Tired all over again, she dragged a hand through her hair. “I doubt it. We’ll just call it a temporary lapse.”
“And do what?”
She wished she knew. “Look, J.T., we’re both adults. All we have to do is act like it.”
“I thought we were.” He tried a smile. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
“It wasn’t completely your fault.” She managed to smile back at him. “Circumstances. We’re alone here, the power’s out. Candle and firelight.” She shrugged and felt miserable. “Anybody could get carried away.”
“If you say so.” He took a step forward. She took a step back. The pursuit, Jacob decided, was going to require strategy. “But I am attracted to you, even without candlelight.”
She started to speak, discovered she didn’t know what she wanted to say and dragged her hands through her hair again. “You should get some sleep. I’m going for more wood.”
“All right. Sunbeam?”
She turned back, shooting him a look of amusement and exasperation at his use of her full name.
“I enjoyed kissing you,” he told her. “Very much.”
Muttering under her breath, she bundled into her coat and escaped outside.
***
The day passed slowly. Sunny might have wished he would sleep longer, but it hardly mattered. Awake or asleep, he was there. As long as he was, he intruded. At times, though she tried to bury herself in her books, she was so painfully aware of him that she nearly groaned.
He read—voraciously, Sunny thought—novel after novel from the bookshelf. Activity was almost completely confined to the living room and the warmth of the fire, which they took turns feeding.
At lunchtime they fell back on cold sandwiches, though she did manage to boil water over the fire for tea. They spoke to each other only when it was impossible not to.
By evening they were both wildly restless, edgy from confinement and from the fact that both of them wondered what the day would have been like if they had spent it under a blanket, together, rather than at opposite ends of the room.
He paced to one window. She paced to another. She poked at the fire. He leafed through yet another book. She went for a bag of cookies. He went for fresh candles.
“Have you ever read this?”
Sunny glanced over. It was the first word they had spoken to each other in an hour. “What?”
“
“Oh, sure.” It was a relief to have a conversation again. She handed him the bag of cookies as a peace offering.
“What did you think of it?”
“I always like reading about the mannerisms of an earlier century. They were so stringent and puritanical back then, with all that passion boiling underneath the civilized veneer.”
He had to smile. “Do you think so?”
“Sure. And of course it’s beautifully written, and wonderfully romantic.” She sat with her legs hooked over the arm of a chair, her eyes a little sleepy and her scent—damn her—everywhere. “The plain, penniless girl capturing the heart of the bold, brooding hero.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “That’s romantic?”
“Of course. Then there’s windswept moors and painful tragedy, sacrifice. They did a terrific production of it on PBS a few years ago. Did you see it?”
“No.” He set the book aside, still puzzled. “My mother has a copy at home. She loves to read novels.”
“That’s probably because she needs to relax after being in court all day.”
“Probably.”
“What does your father do?”
“This and that.” Suddenly his family seemed incredibly far away. “He likes to garden.”
“So does mine. Herbs, naturally.” She gestured toward her empty tea cup. “But he putters around with flowers, too. When we were little he grew vegetables right outside the kitchen. It’s practically all we ate, which is why I avoid them now.”
He tried to imagine it and simply couldn’t. “What was it like growing up here?”
“It seemed natural.” She rose idly to poke at the fire, then sat on the couch beside him, forgetting for a moment how restless the storm was making her. “I guess I thought everyone lived like we did, until we went to the city and I saw the lights, the crowds, the buildings. For me, it was as if someone had broken open a kaleidoscope and handed me all the colors. We would always come back here, and that was fine.” With a half yawn, she sank back into the cushions. “But I always wanted to get back to all that noise. Nothing changes much here, and that’s nice, because you can always depend on it. But there’s always something new in the city. I guess I like progress.”
“But you’re here now.”
“A self-imposed penance, in a way.”
“For what?”
She moved her shoulders. “It’s a long story. What about you? Are you a city boy yearning for the peace of the country?”
He glanced deliberately out the window. “No.”
She laughed and patted his hand. “So here we are, two city dwellers stuck in the wilds of the Northwest. Want to play cards?”
His mood brightened instantly. “Poker?”
“You’re on.”
They rose at the same time, bumped, brushed. He took her arm automatically, then held on. He tensed, as she did. It wasn’t possible to do otherwise. It was possible, barely, to prevent himself from lifting his other hand to her face. She’d done nothing to enhance it today. There was no trace of cosmetics. Her mouth, full, pouty, exciting, was naked. With an effort, he brought his eyes from it, and to hers.
“You’re very beautiful, Sunbeam.”
It hurt to breathe. She was terrified to move. “I told you not to call me that.”
“Sometimes it fits. I’ve always thought beauty was just an accident of genes or something accomplished through skill. You make me wonder.”
“You’re a very strange man, Hornblower.”
He smiled a little. “You don’t know the half of it.” He stepped back. “We’d better play cards.”
“Good idea.” She let out a quiet, relieved breath as she took the deck from a drawer. If she had a little time, alone, she might just figure out what it was about him that jolted her system. “Poker by firelight.” She dropped onto the floor. “Now that’s romance.”
He sat opposite her. “Is it?”
“Prepare to lose.”
But he won, consistently, continually, until she began to watch him through narrowed eyes. For lack of anything else, they were playing for cookies, and his pile of chocolate chips kept growing.
“You eat all those you’re going to get fat.”
He merely smiled. “No, I won’t. I have an excellent metabolism.”
“Yeah, I just bet you do.” With a body like that, he’d have to. “Two pair, queens and fours.”
“Mmm.” He set his cards down. “Full house, tens over fives.”
“Sonofa—” She broke off, scowling, as he raked in the chips. “Look, I don’t want to sound like a sore loser, but you’ve won ten out of twelve hands.”
“Must be my lucky night.” He picked up the cards and riffled them.
“Or something.”
He merely lifted a brow at her tone. “Poker is as much a science as physics.”
She snatched up a cookie. “Just deal, Hornblower.”
“Are you going to eat your ante?”
Miffed, she tossed it into the pot. “If I don’t eat several times a day I get cranky.”
“Is that what’s wrong with you?”
