“I’m fine.” This time, when I reach for Gavin’s bowl, he lets me take it and follows me into the kitchen. He might be a fairly tidy man, but he makes a mess when he cooks. He puts away ingredients and spices sitting open on the stone counter while I wash our bowls and forks.
The kitchen is warm, the water is soothing over my cold hands. I push the sleeves of my sweater up to my elbows and reach for the pot and pan he used, then submerge them in the sudsy water, along with the cutting board and knife.
“Did you speak to your sister?” Gavin asks.
“Yes. They returned to Snowshill after Hamish called your grandparents and heard about the storm. None of them wanted to manage their children in a hotel if the roads close and keep them from getting through.”
“Fair enough,” Gavin says.
I pause, my forearms resting on the edge of the sink, and look at him. “Are you always so level-headed?”
“Not a bit.” He speaks quickly, with confidence. The man is stalwart. I’ve known him all of twenty-four hours and it’s already clear he inherited his sense of self from the greats. William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, probably.
I want to know what pushes Gavin’s buttons. What would ruffle his feathers? Make him lose composure?
His blue eyes blink down at me, drawing me away from images of men on horseback with blue face paint, back to the soapy water. I clean the knives he used to make our dinner.
“That was wise of them,” Gavin says, and it takes a minuteto recall he’s still talking about our family in England. “The roads could be shut for days.”
“Is that common?”
“Very.”
A scoff rips from my throat. Days?! I dunk a cutting board too hard and splash myself. “Who thought it was a great idea to do Christmas in Scotland again?”
“I believe it was your sister.”
Right. Because Luna wanted to get Rhys and Ruby out of Snowshill, take their minds off the fact that it’s the first holiday after their Nan passed away. It’s nice in theory, but a more accessible house might have been better. Why didn’t we all go to California? Mom and Dad can’t come out here until right before Christmas anyway. It would have meant spending more time with them.
“Maybe one of you should have made her aware of this,” I grumble.
“It’s notaslikely this early in December,” he says. “Usually January or February is when we see the worst of the storms.”
“I suppose I brought my bad luck with me.”
“You could have brought your California sunshine instead.”
“If that’s a joke about my sunshine-y demeanor, let the record show that I’m ignoring it.”
We finish the dishes and put everything in the drying rack, then wipe the counters and stove. I find the broom in the utility closet and sweep the kitchen before I feel satisfied that we’re finished for the evening. If I’m going to live here for three weeks, I’m going to treat it like I would my own home—no, even better.
We return to the living room and sit in front of the fire. I pull my sleeves down over my hands and draw a blanket over my lap, ignoring the damp dishwater on my shirt. “Does the cold seep through everything here?”
“I thought you were going to wear sixteen layers of thermal underwear?”
“How do you know I’m not?”
Gavin laughs. “You need thicker socks. Hud on.”
I rest my head on the back of the couch, debating my options. Camping out in my room until my family arrives isn’t a real choice. I have to eat. Becoming Gavin’s best friend is impossible. The man probably has a job, so we won’t be togetherconstantly,at least. If we get stuck in this house together, I’m going to claw my brains out.
He returns with a pair of thick wool socks and tosses them to me. “These’ll warm you right up.”
They’re gorgeous, deep blue with flecks of color and clearly homemade. I pull them on over my other socks and leggings, and they immediately make me feel warmer. Tugging the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I lean my head back and look at him. “What do you do for work, Gavin?”
“A little of everything.”
“That’s a weird answer.”
