Times Change by Nora Roberts Page A

out without a coat. It’s freezing.”
    “I don’t have one with me.”
    “Are all scientists so softheaded?” she muttered. Rising, she went into a long cupboard. “I can’t think of anything so stupid as to come into the mountains in January without a coat.”
    Jacob took a deep breath and then said calmly, “If you keep calling me stupid, I’m going to have to hit you.”
    She gave him a bland look. “I’m shaking. Here.” She tossed him a worn pea coat. “Put that on. The last thing I want is to have to treat you for frostbite.” As an afterthought, she threw him a pair of gloves and a dark stocking cap. “You do have winters in Philadelphia, don’t you?”
    His teeth gritted, Jacob struggled into the coat. “It wasn’t cold when I left home.” He dragged the hat down over his ears.
    “Oh, well, that certainly explains it.” She gave a snort of laughter when he slammed the door behind him. He wasn’t really crazy, she thought. A little dim, maybe, and so much fun to aggravate. And if she aggravated him enough, Sunny mused, she might just get some more information out of him.
    She heard him cursing and didn’t bother to muffle a laugh. Unless she missed her guess, he’d just dropped at least one log on his foot. Perhaps she should have offered him a flashlight, but . . . he deserved it.
    Wiping the grin from her face, she went to the door to open it for him. He was already coated with snow. It was even clinging to his eyebrows, giving him a fiercely surprised expression. She bit down hard on her tongue and let him stomp across the kitchen, his arms loaded with wood. At the sound of logs crashing into the box, she cleared her throat, then calmly picked up her beer and his before joining him in the living room.
    “I’ll get the next load,” she told him solicitously.
    “You bet you will.” His foot was throbbing, his fingers were numb, and his temper was already lost. “How does anybody live like this?”
    “Like what?” she asked innocently.
    “Here.” He was at his wit’s end. He threw out his arms in a gesture that encompassed not only the cabin but also the world at large. “You have no power, no conveniences, no decent transportation, no nothing. If you want heat, you have to burn wood. Wood, for God’s sake! If you want light, you have to rely on unstable electricity. As for communication, it’s a joke. A bad one.”
    Sunny was a city girl at heart, but nobody insulted her family home. Her chin came up. “Listen, pal, if I hadn’t taken you in you’d be up in the woods freezing like a Popsicle and no one would have found you until the spring thaw. So watch it.”
    Overly sensitive, he decided, lifting a brow. “You can’t tell me that you actually like it here.”
    Her hands fisted and landed on her hips. “I like it here just fine. If you don’t, we’ve got two doors. Take your pick.”
    His little excursion to the woodpile had convinced him that he didn’t care to brave the elements. Neither did he care to swallow his pride. He stood for a moment, considering his choices. Without a word, he picked up his beer, sat and drank.
    Since Sunny considered it a victory, she joined him. But she wasn’t ready to give him a break. “You’re awfully finicky for a guy who pops up on the doorstep without so much as a toothbrush.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I said you’re awfully—”
    “How do you know I don’t have a toothbrush?” He’d read about them. Now, with fire glinting in his eyes, he turned to her.
    “It’s an expression,” Sunny said, evading his question. “I simply meant that I wouldn’t think that a man who travels with one change of clothes should be complaining about the accommodations.”
    “How would you know what I’ve got—unless you’ve been going through my things?”
    “You haven’t got any things,” Sunny muttered, knowing that once again she’d opened her mouth before she’d fine-tuned her brain. She started to rise, but he clamped a hand