Chapter 10
Tuesday morning came too quicklyfor Ruth, but at least she was not hungover. After drinking too much on Friday, she was able to rest on Saturday before book club on Sunday, which involved more drinks. Monday had actually turned out to be a reprieve as the temperatures across the state hit a record low at well minus forty, and the town actually shut down. It was a rare day that it was too cold for the citizens of Landstad to be out and about.
It had also given Ruth another day to avoid Anderson without missing a day of work and being obvious about it. What happened in the stairwell of her apartment was still fresh in her mind. Holing up in her home meant she was able to get over her hangover and pretend that nothing had happened between them until Tuesday morning.
But now the temperatures had risen to a balmy minus twenty-seven, and the town was coming alive again. Ruth was tempted to call in sick but knew he would call her out on that. He was on to her now that he knew where she lived.
Now he knew, so all her excuses could be dropped. Now she could leave her coat down in the office and not carry it back and forth every day. Sometimes she forgot it and had to go get lunch without a coat because of her mistake, and now she could just run home and get it.
With the extreme temperatures, Ruth opted for dress pants and a sweater instead of her usual skirt and blouse. When the temps were so low, the office was crazy cold, mostly in her area up front where all the big windows were, especially after three days of it being empty with the heat turned down. Anderson had complained to the building owner more than once about it, but that had fallen on deaf ears, mostly because she was the one who had to put up with the cold.
Slipping into the office, she hoped Anderson wouldn’t notice she was a few minutes early. After dropping her purse on the desk, she sat down and turned on the computer. As she moved her purse to the desk drawer she kept it in, she turned on the heater she kept under her desk to warm her feet up. The flats she wore would not keep her feet warm in this cold without assistance.
“How were the roads?” came the husky voice from the adjoining office.
She turned to look at his smiling face. He thought he was so clever. “Fine.”
“Grab a notepad. I think we have to write our annual letter to the building owner.” Anderson waved her over.
Getting up, she grabbed the yellow legal pad she took notes on and went into his office. Sitting in the chair across from him, she set the pad on his desk so that she could write. Over the years, she had given up the pretense that she could write on her lap like a professional. She needed a hard surface when writing. “What do you want it to say this year?”
Every year, she wrote the letter, and every year, she received the letter from her rental company. Though she got a few others from her properties over the years, Anderson’s was the only one that came every year without fail. Because without fail, it got cold in Landstad.
His brown eyes were on her legs, making her a little self-conscious about the pants she was wearing. “You’re not wearing a skirt today.”
Ruth sat up straight and squared her shoulders. “I knew it would be too cold down here to wear a skirt. I can go home and change if you need me to.” She started to get up. It was an excuse to get away from him and the tension from Friday night. It was still hanging over them today.
Rising from his desk, he said, “No, don’t. Just an observation, that’s all. You can wear whatever you want to down here; just treat it like home. It nearly is.”
Ruth lowered back into her chair, ignoring his comment about her clothes. He sat back down as she did. Picking up the pen she had set down, she nodded to the paper and asked, “What do you want to write this year?”
“Is your apartment this cold?” he questioned as his eyes went to the ceiling above them. What he didn’t know was that above him was her office, not her apartment.
“It’s fine. I have been there long enough to know all the quirks. Cold on the coldest days, hot on the hottest days. I usually just light the fireplace for these really cold days.” She started to doodle on the paper she was holding. Anything to keep her busy and not looking at him…or thinking of him in her apartment.
“Fireplace?” His eyes snapped to her.
“Yes, it’s a wood-burner, so it’s really messy, but it heats the place nicely when I want it to.” Her eyes were on the squiggles on her paper and not him. The fireplace was in her apartment, while her office was heated mostly by the computer equipment. It was a nice tradeoff for all the noise.
“So, we cannot get any heat, but you have a fireplace.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
“Do you want me to ask for one in the letter?” She looked up for the first time and saw his eyes were watching her and not her writing.
“No, not in the letter. Did you use the fireplace all weekend?” he questioned.
“Yes, why do you ask?” She bit her lip. Was he thinking about Friday night when he wanted to go up to her apartment? Was she adding color to his fantasy? Heat rushed to her cheeks as it added color to hers.
“No reason,” he mumbled.
“What do you want me to write?” she asked again, trying to get them back on topic, not that the topic was a good one.
“What did we say last year?”
“Something about this being the third year of freezing in the office and that you could rent somewhere else.” Ruth remembered. It had made her a little depressed that she didn’t do anything about the heating situation, but it was only an issue when the temps went below minus twenty. The first year, she had contacted a specialist, and it would take adding insulation in the walls, redoing all the interiors, and putting it all back together—thousands of dollars for a few days a year.
“Let’s continue that line and say if this happens again next year, we will be looking for someplace else.” He started tapping his desk with a pen as he talked.
“But where would you go?” Ruth bit her lip. She liked not driving to work. And if Anderson didn’t work in her building, she wouldn’t be able to write during the day as easily. If she couldn’t write, what would she do? In reality, she would probably have to stop working for Anderson because this job was mostly a hobby for her.