Page 50 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

Miri laughed, even as a shiver went up and down her arms. “What are the chances?” she said, and wondered what they actually were.

The random coincidence of that particular box falling over on this particular day—the second night of Hanukkah when they had only this morning been discussing the station wagon—felt a little less random than it should.

“Indeed,” he said under his breath as he removed the box of photos. With a remote and oddly robotic efficiency, he sorted through a few photos before handing her one, his eyes still in the box.

In the picture stood a young Benjamin Silver.

Tall and lanky, as he’d claimed, he stood proud beside an old Subaru wagon, wearing the bright and crisp Cal Polyhoodie that she currently held in her hands.

He was obviously himself, and yet it was hard to believe that the man she had spent the past twenty-four hours with was the same person.

It wasn’t that he had physically transformed—although as he had said, he had filled out, losing every trace of slenderness in his long body—as much as he had hardened, become more distant and colder.

Especially the eyes.

It was there that he had changed the most.

In the picture, he was a boy, young and clearly eager for the future.

In the present, he was Benjamin Silver, a man with a gaze like an iceberg—chilly, hard and far more intense below the surface.

Had it been losing his parents so young that had done that to him, or was it the ruthlessness required to get as far as he had? Miri wondered.

“There are candles, too. Of course. She was forever worried about running out of candles...” he said, the box containing what she assumed was a menorah in one hand, and unopened box of slender blue and white candles in the other.

Making every move as if he intended to pack it all away, he began to put the candles back into the box, the man he had become was incapable of seeing the magic in the fact that they had stumbled upon a menorah and candles while stranded together on Hanukkah.

But the version of him that stood in the photograph—the same version that was hopeful and bright and went with his dad to get a box of doughnuts for his mom—would have.

He said he wasn’t scarred from his loss, but he had just built up so much hard tissue he couldn’t feel it anymore.

Surprising herself, Miri said, “Don’t put it away. We should take it down with us.”

“What?” he asked, looking from her back down to what he held in his hands, as if only now realizing what it was.

“The candles and the menorah. We should take them down,” she repeated. “It’s Hanukkah.”

She tried to keep it casual, sensing that she trod in sensitive territory despite the fact that there was no outward change in him at her suggestion.

“I don’t think—” he started, only to trail off for the first time in her acquaintance with him. He picked back up with a shake of his head. “No. No. There’s no need for that. This evening is likely your last here and I won’t light them after you’re gone. There’s no need to get wax all over everything and have to clean it up for one night.”

Professionalism and basic respect for privacy urged her to leave it at that, but a rogue impulse in her drove her to continue. “I don’t mind cleaning up afterward. There’s a trick to it I learned during the years that my friends and I were still meeting every night.”

She was laying it on thick, reminding him of the event the snowstorm had forced her to miss.

“You’re a guest. Guests aren’t supposed to clean up.”

Miri snorted. “Since when? Everyone is supposed to clean up after themselves.”

“Not according to my mother.”

“You don’t think your mother would be all about lighting those candles?” Miri asked, lifting a brow as she did.

“She also would have fed you a homemade meal for dinner instead of a box of doughnuts. I don’t see how any of that’s relevant.”

“I think we should do it. They fell out of the box, for goodness’ sake.” She didn’t know where the audacity to continue push like this came from, but as usual when it came to Benjamin, Miri could not seem to stem the flow.

“People were burned as witches based on coincidences like those,” he said flatly.

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