Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

‘H ow is it possible that it’s even colder up here?’ Kira blew on her hands and rubbed them together for warmth.

‘Well, it’s closed off from the rest of the house and there’s no heat source up here so…’

She glared at him.

Right. She wasn’t actually looking for an answer. Something had happened in between hauling that Christmas tree into the house and now, and he wasn’t sure what it was, except that Kira’s prickly spines were back out in full force. But maybe he did understand. After last night he was feeling torn open in ways he hadn’t felt in years. If Kira was feeling half that vulnerable, she was obviously just protecting herself. Something he should probably consider doing himself. Instead, he just wanted to chop down trees for her and make her breakfast and coax that smile back onto her face. Because he was a sucker to his very core. A human doormat.

‘There’s a lot of boxes up here,’ he said, changing the topic from heating issues to the task at hand. ‘So we might find something useful.’

Kira ran her fingers over the top of a dusty box. ‘He left so much behind.’

‘According to Jeanie, there was a lot more but they had it cleared out before selling it.’

He scanned the attic. Stacks of cardboard boxes leaned precariously, slumped and crumpled with age, a few old lamps collecting dust in one corner, an ancient TV inhabiting the other. He could only stand up straight in the middle of the space, the slope of the roof on either side making it impossible not to hit his head along the edges of the room.

Kira peered at the handwriting scribbled on the sides of the boxes.

‘Books, cassette tapes, clothes,’ Kira read. ‘Oh, this one says “holiday”. That might be promising.’ She opened the box and looked in. ‘Hmm…’ She pulled out a rather creepy, elfish-looking Santa doll.

‘Yikes,’ he said.

‘The box is full of them.’

Bennett crossed the attic to look for himself. ‘Wow.’

‘An entire collection of terrifying Santas,’ Kira said, rifling through the box. She pulled out another and held it up.

‘I feel like it can see into my soul,’ he said, as the doll stared at him.

Kira stifled a laugh.

‘Why are old dolls so terrifying?’ she asked as she put scary Santa back and closed the box.

‘Because it’s way too easy to picture their heads turning independently to look at you.’

‘True.’ Was that a trace of amusement he heard? He would run with that.

Bennett moved the Santa box so they could get to the one beneath it, also marked ‘holiday’. ‘I’m almost scared to look. Might be filled with deranged elves or something.’

‘Baby,’ Kira said, but the teasing tone was back in her voice as she nudged him out of the way. ‘Jackpot.’

The box was filled with carefully wrapped ornaments.

Kira undid the yellowed newspaper around one and revealed a white ball with a delicate design in silver glitter snaking around it. She breathed a little sigh of awe and Bennett’s heart stumbled in his chest.

‘They’re beautiful,’ she said.

She took out another and another, passing them to him as she unwrapped them until his arms were filled with shimmering white and silver and gold ornaments and the smile was back on Kira’s face.

And he didn’t care that they were in a freezing cold attic or that the dust was tickling his nose or that he was pretty sure he’d heard the rumble of snow plows on the road. He would have stood there forever cradling the fragile decorations, wishing Kira would trust him to hold more than that.

Even though he didn’t really deserve to.

Even though he was leaving.

She smiled at the bounty in his arms, unaware of the direction of his thoughts. ‘Well, I was half hoping we’d find a box marked “treasure” but this is pretty good too.’

‘And I’m glad we didn’t find any skeletons.’

‘We didn’t open all the boxes,’ she said, taking the ornaments back one by one and placing them carefully in the box to bring downstairs.

‘Don’t even joke about that.’

She laughed and it sounded like hope.

‘I didn’t realize you were such a scaredy cat, Ben.’

Ben. Ben like she knew him. Ben like they were more than just two people passing by each other in the randomness of life.

‘Scaredy cat? No, I just would rather not find body parts in musty old attics.’

‘Where would you rather find body parts?’

‘Ideally, still attached to the person they belong to.’

Another small laugh as she snooped around in a few more boxes. ‘Well, I guess that’s it for holiday stuff. I’ll come back to treasure-hunt another day,’ she said, grabbing the ornament box before he could do it for her. She turned and her hip bumped another box. It toppled to the ground, spilling its contents across the attic floor.

‘Shit.’ She put the ornaments down and crouched to pick up the mess.

Bennett stooped to help her. ‘What are these?’ He picked up one of the envelopes from the floor.

‘Old letters?’ Kira sat on the dusty floor, legs stretched in front of her. She blew her bangs out of her face with a breath and her eyes widened as she turned the paper in her hand over. ‘More old letters!’ She peeled open the envelope and pulled out a yellow piece of paper.

‘ Dear Ellen, my heart aches without you ,’ she read. ‘Oh, my God, they’re old love letters!’ Her gaze met his, uninhibited excitement written across her face and Bennett knew he was seeing something most people didn’t get to. Were people ever more vulnerable than when they were unapologetically excited about something? He didn’t think so.

‘Cool,’ he said, and she looked at him with an exasperated expression like he wasn’t fully understanding the awesomeness of the situation.

‘It’s very cool.’ She waved the letter between them. ‘It makes me sad that we won’t have anything like this.’

