A Wedding in December

He stood up, too. “I’ll fetch you towels and leave some dry clothes on the bed.” The bed. One bed. The reality of it struck home. She was snowed in with Jordan.

“Do you have blankets for the sofa?”

“Yes, but I’ll take the sofa.” He disappeared, and reappeared moments later with towels. “Shower is straightforward.”

She stripped off her clothes, put her underwear on the heated towel rail to dry off and stepped under the jets of water. It turned out to be a rainhead shower and she lathered her hair, soaped her body and realized at some point that she felt better than she had in a long time. Maybe it was the wine. Or maybe it was because she’d finally talked about it. Jordan, it turned out, was a good listener.

Wrapped in a towel, she rescued her underwear and stepped across the hall into the bedroom. He’d laid out fleece-lined sweatpants, T-shirts and a sweater.

She tied the waist of the sweatpants and turned up the bottoms so she didn’t fall over them. Her own sweater had somehow stayed miraculously dry so she pulled that back on.

She wasn’t going to win any fashion contests but at least she was warm and dry.

The bedroom was dominated by the large bed and the fireplace. Like the rest of the cabin, the focus was on the quality of the wood and the workmanship. The floor was heated, the bed draped in soft layers to keep the chill out on cold nights. There were books stacked on both nightstands, and the soft glow of a lamp sent a shaft of light across the bed. It was more rustic than elegant, but there was something about the place that made her want to crawl into that bed, sink against the pile of pillows and read until her eyes drifted shut.

Instead she dried her hair and joined Jordan in the living room. He was seated on the sofa, his legs stretched out as he stared into the fire.

She sat down next to him and picked up her glass. “Now I understand why you’ve been so protective of Dan. He’s like a brother to you. You think of him the same way I think about Rosie.”

“Not exactly, but yes—” he shrugged “—there’s a similarity.”

“Do you think the marriage will work? Are they rushing things?”

“Unlike you, Dr. White, I don’t do a risk assessment on every situation, or try to predict every outcome. I tend to let life happen.”

“I envy you. But what’s your best guess?”

“My marriage lasted six months, so I don’t consider myself qualified to comment or advise on anyone else’s relationship, but I know what rushing looks like and I don’t think I’m seeing it here.”

“But your own experience hasn’t made you cynical about relationships. If it had, you’d be warning Dan off marriage.”

“It was a long time ago. We were eighteen. Dan is nothing like me. And, as I said before, I don’t believe one person’s relationship experience has relevance to someone else’s. We’re all different. How about you? Engaged? Seriously involved?”

“Neither. I never get in that deep with people. That time when you threw me over your shoulder? That’s the most action I’ve had in a looooong while.”

“Any particular reason for that?”

She sat up and put her glass down on the table. “Yes. I’m a coward. There. I said it. I’m a coward. Every time you love someone you risk getting your heart beaten to a pulp.”

“Cheerful thought.”

“I’m risk averse. I’m not brave. You were wrong about that. I can’t handle that bone-deep anxiety that comes from loving someone. I only understood that recently. So apparently I’m now a psychiatrist as well as a specialist in emergency medicine. The one thing I’m not good at is relationships, but hey we can’t all be good at everything.”

“But you must date.”

“Usually I see a man once. No one calls me a second time.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“It could be because I always hand out a fake phone number.”

His eyes narrowed with amusement. “Dr. White, you shock me.”

“I also give them a fake name. And I have no idea why I just told you that.”

He started to laugh. “Tell me the name. No. Let me guess—you go by the name of Tiara. Or maybe Aurora. Geranium?”

“Karen.”