Finding West

5

He turned to me with a smile that jumpstarted my heart. "Morning," he said with that deep, rumbly voice of his.

It struck me then, as the aroma wafted up my nose, that the mug he was holding was filled with coffee. "You made coffee?"

He grinned and in several long steps he was in the kitchen, pouring me a cup.

"I've never woken up to fresh coffee before," I said, accepting the mug gratefully and taking a long pull from the dark liquid. It was at that perfect temperature, still hot but not enough to burn. I moaned into the cup. "Why does coffee taste better when I'm not the one who made it?"
"Because your tears of bitterness are not mixed in?" he teased with a twinkle in his eyes.

I chuckled into my cup.

"You should laugh like that more often," he said.

"You should make coffee more often then. Every morning if possible," I said and immediately regretted it. "Well, not literally. But... you know what I mean."

He smiled at me over his mug then looked back towards the window. "So it looks like it snowed several more inches overnight."

I walked to the window above the sink and looked out, seeing my Jeep still stuck in the ditch and buried under even more snow. "That sucks." I turned back to him. "Are you going to try and walk back into town today?"

He waited a few heartbeats before saying, "I think that would prove an exercise in futility."

I nodded, trying not to show my relief. Truth was, somewhere along the way, I'd become accustomed to his presence. I'd never admit it aloud of course; he'd have to employ torture tactics to get me to divulge that I didn't want him to leave just yet.

After eating Cocoa Pebbles cereal, we sat across the table from each other awkwardly.

"So..." I played with the milk, sliding the spoon into it over and over.

"So..." he echoed, stroking his beard.

"Is it itchy?" I asked, motioning to his face.

"Not usually," he said, pinching pieces of it between his fingers. "But it's there, you know?"
"I wonder what you look like under all of that?" I was just musing out loud, but suddenly I was burning with curiosity. "I bet you're a complete uggo under there. Maybe that's why you grew a beard to begin with."

He grinned. "Possibly. Or maybe I'm an international male model who just wanted to be incognito for a while."

"Until you were kidnapped for ransom—"

"But the kidnappers realized nobody would pay the ransom, so they took my belongings and dumped me in the middle of nowhere."

"No, no," I said, enjoying our banter. "Your kidnappers were women, fans of yours, and they didn't want money, they just wanted your body. So they had their way with you, but you somehow escaped. You wandered in the snow, lost for days..."

"Until you found me and nursed me back to health." He leaned back in the chair and brought his hand up to his mouth, rubbing his beard absently. "I'll forever be indebted to you," he said with a hint of a grin.

I pushed away from the table, ignoring the sincerity in his last comment. "Come on then. Why don't you shave that beard off and let's find out if our theory's correct?"

A few minutes later we found ourselves in the tiny bathroom going through my dad's old leather toiletry bag. I pulled out an old-school safety razor, the kind with the rounded top that opened up.