‘We?’

She shook her head, hastily stopping his question. ‘I meant our generation. Like no one will find their grandmother’s old letters anymore.’

‘Unless people are printing out their DM’s.’

Kira rolled her eyes, but her lips tipped up in amusement.

‘Right, unless someone out there is printing out their DM’s, in the future no one will just stumble upon a box of old letters. It makes me kinda sad.’

She went back to reading the letter and he opened the envelope he was holding and scanned the letter.

‘Kira…’

‘Woah…’

Their heads snapped up at the same time. A delicious blush had crept up Kira’s cheeks.

‘They’re dirty letters,’ she said, eyes wide.

Bennett doubled over with laughter, a hand across his stomach, letting the letter fall from his fingertips.

Kira kept reading. ‘This is absolutely filthy,’ she gasped.

Bennett wheezed, sure he was sucking in so much attic dust that he’d be sneezing until New Year’s, but the moment was too absurd not to.

‘At least they’re not your grandmother’s letters,’ he said between laughs.

Kira swatted his shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare bring my grandmother into this.’

Ben wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘You did, not me!’

She frowned, still reading. ‘I mean … it’s still very romantic. He wanted her so bad, he pined for her.’ She picked up another letter. ‘That’s hot.’

Bennett grabbed another letter to avoid staring at Kira while she read.

‘Dear Ellen, I think about you constantly, day and night you haunt my thoughts. Your sweet mouth, the perfect curve of your breasts. The memory of the taste of your pussy keeps me alive, keeps me fighting, day after day…’

‘Wow, Ellen must have been one hell of a woman,’ he muttered, although he could relate to poor Edwin’s feelings.

‘He must have been in Vietnam when he wrote these,’ Kira said, pointing out the dates on the letters.

‘I wonder if she ever wrote the poor guy back.’

‘They got married, so she must have at some point. Maybe they got lost?’ She rifled through the letters looking for any response to Edwin’s ardor. ‘She must have responded. How could she not?’

Kira was on her knees now, examining the other boxes for more letters. ‘She couldn’t have just left him hanging. All his thoughts and feelings just flapping in the breeze. I mean, he loved her. Look at how he loved her. And he must have been so lonely … out there thinking of her…’ Her voice cracked.

‘Kira…’

She kept looking, opening box after box. ‘They must be here somewhere.’

‘Kira…’

‘I’m sure they’re here.’

‘Peaches.’

Her gaze snapped to his. ‘What?’

‘I found one.’

Her eyes lit up. ‘You did?’

She crawled back to the letters still scattered on the floor and he handed her the one letter he could see with Edwin’s name and platoon number on it.

‘ Dear Eddie ,’ she read, spreading the letter out on her lap. ‘ Your letters never fail to make me blush. I had to start reading them in private, because my sisters are always trying to read over my shoulder. But I don’t regret anything we did before you left and I’m happy the memories are keeping you warm while you’re gone. Please come back to me .’ Kira’s voice cracked on that line and she sniffed a little but kept going. ‘ You’re the only boy for me. I miss you. All my love, Ellen .’

She looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes.

‘I didn’t know you were such a romantic, Peaches,’ he teased, his voice soft.

She huffed. ‘I hide it well.’

‘I think it’s safe to assume Eddie didn’t kill Ellen.’

‘Definitely not.’

He crawled closer, leaning over the pile of love letters from Edwin to his beautiful wife. Kira lifted her face to him and he brushed his lips across her cheek. She sighed and his mouth found hers. Warm and soft and welcoming. A side of her no one else saw.

He pulled away and leaned his forehead against hers, and when her gaze met his, the force of his desire hit him hard in the gut. Not just desire for her body, although that was back, too, but God, how he wished he could be the one for her.

‘Let’s go back downstairs. You’re freezing,’ he said, her practical needs the only thing he could care for right now. She let him pull her up after they carefully returned the letters to their box.

He carried the Christmas ornaments downstairs and led Kira back to the living room. He stoked the fire. He silently undressed first himself and then her, tossing their dusty clothes aside. He wrapped her in blankets and the warmth of his skin.

He kissed the fresh tears from her cheeks.

‘Ben?’

‘Yeah?’ he whispered as he dragged his lips across her throat. She trembled in his arms.

‘I’m glad you’re here.’ And he could hear the loneliness in her voice and he wanted to banish it forever.

Dangerous thoughts for a man who had to leave in two weeks.

‘Me, too.’

She reached between them and guided him to her and he eased into her wet heat again, even though she must be sore and so was he but they were running out of time and there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be.

He pushed deeper and she gasped, her fingers in his hair, her ankles digging into his back.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. And please , and don’t stop , and Ben , and yes, yes, yes . And he felt her tighten around him, the quickness of her pleasure surprising them both but she clung to him as it crested.

And then he found his, too, buried deep, his face pressed against the pulse rapidly beating against her throat. And for that brief moment she was his, and everything made sense.

Unfortunately, Logan never ran out of gas.

The rumble of his plow tore through the moment and Bennett vowed to never forgive the man for as long as he lived.

The snowstorm was officially over.