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“I think I found something.”
It was just to the right of the door, like Sally might have thrown it in quickly. It didn’t feel huge, and it wasn’t particularly heavy. As her fingers moved around it, it felt like a duffel.
“I feel a zipper. This is like a backpack or a duffel bag or something.”
“Awesome. I’ll keep looking. Maybe she had two.”
She smiled but didn’t allow the laugh that tickled the back of her throat to come out. She thought it was funny that he thought the more the better.
She appreciated his optimism though and hoped he was right.
She knelt down beside the duffel, finding the end of the zipper and grabbing it in her fingers.
The sound of the zipper opening was loud in the silence of the shed. Using her fingers made her realize how cold they were.
Lord, some matches would be really, really nice.
He knew what they needed, and if they were supposed to spend the night without fire, God knew.
Her fingers touched something cool and hard and round. A candle? If there was a candle, there was almost certainly matches.
“I think there’s a candle,” she said as she became more sure. The top had a stopper in it, and she used both hands to pull it out, then she loosened the lid and pulled it off.
“Yes. It’s a candle!” It smelled like cinnamon, or maybe cinnamon mixed with vanilla perhaps. A Christmas candle.
“Where there’s a candle, there’s probably matches,” Franklin said, his voice holding as much excitement as she’d heard since she’d walked into the shed.
“Exactly my thoughts,” she said, setting the candle on the floor and putting her hands back in the bag. “I feel blankets and some packages... I think I might feel bread. We’ll have sandwiches!”
“Awesome. I guess all of the excitement has worked up an appetite, because I’m starved.”
“I was thinking I should have eaten more at the dance, but I was so busy trying to get everything organized to make sure things ran okay, I didn’t even think about it.”
“Yeah, I was a little preoccupied.”
He had mentioned before that he had gotten a phone call with bad news. She wondered if that was what he was referring to now.
They would have time to talk about it, most likely.
“Do you think there’s any chance of anyone coming out for us?”
“Maybe. I could see my brothers doing it, although with the snow, I could also see them taking people home from the barn dance who had gotten stranded or didn’t want to drive in the storm.”
“And they’d just forget about you?”
“Well, I had told my sister I was okay. That’s the last text she got from me, and I also said that my phone was almost out of battery, so if she didn’t hear from me, she would know not to worry.” Her fingers touched a rectangular object. “And I hate to say this, but it’s possible that they’ll think it’s a good idea for us to be stuck together.”
Her fingers closed around the object, and she pulled it out. “I’m pretty sure these are matches.”
She didn’t give him a chance to answer anything about what she had said. She was going to be mortified if she had to explain to him that her family, particularly her friends, might think it was a good idea for her to be trapped with some man for an entire night and possibly a day, because that just sounded like she was desperate to get married and would do anything to have that happen. Even though he would know that it had nothing to do with her. That she hadn’t instigated it in any way.
Regardless, it wasn’t the thing that she really wanted to lead with.
It wasn’t something she wanted to say at all.
Plus, he’d heard her ask him to dance. He would think that he would know exactly why she wasn’t married. If she couldn’t get her words out but sounded like someone who was either drunk or had some major problems, he wouldn’t be questioning why she wasn’t married. And he would probably think he totally understood why she needed to be shut in with someone.
She pulled a match out of the box and struck it along the side. It flared to life. Her lips curved up in a smile as she raised her eyes and saw Franklin grinning as well.
