Warm Winter Love by Constance Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

there wasn’t a Mr. Somebody in the picture.”
    Katie wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She was touched by the way he had said it, the way he was worried that he had acted improperly. Another thing to like—love—about him in so short a time. She shook her head.
    “No, there isn’t a husband. Not yet, at least.” She saw the relief in his face. “But there’s a man. Well, he’s more than just a man.” She gulped and raced on: “I’m engaged, Sam. I’m going to be married at the end of summer.” She didn’t want to look at him anymore and now it was her turn to stare through the window. “I didn’t mention him before because I just didn’t think anything would happen.”
    “You mean anything like falling in love with someone? With a stranger? With me?”
    She nodded. “Yes. Oh, Sam! I’ve been here a dozen times, alone, and I’ve had a good time and always went back home to my routine and my life and my friends. But I never met anyone who would… change my life. Like you. I never had to go home and question and….” Her voice trailed off.
    “Make you think twice about your fiancé?” He finished the sentence for her.
    “Yes.” She watched as a skier approached the window. “It just never happened before, that’s all.”
    “And now that it has?”
    Sam wasn’t about to retreat, she realized, and she didn’t quite know what to do or say. “I guess I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
    “Then you’re saying that you feel it too?” He had a way of questioning and quickly getting at the answers, the truthful answers.
    Yes, Sam , she thought, if feeling like you’re happy and sad and confused and wanting to shout out to the world that you’ve got a sense of peace and amazement and fireworks and joy and how could anyone else ever have felt like this before is what you mean, then yes, yes, yes, I’m feeling it too. Whatever it is, it’s affecting me too.
    “Something like it.”
    “So what are we going to do about it, Katie?”
    Again the direct question demanding an honest answer. Still staring at the window, she realized that she could see his reflection and his reaction to her words. He was sitting back in his chair—slumped against it, really—and she saw him tap the rim of his plate.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “No, that’s not true. Probably nothing. Probably I won’t do anything about it.”
    “Nothing?” She saw his incredulous look. “You’re just going to walk away from it? From us?” He shook his head. “I don’t believe that, Katie. That’s ridiculous. Unbelievable. You just can’t say that it’s too bad it’s happened.” He picked up her hand again and gave it a little shake so that she turned toward him. “What kind of a woman are you, Katie, to want to put it all aside? To want to do nothing about it?” He scanned her face. “Don’t you ever recognize your own feelings?”
    She shivered. Sam had hit on a weakness she knew she had—her inability to act on her feelings. And he had discovered it in such a short time. It was true—she didn’t want to recognize any strong feelings. Love, hate, joy, sadness—those were all perfectly good words to put in an English composition but not to apply to life, at least not to her own life. She had had those feelings once upon a time, but the years she had spent with her parents—her mother, especially—and the times she had seen the look of unhappiness on her mother’s face, made her resolve long ago not to give in to any feelings that she couldn’t control. And this was one of those feelings.
    “It’s very mixed-up,” she said, and she saw his eyes narrow as he drummed his fingers on the table. “Very mixed-up.”
    “Look at me, Katie,” he said so sharply that she blinked. “Do I look like some monster to you?” She shook her head. “Do I look like I want to hurt you?” She shook her head again. “Do I look like I want to take advantage of you?”