"Aaron Wolfe - Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Aaron)

"You were in a toasty warm house all afternoon."

She smiled. "Ah, but I empathize with your frostbite so well. I can feel
how chilled you are."

"I think you're just a lush."

"That too."

I lifted Toby in my arms and carried him upstairs to his bedroom at the
far end of the main hall. He was not much help undressing himself, for he
kept nodding off. I finally got him under the covers and pulled the blankets
up to his chin. In seconds his eyelids fluttered shut, and he was sound
asleep.

The storm sky was so dark that there was no need for me to draw the
drapes at the two large, mullioned windows. The wind moaned softly
against the glass: an eerie but effective lullaby.

For a while I stood and watched him, and I thought how he would be
after his nap: bouncy, energetic, full of ideas and projects and games.
When he woke, he would be fascinated by the accumulation of new snow,
as if he had not known a storm was in progress when he went to bed.
Before we could eat dinner, we would have to step outside in our boots and
measure the snow with a yardstick. And that would bring full circle one of
the routines that I enjoyed so much: put him to bed, wake him, take him
out to marvel at the snow. In the summer, there had been other routines,
but they had been just as good as this one.

Downstairs, Connie was sitting by the fireplace where she had put a
match to some well-dried birch logs. The sight of her warmed me as the
fire could never do. She was a slender but shapely blonde who had
celebrated her thirtieth birthday the week before but who might have
passed for a teenager without makeup. She was not really beautiful in any
conventional sense. She did not resemble a fashion model or a movie star.
She had too many freckles for that. Her mouth was much too wide and her
nose a little too long for classic beauty. Yet every feature was in harmony
with every other feature in her gentle face, and the overall effect was
immensely sensuous and appealing. Her best feature was her eyes which
were enormous, round, and blue. They were the wide-open, innocent,
curious eyes of a fawn. She always looked as if she had just been startled;
she was not capable of that sultry, heavy-eyed look that most men found
sexy. But that was fine with me. Her beauty was all the better because it
was unique and approachable.

I sat down on the couch beside her, put my arm around her, and
accepted the drink she had poured for me. It was cold, bitter, very
refreshing.