Chapter 7
“Do you ever get the feeling that everyone else in the world has ceased to exist?” Miranda asked another whole day later as she and Randall stood at the top of the moving stairs in the attic, staring out over a desert of white.
The snow had stopped, the wind had died down, but the sky was still a thick grey.
It was hard to tell what was going on in town immediately below them, but in the distance, everything continued to look blanketed and buried.
Miranda only hoped that the measles epidemic had eased up.
“Once,” Randall answered, his voice tight with concern. “When we hit a calm out in the Pacific after the voyage to Hawaii.”
Miranda pursed her lips, a wave of irrational irritation snapping at her. “You have a story for everything,” she grumbled.
Randall turned away from the world of white to stare at her in indignation. “You asked.”
“You didn’t need to batter me with reminders of how much more exciting your life has been than mine.”
He blinked, mouth hanging open for a moment before he said, “I’ve told you that none of that was what I wanted, that—” He pressed his lips shut and turned away with a sharp exhale.
Miranda swallowed and ducked back into the attic, stepping carefully down the stairs.
She didn’t know what was wrong with her.
It was like her skin was itching so badly it was coming loose.
And she had felt so naughty and squiggly where Randall was concerned yesterday.
The problem wasn’t that she had stopped feeling so titillated, the problem was that she felt even more hot and bothered.
But she also wanted to slap him for not sweeping her into his arms and kissing her senseless…
for giving her heated looks…for smiling…
for teasing her about the contents of the attic… for…
She huffed out a breath and headed for the stairs.
The easy answer to what was wrong with her was that she’d been trapped alone in the saloon with Randall for so many days that she’d lost track.
She turned in a useless circle in the spotless, scrubbed attic.
They’d finished cleaning it that morning, putting heaps of restless, dangerous energy into work instead of flying scandalously at each other.
The second floor was spotless too. The saloon’s main room was so clean they could have eaten off the floor.
They’d manufactured Christmas decorations, set them around the saloon and the apartment, rearranged them, and exhausted themselves making more.
There was simply nothing at all left to do in the entire building.
Miranda had finally met her match, and its name was Cabin Fever.
“I think there might be people moving around in town,” Randall said as he climbed down the stairs and shut the trapdoor. “I can’t tell for sure, though. Not without climbing all the way out onto the roof.”
“Why not step out on the roof? It’ll be another adventure for you to add to your collection.” Miranda’s snippishness made her writhe on the inside. Nothing left to do, nothing left to do. Nothing left but throwing herself at Randall and ripping the clothes from his?—
Dear heavens, she needed to get a hold of herself!
“If you’re so concerned about, it, why don’t you climb up there and dance around.” Randall marched across the attic to her, hands planted at his waist, fire in his eyes. “Seeing as you’re so worked up about adventures.”
“Don’t take that tone of voice with me, Randy.” She pointed a scolding finger at him.
“I always take that tone of voice with people who are being unreasonable,” he fired back, stepping to within a few feet of her.
Miranda’s chest heaved with unspent anger and bristling confusion.
Randall had long since stopped wearing his full suit.
He stood before her in rolled-up shirtsleeves and a woolen vest. His hair needed brushing, but he’d shaved every morning that the two of them had been trapped together.
She knew. She’d watched him through a crack in her bedroom wall as he stripped down to just his drawers by her washstand and gone through his entire scrubbing up routine.
“In that case,” she floundered for a way to aggravate him as much as she was aggravated, “do you speak to your father that way?”
She knew she’d scored a point on him as soon as his face darkened. “Don’t bring my father into this,” he mumbled and marched past her to the stairs, grabbing his lantern as he went.
Miranda snatched up her own lantern and rushed after him.
“Ah ha! So we’ve found something that gets under your skin after all, have we?
