Chill Factor

“Enjoying yourself makes you feel guilty, because Amy is dead and you’re alive.”

“According to my grief counselor, yes.”

His perception of her was uncanny. He seemed to know the contents of every secret chamber of her heart. Apparently he’d been able to read her mind even on the day they met. It felt good to talk freely about Amy, but his insight was disconcerting.

He eased himself onto the hearth beside her. “Tonight, when you told me in your own words about Amy’s death, I recognized the sadness in you that I’d noticed that day on the river.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why apologize?”

“Sorrow makes people uncomfortable.”

“Maybe other people. Not me.”

She looked at him curiously. “Why is that?”

“I admire how you’ve tried to conquer it.”

“Not always successfully.”

“But the important thing is that you didn’t give in to it.” He didn’t add, Like your husband, but that was what he was implying.

“Be that as it may, no one wants to be around a sad sack,” she said.

“I’m still here.”

“You can’t escape. We’re stranded, remember?”

“I’m not complaining. In fact, I have a confession. I’m glad you and I are here alone, cut off from the rest of the world.” His voice dropped to a lower pitch. “This conversation began with a question.”

“No, I won’t sleep with you.”

“Hear me out, Lilly. We could conserve heat, even generate it, by undressing and snuggling under a pile of blankets. Our combined body heat would help keep us warm.”

“Hmm, I see. You’re suggesting it strictly out of necessity.”

“Not strictly. About seventy-five percent.”

“It’s the other twenty-five that concerns me.”

He reached out and claimed a strand of her hair, but unlike when he touched it in the car, he didn’t immediately let it go. He rubbed it between his fingers. “I’ve wanted you from day one. Why waste time on subtlety when I’m absolutely sure you knew it from the start? I want you under me.

“But—and this is important—nothing will happen until I know you want it, too. It stops at snuggling for warmth.” He spread his fingers and watched the strands of her hair sift through them, then met her eyes again. “I swear.”

Looking into his eyes, hearing the sincerity in

his husky voice, she trusted him to keep his word. Well, sort of. That had been an awfully arousing profession of desire.

What she didn’t trust was the situation. She tried to imagine herself and Tierney lying together, even partially unclothed, hugging one another for warmth without any sexual exploration or experimentation. Who did he think he was kidding? Himself, perhaps, but not her.

Not that the sky would fall if they submitted to their attraction. Her sensual impulses were certainly green-lighting the idea. But she’d known him for all of . . . what? Counting that day on the river, she’d spent a total of perhaps fifteen hours with him. Even in this age of sexual permissiveness and self-gratification without regard for consequences, that was a little too accelerated for her.

All she really knew about him was that he was a good listener and could write an entertaining and concise magazine article. Was she ready to be physically intimate with a man about whom so little was known? Women of the younger generation would call her old-fashioned, prudish, and cowardly. She preferred thinking of herself as intelligently cautious.

“No, Tierney. My answer remains no.”

“All right.” He gave her a crooked half smile. “Honestly, if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t trust me either.” He stood up. “On to plan B. We shut the vents in the bedroom and bath, close off those rooms entirely, and confine ourselves in here, where we have a small reserve of heat.