Chapter 6
Brevin
With the fire blazing and nothing else to do, I went back into the kitchen to find Chevonne staring at her cell phone.
“Any signal?” I asked.
She glanced up, a frown on her pretty brow, and shook her head, her focus going back to her phone for only a second before she turned off the screen and placed the device on the counter. “No,” she said. “But Tina told me the roads are closed, so I guess we’re stuck here for a while.”
I smiled wryly. “Happens once about every two or three winters, or at least it did until five years ago. Now it’s more common.”
“How long have you had this place?” She was no longer shivering, but I didn’t want to delay warming her up. Before I answered, I stepped behind her chair.
“What do you say we chat beside the fire?” I asked, not waiting for an answer before I wheeled her toward the living room.
The dog was already curled up on the rug, snoring.
She probably wasn’t used to this much excitement.
That was something else I needed to figure out if we were going to be holed up here for a while—what to feed a St. Bernard?
I could thaw a steak. Which reminded me all the food I was going to bring back home to the city was still in a cooler in the car.
I got Chevonne settled back on the couch in front of the fire and ran to the laundry room to get the blanket out of the dryer. She thanked me as I draped it over her, then I sat beside her to watch the flames lick the wood in the fireplace.
“I bought this place a couple of years after I got back to Ottawa from university,” I told her, finally answering her question.
“Oh yeah? Where did you study?”
Her expression of genuine curiosity made me relax a little. She seemed to be warming up to me as well as warming up. Maybe this wouldn’t be too embarrassing after all.
“I went to McMaster in Hamilton. In fact, my parents packed me up and sent me before high school even finished. They had a job lined up for me, and I had to go so I could support myself through my first year.”
“That’s why you weren’t … at school at the end of June?”
I winced, knowing what she’d avoided saying—that’s why I stood her up. “Yeah,” I said. If Chevonne wasn’t ready to bring up my failure, I wasn’t going to push it. “What about you? Did you do any continuing ed?”
She nodded, turning to look at Princess, who was currently running in a doggy dream. “I took courses online and went into the exciting realm of bookkeeping.”
“That suits you,” I said.
Chevonne’s gaze snapped to me. “Are you saying I’m boring?” There was a slight smile on her face; she wasn’t insulted quite yet.
“No, I mean you were always … mathy. And logical. Both of which align with bookkeeping.”
Her smile widened a fraction. “I didn’t think you paid that much attention to me back in high school.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said, smiling back at her.
I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t for things to get quite as uncomfortable as they suddenly became.
Chevonne’s focus went back to the fire, essentially ignoring my statement.
I played it over in my head and realized it sounded kind of sleazy, especially in our unscheduled cozy situation.
“Would you like something to drink? Or eat?” I asked, hoping to change the mood.
Princess was faster to pay attention to my question than Chevonne. “I have steak,” I said, my mind racing to figure out what else the dog could eat if I ran out.
“Do you have tea?” Chevonne gazed at me as though she was afraid she’d asked me for something as rare as a diamond tiara.
“I do,” I said. “Orange pekoe, Earl Grey, chamomile …”
“Earl Grey would be wonderful, thank you,” she said with a smile. I’d do anything for that smile, I realized.
“I’m on it,” I said. “I just have to run out to the car to get my things. You’re lucky Princess showed up when she did. Another five minutes and I’d have been gone.”
Princess, who had approached the couch, stood beside Chevonne for a scratch behind the ear, and I could bizarrely imagine this kind of permanent domestic bliss. With her. And the dog. Even though we’d been reacquainted for less than an hour.
“Well,” I said when I realized I’d been staring, “I guess I should go.”
Chevonne turned her attention to Princess when I backed out of the room. I ran to the kitchen to put the kettle on the stove before I threw on my boots, no jacket, and sprinted out to the car.
The snow was seriously deep and drifting now, and darkness had almost completely fallen.
It was all I could do to find the car in the shrouded outside light.
Piling as many bags as I could on top of the cooler, I headed back to the house, planning to come back to get my suitcase.
I was within sight of the door when the porch light went out.