If only she could remove the eye patch, and look into both beautiful brown eyes at the same time. She longed to ask him if the after-effects of the attack were physically painful. Psychologically? Or both…. Could he see light and shadows, or had the injury rendered him completely blind? Not that it mattered a whit to her. Sam’s only wanted answers to find out what, if anything, she might do to ease his discomfort.
“What…I have spinach in my teeth or something?”
Sam giggled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to stare. Just curious about that thing.” She gave the patch a gentle tap. “Is it hot under there?”
“Sometimes when I’m exercising or the temperature is—“
Just then a bald eagle screeched overhead, capturing their attention and making her expel a tiny gasp. “I’ve seen my share of ravens back east, but I have to admit, that’s a first.”
Bryce turned her loose so that he could point into the shallow valley ahead. “Last time I was up here, beavers had built a huge dam in that stream over there. Maybe when it warms up a little more, we’ll come back, and I’ll show you….”
Sam thought she was beginning to understand this big, wonderful guy, at least a little bit. He didn’t like listening to Christmas music twenty-four-seven, and he’d grown tired of candy cane lamp posts and fire hydrants and streets named after Santa’s reindeer, but he loved his home town. This aspect of it, anyway. She’d been so warm, standing in the circle of his embrace, and now as the wind whistled through the pines, she shivered.
He noticed instantly, and draped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to his side. “So what do you think, Samantha Sinclair? Can you hack it up here in the frozen north?”
“Hmpf,” she teased, resting her head on his shoulder, “I’m beginning to think that’s just a lot of hooey printed up by the Chamber of Commerce to encourage tourism.”
“What?”
“Only ice I’ve seen since I pulled into town is the stuff they put in my cup at McDonald’s.”
“Trust me,” he said chuckling, “you’re gonna see ice. Plenty of it, and sooner than you think.”
“Hmm…I’m a ‘warm and toasty’ fan. Maybe I’m not made of hardy enough stuff to hack it after all.”
He turned her, so that they stood toe to toe. “Homesick?”
Sam shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my family…even those rowdy brothers of mine. I’d hardly call that ‘homesick’.”
“But didn’t they say you’d run home to mommy and daddy in less than a month?”
Sam couldn’t be certain, but she would’ve sworn she’d shared that bit of information with Olive, not Bryce. Either way, those busy bees had been buzzing, and she’d been the main topic of conversation in the hive. She nodded, proud that she’d already lasted months longer than they’d expected her to.
“Winters are the toughest for newcomers,” he said as his thumb drew slow circles on her jaw. “Twenty-plus hours of darkness is tough to cope with, even for those of us who’ve experienced it before. If you can survive that….”
Sam nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. “I was talking with a woman just the other day who admitted that it takes her a couple of weeks to adjust, even though she was born and raised here.” Grinning, she added, “I suppose the jigsaw company manufacturers love us Alaskans.”
“Us?” he echoed.
The sound of it made the breath catch in her throat, made her heart race and her head spin. Had he repeated the word to correct her grammar, or to get a feel for how she saw the two of them? Sam knew how she felt about Bryce, but unlike Duke Junior’s wife, she hadn’t seen any evidence that he felt the same way. Oh, Lord, she prayed, let it be true….
“I like it here,” she admitted. “I like it a lot, and I want to stay.”
“Just to prove your brothers wrong?”
She studied the worry furrow on his brow, and the possibility that it meant what she hoped it meant made her want to kiss it away, along with his worries about the shop, and whatever else might be troubling in his life. “I’ve already done that.” Shrugging again, she laughed. “When my brother Bill gets here in a couple of days, I’ll just have to show him that I’m not too spoiled and citified to handle the cold and the isolation.”
“I can keep you company.”
Bryce hadn’t said he’d keep her warm, too, but Sam knew in her heart that he would. If not literally, then certainly figuratively, every single night…in her dreams.
