Room at the Inn

“Yeah. Okay. Well, don’t stay out here too long. You’re going to get cold.”

“I know my limits, Vance.”

She skated away, and he went back to the kitchen to watch her, just in case she fell in.

And because she looked beautiful.

Julie knelt at his feet, rummaging around on the floor of an attic storage closet.

“You know, I’m not even sure what you do?” she said. “I don’t know what you’re going to run on back to once you blow town. Your mom used to keep me up to speed.”

“I’m a construction engineer for the State Department.”

“I know that.” She knee-walked deeper into the closet. The seat of her jeans was dusty, and she had that awful bandana on her hair again, and he wanted to knock her onto her back and peel off every frustrating layer of clothing that kept her naked skin from his sight.

Pretty much par for the course.

“Here, take this,” she said.

He stooped down to accept the box she handed him. When he’d offered to help her carry the decorations downstairs, he hadn’t anticipated there would be so many. But with the lacquer drying in the kitchen, he had nothing better to do.

And he found her so interesting.

She wasn’t quite the Julie he remembered from college. Or maybe she was, only more so. It fascinated him to watch the way she lived, the way she was, inhabiting her life. He’d never stayed long enough to get a full picture of Potter Falls Julie, so he hadn’t understood what she had become. Mature, creative, ambitious. Her house was a central place, the hub of frequent drop-in visits and phone calls made to gauge what Julie thought about some matter of concern or to enlist her help in making something happen.

It had struck him the other day that she’d lived Upstate exactly as long as she’d lived in Manhattan. No wonder she wasn’t the same person anymore. She’d picked up the local way of talking. She’d made herself indispensable. Julie knew what she wanted, knew how to make people work for her. He listened to her on the phone with her parents, still a little stiff but more relaxed than she used to be talking to them. He eavesdropped while she served tea and scones and courted potential library donors.

She joked with people. Laughed. Flirted with old men.

She was happy.

Christ, it was sexy.

He hadn’t seen any sign of Leo.

“So what’s it all about, being a construction engineer? What do you actually do all day?”

“Yell at people. In a number of languages.”

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s true. Basically, I boss around local contractors to get embassies constructed—and other stuff the Foreign Service wants built, too. I’m in charge of the schedule, making sure materials get delivered. I make sure the government gets its money’s worth.”

“This must be so emasculating for you—working on my ceiling and saying ‘How high?’ when your dad says, ‘Jump.’ ”

Carson flicked his eyes down to the box in his hands. “I don’t mind it when I’m working. If I sit around thinking about it, I get antsy.”

She smiled. She’d been smiling more the past few days. The ice princess had departed. “Do you like it?”

He had liked it, back when he started out. Now it was just his job. Three weeks and change in Potter Falls, and he’d barely thought about it.

“It’s important work.”

“I’m sure.”

She stood up and pointed to a pile in the corner. “We just need these now, and we’re good to go.”

“What’s in them?”