” She hated herself for nagging and stinging him, but if she didn’t get some sort of a reaction from him, if she didn’t find a way to bring him as close to the brink of pent-up madness as she was, she’d?—
He stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs in the second floor hall, whirling to face her. “Plenty of things get under my skin, Miranda.”
She held her breath, certain it would happen then.
Heat radiated from him, and not all of it anger.
Frustration, yes, but a delicious, new kind of frustration that painted his cheeks scarlet and made his hazel eyes bright with desire.
Five days ago, she would have been shocked to her toes at the blatant sensuality in that gaze, if she would even have recognized what it was.
Now, trapped in the bubble they had spun around themselves, all she could do was sway closer to him, mind scattering, chest heaving, and… yearn.
“My father has spent his life taking advantage of people.” Randall jerked away from her, stomping on down the hall. “He sets his eyes on the prize and goes after it with ferocity. He doesn’t care whose life he ruins in the process. I will not be like my father.”
His…what? What did his father have to do with the distracting ache that filled her?
She stormed after him, the two of them making far more noise than they needed to as they headed to the ground floor and on to the apartment.
Miranda’s apartment was several degrees warmer than the rest of the saloon, since they’d decided to consolidate warmth there.
Randall set his lantern on the table and marched to the window over the washstand.
It was still caked with snow, even after they’d tried to pry it open to see if it was just drifts or if they had indeed had that many feet of snow.
Unfortunately, the window had frozen shut.
All of the windows in the saloon had. It was just another sign of how trapped they were.
Miranda set her lantern on the mantel above the fireplace, but moved away quickly.
Standing so close to fire when she was already burning in the inside only made things worse.
She had to do something, had to expend all the sizzling energy building up inside of her, like the air before lightning struck, somehow.
“What does your father have to do with anything anyhow?” She crossed her arms and stepped closer to him. “If you’re so clever, why don’t you live your own life?”
He spun to face her, eyebrows rising high. “This from the woman who’s idling away in her uncle’s saloon because she’s afraid she’s too dull for any man to take an interest in.”
She flinched. Flinched as if he’d raised a hand to her. Because up until that moment, she hadn’t realized that what he’d just said was true. He’d just given form to the cankerous thought that had floated under the surface of those ingrained habits of respectability she’d clung to for so long.
“Yes, well, at least I’m not wasting my talents doing someone else’s bidding,” she snapped.
“Oh no?” He took another large step closer to her. “You don’t even know what your talents are.”
Her eyes went wide. “Yes I do!”
“Then what are they?” He loosened his arms, gesturing wildly.
“I’m…” She stopped, clenching her jaw, mind racing. “I’m very good at…” It was all this blasted confinement, the restlessness and the helplessness. “I’ve always been an excellent…”
“Don’t say cook,” he warned her. “Because I can assure you, you’re not.”
Miranda froze, mouth open. Froze because her immediate reaction to his comment was to laugh.
Not just a polite giggle either. He’d hit the nail right on the head, and in her addled state, she had no idea what to do.
She could only stand there gaping. Maybe if she tore her own clothes off, then the rest would take care of itself.
The air between them crackled as they stood just a few feet away from each other, no words remaining between them. Should she kiss him? Would that make things better? Or would it make them immeasurably worse? At least it would ease the relentless itching under her skin.
Without warning, Randall let out a breath, shoulders sagging.
He rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s the boredom,” he mumbled.
Miranda wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or only himself.
He growled as he scrubbed his face hard, then just as suddenly dropped his hands and stared piercingly at her. “We’ve got to do something about this.”
“We…do,” Miranda said, halfway between agreement and questioning.
“We’re only jabbing at each other because we can’t do anything else. We can’t do what we want to do.”
She was uncertain whether he meant because every task and chore in the saloon was already done or because the thing that they could have done to ease the tension was not strictly acceptable.
He sighed again. “It needs to stop. I care about you and value your friendship far too much to continue this…”
She would have given anything for him to finish his sentence. He cared about her? Valued her? Had anyone truly valued her before.