Page 51 of No More Billionaires

Watching me sleep? Checking me out?

There was no doubt he’d seen me in my underwear.

I peeked over the railing again. Larson was busy stacking the wood beside the stove. I slipped out of bed and crawled down the ladder, planning to make a dash for the bathroom and avoid giving him any more of a free show than he’d already gotten.

“Good news. Your clothes dried.” His voice carried across the room. “I took them outside and got some of the dust off, if you want to—”

I froze on the ladder as Larson turned from the woodpile and caught me mid-climb. His face went from wide-eyed surprise to keen interest in the space of three seconds.

“…put them on… or you could stay just like that… forever.” His face split into a wolfish grin.

“Larson!”

I half-laughed, half-shrieked, spurred out of my state of frozen shock and back into action.

“Turn around,” I commanded. I jumped off the ladder and fled into the privacy of the tiny bathroom.

It was much cooler in there behind the closed door, too far from the stove’s heat. When I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror, though, it was red with warmth. Who needed makeup to achieve a blush?

Thank God we were leaving here soon. We’d shared this small space long enough.

Things had already changed. This crazy experience had created a new sense of intimacy between us.

Maybe it had been inevitable. But so was returning to the real world, and that couldn’t happen soon enough.

I spoke to Larson through the cracked door. “Did you say my clothes were wearable?”

His voice just on the other side of the door caused me to startle.

“Right here. ‘Dry-cleaned’ in the world-famous country-cabin method,” he said.

I cracked open the door a few inches further and pulled my pants and sweater inside. “Thanks.”

After making use of the toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant in the small carry-on bag we’d grabbed from the trunk (thank you God), I joined Larson in the main room.

He’d dressed in his own clothes again—they still looked slightly dirty but not caked with dust, so he must have managed to clean them somehow as well.

“So, what is the country-cabin method?” I gave him a shy smile, grateful for something to talk about—something other than my recent partial-nudity.

“It’s very high tech,” he explained. “You drape the article of clothing over a tree branch and beat it with a stick.”

“I appreciate it, but you shouldn’t have. Didn’t it aggravate your asthma?”

“I wrapped a towel around my face as sort of a dust mask. It wasn’t bad.”

“Well, thanks. Have you eaten yet?” I looked behind him at the stove. “Oh, you’re cooking something—doesn’t smell like Spam.”

He gave me a grin that reminded me of a kid who’d just won his school’s spelling bee. “I found oatmeal in the cabinet. I was saving the Spam for lunch.”

“It’s almost lunchtime now, and we should head for the highway right after we eat, don’t you think?”

Larson’s grin dropped. He shook his head, wearing a grim you’re-not-gonna-like-this expression.

“I turned on the radio earlier. It sounds pretty bad. They said the highway’s still closed. Look outside.”

What I saw through the front window was not what I’d expected. “When you said you’d gone outside to ‘do the laundry’, I sort of thought it was, you know, better out there… not worse.”

It had indeed gotten worse. The temperature must have dropped again overnight, turning what had been a cold, wet night into a bright, icy day.

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