Page 21 of Snowbound

I trail off, realizing I’ve given away more than I wanted to. She grins knowingly at me, and I set my face in a hard neutral. This is none of her business.

“Come on,” I say, changing the subject. “It’s looking good in here. Let me check the state of your bedroom.”

“My bedroom.” She grins teasingly.

I don’t comment on it. It’s not going to be her bedroom for long. She might be an impressive young woman, but she’s not staying for longer than it takes to fix her car.

That much is fact.

CHAPTER12

CARLY

Gabe makes us go over every inch of the house. I know it’s a distraction technique, but damn him, it works. I don’t exactly want to clean the house for him, and I wouldn’t exactly have called it messy, but by the time we’re done, I’ve almost completely forgotten about the lack of internet connection and the fact that I’m definitely in huge trouble with my clients.

We slump down on the sofa when we’re finished, and despite the fact that it’s not that late, it’s already starting to get dark. A few beats of silence pass, and he says, “Let’s have an early dinner.”

“Early dinner? We barely just ate breakfast.”

“I was going to do a stew for tonight. That’ll take a couple of hours to boil and gives us something to do without the TV.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah.”

I forgot that the TV runs on electricity too. It’s amazing how reliant you are on one power until you don’t have it anymore.

Out of nowhere, he says, “You don’t have to spend time with me, you know. You can go to your room. I don’t care.” He says it nonchalantly, but I get the feeling he’s trying to push me away, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with another person sharing his space and trying to get through to him, trying to connect.

“Do you mind if I just hang out? I need to keep my mind off things.”

For a second, I think he’s going to say no, but he glances at me and says, “You can chop vegetables.”

With that, he gets up and goes to the kitchen, not even waiting for me to get up too. I scramble after him, then watch as he retrieves potatoes and carrots and anything else he might need from his front step. “We’ll have to let them defrost awhile,” he says, slamming them down on the counter. “Chicken all right for you?”

“Perfect.”

“You can pick it out if you don’t want it,” Gabe says, and I feel like he doesn’t exactly understand vegetarianism. But it’s sweet of him to try. More than anything, today has proved to me that he is just a guy trying his best.

I think he gives off the wrong impression to people. He’s not a bad guy. Really, he’s just grouchy. If you’re not willing to take the time to see past that, you’d probably assume that he was horrible. But now, horrible is the last word I’d use to describe him.

After he has taken me into his home like this and been kind to me, I couldn’t begin to think it of him.

He heads to a drawer, pulls out a knife and a peeler, and sets them down on the table in front of me. “You can cook, can’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” I huff. “I might live in the city. It doesn’t mean I totally live the high life.”

“You don’t?” He frowns.

“No.” I laugh. “Far from it. My clients pay well, but between travel expenses and all the unpaid overtime I do, plus living right in the city center… Well, I have enough to get by, but I don’t live lavishly.”

He grunts in surprise at that. I can see the cogs turning in his head as he reassesses some of his assumptions about me. I know exactly what I look like to him: a dumb blonde who was stupid enough to go out in the snow and run off the road.

And to be fair to him, it’s not an unreasonable assessment. I was pretty dumb to have driven all this way. But I hope that means he’s about to change his mind about me. I might have made a bad decision that one time, but it doesn’t mean I deserve to be seen as stupid always.

We don’t say much as we prepare the meal. I want to ask him more questions, but I think I’m probably just going to get the same closed-off attitude I’ve been getting all day. He is definitely not an oversharer.

It’s annoying, because I think I am. I definitely have been to him anyway. I’m sure he’s sick and tired of listening to all the woes I have about my life, but I don’t have anyone else to talk to. He might think that I live this wonderful life of luxury, but the truth is, I barely have any friends, and I don’t speak to my family.

Gabe is the only person who has listened to me like I’m a real person in a really, really long time.

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