Times Change by Nora Roberts Page B

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.
    He paced to one window. She paced to another. She poked at the fire. He leafed through yet another book. She went for a bag of cookies. He went for fresh candles.
    “Have you ever read this?”
    Sunny glanced over. It was the first word they had spoken to each other in an hour. “What?”
    “
Jane Eyre.
”
    “Oh, sure.” It was a relief to have a conversation again. She handed him the bag of cookies as a peace offering.
    “What did you think of it?”
    “I always like reading about the mannerisms of an earlier century. They were so stringent and puritanical back then, with all that passion boiling underneath the civilized veneer.”
    He had to smile. “Do you think so?”
    “Sure. And of course it’s beautifully written, and wonderfully romantic.” She sat with her legs hooked over the arm of a chair, her eyes a little sleepy and her scent—damn her—everywhere. “The plain, penniless girl capturing the heart of the bold, brooding hero.”
    He gave her a puzzled look. “That’s romantic?”
    “Of course. Then there’s windswept moors and painful tragedy, sacrifice. They did a terrific production of it on PBS a few years ago. Did you see it?”
    “No.” He set the book aside, still puzzled. “My mother has a copy at home. She loves to read novels.”
    “That’s probably because she needs to relax after being in court all day.”
    “Probably.”
    “What does your father do?”
    “This and that.” Suddenly his family seemed