Page 67 of Stirring Up Love
“Keep asking and I might change my mind.”
Staking his claim, he pulled the covers up to his chin, and Simone snorted. She hefted a blanket off the sofa. “Warm enough?”
Despite his chattering teeth, he was burning up. “I’m good, thanks.”
“Hungry?” She’d swapped the blanket for a peeled banana.
Finn narrowed his eyes. “Is that laced?”
She ducked her head, grinning.
“Jeez, Sim. That’s not what I meant. I just need foodwiththe pill.”
She bit her lip, a foreign gesture on her for the vulnerability it revealed, and his heart squeezed. She poked her fingers into the banana and fished out a pill, making a face at the mess.
“Serves you right for trying to drug me,” he said.
“Serves me right for trying to help you.”
He chuckled, and her lips lifted in what looked like a reluctant smile. “Quit laughing, or I’ll smear this all over you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
She stalked around the bed, eyes never leaving his.
He put up both arms. “Stop, I’m sick! You wouldn’t dare attack an ill man.”
“Ill is right.” She pulled down his arms, surprisingly strong for someone so slender, and squished a big dab of banana on his nose. “I never back down from a dare.” Her eyes flicked down to where her fingers were still clasped around his arm, and he watched her chest rise, swelling against the thin fabric of her tee. His skin pricked with something other than fever, but then she let go and sat back.
She bit off the mangled part of the banana and handed it to him. Put the pill bottle on the bedside table. Brushed his hair off his forehead and ghosted a kiss across it, so quick he might’ve imagined the words brushing across his overheated skin. “Still burning up.”
But he hadn’t, because his heart was on fire too. Going down in flames.
CHAPTER 23
FINN
Crouched over a puzzle, Simone spent the afternoon in the cabin with Finn. She stayed quiet, gaze never straying from the pieces spread out in front of her, but whenever he dozed off, he awoke to the snap of a fresh log on the fire, a box of tissues on the bedside table, a fresh bottle of water with condensation slipping down the sides in crystal teardrops.
This time when he opened his eyes, the sun was setting. Simone sat folded up on the couch with a notebook, pen tapping a rhythm against her knee. The fire crackled behind the glass of the wood-burning stove, curtains half-drawn in a truce for his headache and Simone’s insistence that natural light would improve his outlook and make him heal faster.
With her quiet company, this whole cabin felt robed in peace. Almost like home. Or at least the notion of home he sometimes traced at the outline of his dreams. Except she wasn’t here in spirit. She was yearning for an out, and their time in this cabin was a fleeting reprieve from the pressure of her indecision.
The room offered a false sense of security, like so many others he’d stayed in. An illusion both too good to last and not quite good enough. A cozy fire. Sturdy timber walls. Fresh sheets and a thick blanket.
Rest. Peace. Shelter.
But press past the illusion, and the cracks begin to show. A misguided mission. Distrust. Two people drawn toward each other but ultimately at odds.
Different goals. Different dreams.
This truce was temporary. This cabin? No more permanent than a hotel stay.
If he hadn’t gotten sick, they wouldn’t even be here. When he healed, he’d be evicted from this sanctuary, his future once more uncertain, in the hands of someone else.
Wide awake now, he watched her from under his lashes, feigning sleep. The distrustful, jaded part of his brain wanted to think she was keeping tabs on him. Watching and waiting for him to reveal a weakness. She wouldn’t have to look very far. Huddled under the covers, feverish and miserable, he couldn’t have been more vulnerable.
With a quiet exclamation, she uncapped the pen and started writing, pen slicing across the paper in quick, decisive strokes.
