She hesitated. Doing so seemed like such a wifelike task. But now that she’d offered, she couldn’t take the scarf back, could she?
Avoiding his lively gaze, she tossed the scarf first one way around his neck and then the other, doing her best not to touch him, although her fingers twitched with the need to comb through his hair.
As she finished, she hugged the blankets to her body again.
“I suppose now you’ll want to kiss my cheek?” He held his face out sideways, giving her full access to his cheek.
“With all the hair growing there, I’d rather kiss a cactus.” That wasn’t true. She imagined the scruff was bristly and rough to the touch, but for some reason the prospect of letting her fingers glide over all that bristly roughness sent a tremor through her belly.
“I guarantee that once you get a taste of me, you won’t go back to kissing anything or anyone else ever again.” With that, he winked at her.
She just shook her head, even as a flush spread through her. She’d actually only kissed one suitor before. On the very same night he’d rejected her and left her sitting alone in the drawing room of her friend’s house in Pennsylvania. She’d thought he’d cared for her. But she’d simply been a pretty face and an easy conquest. And the young ladies she’d believed were her friends had been waiting in the hallway, laughing at her for how gullible she’d been.
She’d never let any other suitor kiss her since. In fact, she’d resolved she wouldn’t let another man kiss her unless he made a commitment to marry her. Even then, she guessed she wouldn’t really be ready to kiss anyone until she had a ring on her finger and the reverend declared them man and wife.
Thankfully, Philip was already on his way to the door and hadn’t stopped to analyze her reaction to his playful request. He had to yank for several hard pulls before the door finally opened, then only by inches, but it was enough that a shower of snow blew inside.
The drift against the door tumbled down onto the kitchen floor. Though darkness still hovered over the yard, it was easy to see that the snow was still falling heavily and that many inches had accumulated overnight.
The trip to the barn would be difficult in the blowing and drifting, especially with so much to wade through. “Maybe you should wait until morning light to venture out?”
The moment he stepped outside, the wind snuffed out the light in his lantern.
“Philip, wait.” She moved into the doorway, cold, dry snow swirling against her, attempting to wrest the blankets from her grip.
Only a foot from the door, he stopped. “You can’t resist kissing my cheek after all?”
“It’s going to be difficult to find the barn.” He could very well get lost if the snow and darkness pushed him off course. That very thing had almost happened to Patience last winter. Thankfully, her sister had the wherewithal to turn around and come back to the house. “The animals can survive a while longer without attention.”
Philip nodded ahead. “I fastened a rope last night, one that leads from the house out to the barn. I’ll be alright.”
She peered into the darkness, searching for the line. She didn’t see anything, and as he disappeared into a cloud of blowing snow, she could only pray he’d make it there quickly, without any mishaps.
She closed the door, and as she swept up the snow, she couldn’t keep a bubble of hope from rising inside. What if the weather remained too stormy today for Philip to depart? What if he had to stay another whole day? Or what if he was trapped in the high country all winter?
It was only the end of October, too soon for winter to settle in fully. The weather would warm up enough to melt the snow in and around Fairplay. But what about in the higher elevations? In the mountain passes? Would those be closed now due to the treacherous conditions?
As she started making breakfast—eggs, bacon, and flap jacks—she couldn’t keep her mind from spinning with the possibility of him living at the boardinghouse and taking the job as the hired hand.
Some people might not think such a living arrangement was proper, since she was a single woman and he was a single man. But the Kellers were there as chaperones, weren’t they?
As the light of dawn began to show through the blowing and drifting snow, she took breakfast and broth up to the Kellers. Their woodbin was beginning to run low, so she filled it, taking from the woodbins in the kitchen and front room. Even then, the room upstairs had turned frigid—likely from how hard the wind was still blowing.
If the storm continued for much longer, she would have to consider moving Mr. Keller downstairs into the front room, perhaps having him sleep on the sofa temporarily.
Daylight continued to break, but Philip didn’t return.
Felicity began pacing the length of the kitchen, stopping every minute or so to scrape away the ice on the window and peer out toward the barn only to see more of the blowing and swirling white.
After what seemed hours, her pulse was beating too thunderously for her to sit back and wait any longer. She bundled up in her coat and hat. She’d just started pulling on her boots when the kitchen door slammed open and Philip stepped inside, his arms loaded with wood.
He’d covered his face with her scarf so only his eyes were showing. His eyebrows were coated in snow and ice, and his coat and clothing were covered too. He dumped the wood, then began to back out of the door, as if he intended to return into the storm. His gaze snagged on her, and he stopped.
For a moment, he fumbled to close the door, kicking the wood out of the way and pushing against the force of the wind. When he had it shut finally, he spun, yanked down the scarf, and scowled at her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“You’ve been gone so long I thought you’d gotten lost.”
“Did you stop to think that if I was lost, you might not be able to find me and that you’d end up lost too?” His voice was testy.
“Did you stop to think that if something happened to you out there, I wouldn’t be able to sit in here and do nothing?”
He pinned her with his blue eyes, which had turned from the usual light and playful shade to dark and serious. “I’m fine, Felicity. I had to break the ice on the trough. And then I chopped more wood.”
“How was I to know that?”
“You have to trust me.”
“But—”
“We have mountains with snow and blizzards in my country too, you know.” He shed one of his gloves.
“But don’t you have servants who take care of you?”
“I can take care of myself.” He took a step closer. Before she knew what he was doing, he lifted his hand to her cheek and drew a gentle line along her jaw.
Her breath snagged sharply in her chest. The touch was as light as a dusting of sugar sprinkles, but it sent enormous waves of awareness to every part of her body. Her instant reaction to him was as intense as it had been last night when he’d grazed each of her fingers so languidly. It seemed to melt her insides, like low heat melting butter and drizzling it around her body.
The deliciousness only made her want another caress, made her want more of something she couldn’t name.
His fingertips lingered at the edge of her jaw. And his gaze had followed, as delicate but searing as his touch. “Promise you’ll stay here inside the house and not come out?” His voice was so soft and pleading that she wouldn’t have been able to resist him even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t.