Chapter Eleven - The Snow Begins To Fall

When you close your eyes
And you fall asleep
Everything about you is a mystery
You tell me that you want me
You tell me that you need me
You tell me that you love me
And I know that I'm right
'Cause I hear it in the night

The Romantics - Talking In Your Sleep


Chapter 11 -- Snow Down

Rafe surprised Mara with his cooking skills. He put together a scrumptious meal of slow roasted salmon on a bed of mixed greens with a horseradish vinaigrette, snow pea salad. For dessert, they had a tasty mousse au chocolat à la menthe.

Though Mara enjoyed the rest of the meal, the minty chocolate mousse was her favorite.

"Rafe, when did you find time to learn to cook like that?"

"A friend of mine was a Cordon Bleu Chef who studied cooking in France."

"Wow, care to talk your friend into coming out here to stay for a while, too? I'd love to learn some cooking from him."

Rafe smiled ruefully. "He was a she, and I'm afraid we really aren't on speaking terms any more."

"Oh?"

Rafe could see her curiosity was piqued, and knew she wouldn't be satisfied with just that brief explanation. "Well, she was teaching me how to cook and..."

The pause grew a little uncomfortable. Mara jumped in, "Rafe, you don't have to tell me anything else than that, that she taught you how to cook. So, how long does it take to learn how to cook like that?"

"She only had a chance to teach me the recipes I made for you tonight and some very basic cooking tips. I've since went on and used the tips to do some adventurous cooking of my own, which I hope you'll let me share with you while I'm here."

"Oh, no problem there. You are definitely MORE than welcome to cook for us anytime you please. My only concern is that my kitchen's probably lacking in the variety of equipment you'll need. Your cuisine is probably a bit more haut than any of my cooking tools."

"No worry there. I'm used to improvising. I haven't exactly bought a kitchen full of gadgets."

"So what else have you learned from your female friends?" Mara teased, then blushed when she realized that that could be mistaken for perhaps a come on.

Rafe grinned at her blush, "I'm quite willing to teach you anything you're willing to learn."

She blushed more furiously.

"Mara, my dear, I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. You left yourself wide open for that one."

She grinned at him shyly, but held her peace.

After enjoying the rest of their dessert in a comfortable silence, Mara stood up. "Leave the dishwashing to me. I'll clear off the table, too. The chef gets to rest on his laurels this evening. I just need to check the weather here and on the Internet.

She peered outside and saw that the wind had picked up again, but there was no snow falling yet. On the Internet, the National Weather Service was still running its twelve county weather advisory, but it was the same one that had come through that afternoon, with no updates.

Mara felt that excitement that can come from anticipating heavy weather, whether it be a severe thunderstorm or a blizzard. She'd always been a bit of a weather nut, and loved what the seasonal changes wrought meteorologically.

She didn't want the evening to end, but knew she needed to get to bed soon, so that she could get up early to go to the Prairiedog office in the morning. Rafe had been so...charming. She felt a bite of jealousy thinking about his having spent the whole day with MarySue. She hoped he hadn't been as charming with her.

'And it's your own darn fault if he was, the way you've been throwing them together, Mara Pitts. Can you just maybe make up your mind?' This thought caused her to shove a couple of the pans in the sink a bit more energetically than necessary.

Rafe heard that clatter of metal and came out to the kitchen. "So, what'd that pan do to make you mad? I thought you enjoyed the salmon?"

"I did! I was just...thinking."

"What were you...thinking about?"

"Umm, getting the Sunday newspaper published early tomorrow."

"Yeah, getting up that early would make me crabby, too."

"It isn't that..." she trailed off as her thoughts scattered when she realized that Rafe had moved right next to her. He was standing very close to her. She breathed in his scent and felt a warm rush move through her body. 'Well, Ms. Pitts, he seems to have the right cologne and the right pheromones to light your fire,' she chided herself.

Ms. Pitts answered, 'Well, he is a man.'

To which Mara replied, 'And what a man.' She bit her lower lip.

Rafe had been watching her emotions play across her face. She looked up from the broiler pan she was scrubbing and met his eyes.

"You've a bit of mousse...," he said softly as he reached with his thumb to wipe away the offending chocolate,"...right here." He licked the bit of mousse off his thumb. Mara just about dropped the slipper broiler pan, she couldn't keep her eyes from his mouth, his lips.

He moved just a bit closer to her, until she could feel the warmth from his body. He smiled a smile she hadn't seen before. If she had thought him attractive prior to that, the smile on his face now wreaked havoc with the butterflies in her stomach.

"My lovely Mara, my sweet editor, I'm calling it a night..."

She continued looking at him, her mouth slightly open and her breath coming faster. Had he just called her lovely?

His eyes were on her lips now, "Good night, my dear, sweet dreams." He leaned in and captured her soft mouth with his own. He tasted of chocolate and mint and coffee and the combination was wholly intoxicating.

The broiler pan fell into the sink with a splash and a clatter, causing them to jump apart. Water splashed on them both.

