The extra layers helped and she felt herself getting a bit warmer as she laid in her bed. As she warmed up, she started to feel herself drifting back off to sleep. She was prevented from fully drifting off by a sound that she recognized as the sound of one of Chase’s tractors. A look at the window in her bedroom revealed a set of four bright lights pulling into her driveway. She reluctantly got out of her bed, grabbed her phone, and picked up the bag she’d just packed and headed for the door. As she passed her coatrack, she grabbed her winter coat and put it on, along with a pair of boots, before bracing herself for the weather she was about to walk out into.
As she opened the door, a gust of wind swept into the room, the cold air and windblown snow clawed at her face as she stepped out onto her porch. She closed the door behind her and made her way towards the lights in her driveway. As she walked through the storm and snow that was halfway up her shins, she saw a silhouette through the dark and snow.
“Get in the tractor!” Chase called through the howling wind. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” As he continued towards her, she noticed a jug of something in his left hand. While she was trying to process what the jug was, a gust of wind caught her off guard and she stepped to try and regain her balance. As her foot hit the ground, she felt it slide off the sidewalk she was trying to follow and she almost instantly found herself half buried in the accumulated snow. The cold from the icy flakes quickly penetrated through the layers of clothing she was wearing. As she laid there processing what had just happened, she felt and hand grab her by her arm and forcefully but carefully pull her back to her feet.
“Are you alright?” Came Chase’s voice.
She nodded in response. He started guiding her towards the running tractor and helped her climb into the cab.
“The heat’s already on, hopefully it gets warmer in here fairly quick.” He explained. “Wait here for a few minutes, I’ll be back.”
With that, he closed the door to the cab and headed back out into the storm leaving Sarah with only her duffel bag and her thoughts. The tractor cab was far from warm but she was definitely glad to not have the wind clawing at her anymore. A shiver washed over her again and she found herself wondering where Chase had disappeared to and what he was doing.
As the minutes passed, the cab gradually started to warm up and soon enough Chase returned to view and climbed up into the cab. A cold gust of wind rushing in while he had the door open.
“Alright that’s that.” He said as he sat in the seat.
“What did you do anyway?” She asked, starting to drift off again as she warmed back up.
“I went ahead and put some antifreeze in all the drains I could get to and drained the water lines I could. Hopefully you won’t have to worry about anything freezing.” He explained.
“So that’s what was in the jug,” she thought to herself, “antifreeze.” She yawned as Chase put the tractor in reverse and headed back to his house. Within a minute or two they were in Chase’s driveway right in front of his garage.
“Alright,” he said as he parked the tractor, “let’s get you inside.” He picked up her bag and opened the door for her. The cold outside air blowing in woke her up enough to make her want to get inside. She climbed out and looked up expecting him to hand her bag down to her, instead she found him climbing down right behind her with her bag in his hand. As he reached the ground and turned to face her, he motioned for her to walk towards the man door to his garage. She nodded and did so, making her way through the garage and into his house. She instantly took a deep breath of the warm air. Her moment of relief was interrupted by the sound of her bag being set on the floor behind her, followed by the door closing. She turned around to find Chase heading back out into the weather. It took her a moment to realize that he was probably going to park the tractor.
She returned her attention to her bag sitting on the floor just inside the door. For the time being she didn’t have an immediate need for it, so she just sat it down in the corner of the foyer before taking off her snow-covered boots. As she stepped onto the floor, she felt the snow that had accumulated around the bottoms of her sweats. She sighed realizing that she should probably take them off before walking through Chase’s house. She took both pairs off and was about to hang them on the coatrack in the foyer when she heard the door open behind her.
She turned around just in time to meet Chase’s eyes as he returned inside. The fact that she had just been caught in the act of getting undressed by a guy she’d fantasized about the day before made her heart skip a few beats. The situation wasn’t improved by the fact that she caught his eyes darting down to what she assumed was her now exposed legs. She instantly felt a blush form in her face as she looked away and hung up her sweats.
“Yeah, go ahead and get out of your wet clothes. I’ll go get out of my winter clothes and get you a blanket.” Chase said as she heard him take off his boots before he disappeared around the corner into a room she couldn’t see. With that distraction gone, she took of her jacket and one of her hoodies, both of which had picked up a bunch of snow when she’d fallen. She was left wearing only a hoodie, shirt, and the shorts she slept in. At least now she was somewhere with working heat. She remembered that her phone was in her pocket and retrieved it. She checked the time and found that it was just after 5:25. All of that had happened within ten minutes.
She put her phone in her hoodie pocket and looked up in time to find Chase returning to the room with a large blanket. “Here.” He said, holding it out for her. She took it, unfolded it, and wrapped it around herself. The two of them stood there for a couple seconds before Sarah found herself facing a strong urge to wrap him in the blanket with her. Her own body forced her hand as she let out a yawn. “You probably should go lay down.” He suggested. Her response was to give into her urge and wrap the blanket around him as well. She’d figured that, if he protested, she’d just brush it off as being tired. “I guess *we* should go lay down.” He replied as she wrapped him into the blanket with her.
She managed to suppress her surprise. Did that really just work? Her half-baked idea to wrap him up in the blanket with her had just gotten him to lay down with her. Why hadn’t she tried something like that before? The real answer was that she was petrified by the idea of making any kind of move. So why exactly did she do it this time? Maybe it was just the cold, maybe she really was tired enough that she wasn’t thinking straight. Either way, she was now standing with her arms around the man she’d fantasized about being able to get her hands on for months. The exact feeling she was experiencing was hard to pinpoint, it was almost surreal, although again, that was probably because she was tired.