Hæra dropped onto the armchair and leaned back, spreading her legs wide. “It’s comfortable.”

Madeleine’s mouth still went dry. She would not stare at the seam of Hæra’s jeans between her legs. She’d keep her eyes squarely on Hæra’s face, with its sparkling eyes and mischievous grin.

Maybe Hæra’s face wasn’t such a safe place to look either.

“You’ll be comfortable too,” Hæra said. “It’s not so bad, is it? Jim left a few things on the walls. What about that picture over the fireplace?”

With difficulty, Madeleine looked away from Hæra’s eyes to the picture in question. “Dogs playing poker. It certainly is a picture. I’d rather look into a nice fire, personally.”

Now wouldn’t be a bad time. She shivered. The stone cottage wasn’t as well insulated as her room at the Merryweather had been, and the radiator was working twice as hard to be half as good.

“I don’t like fire,” Hæra said.

They faced each other across the length of the living room, such as it was. Just a few feet. It still felt like too short a distance for Madeleine’s pounding heart.

It felt too long as well.

“Because it’s your opposite element?” she asked.

Hæra smiled. She always did whenever Madeleine showed any insight into her…state of being. “Yes. I’d never seen it before I came to this cottage for the first time. Then I hated it at once.”

“Is it the heat?” That was a shot in the dark, but Hæra seemed impervious to cold. She’d even told Madeleine that she didn’t take hot showers. After that revelation, Madeleine had needed a few minutes to stop picturing Hæra in the shower, hot or otherwise.

“That, and the way it…” Hæra seemed to hesitate. “The way it eats everything up when it gets out of control. And how quickly that happens.”

Madeleine bit her bottom lip. She could think of something that had a similar effect on her. How funny that Hæra should fear fire’s power when she, a creature of the cold ocean, still threatened to burn Madeleine alive.

Hæra slapped the arms of the chair and rose to her feet. “Never mind that. I’m going to check the back door.”

“Why?”

“The bolt looked a little rickety last I checked. Not that we’ve got to worry about burglars out here, but I’d have you be secure.”

Madeleine’s face heated as Hæra strode toward the back of the cottage, followed by the thump of the back door opening and closing.