"Not at all," she assured him.
Cale fled back into the safety of the small kitchen, where he would not have to look into her eyes.
"How `bout if I set the table?" Quinn was just a few steps behind him.
Cale resisted the urge to sigh openly. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide...
"Sure." He forced a smile and pointed to the cupboard behind him. "Plates and glasses in there."
He tried to pretend that her presence wasn't disconcerting, that he wasn't watching her, but it was impossible not to in so confined an area. Their backs collided mildly as she reached for plates from the shelves above her head. She brushed against him when she sorted through the flatware drawer for knives, forks, and spoons. His awareness of her was closing in on him at a pace that was rapidly accelerating.
He turned and brushed aside the curtain at the kitchen window. If anything, the storm had intensified. There was no chance she would be leaving before the morning.
How would he last a whole night with her here, under the same roof with him?
She looked up and smiled again, and he felt his insides begin to twist and twitch.
This could very well be the longest night of his life.
Chapter Seven
"Would you like some music?" Cale stood in the middle of the living room, his hands on his hips, wondering just what to do next. Quinn was emerging from the kitchen, where she had offered to clean up from dinner while Cale put his sons to bed.
"Sure." She nodded.
"What's your pleasure?"
"What are my choices?"
"Whatever we can get on this old radio." He slowly turned the dial, distracted by her nearness. "Not much of a variety tonight, I'm afraid."
"That's fine, right there. Christmas music would be nice."
Cale adjusted the dial to eliminate the static, taking his time while he tried to figure out what to do with her.
In his dreams, he had known exactly what to do. Now that she was really here, he had changed into a bumbling adolescent in the space of a few hours.
"I was listening to this on tape while I was driving up the mountain today," she told him as "I'll Be Home for Christmas" began to play.
"I've always liked it," Cale said awkwardly.
"Me, too." She nodded.
"Ah, why don't you sit down"--Cale folded up the blankets on the sofa to give her room--"and I'll..." He looked around wildly for something to occupy himself with. "I'll... put more wood on the fire."
Quinn sat on the sofa, pulling her feet up under her and easing back into the cushions. Cale lifted a few logs from the stack and placed them on the fire, using the bellows to build up the flames. Quinn exhaled, a long silent stream of air. Her face was beginning to hurt from having forced a carefree smile for the past several hours. Her chest and stomach hurt from having been so close to him after so long. She watched him, his back to her, and though she tried to will her eyes away from him, she could not It had been too long a drought, and now that she could, she drank in every bit of him. The way his dark hair curled over the back of his collar. The way his hands grasped the logs as if they were twigs, the way the bottom of his jeans rounded when he leaned back on his haunches to stack the logs...
She rose abruptly and went to the window to look out. Maybe a miracle had occurred while they were eating dinner and the snow had stopped.
Fat chance.
"I'm afraid it's only gotten worse, Quinn," he said from behind her.
"I guess I should call home." She turned slightly and found him closer than she had anticipated.
"That's probably a good idea," he agreed, telling himself to back away so that the scent from her hair would not be able to reach his nostrils, but his legs seemed unable to obey the command to move.
"I left a message on the answering machine earlier, but I think my mother will worry until she actually speaks to me," she said. The urge to reach her hand up and touch his face was so powerful that she had to force her hands behind her back.
She was the first to move, the first to step away. Averting her eyes, she stepped around him and reached for her bag. Refusing to look at him again while she searched for the phone, she turned her back while she dialed the number and spoke softly and paced nervously while she explained the situation to her mother.
"My mother said to tell you hello and to thank you for giving me shelter from the storm," Quinn said as she dropped the cell phone back into the bag.
Cale nodded. "It's my pleasure."
If you only knew, Quinn....
"So," Quinn said, forcing herself to sound perky. "What book are you reading?" She walked to the chair and lifted the hardback he had left there the night before and inspected the cover. It was a thriller, written by a favorite author of Quinn's. "Oh. I heard this was great."
"It's pretty good," he told her, looking for something to do with himself. "But I liked his last one better."
"I loved that book," she agreed. "Had you figured out that Janelle was the murderer before the last scene?"
"No." He shook his head. "I thought it was Desmond."
"So did I." Quinn laughed. "He sure had me fooled."
"Me, too." Cale nodded.
That common ground having been exhausted, silence began to surround them.
"I'm sorry about the boys. I mean, tying you up and stuffing the sock in your mouth," he said awkwardly, at a loss for words now that she was really here.
"I'm sure they thought they had bagged a felon, that they had done something really good." She couldn't help but smile. "They certainly seemed proud of themselves."