Page 27 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

Eventually the conversation just runs out, not from lack of things to say but from something else entirely, the words no longer necessary between us in the way they were an hour ago. She looks at me. I look at her. Outside the window the snow keeps falling, steady and silent, burying the whole valley under something clean and unbroken.

"Rafe."

"Yeah."

"I'm not going to pretend I don't want this."

"Good. Neither am I."

I don't remember deciding to close the distance between us any more than she seems to. Both of us just arrive there at the same moment, her hand coming up to rest against my jaw, my own hand finding the curve of her waist like it had been waiting all along for permission. The kiss is slow and certain, nothing like the fireworks, when her hand just found mine and neither of us planned it. This time we're both choosing it with our eyes open, and there's no old habit in me looking for the door. Just her, steady under my hands, and the snow still falling outside like the whole world's decided to hold still for once.

Then we both go still at once.

Josie stirs on the floor, a small sound and a shift of blankets, Biscuit lifting his head to check on her before settling again, and Jenna and I break apart so fast it's almost comic, both of us watching the little pile of blankets like it might report back on what it saw. Josie doesn't wake. She just resettles against the dog with a sleepy murmur and goes still again, and the moment we were standing inside of a second ago has already scattered into something neither of us gets to finish saying out loud.

Jenna looks at me, breathless, her mouth still soft from mine, and neither of us says a single word about what just happened.

We don't need to, not yet.

13

JENNA

The storm's gone by the time I wake up, and so, apparently, is every ounce of whatever happened between us last night.

I know it's morning because of the light, thin and gray and coming in low through the one window that isn't fogged over, and I know the storm's cleared because I can hear a plow somewhere down the valley, grinding its way through what's left of six inches that turned into closer to fourteen by the time it finally quit. I spent the night curled in the single armchair, knees to my chest, wrapped in a wool blanket that smells like cedar and rain and definitely isn't mine. Somewhere around four I woke up long enough to notice Rafe had gone still on the floor by the twins instead of anywhere near the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes, looking for all the world like a man standing watch even in his sleep.

He's not on the floor now. He's up, dressed, moving through the small kitchen area with the kind of brisk efficiency that makes it look like he's been awake for hours, which, knowing him, he probably has.

"Pancakes or waffles," he says, not quite looking at me, already pulling a box of mix down from a shelf I didn't notice last night. "I've got both. Don't ask why."

"You had pancake mix in a bachelor loft this whole time."

"I plan for things."

"You said that last night too."

"It's still true." He sets the box on the counter with more force than pancake mix requires, and something about the careful set of his shoulders tells me exactly how much effort is going into this particular version of casual.

"Waffles," Eli announces from the floor, already rolling his blanket into a lopsided cylinder. "With syrup. A lot of it."

"That's not a topping request, that's a hazard."

"I want pancakes," Josie says, stretching with the total-body commitment of a cat. "With the syrup in a separate cup so it doesn't make everything soggy before I'm ready for it."

"That's oddly specific," Rafe says, and for one second his eyes flick to me before he catches himself and looks back at the griddle, and I catch it even if he doesn't, my own words handed back to me from somewhere around midnight last night.

I don't say anything about it. I pour myself coffee instead, black, from a machine that looks older than the twins, and watch him work the griddle like it's a piece of equipment that requires his full tactical attention, and it very much does not.

Gunny's voice carries up the stairwell before he does, already mid-report about the parking lot before his boots clear the top step. "Lot's plowed. Roads to the highway are open, but Main Street's still a mess. You want me to call the guy about the compressor before or after breakfast?"

"After," Rafe says, not looking up from the griddle. "Nobody's fixing anything on an empty stomach."

"Since when do you have rules about breakfast?"

"Since always. You've just never been awake early enough to notice."

Gunny surveys the room, twins at the table, blankets still bunched by the window, me standing there with a coffee mug and last night written all over a space that usually doesn't have witnesses, and something in his face says he's clocked exactly as much as I'm afraid he has. He doesn't say a word about any of it. He just helps himself to a waffle straight off the plate and heads back downstairs whistling something far too cheerful for the hour.