. “Two of them.”

“I’m sorry, are dimples a hard limit for you?” he inquired politely, the dimples in question winking at her impishly.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered and resolutely faced the television. “I’m not looking at you anymore.”

“Yes, you are,” he said and picking up the remote, turned off the TV. “We’ve got things to discuss, and I’m afraid I have to insist on you looking at me while we do it.”

She scowled. “Fine. But you’re not allowed to smile.”

His eyes twinkled, amused—and the damn dimples winked. “It’s cute that you think you’re in charge.”

She just sighed and stood. “I’ll go get plates.”

“Why? We can just eat out of the box.” He flipped open the pizza box, and Henry whined. “Don’t even think about it.”

Anna sat back down. “Aw. Can’t he have a little?”

Grant aimed a firm look first at Henry, then at her. “No.”

“So mean,” she said with a shake of her head and plucked a slice from the box.

“Want a beer?”

“Sure,” she mumbled around a mouthful of hot cheese and took the offered bottle. “Thanks.”

He scooped up his own slice and took a seat on the hearth. Henry, obviously recognizing Anna as the soft touch in the room, sidled around to her side of the coffee table.

“If you feed him any of that, he’s sleeping with you tonight,” Grant warned. “And he doesn’t digest cheese well.”

Anna wrinkled her nose. “What if I just give him my crust?”

“He’s still sleeping with you.”

“Sorry, puppy,” Anna told Henry and shifted her pizza out of his reach.

“Did you bring your list?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Juggling the slice, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “It’s on here.”

“Text it to me,” he instructed and recited his phone number.

She sent the text, and a second later her phone dinged with a return message. “That’s mine. Eat and read, then we’ll discuss.”

She opened his list, ignoring the hollow feeling in her stomach. It felt like it did when she got to the top of the roller coaster—that moment of no return, when falling was no longer a possibility, but inevitable.

---