Snowbound

Her pointy chin rose. “No. It won’t. Hadn’t we better get started? I figure they’ve already been out there five minutes. By your estimate, Amy will be coming in the door in another five minutes.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay. You’re trying to help. I know.” She smiled, a benediction.

His fingers curled into fists at his sides. She wouldn’t be so forgiving if she knew about the death he’d rained on the innocent.

The road to hell was paved with good intentions.

She took the girls’ bathroom, he took the boys’. From long habit, he cleaned fast, and then carried a pile of towels and washcloths to her. She was wiping the countertop, which took longer than in the other bathroom because of the amazing array of toiletries and cosmetics scattered there. All of which had presumably come out of their purses and bookbags.

“Oh, thank you,” Fiona said, seeing the pile in his arms. “More loads of laundry in the making.”

His laugh felt rusty. “You don’t look like the half-empty kind.”

She smiled impishly. “In this case, the washing machine is going to be a lot more than half full.”

Still smiling, although it felt unnatural, John said, “And I seem to remember you promised to load it.”

“Yes, I did.” Fiona began hanging towels on racks, leaving part of the stack on the counter between the pair of sinks. “What you said earlier, about Iraq… Was it awful? I know a lot of the returning veterans are suffering from posttraumatic stress, just like after Vietnam.”

PTSD—Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—was a fancy way of saying that you’d seen things you shouldn’t have, in John’s opinion. It was ridiculous to talk about it as a disease, as if the right pills would cure it.

He cocked a brow at her. “Are you asking if I’m one of them? Maybe. Most soldiers do have some symptoms.”

She flushed. “I’m so sorry if you thought… I really wasn’t asking, even obliquely. You haven’t given me any reason… Oh, dear.”

Great. He’d been a jackass again.

“That’s all right. I…hinted.”

“If you need help you can get it from the Veterans Administration, can’t you?”

“I don’t need it.” The gravel in his voice startled even him. He cleared his throat. “What I need is to…decompress. This is my way of doing that. Be around people in limited doses. Get over being jumpy without a barrage of noise around me all the time.”

She looked doubtful even though he could tell she was still embarrassed. “Is it working?”

Some days he thought so. On others, when he awakened from a nightmare with his heart pounding and a bellow raw in his throat, he wasn’t so sure.

“I feel better than I did when I tried to go back to work at Robotronics.” Which was truth, so far as it went.

“It is peaceful up here.” Shouts from outside drifted up, and her mouth curved. “Or was, until we darkened your door.”

“You’ve been good guests,” he forced himself to say.

“Why, thank you.” She sighed. “I suppose I’d better go check on the kids.”

He stepped aside and let her pass him, a flowery scent lingering for a moment even after she’d disappeared into the hall. Had she brought perfume…? No, he realized; she’d used one of those fragrant bath beads.

John glanced toward the old-fashioned tub, picturing her letting her bra drop to the floor, then slipping off her panties before stepping in. He’d seen her long legs when she changed yesterday in front of the fire. Imagining the rest of her naked body came easily. Had her hair been loose, to float on the water when she sank down into the tub? Or had she bundled it up?

Loose. Definitely loose. Her hair had still been wet when she came down for breakfast.

A groan tore its way from his throat. Damn it, what did he think he was doing? He had a shaky enough hold on reality.

He forced himself to scan the bathroom with a practiced, innkeeper’s eye before following her downstairs.

As predicted, Amy was the one to have come in and was shedding her outerwear in front of the fire. Water pooled on the plank floor around her boots.

“It’s freakin’ cold out there.” She shivered and hugged herself.

“It was nice of you to go even though you didn’t want to, for the sake of everyone else,” Fiona said.

Reaching the foot of the stairs, John paused to hear the girl’s answer to the teacher’s kindly retooling of motives he was pretty damn sure hadn’t been that altruistic.

“Even though I went out to be nice, Troy,” she said the name with loathing, “made this big snowball and smashed it against my face. He’s a…a creep.”

“Well, you did go out to have a snowball fight.”

“But he walked right up and did it! He’s such a jerk. Him and Hopper, too.”

How sad romance was when it died. A grin tugging at his mouth, John crossed the huge great room, opened the heavy front door and went out on the porch.

Snow still floated from the sky, obscuring the landscape. The steps he’d shoveled last night had disappeared again.

There seemed to be a free-for-all going on, snowballs flying, accompanied by shrieks and yells. With the snow still falling, the teenagers were indistinguishable from each other, all blurred in white. They were thigh deep and higher in the white blanket that enveloped the landscape, the shed and the cabins he could usually see from here.

John raised his voice. “Time out!”

The action stopped and heads turned his way.

“When you get cold and decide to come in, everyone go get an armful of wood and bring it. Pile’s just around the side of the lodge.” He jerked his thumb toward the north corner.

“Girls, too?” a voice squeaked.

“Girls, too.”

He went back inside, where Amy was elaborating on what pigs all boys were, while Fiona soothed with common sense. As far as he could see, the girl was a spoiled brat, but what did he know?

Not that much later, the kids did all carry in wood, and all three boys and one of the girls willingly went back for another load.

John nodded his approval as they dumped split lengths in the wrought-iron racks. “That should keep us going for a bit.”

“It’s a really big fireplace,” the girl said. “Have you ever had to cook in it?”

“No. The generator hasn’t failed me yet.”

“God forbid,” Fiona murmured.