He looked back to study her. No, it wasn’t easy for him. It should be, but it wasn’t. And he was baffled by it. “Why should it be complicated?” The question was as much for himself as for her.
“I don’t make love with strangers.” She sprang to her feet with a fierce wish for coffee and solitude. Leaving him, she marched into the kitchen and plucked a soft drink from the refrigerator. She’d take her caffeine cold.
He waited a moment, going over what the computer had told him. The physical attraction was certainly there. And, as much as he detested the idea, his emotions were involved. It did no good to be angry. She was obviously reacting normally, given the situation. And it was he who was out of step. It was a sobering thought, but one that had to be faced.
But he still wanted her. And now he intended to pursue her. Logically, his success factor would increase if he pursued her in a manner she would expect from a typical twentieth-century man.
Jacob blew out a long breath. He didn’t know precisely what that might entail, but he thought he understood the first step. It was doubtful that much had changed in any millennium.
When he walked into the kitchen, she was staring out the window at the monotonously falling snow. “Sunny.” Oh, it went against the grain. “I apologize.”
“I don’t want your apology.”
Jacob cast his eyes at the ceiling and prayed for patience. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” It amazed her that she was on the brink of tears. She never cried. She hated it, considered it a weak, embarrassing experience. Sunny always preferred a screaming rage to tears. But she felt tears burning behind her eyes now and stubbornly fought them back. “Just forget it.”
“Forget what happened, or forget the fact that I’m attracted to you?”
“Either or both.” She turned then. Though her eyes were dry, they were overbright, and they made him acutely uncomfortable. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Obviously it does.” It shouldn’t, but there seemed to be nothing he could do to change it. If she kept looking at him like that, he would have to touch her again. In self-defense he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe we’ve gotten our codes mixed.”
Hurt was temporarily blocked by bafflement. “I don’t—do you mean we got our signals crossed?”
“I suppose.”
Tired all over again, she dragged a hand through her hair. “I doubt it. We’ll just call it a temporary lapse.”
“And do what?”
She wished she knew. “Look, J.T., we’re both adults. All we have to do is act like it.”
“I thought we were.” He tried a smile. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
“It wasn’t completely your fault.” She managed to smile back at him. “Circumstances. We’re alone here, the power’s out. Candle and firelight.” She shrugged and felt miserable. “Anybody could get carried away.”
“If you say so.” He took a step forward. She took a step back. The pursuit, Jacob decided, was going to require strategy. “But I am attracted to you, even without candlelight.”
She started to speak, discovered she didn’t know what she wanted to say and dragged her hands through her hair again. “You should get some sleep. I’m going for more wood.”
“All right. Sunbeam?”
She turned back, shooting him a look of amusement and exasperation at his use of her full name.
“I enjoyed kissing you,” he told her. “Very much.”
Muttering under her breath, she bundled into her coat and escaped outside.
***
The day passed slowly. Sunny might have wished he would sleep longer, but it hardly mattered. Awake or asleep, he was there. As long as he was, he intruded. At times, though she tried to bury herself in her books, she was so painfully aware of him that she nearly groaned.
He read—voraciously, Sunny thought—novel after novel from the bookshelf. Activity was almost completely confined to the living room and the warmth of the fire, which they took turns feeding.
At lunchtime they fell back on cold sandwiches, though she did manage to boil water over the fire for tea. They spoke to each other only when it was impossible not to.
By evening they were both wildly restless, edgy from confinement and from the fact that both of them wondered what the day would have been like if they had spent it under a blanket, together, rather than at opposite ends of the room.