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“Cora, Cora!” I try to calm the agitated beauty, but she continues to tear through the kitchen on her mission to locate the missing heirloom. Finally, I pull her away from digging beneath the sink and reel her around to face me.
“Cora, big breaths. It’s going to be okay.”
“I can’t believe I lost it, I’m so sorry, about that, about Marky, about everything,” she says, wiping tears from those big brown eyes.
And just like I did last night, and again this morning, I give in and pull the shaking girl close. Because ultimately, the ring is just a piece of jewelry, while Cora is a lovely girl who needs someone to just hold her.
I run my hands through her thick, glossy hair and down her back, over and over again, shushing her while she continues to cry softly into my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Matt,” she mumbles, her voice small and muffled by the robe between us. “I won’t stop until I find it.”
“Hey, it’s okay. I know it’ll turn up. We’re stuck here for the near future, so we’ll find it together. I promise.”
And even though Cora has finally stopped trembling, I hold her for a few moments more. I don’t want to let her go, and if her own tight grip around me is any indication, she doesn’t want me to, either.
We stand this way for a while, each of us consumed with taboo thoughts and questions of what the next several days may hold for our strange relationship, together in this isolated cabin far from our former lives.
13
Cora
A few days later.
It’s been eight days since Marky and I split up, four days since the fire, and three full days since Matt Harrison strode into my life in an entirely new way.
Watching him now from my perch on the window seat, I can’t help but feel a strange pull toward the handsome man. At first, I thought my fascination with him was because of loneliness, but now, over the past several days, I realize it’s something more.
Matt looks up from his own spot in the flannel armchair and smiles over the edge of his book at me. I smile and blush, abashed to have been caught looking at him. Feigning indifference, I lower my eyes back to my own romance novel but let my thoughts drift toward the real-life hero sitting across from me.
Matt is hands down one of the most attractive men I have ever known. And while he and Marky really could pass for brothers, Matt’s slightly more mature features only serve to make him that much more handsome. Ever since I’d met the older man, I had been constantly taken aback by his striking good looks – chiseled jawline, sweeping black hair, deep blue eyes – and by how much I hoped that Marky would grow up to look just like his father.
Well, now that Marky is out of the picture…
I flinch, embarrassed by my line of thinking. Matt looks up, perhaps distracted by my awkward jostle.
“You okay?”
I laugh, hoping it sounds easy and unforced. “Yes, just a shocking revelation in my book is all.”
“Hmmm, sure.” He grunts and goes back to reading his own novel.
I use his focus as a chance to study him further. Ever since he showed up a few days ago, Matt has been nothing but gorgeous and tempting, but also annoyingly polite.
I didn’t expect him to be completely at ease with me, but I’m disappointed by how tame our latest interactions have been.
Well, not all of them, I muse.
At times, it feels like Matt is trying to tease me, while at others he can be so serious. During breakfast this morning, he smeared pancake batter on my nose and we had laughed like naughty kids over the mess. But then, after breakfast, he’d nearly jumped out of my way when I needed to get around him to put some dishes away.
I don’t know if he likes me or not, I think as I run my finger along the edge of the book pages. Well, he likes me as the almost daughter-in-law he’ll never have…
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
I look up, startled from my daydreaming by Matt’s interruption.
“Oh, nothing much.” I hold up my book and wave it at him. “I don’t seem to be able to focus too well.”
“Agreed.” Matt snaps his book closed and springs to his feet. “Maybe we should find something else to occupy our time.” He raises one eyebrow at me in a teasing manner, and again I’m confused by his flirtatiousness.
“Okay.” I clamber to my own feet. “We have a chest full of games and stuff. We can see what’s in there.”
“Lead the way.” Matt bows and gestures gallantly for me to cross in front of him.
“To the hallway closet!” We scramble like children, each of us trying to beat the other to the chest of games.
