Page 57 of Stuck with the Hero Next Door

“When someone’s been through what you have? Absolutely.”

He set a plate in front of me—fluffy pancakes with real maple syrup and butter that was probably from someone’s cow down the road. It was the kind of breakfast that belonged in a magazine spread about cozy winter mornings, except it was real and I was living it, even if I was living it while moving like a hundred-year-old with arthritis.

“Roads are completely impassable,” Levi said, settling across from me with his own plate. “Storm’s supposed to last through Monday morning. Hope you don’t mind being stuck here.”

I looked around his warm kitchen, then at him, and felt something settle in my chest that had nothing to do with the soreness. “I can think of worse places to be stranded.”

That was Saturday morning. During the next three days of being snowed in, I learned things about Levi Marshall I never would have through casual dinners and careful conversations.

I learned that he made coffee strong enough to de-ice a plane’s wings and always burned the first batch of pancakes, claiming it was “practice for the real ones.” I learned that he’d spent the past three summers working as a lumberjack in Alaska, which explained both his impressive collection of flannel shirts and his ability to stack firewood with mathematical precision.

“The money is incredible,” he told me Saturday afternoon as we sat by the fire, my feet tucked under his legs on the couch. “And there’s something about working with your hands all day that clears your head like nothing else.”

“Do you miss it when you’re not there?”

“Sometimes. But I missed home more. And I can go back next summer if I have nothing else to do...”

I learned that his time as a SEAL had taken him to places he still couldn’t talk about, doing things that left him quieter and more thoughtful than most men his age.

“The hardest part wasn’t the danger,” he said late Saturday night when the power went out and we were huddled together under blankets, watching the fire cast dancing shadows on the walls. “It was being so far from home—Mom and Janet. Everything here that mattered.”

“What matters?”

“This,” he said simply, his arm tightening around me. “Home. Family. People who know your name and care if you come back.”

I learned that he was patient in ways I’d never experienced—helping me move around his house when my ribs protested, running a hot bath for me in the clawfoot tub upstairs, and adding ample amounts of bubble bath. I had no idea why he would have something like that on hand, but I wasn’t complaining. He never commented on how long it took me to get comfortable on the couch, bringing me ice packs and ibuprofen without being asked.

Sunday afternoon, when cabin fever finally overtook common sense, we bundled up and ventured onto his front porch. He shoveled the steps while I marveled at the snow and watched him fight an uphill battle. The snow was still falling, but lighter now, and everything was so white and pristine it hurt to look at.

“This is pointless,” I said, watching the steps immediately begin to fill in again. “You’re fighting a losing battle.”

“Sometimes fighting a losing battle is the point.” He grinned. “Besides, when’s the last time you made a snowman?”

“I was probably eight.”

“Perfect. You’re overdue.”

Levi abandoned the shoveling, and we spent the next hour building what could generously be called snow people in his front yard. Mine looked like a slightly melted marshmallow with stick arms, given the fact that I could barely bend over, let alone build anything. It looked like it could be featured in a winter tourism brochure.

“Yours is showing off,” I complained, adding a crooked carrot nose to my creation.

“Yours has character.”

“Yours has actual proportions.”

“Character is better than proportions.”

I was trying to argue with that logic when he stepped closer, snow clinging to his hair and his cheeks red from the cold. “You’ve got snow on your nose.”

“So do you.”

He pulled off his gloves and reached up to brush the snow from my eyebrows. His fingers were warm against my cold skin, and suddenly we were kissing again. Soft and sweet and tasting like winter air and the promise of warmth waiting just inside.

When we broke apart, we were both smiling.

“Gets better every time.”

“No tree falling this time.”