After it was decided that she was staying, Roxanne insisted on freshening up, then realized with horror that none of her belongings—other than her purse and her dead cell phone—had made it to the cabin with her. Her luggage, including all of her clean clothes and toiletries, had been left behind, locked in the trunk of her snowbound BMW.

“All of my luggage is back in my car,” she said, trying not to sound panicked. “I don’t have any clean clothes or other…” Her words trailed of as she ran her hands along the sweater and leggings, imagining how wrinkled and filthy she must be. She didn’t even want to think about how mussed her head must have been, or how faded her expertly applied makeup. At the very least, she was stale and wouldn’t be caught dead in a photo. For the first time since she’d woken up, Roxanne felt gritty and embarrassed, simultaneously wanting to look into a mirror more than anything else, and horrified by the idea of seeing her reflection. The idea of being stuck in yesterday’s clothes—and to show up at to face her family as the fashion editor from New York wearing a two-day old road trip outfit—was enough to fill her with such dread that she became instantly nauseous.

Mark gave her an empathetic look. “I didn’t have enough arms for you and your suitcase,” he apologized with a good-natured wink and Roxanne immediately dropped her head to avoid eye contact, “but we can go back for it for thing in the morning. We’ll grab it and you can come back here and freshen up. I’ll take a look at your car while we’re there, too, and see what needs to be done to get you back on the road. Until then, I will do my best to make you comfortable.”

Roxanne was skeptical, but kept her thoughts to herself as Mark promptly led her from the kitchen to a small bathroom attached to the single master bedroom in the back of the cabin. There, left her to her own devices with a pair of fluffy towels and a fully stocked room of toiletries. All the critical items were accounted for—shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, shower gel, and so on—but as she read through the names of the products, Roxanne was pretty sure she’s never seen a single one of brands that lined the shower or the sink. With names like Tom’s of Maine and Jason they were products more suitable for the hygiene aisle of Whole Foods than the kind of salons Roxanne favored in the city, but for now she needed to be clean and so they would have to do.

The shower was large and spacious, and the water ran hot. Roxanne dropped her dirty clothes into a heap on the tile floor and stepped in, relishing the way the steam awoke her senses and cleared the shocky mist that still clung to her thoughts. As her mind cleared, it became obvious to Roxanne that she should be more uncomfortable in her present situation—stranded, in the snow, with no car, and stuck in an out-of-the-way cabin with a man she hardly knew. Roxanne wasn’t used to being a stranger, but then again, she didn’t really feel like a stranger here. Whether it was the snow, the cabin, or Mark himself, Roxanne couldn’t dismiss the feeling that she felt oddly more at home in the little cabin filled with rustic furniture and health-store brand toiletries than she often did in her swanky apartment in the City with Hunter.

Once the thought had entered her head, she immediately stopped thinking about it before she got lost between the lines. That was one heck of a loaded thought and she didn’t have the time or the energy to deconstruct it—much less the interest. Instead, she scrubbed her body, then switched from soap to face cleanser and washed the remaining bits of her makeup away. When she finished rinsing her hair, she felt fresh and did her best to ignore the fact that she smelled like a pinecone. When she finished with her shower, she wrapped her hair in a turban and another towel to wrap around her body, and, after peeking through the door to make sure the bedroom was unoccupied, she stepped out to see what spare clothes Mark might have assembled for her, hoping it wasn’t flannel. Anything but flannel. Or cable knit. Nothing made a girl look thick in the shoulders like cable knit.

Roxanne had been so focused on ducking into the bathroom that she hadn’t really noticed the bedroom she’d walked through on her way there. Like the den and the kitchen before it, the bedroom—Mark’s bedroom, Roxanne realized and tried to ignore the way the thought made her flesh pimple into goose bumps—was modest but nicely appointed. The furniture was large and comfortable, and the bed was covered in a handsome quilt that looked homemade. Otherwise, like the rooms she’d seen so far, the bedroom was clean except for random piles of books and a few stray pieces of outdoor equipment. Her purse had been brought in from the den and was laid atop the black and red patchwork, her phone next to it and attached to a long white chord that roped its way off the bed, around a bedside table piled high with books, and into an outlet. She was pleasantly surprised that Mark had been so considerate, and that he’d had the proper cable for her latest issue iPhone. Hers, of course, had been left in her car…or at least she thought it had.

Beside her purse, a pair of slim black fleece pants was laid alongside a navy blue waffle knit long sleeve thermal shirt. Neither was terribly fashionable, and both were much too large for her, but they were warm, and soft, and smelled like Mark so Roxanne didn’t waste her time settling into them. She fished a hair tie from her bag and twisted her long auburn hair into a messy bun. Luckily, the “boyfriend look” always wore well on her, and she knew she looked damn cute in oversized men’s clothes with her wet hair pulled up. Mark had not overlooked any detail, either. Not only had he provided her with fresh, clean clothes, but he’d also set out a spare toothbrush and a thick pair of woolen socks with one of those mini candy canes tucked into the cuff as a finishing touch.

This sweet little detail stirred the butterflies in Roxanne’s belly, but the boots waiting next to them stopped the lovesick insects mid-flap. Black with quilted nylon, rawhide laces, and a black waterproof rubber duck toe, the boots were clean and looked brand new, but at a length that looked suspiciously small even for Roxanne’s size seven and a half, they definitely did not belong to Mark. As she turned them over in her hands, Roxanne was disappointed that Mark could provide her with women’s wet weather boots to borrow—even though she knew she shouldn’t be. If he had women’s boots lying around at his place, that must mean he had a woman that they belonged to, too. Right?

Roxanne slid the socks over her feet, tugged one shoulder of the thermal shirt over her bare shoulder, and left the boots untouched. She checked her reflection in the mirror over the dresser, and after applying a fresh coat of mascara and a quick slip of lip gloss from the touch-up kit in her purse, was satisfied with the result. It wasn’t her normal look, but she managed to look halfway decent, and maybe even more than halfway cute. It wasn’t a look she’d wear out, but for a night snowed in with a handsome forest ranger, it just might work. Now, she just had to face Mark on the other side of the bedroom door and try to remember that he had a pair of ladies’ winter boots in his closet, and she still had a boyfriend somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic.