Snowstorm of Our Past novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: His House

He didn't say anything.

He just stood up out of the snow and pulled me up after him, and kept hold of my hand.

We went down through the trees a lot faster than we'd come up.

The dog thought it was a race and won.

In the truck, Gabe turned the heater all the way up and sat there with both hands on the wheel.

"You're sure," he said.

"I'm sure."

"Because I can drive you back to the diner and walk you to the stairs, and I'll still be here tomorrow."

"Gabe. I'm wearing the mittens."

He looked at my hands.

Then he put the truck in gear.

I called Gran from the highway.

"Can you keep Tilly tonight?"

There was a pause.

"I've had her since breakfast," Gran said. "I assumed."

"Gran."

"There's bottles in the fridge and I've raised two of you already. Don't call me again until noon." She hung up.

Gabe was trying very hard not to laugh.

"She assumed," he said.

"Drive."

His log house sat at the end of a dirt road on the east edge of town.

The mountains stood behind it, and smoke went straight up from the chimney.

I'd been there a hundred times for team meetings.

I'd never been past the kitchen.

He unlocked the door.

The dog shot past us and went straight to his bed by the woodstove.

Gabe shut the door.

The house was warm and smelled like woodsmoke and coffee.

For a second, neither of us moved.

Then he took my face in both his hands and kissed me against the door.

Slow, this time.

I pulled at the zipper of his jacket until it gave.

He shrugged it off and let it fall on the floor.

Mine went next.

He pulled the mittens off my hands one at a time and kissed the inside of each wrist.

Then he set them on the shelf by the door, very carefully.

"Ten years in the glove box," I said. "They can have a shelf."

"They've earned a shelf."

He pulled my sweater over my head.

Then he stopped.

I was standing in his front hall in jeans and a thin gray thermal shirt.

He was looking at me.

"Gabe."

"Give me a second." His voice was rough. "I'm memorizing."

I took his hand and put it on my waist, under the thermal, on my skin.

"Memorize that."

His thumb moved over my hip.

His breath went out of him.

He kissed me again, harder, and walked me backward across the room toward the hall, past the woodstove and the sleeping dog.

I got his flannel shirt half unbuttoned and gave up and pulled it over his head.

His chest was warm and broad under my cold hands, and he hissed when I touched him.

"Always cold," he said.

"You keep saying that."

"I'm going to fix it."

At the bedroom door he stopped with his forehead against mine, both of us breathing hard.

"Tell me," he said.

"Yes," I said. "I want you. Tonight. All of it."

I pushed him.

He stumbled back one step, two, until the backs of his knees hit the bed frame and he sat down hard on the quilt.

I stood over him.

"I'm done waiting," I said. "For anything."

I pulled my thermal shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor.

His eyes moved down my body like he was afraid to blink.

"Mal."

"Take your jeans off."

He did.

I watched him do it, watched the muscles in his stomach move as he lifted his hips, watched him kick the denim away.

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