He kept her laughing the entire journey back to the cabin. He gave her a top ten list of his favorite shoes that she wore, her outfits, jewelry and pen collection.

"Someone has been paying attention," she said in awe.

"I told you, I've been in love with you for a while."

She stepped closer to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. He slipped his hand from hers and put his arm around her shoulder.

"I'm never letting you go, Penelope," he promised. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replied.

Back at the cabin, Dave helped her up the steps and to the back door. "You and Mudgie go inside and get warmed up. Make some more coffee, please."

"Where are you going," She asked worriedly.

He smiles and kisses her. "I'm just going to bring in a load of wood."

"I can help you," she said.

He sighs. "Will you just go inside."

She shakes her head. "It'll be faster if we work together."

He gives her a glare, then opens the back door. Mudgie rumbles through the doorway.

"Fine," he huffs. He closes the door and marches off the deck. "Come on, Beautiful. The wood is not going to move itself."

She grins and follows him. "You're cute when you don't get your way."

After twenty minutes, Penelope is huffing from exertion. They moved a large pile of wood from the shed to the back porch.

"How much more do you think we're going to need," she asks.

He pauses mid-stride and looks back at the pile on the deck then up at the sky. "Hopefully, not much more than this. Let's grab a couple more loads then we can start taking it inside."

"We're moving it inside too?!"

Chuckling, he nods. "I'd prefer not to come outside again except to let the pup out."

She looks at him for a moment. She looks up at the sky as well. The snow hasn't stopped coming down since it began. "How much deeper is the snow going to get?"

Dave shrugs. "I've seen it snow five, six days straight at times. One year, it was so deep I couldn't see my SUV."

She gapes at him. "What," she squeaks.

"We should probably put your car in the garage," he tells her. "I'm worried that your roof might collapse if the snow piles up high."

"Well, now I'm worried too."

"Go grab your car keys," he orders gently. "I'll grab a few more loads and open the doors."

"I'll grab the keys, but I don't want to drive it," she tells him.

He nods and continues his trek to the wood shed. He looks at the piles of wood he has lining the walls and knows that they will be fine for quite away if they get stuck there. Penelope might not like it, but they may have to go home in his SUV and leave her car until the snow stops. He grabs a shovel and heads back outside to clear the space in front of the garage doors, so he can get them open. He's nearly done when Penelope returns.

"I was starting to think you abandoned me," he quips.

"Never, mon ami," she assures him. "I put on a pot of coffee."

"Good, I'm going to need it."

He hands her the shovel and pulls the wooden doors open.

"Is there going to be enough room for Esther," Penelope asks. She frowns as she peers at the interior of the garage.

"It might be a little tight, but she'll make it."

She hands him the keys. He sloughs through the snow that is getting deeper by the minute. He unlocks his SUV as he realizes he is going to need to move it before moving her car. Both vehicles are covered with snow and need to cleaned off before he can move them. He retrieves the broom from the front porch and quickly swipes off a large portion of snow from each vehicle, being especially careful with the top of Penelope's convertible.

That done, he backs up the SUV and parks it partway into the road. He then gets into Penelope's car. He turns the key in the ignition. The engine slowly turns over, the battery is going dead from the cold.

"Come on, sweetheart," Dave mutters. "Don't make me pull out the jumper cables."

He pumps the gas a couple times, then turns the key again. The engine makes a rotation, hesitates then turns again as she comes to life. He is immediately blasted by cold air coming from the vents. Penelope had left the heater on full blast. He turns down the heater and lets the car warm up for a few minutes before putting her in gear and carefully maneuvering through the snow around the house to the shed.

Carefully, he drove Esther through the doors of the garage staying to the right as much as possible to give himself room to get out. Once parked, he shuts off the engine and opens the door. He has enough space to squeeze himself out of the car.

"What took you so long? I moved the rest of the one wood pile to the deck," Penelope complained.

"I had to clear the snow off the cars," he told her. "Then your beastie didn't want to start at first."

Penelope gasps. "She is not a beast."

He just grins. "Yes, dear."

He closes the garage doors and hands over her keys. "I'm going to move my car up close to the house, then we can take the wood inside."

"Where do you want it?"

"Just start piling it near the fireplace," he said as he walked away.

It took them another thirty minutes to move all the wood inside. Penelope hauled in the last armful, dropped it on the pile and collapsed on the couch.

Dave smirked at her. "Tired?"

"Exhausted," she replied. "And dirty."

Dave stoked the embers in the fireplace and added a couple of smaller logs. His grin widened. "Go clean up, I'll take care of this."

She eyed the stack of wood. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Usually I do all of it by myself." He removed his jacket and tossed it in the direction of the front door. It landed with a soft thud on the wooden floor.

"Poor baby," she murmured. She sat and watched him efficiently stack the wood along the wall. His jeans pulled tight on his ass affording her a pleasant view.

"You falling asleep," he asked quietly without turning around.

"Just admiring the view," she replied saucily.

He looked over his shoulder and grinned slyly. "If you want to watch, we can take a shower together once I'm done with this wood."

"That shower isn't really big enough for two."

"I don't need a lot of room; I'll just hold onto you."

She giggled and pulled herself to her feet. After removing her jacket, she hung it by the door then picked up Dave's jacket from the floor and hung it up too.

"Do you want some coffee," she asked as she leaned over to untie one of the boots.

A loud clunk and a curse word was her answer. She turned around to see him grimace.

"What happened?"

He shook his head.

"David, are you hurt?"

"I'll be fine," he stated, his voice filled with pain.

"Honey, what happened?"

"I dropped a log on my foot," he said sheepishly. "I looked over to answer you and you were… you were… bent over and the log slipped out of my hand and onto my foot."

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a knowing look. "Were you staring at my ass?"

His sheepish look turned to a grin and a chuckle. "It's a nice ass."

She shook her head and turned back to take the boots off. "Stop staring at my ass," she ordered as she untied the first boot.

"You were staring at mine," he grumbled.

"Apparently, I am better at staring than you are," she told him as she pulled the boot off. "At least I don't get hurt when I stare."

"You were sitting on the couch drooling," he teased.

She untied the other boot and started to tug it off her foot. "I was not drooling!" She tugged on the boot, lost her balance, and fell to the floor.

"Son of a gumdrop," she yelled.

Dave started to laugh. "What," he wheezed.

She glared at him. "Shut up."

He hobbled over and reached down to help her up. "Are you okay?"

"I think I bruised my bum," she said. She winced as she rubbed one cheek.

"Take your pants off, I'll look."

She gaped at him. "You just want me naked."

"I'm not going to deny that," he laughed. He leaned over and kissed her. "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Go take a shower, so I can finish what I'm doing, and we can finally relax."

"Yes, dear," she sighed. She reached up and kissed him.

He watched her walk away then returned to stacking the wood. Once he was finished, he sat down and took his own boots off. His foot hurt and a bruise was forming but there was no permanent damage. He leaned back in the chair and enjoyed the heat from the fire that was warming his toes.

His eyes started to droop, he hadn't slept a lot through the night and all the exercise he had extolled was draining his energy. He could feel sleep coming. Suddenly, a piercing scream rent the air.