The Welcoming

furniture.”
    He was silent for a moment, thinking as much about what she’d left out as about what she’d told him. He knew her father was listed as unknown—a difficult obstacle anywhere, but especially in a small town. In the last six months of her grandfather’s life his medical expenses had nearly driven the inn under. But she didn’t speak of those things; nor did he detect any sign of bitterness.
    “Do you ever think about selling the place, moving on?”
    “No. Oh, I still think about Venice occasionally. There are dozens of places I’d like to go, as long as I had the inn to come back to.” She rose to get him another beer. “When you run a place like this, you get to meet people from all over. There’s always a story about a new place.”
    “Vicarious traveling?”
    It stung, perhaps because it was too close to her own thoughts. “Maybe.” She set the bottle at his elbow, then took her dishes to the sink. Even knowing that she was overly sensitive on this point didn’t stop her from bristling. “Some of us are meant to be boring.”
    “I didn’t say you were boring.”
    “No? Well, I suppose I am to someone who picks up and goes whenever and wherever he chooses. Simple, settled and naive.”
    “You’re putting words in my mouth, baby.”
    “It’s easy to do,
baby
, since you rarely put any there yourself. Turn off the lights when you leave.”
    He took her arm as she started by in a reflexive movement that he regretted almost before it was done. But it was done, and the sulky, defiant look she sent him began a chain reaction that raced through his system. There were things he could do with her, things he burned to do, that neither of them would ever forget.
    “Why are you angry?”
    “I don’t know. I can’t seem to talk to you for more than ten minutes without getting edgy. Since I normally get along with everyone, I figure it’s you.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    She calmed a little. It was hardly his fault that she had never been anywhere. “You’ve been around a little less than forty-eight hours and I’ve nearly fought with you three times. That’s a record for me.”
    “I don’t keep score.”
    “Oh, I think you do. I doubt you forget anything. Were you a cop?”
    He had to make a deliberate effort to keep his face bland and fingers from tensing. “Why?”
    “You said you weren’t an artist. That was my first guess.” She relaxed, though he hadn’t removed his hand from her arm. Anger was something she enjoyed only in fast, brief spurts. “It’s the way you look at people, as if you were filing away descriptions and any distinguishing marks. And sometimes when I’m with you I feel as though I should get ready for an interrogation. A writer, then? When you’re in the hotel business you get pretty good at matching people with professions.”
    “You’re off this time.”
    “Well, what are you, then?”
    “Right now I’m a handyman.”
    She shrugged, making herself let it go. “Another trait of hotel people is respecting privacy, but if you turn out to be a mass murderer Mae’s never going to let me hear the end of it.”
    “Generally I only kill one person at a time.”
    “That’s good news.” She ignored the suddenly very real anxiety that he was speaking the simple truth. “You’re still holding my arm.”
    “I know.”
    So this was it, she thought, and struggled to keep her voice. “Should I ask you to let go?”
    “I wouldn’t bother.”
    She drew a deep, steadying breath. “All right. What do you want, Roman?”
    “To get this out of the way, for both of us.”
    He rose. Her step backward was instinctive, and much more surprising to her than to him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “Neither do I.” With his free hand, he gathered up her hair. It was soft, as he’d known it would be. Thick and full and so soft that his fingers dived in and were lost. “But I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t do.”
    “I’d rather not regret at all.”
    “Too late.” He heard her suck in her breath as he yanked her against him. “One way or the other, we’ll both have plenty to regret.”
    He was deliberately rough. He knew how to be gentle, though he rarely put the knowledge into practice. With her, he could have been. Perhaps because he knew that, he shoved aside any desire for tenderness. He wanted to frighten her, to make certain that when he let her go she would run, run away from him, because he