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No fridge.
“Three days for power, duchess. We won’t likely be able to leave for five. If they plow the main drag, that is. Once this stops, I will get working on the private drive. That alone is gonna take me a few days.”
“I can help,” I offered, feeling a bit out of my depths.
“Don’t worry about it,” he brushed me off. “Keep me fed; I’ll get the road clear.”
That seemed, well, fair.
Perhaps a bit sexist.
But if I were being honest, I preferred staying in and making the meals to going out and lifting heavy shovelfuls of snow.
“I can do that,” I agreed, nodding even though he couldn’t see me.
Seeming to sense the dilemma, he moved inward, placing the flashlight on the dresser facing the ceiling, letting the room light up enough so that we could see each other.
“We’ll be fine here. After twelve hours or so, we’re gonna want to move the food outside to keep it cold. We’ll keep the fireplace going. This room will need to be closed off, so we will both need to be staying in the common area to keep warm. Stove is gas, so we can light the pilot with matches. Which we have plenty of. And some hurricane lamps and oil for nighttime. It’ll be roughing it, but we’ll be fine.”
“I can… rough it for a while,” I said, making sure there was some authority in my voice, even if I knew that I had perhaps been a bit too pampered by things like light switches that actually turned on lights and air ducts that never stopped blowing. I could learn to do without. It was all part of starting a new life, wasn’t it? Stepping out of my old comfort zones.
“You’re wearing silk pajamas, and you are sure you can rough it?” he asked, eyes going down over my silk tank and shorts.
“Just because I like wearing things that feel good on my skin doesn’t mean I can’t learn to live without some light.”
“You don’t match,” he said oddly, ignoring my last comment.
He was right.
My shorts had little pink roses with green leaves on a champagne-colored background. My top was deep, royal purple.
“Yes, well, someone would not let me pack my own bags, so I would have matching clothes.”
Again, he seemed to ignore what I said. “You sleep with your hair like that?” he asked, eyes scrunched up at my braid that wrapped around my head.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because it looks uncomfortable as fuck. Can’t figure out why you would do that to yourself.”
I didn’t wear my hair down often. It was just easier to keep it in some sleek updo, so I didn’t have to worry about it getting messy or in the way.
“My mom used to braid my hair before bed as a little girl to keep it from getting tangled. I’m used to it, I guess.” I left out the part about how she used to rip the strands out with a brush while I screamed, then whack me with the broad side because she couldn’t take my whining.
“You got family?” he asked, head ducked to the side. “Didn’t see anything about that in your file.”
“We’ve… never been close,” I said carefully, knowing that dysfunctional family was like a bruise that never healed, whenever you poked it, it always smarted.
“So not close that they won’t realize you suddenly fell off the face of the Earth?”
“So not close that they probably already think I have.” His brows drew together at that, some look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite make out. “What?”
“You have secrets, duchess, don’t you?” There was something odd in his tone, something a mix of curious and thoughtful, and maybe even a hint of worry.
“Everyone has secrets.”
“People on the run, they can’t have secrets. Not from the person who is in charge of protecting them. That paperwork Quin had you fill out wasn’t for shits and giggles. We need to know everything.”
“Some questions are invasive,” I hedged, not wanting to go there.
“Asking for your cup size and menstrual cycle is invasive,” he shot back. “Demanding you tell us about all the people you are connected to is necessary. These people who you might end up missing, and will call, and it will trace back to your new location that I am going to bust my ass to make sure no one knows about.”
“I would sooner call Rodrigo Cortez to come and finish the job than call my family,” I said carefully, choosing the words so that they would have the impact I needed them to without having to give the details I didn’t want to.
“Bad, huh?” he asked, voice doing that soft thing again, and this time, it was making my insides do something odd, foreign. It was making them feel almost… melty? That was absurd, of course, but that was somehow what it felt like.