Mara started giggling uncontrollably. "Oh, I didn't mean to..." she trailed off smiling with the beginnings of a newfound joy as well as the absurdity of the situation. The whole situation, not just the dishwater. How unlikely it was that she would ever meet Rafe in the normal course of things. And here he was.

Rafe stepped back and smiled at her laughter, enjoying the light in her brown eyes. "I'm leaving you to your dishes, dear. I can see that scrubbing and kissing aren't an optimum combination of activities for you."

Mara surprised herself by putting down the scrubber sponge and stepping up to Rafe. She gently kissed his lips and whispered "Good night."

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The next morning when Mara woke up there was a light snow falling. At 4:00 a.m., the temperature outside was still quite cold, 5 below zero, which made her think that perhaps the blizzard would hold off. She started her pickup and rushed back in to enjoy some coffee while the vehicle warmed up.

To her surprise, Rafe came into the kitchen, fully dressed, carrying his coat. "Need some help today?" he asked.

"You should have slept in... I'm not sending you out to chase down any news in this cold." She grinned at him in a conspiring manner, "I checked the newswires, nothing going on in Pittsville and its environs."

"I'd like to help with the grunt work, if I may?"

Mara smiled. "Of course you may, you know the old saying 'Many hands make a burden light' Well in this case, many hands assemble the newspaper that much more quickly. Usually the carriers do most of the assembly, but if we're going to have a blizzard coming through, I'd like to get that done for them so all they have to do is deliver. We've certainly the space for it around the office.

Rafe poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down across the kitchen table from her. Mara looked wide awake, but he could see the underlying weariness from having spent the last few days in a row going in extra early to the paper.

She raised her eyebrows in query at his studying her face.

He grinned and took his gaze away from her face and angled his head to see the level of the coffee in her mug. "Do you need a warm up on that, or shall we..." he trailed off with a gesture towards the door.

Mara grimaced, thinking about the cold weather outside. "We'd better. Or, I'd better and I'd better get you out there and into the cab of my truck before you get a taste of the temperature and decide that sleeping in may have truly been the better option."

"You won't get rid of me that easy."

Mara stood up and moved to put her mug in the sink, her smile turning a bit wistful. What was she thinking about last night? The man would be gone in a few weeks at the most. They really needed to keep it friendly... *just* friendly. Otherwise she'd end up with a dent or two in her heart that she didn't really want to experience.

Rafe missed the look on her face as he also stood up to put on his coat. When she turned back around, she had her *just* friendly smile under control.

She fussed around him a bit, making sure he had a hat, mittens and a warm scarf. "I'm not mother henning...you never know when you're going to end up walking. If this wind picks up much more and hits the truck at just the right angle, it can cause stalling and a fast freeze," she told Rafe. "There isn't exactly a handy bus or El train to take home around here. I used to run around in Evanston and Chicago without a hat or gloves in the worst weather. Oh never when it was so bad that couple of times that all city transit services shut down, but here, this weather can turn deadly in a heartbeat. And I'm babbling again. Let's get going!"

------------------------

The hours at the Prairiedog passed quickly. Quite a few of the distributors had gotten wind of Adele's weather warning, and had shown up in anticipation of the early run of the Sunday paper. As a result, they were assembling the various sections of the paper almost as rapidly as Joe could shoot them off the press.

Without stopping for lunch, the paper was ready to go by 1:00 p.m. Mara stepped out of the pressroom into the front office and gasped when she saw how much the snow and wind had picked up. It wasn't exactly a blizzard yet, but what was coming down was being blown almost horizontally.

She groaned. It was looking like they were going to get a blizzard after all. She started mentally assembling what she needed to bring home with her: which advertising accounts would need to be reimbursed if the Monday paper didn't go out, a phone list of the local carriers, she'd have to call them to let them know that if the snow came as promised...

Mara went back into the pressroom. To her surprise, all the distributors were there and gathering together the papers they needed for their runs. The local carriers were there as well from the youngest 13 year old, to her oldest carrier, the retired school teacher who enjoyed delivering the paper to supplement her pension. She shook her head in amazement at how well word of mouth travels in a small town.

Rafe looked rather surprised as well. Seemed there were more than just a one or two people who took Miss Simonson's weather warnings seriously. Mara grinned at his expression and shrugged.

In a very short time, she was able to let everyone know to keep an eye on the weather advisories. If the weather turned awful and the state highway patrol closed down the roads, obviously the paper wouldn't go out. She didn't want anyone risking life and limb if this storm turned out to be as nasty as Adele was predicting.

Soon, the pressroom was empty of people except for Mara, Rafe, and Joe, who was still cleaning up the press. Mara helped Joe as best she could, but didn't want to do anything to upset the balance of that temperamental piece of machinery.

Mara and Rafe were able to leave quickly after that, arriving at her house not long after 2:00. As they were stepping out of the truck, Mara noticed that the wind had calmed and a heavy, wet snow was now falling.

"If the wind doesn't pick up again, this shouldn't be too bad," she opined to Rafe as they went into the warm house.