Page 36 of V is for Valentine
“I got a lot done after you left. I made my goal.”
“It’s sometimes acceptable to have a moving goal. You know…to adjust to the circumstances.”
“Do not bring up rigidity,” she warned him.
He merely lifted his eyebrows in an I-don’t-have-to-because-you-did expression. Her mouth tightened. She was exhausted. She needed to get home.
She didn’t seem to be moving.
And neither was he, and there was something about the shifting atmosphere between them that brought every nerve in her body to high alert.
Do not look at his mouth.
Her traitorous gaze slid south from his eyes to the lips that she’d always rather admired. Firm and nicely shaped.
Danny. This is Danny. Knock it off.
“Are you all right?”
Felicity’s guilty gaze snapped up. No. She was not all right. She was crazed with exhaustion and having very unacceptable thoughts in this dimly lit furnace room that they were still standing in for some unknown reason.
“Just a little Bertha-related PTSD kicking in.”
“Let’s get out of here.” He jerked his head toward the staircase.
“Yes.” She stymied her urge to escape at all costs and headed toward the stairs with her usual confident stride. She’d gone a little crazy there in that furnace room.
Had Danny noticed?
Her foot slipped on one of the stair treads, and his hand landed on her lower back, steadying her.
“Two rescues in one day,” she murmured. “I owe you double.”
He didn’t respond, which she found troubling. Danny always responded.
Dear heavens,hadhe read her thoughts in the furnace room? Because she’d certainly been having them. Thoughts that is.
Felicity was already heading down the hallway to the office where she’d been working by the time Danny shut the basement door. Not that she was escaping. She needed to get the joint compound back in the bucket before it hardened and became unusable.
Too late.
She’d clean out the hardened gunk in the morning, but she could clean her tools.
He waited in the doorway while she wiped her tools and pounded the lid on the compound bucket. She wanted to tell him that she could find her own way out, but given the events of the day, she kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t until she’d put on her jacket and they were on their way to the door that he spoke.
“What did you want to say to me today? You know…before you chickened out?”
She gave him a sharp look. “I did not chicken out. I changed my mind.”
She had. And she didn’t regret it.
“Why?”
“It wasn’t that important, Danny.”
“Right.” He opened the front door and she turned off the lights. Bertha kicked in as she stepped outside as if to mock her.
“Are you heading straight home?” she asked Danny as the door shut behind them. There was a cold snap to the February air, and she breathed deeply. So much nicer than the stuffy atmosphere of the basement.
