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“I’m going to my house to spend the next few days with my wife and in my pajamas. I suggest you go inside and do the same with your spouse.”
“I can’t…”
“You married him,” Houghton uttered softly, leaning towards her. “A blizzard is about to hit, and now is not the time to chicken out. Youmarriedthe man – so go inside and play house, Daphne.”
“What?” she balked, looking between Houghton and the doorway where Max had disappeared, trying to keep her voice down.
“Is that your husband?”
“Yes…” she whispered, leaning away from his intense face.
“Then your husband is waiting – and will need someone to help him. If I know his stubborn rear-end, then he probably won’t ask for help either. You are all he’s got for the next few days,Mrs. Collins, and it will be fine if you give things a chance between you both,” Houghton drawled pointedly, turned, and hopped back in the van, driving off and leaving her there on the deck of the cabin.
The van was camouflaged within seconds, and she realized she couldn’t see the main cabin anymore – and it was bitterly cold. It was getting harder and harder to see in the distance as the wind picked up and the snow got heavier.
Turning, she walked back into the cabin and shut the door behind her, wincing as the wind gave a bitter howl not a few moments later. Max was sitting on the line of shelves almost like a banquette under the window, staring outside at the storm surrounding them.
“I’m sorry,” Max whispered quietly. “I don’t mean to invade your space, but Houghton said this might be easiest and best if things got really bad. I guess there was a blizzard here a few years ago that left Jill stranded for a week. He said the pipes froze and everything.”
“You’re not invading my space,” she began automatically and saw his head turn towards her, his eyes watching her as she fidgeted and put another piece of wood into the wood-burning stove in the corner absently.
“Look, I know I pushed you hard. It’s just that I really like you, and it’s amazing to find someone who thinks like me,” Max began. “I won’t force you to stay in this marriage if you don’t want it.”
“How about some coffee?” she said quietly, trying to avoid this conversation completely. “Tea, maybe?”
“Coffee,” he nodded and hesitated. “We do have to talk at some point, you know.”
“I know,” she replied quietly, walking to the kitchen and starting the coffeemaker immediately. “It’s just a lot to process and some big changes.”
“I’ve had a lot of big changes, so I understand how hard it can be to handle them… but you don’t have to be alone in figuring this out. We can talk because, if nothing else, if you chose not to be a part of this, I would still want us to be friends.”
Max’s words spoken so quietly in the cabin from across the room made her heart ache painfully as she closed her eyes. He was resigning himself to rejection, but hoping she would still take an olive branch from him… clinging to some sort of tie between them as friends.
“Wearefriends,” she said quietly, pouring a cup for him. “I’m struggling with figuring out the rest of it in my head.”
“I think that is the hardest part sometimes,” he admitted. “It’s wrapping your mind around the fact that things are different now, no matter if you aren’t ready for it… except you have a choice – and I never want you to think that you don’t.”
And that statement was why she was having a tough time. If he was a jerk like Ortega or macho like Gideon, she could shut him down in a heartbeat, but he was sweet. Max was caring and tender, putting her feelings first.
“Do you ever worry,” she began softly, adding a splash of cream to his coffee just like he preferred before walking it over to him. She took a seat beside him and saw his eyes watching her as he held the cup. “Do you ever worry that sometimes this is too much… too good to be true?”
Max nodded jerkily and took a sip of the coffee, looking away from her.
“All the time,” he whispered quietly. “I keep wondering if this is all some dream and that I’m lying in a bunk back in Ghazni with some massive head wound that has caused me to lose my marbles.”
She couldn’t help it – she chuckled lightly and saw his small smile as he glanced at her.
“It’s a nice view from inside, isn’t it?” she asked and then nodded. “Let me get my coffee, and let’s just enjoy this moment – real or not.”
“I’d like that.”
She stood up and moved silently to get her coffee before returning to sit down beside the window where he was perched. He’d moved the crutches to lean beside him – and she could almost picture this as a normal relationship between two very normal people.
“Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out,” she murmured, taking a sip and seeing his smile again of awareness.
“As a boy, I used to watch re-runs of some old painting shows on PBS because we were dirt poor growing up,” he began, and she listened, fascinated. “It’s part of the reason I joined the Army. I always wanted to travel, and being broke keeps you from doing that. Well, if that guy was painting this snow scene, there would be a small dab of Prussian Blue on his palette, a bunch of Titanium White, and I think he would have to add a tiny bit of yellow ochre…”
“What?” she laughed nervously. “In your fantasy dream paintings, you are having yellow snow in the mix?”
