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“My sister and I used to make them all the time.” She crawled to the end of the mattress and smoothed out a pink-and-white striped sheet. “We’d drape all our blankets over chairs and tie them onto the bedposts, then decorate it with fairy lights. We put all of our pillows, stuffed animals, and blankets inside.”
“What for?”
She straightened, her eyebrows drawing together in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
“What was the point of the fort?”
“Thepoint?” She lifted her hands. “It was like a little hideaway. We’d turn off all the lights and use flashlights to draw, play games, read books. We ate popcorn and cookies and told secrets. Sometimes we’d sleep there, like we were camping. It was a lot of fun, like creating our own world.”
“Huh.”
Brooke frowned. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve never made a blanket fort?”
“I’ve never made a blanket fort.”
That wasn’t to say he didn’t know what it felt like to sleep in a makeshift shelter, though his experiences hadn’t included popcorn and games.
He shifted his gaze back to his notes, feeling Brooke still watching him.
“Come on.” She got to her feet and picked up a blue blanket. “Move the coffee table.”
“What?”
“We’re making a blanket fort.”
He expelled a groan. “I don’t have time for a blanket fort.”
“What, you have somewhere to go?” She tskedand waved her hand at the darkened window. “You need to experience blanket-fort building, Sam.”
“No, I don’t.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “Give me fifteen minutes, or I’ll force you to listen to me doing karaoke with Beyoncé again.”
“Great, as long as you do that little dance again too.” He eyed her with renewed interest.
She gave an exasperated sigh, even as her cheeks pinkened. “Please? I haven’t made a blanket fort in a million years. If you don’t have fun, I’ll make all our meals and coffee until we’re out of here. But I promise, youwillhave fun because fun is embedded in the very essence of blanket-fort construction.”
With a sigh, Sam shoved to his feet. This attitude was just one reason Brooke was such a good reporter. No one stood a chance when she unleashed her inner pit-bull.
Or her inner kitten, as the case may be.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said.
“Excellent!” Her face lit up and she hurried to the kitchen. “Actually, it might take longer than that, so let’s not watch the clock, okay? I saw some rubber bands in a drawer somewhere. After you move the coffee table, get the dining chairs and bring them over near the fire.”
Figuring this would go faster if he just did what she ordered, Sam carried the chairs to the main room and moved the coffee table out of the way. He pushed the sofa back and hauled the mattress to the area in front of the fireplace.
Brooke scrutinized the space with the intensity of an architect figuring out exactly how to build the Taj Mahal.
“We’ll need some books to weigh the edges down.” She arranged the dining chairs around the mattress, then frowned slightly. “Chairs are usually great because they make a nice, high ceiling, but I think these are too low. And the loft supports are too wide to tie the blankets around, so we’ll have to figure something else out. Oh, let’s turn the sofa around so we can use the back.”
Under her instructions, Sam moved furniture, shook out blankets, and untangled rubber bands. Brooke began draping blankets over the chairs, then ducked underneath them with a mutter of frustration. “Just as I thought. These chairs aren’t high enough. The blankets are going to droop in the middle.”
Sam eyed the wooden supports holding up the loft. He retrieved a tool kit from the utility closet and found a roll of thin wire. After measuring off a length, he clipped it from the roll and tied it around two of the supports, then secured it with duct tape.
“What’s that for?” Brooke emerged from underneath a blanket, her hair tousled.
“It’s one of the walls.” He draped two blankets over the wire, overlapping them to conceal the opening.
