We Need A Little Christmas by Sierra Donovan

Author:Sierra Donovan [Donovan, Sierra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Scott added the last box to the stacks by the trap door, raising dust motes in the waning afternoon light. “I think that about does it.”

Liv brushed at her jeans again and nodded. “Thanks. I really killed your afternoon.”

At least she wasn’t talking about offering him money anymore. “I’ll catch up tomorrow. No problem.”

They could just as easily have toted all the boxes downstairs to begin with, for Liv and her family to sort through at their leisure. Scott wondered if Liv realized that. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to point it out.

Apparently he was a glutton for punishment. He’d been on his best behavior all afternoon, and Liv seemed content to put the other night behind them. Which was good, of course.

Somewhere over the course of the afternoon, she’d pulled her hair up behind her head into a careless knot, and the sleeves of her sweatshirt were pushed up to her elbows. All business. He had to admire the way she went about things—methodical and productive, without being too type-A about it. Once upon a time, he would have figured her for a major control freak, but she’d proven him wrong.

Scott perched on a box to keep from bending under the too-low ceiling. He’d spent the day stooping, sitting, or kneeling; odds were he’d have a couple of good kinks in his spine by tomorrow morning. And he was still sorry to see their project end.

An absolute glutton for punishment. He tried to focus, like Liv, on the business at hand.

“Now,” he said, “to get these things downstairs. I figure I can go down and bring the kitchen table alongside the ladder. Then you push the boxes over to me while I stand on the ladder and—”

He heard Liv walk toward the far wall behind him, where the trap door stood propped open. “Duh. We didn’t even think to check through this box.”

Scott heard the slide of cardboard against the floor—then, before he could open his mouth, a loud slam.

He wheeled around, whacking his head on the ceiling.

Liv stood beside the closed trap door, next to the box that had served as a doorstop.

“You didn’t.” His words snapped out ahead of his brain. “Tell me you didn’t just do that.”

She stared at him, startled. Then her eyes went to the closed trap door as comprehension dawned. “Wait. You mean we’re locked in?”

“I mean the handle’s broken off. Yeah. We’re trapped.”

She stared at the rough-hewn door. Then she dropped to her knees, her fingertips digging frantically around the crevices at the door’s edges. “Is there away to pry it up?”

She looked one shade away from panic. But at least she was thinking in terms of action.

“Stop.” Annoyance forgotten, he joined her by the trap door. “It’s more than an inch thick. You’ll rip up your fingernails.”

She jerked her hands back and picked at a splinter in her fingertip. Tension came off her in waves. “Damn it.”

Scott crouched next to her and reached for her injured hand. Without thinking, he spoke the forbidden words: “Are you okay?”

She pulled her hand back.

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