AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The wind gusted once more, and she pulled his leather jacket tighter around herself before she peeled it off.
“It’s too cold for you to be out here without this.”
“I told you, I’ll be chopping wood soon, and it’ll just end up sitting on the stump beside me.”
“Well, wear it until then,” she said, knowing that she should have given it to him a long time ago.
“Go ahead and take it in with you. I don’t really want it to get wet anyway.” He looked up at the sky. “From what I understand, it’s just going to get worse. I’ll probably be a little bit, I want to make sure I have enough to keep us warm all night.”
“That sounds good to me. I like the idea of being warm all night.”
He grinned. “Go on in and make yourself at home.”
She nodded, somehow almost feeling happy. Maybe it was his small grin, the one she hadn’t seen much at all in the time that they’d worked together, the one she’d seen more today than in all that time.
Or maybe it was because she knew she dodged a bullet. She could have been with James Connolly, or whatever his name was, right now. And that would be terrible. There definitely was a part of her that was sad, a little heartbroken. But it was more because of the fact that her dreams had been lost. Not because she was so madly in love with James.
She realized that now. She hadn’t really even liked him. What she had liked was the idea of him. The idea of having someone to give her respectability.
She almost laughed as she turned away, walking toward the cabin.
As he said, the door was unlocked. She glanced both ways at the front porch, noting the rocking chairs and the railing. It looked like Griff might have made it all himself. She’d have to ask.
He didn’t look like the kind of person who would know how to cook, but obviously it was something he either enjoyed or spent time doing, even in his spare time, since he’d said that he had the ingredients to try out some new recipes.
So, maybe building cabins was something else he had in his repertoire that no one who looked at him would ever guess.
She almost laughed. Griff was a study in contradictions. Or surprises. She certainly hadn’t expected him to come the whole way to Chicago...for her.
That did something to her woman’s heart. She just realized he had driven two hours knowing there was a snowstorm on the way, just so he could...warn her?
Why didn’t he text her the information?
But she knew why. She probably wouldn’t have listened. She needed to see what she had seen, needed to have Griff standing in front of her. Maybe he knew what was going down and arrived to pick up the pieces.
Maybe Griff cared about her more than what she realized.
The thought made her pause, and she closed the door and stood in front of it. At first, she didn’t see the interior of the cabin, because she was so focused on wondering whether she could be right about that. Did Griff truly care about her more than what she realized?
She tucked that idea away to think about later. There was something...exciting in that thought.
It was too dark to see anything; the moonlight wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the deeper darkness of the cabin. She pulled up the flashlight app on her phone, worried a bit about its battery life but not wanting to bump into anything until she got a feel for the layout.
The interior of the cabin didn’t offer too many surprises. There were several sheets of paper on the small table as Griffin had said, a small amount of what looked like butcher block counters. Perhaps they were handmade as well. A sink, but instead of a spigot, a well pump stuck out of it. Interesting. She’d never seen anything quite like that, but she thought she could probably use it. She’d used a well pump before. Back in Ohio. Those days were so long ago she could barely believe she was the same person, but it wouldn’t be too hard for her to remember some of the things she knew. Using a well pump being one of them.
There was a refrigerator, which surprised her. There was no electricity in the cabin. Then she realized that maybe it was gas. She hadn’t known there was such a thing. As her eyes moved forward, she saw the woodstove. She’d used one of those back in the day.
It wasn’t going to be quite as primitive as what she thought.
Well, she probably wouldn’t be any good chopping wood, but she could have some food ready for Griff when he came in. He said he was going to be a while, so she didn’t feel any need to rush but walked over to the table, looked at the papers, and chose the chicken corn chowder. He’d already made a version of that at the diner, although this one looked a little different. He said he had all the ingredients, so she decided to go ahead and give it a go.
Determined not to fail in at least cooking for the man who had been so good for her, she grabbed the paper and got to work.
