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“I guess we really don’t have water to wash our hands, but I wouldn’t mind a sandwich.”
They might as well eat, then see if they couldn’t get some rest.
“I washed mine off a little bit in the snow. My fingers were already freezing, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a little bit colder. Especially after I touched the kitten.”
“Do... Do you want to check on her?” They hadn’t done that yet, but in the back of his mind, he wanted to see. Wanted to be sure that the kittens and the cat were all okay.
“Yeah. Good idea,” she said, grabbing the candle and standing up.
As long as he left the door to the stove open, the room had a cheerful glow, with long, dancing shadows. He had a gas fireplace in his condo in Chicago, but it didn’t quite have the personality that the wood fire did. That made sense, since it wasn’t exactly a real fire.
He had often wondered why people might prefer the mess and dirt of wood to gas, but he could kind of see now why they might. The flames were cheerful in a way that gas wasn’t, and it cast a glow that seemed cozy and cute and thankfully threw a lot of heat.
He followed her into the back room, afraid of what they might see. They hadn’t heard anything else out of the cat, and he had been busy with the fire and hadn’t thought about what that could mean.
But as soon as they stepped in, the glow from the candle showed that there was movement on the rags at least.
“She had another one!” Eleanor said right away.
He blinked, then looked again. “Two. She has four total. So she must’ve had two more.” He counted once more just to be sure. They were all about the same size, except for the one they pulled, which was obviously bigger, and they were all nose to their mom’s belly, nursing.
They didn’t say anything more, but just stood and watched the newborns nurse for a bit. He couldn’t help smiling as he watched. They were so sweet and cute, and such a contrast to the raging storm and harsh weather outside. He wanted to say something to that effect but couldn’t think of how to phrase it so it didn’t sound sappy, and he quit thinking about it when his stomach growled loudly and broke the silence in the room.
“Sounds like it’s time to eat,” Eleanor said with a smile as she turned and walked out of the small room.
“Sorry about that,” he mumbled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that hungry, and the noises his stomach made were embarrassing.
“I’m glad, because I’m hungry. But I didn’t want to eat if you weren’t ready.”
“That was considerate of you.”
“I try,” she said, with a little bit of humor in her voice which he enjoyed. She wasn’t afraid to make fun of herself. Some people took themselves too seriously, and he appreciated a person who could laugh and make fun of themselves and just enjoy life.
He supposed he had a tendency to be too serious, and part of the reason he’d agreed to work with Noah at building the hotel and possibly moving to Strawberry Sands was so that he could slow down and enjoy life a little more.
They ate their sandwiches in silence, sitting on the floor in front of the stove.
He had his about half gone when Eleanor said, “So, I’ve been trying to figure out whether it’s better for both of us to get a blanket, and we each have our own blanket, or whether we should share? Please don’t take it wrong, I... I just figured I’d throw it out there so I can stop worrying about it.”
“If you’re worried, we’ll just do whatever makes you feel okay.”
“Well, not worried about it exactly, I just... It’s just kind of an awkward thing that I didn’t want to suggest we share, but if I’m being honest, the fire is nice but I’m freezing.”
“All right. We’ll share. And being that the stove is so small, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get a fire that’s much bigger. And there is no insulation at all to help keep the heat in.”
“I agree. I’m just happy that there actually was a woodstove in here. I suppose, if it happens again, we could request a bigger stove.”
“This is not going to happen again.” He said that firmly but with a smile. Seriously. How many people in their entire lives got stuck in a shack in a snowstorm? “You know we belong to a very elite group.”
“Huh?” she asked, not following him at all.
“How many people have gotten stuck in a shack in a snowstorm? We have to be one of what? Hundreds? Thousands? If there are eight billion people in the world, that puts us in a small group.”
“Well, I think probably the thing that sets us apart is the fact that I have friends who would actually think that this was a good idea. A good...trick, for lack of a better word, to play on someone.”
“That’s true. I don’t have any friends like that. I just happened to get drawn into this, I want to say because of you, but it’s really because of Peter. I suppose we can just blame everything on Peter.”
“He sounds like a great person to take all the blame. A fun guy.”
