Chapter 1
Jessica Irwin swooped in great circles on the frozen farm pond, her tightly laced ice-skates biting crisply into the slick surface. Her scarlet tights and brief scarlet skirt, topped off by a white stocking cap that matched her white skates, were brightened still further by an attractive Argyle sweater.
Wayne Evans stood on the bank and watched her graceful pirouettes, one skate on and the other still in his hand. "Watch out for those darker spots!" he shouted. "It could be a little thin now!" He watched intently as the scarlet-clad figure performed a figure-eight. "Watch it, Jessie!"
Jessie beckoned to him impatiently. "Come on, slowpoke!" she called. "You're wasting time!"
She hadn't skated in several years, but she was delighted to find she hadn't lost the knack. The pond was a mile away from the former farm home of Wayne Evans, her fellow employee at the Centralia State Bank. Jessie cut several tight circles while Wayne put on his other skate and somewhat gingerly joined her.
"Isn't it beautiful here today?" Jessie inquired, smiling happily. Her long blonde hair had partially escaped from beneath the stocking cap and was blowing in the chill breeze. Her cheeks were red from her expenditure of effort in the near-zero temperature.
"Watch yourself," Wayne said again, slapping his mittened hands together for warmth. "There's springs under here, and some areas never freeze completely. They pipe off the excess, so there's always running water under the surface of the ice."
Jessie poked him in the ribs. "Don't be such a fuddy-duddy," she commanded. "Let's cross hands and skate together to the other end."
Her quicksilver fluidity and grace made it difficult for Wayne to keep up with her, but he did his best. His acne-scarred features were almost as scarlet in the cold wind as Jessie's tights. Jessie disengaged her hands and went into a routine that finished with her gliding backward slowly on one skate with upraised arms stretched to either side. "See how easy it is?" she demanded, although her hard breathing belied her appearance of ease. "If you'd only-"
"Watch it!" Wayne shouted apprehensively. "You're backing up into a bad-looking-"
Jessie never heard the end of his sentence. Her heart leaped into her throat as the single skate on which she was balanced began to cut through the surface. She went in so smoothly she wouldn't have believed it were it not for the sudden icy embrace of the farm pond water on her ankle, calf, knee, thigh, and waist. She hit bottom then, but floundered with the upraised leg until she stood completely immersed, navel-deep. "Owoooooo!" she cried out. "It's COLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDD!" She put both palms on the ice and tried to boost herself out, but the edge broke under her weight. "Wayne! H-help me! I'm f-freezing!"
Wayne was already skating cautiously in her direction, trying to decide the best approach to the problem. There were no trees from which he might have broken a branch, and the farmhouse was a mile away. He circled Jessie cautiously, then windmilled his arms furiously as he felt the ice giving way beneath him. "Sonofabitch!" he gasped as the icy deluge engulfed him to the waist. He ended up in the same hole six feet away from Jessie.
Her lips were already blue, and she was still trying frantically to find a patch of ice thick enough to support her. Wayne stumbled toward her, balancing awkwardly on his skates on the mucky bottom of the pond. He moved in beside her and began breaking more ice. "We're gonna have to break it all the way to the bank unless we get 1-lucky," he said through chattering teeth. "Come on. With this wind it's no joke."
He led the way, smashing ice-edges with wet-mittened hands already freezing to his wrists. His hard breathing was a chilled rasp in his throat. He found a thicker surface finally, took hold of Jessie's waist, lifted her bodily, and skidded her across a section of ice. When she stopped sliding, her skirt and tights immediately began to adhere to the icy surface. "Get to the bank!" Wayne ordered. He flung himself onto the more solid patch of ice and scrambled to his knees when it supported him. "Come on, Jessie!" he urged, bending down over her and trying to pull her upright.
"Ohhh, W-Wayne!" she half-sobbed. "Wh-what are we going to do? The car's at the f-farm-house!"
"There's a shack with a fireplace two hundred yards behind the trees," he said. "We'll have to use that, but first we've got to make the bank." He succeeded in getting Jessie partly erect, although she was bent almost double and standing in wobbly fashion on slack-ankled skates. Wayne pushed her toward the bank and finally prodded her up onto its snow-covered surface.
"Get your skates off before the laces freeze!" he encouraged Jessie.
"My c-clothes are freezing to me!" Jessie wailed. The already skin-tight scarlet tights were drawn snugly into her crotch, outlining her plump sex-bulge.
Wayne knelt and brushed the ice from her skates, unlacing them as rapidly as his fast-numbing hands permitted. He pulled her skates off and then did the same with his own. Both of them were wearing heavy wool skating socks over ordinary socks. "Run!" he said to the nearly weeping Jessie. "We've got to make the shack!"
He made her move ahead of him along the snowy bank and then through a dimly defined path between the leafless trees. The shoeless exertion of trotting through the snow taxed Jessie so that she found herself perspiring despite the bitter cold. She could feel sweat-crystals of ice forming on her forehead.
"There-it is!" Wayne panted from behind her as the trees thinned. "There's always a fire- laid in the fireplace."
Jessie raised her head to behold a ramshackle log cabin with a tiny, step-up porch. The sight revived her chilled spirit, and she struggled onward, trying to ignore her snow-and-ice-chilled feet. Wayne stepped up on the porch with a thump and opened the door. "Never locked," he said. "In case of emergency like this."
Jessie entered the single room, which felt even colder than outside. Their commingled breaths clouded the icy atmosphere. Jessie stared at a three-quarter bed to one side of the brick fireplace while Wayne hurried to a cabinet and removed a box of matches. He knelt in front of the fireplace, which was stacked with logs, kindling, and paper, and struck a match. "Get out of those wet things," he said over his shoulder.
Jessie began to undress to the sound of fire-crackling kindling, the most pleasant noise she had heard in long minutes. Capillary action had drawn the frigid pond water up into her sweater and even to her bra. Jessie quickly peeled off the sodden clothes, skinned down the tights already stiff with frozen ice, then worked down over her plump hips and thighs the clinging cold-weather wool panties she had depended upon to keep her warm.
Clad only in her socks, she stared down at her white body, blue-patched in places, and brushed hard at her pubic hair from which particles of ice descended to the rough flooring. "Boy, I never saw ice down there before!" she exclaimed.
Wayne had opened a chest from which he produced blankets he threw at the bed. "Off with the socks and into the bed!" he said quickly. He paused as he saw Jessie's shivering nudity, then looked away. "It will take half an hour for this place to warm up decently. Body heat will have to do it for us if we're not going to catch pneumonia."
Jessie pulled off the socks, glazed with ice, and approached the bed. She tested the exposed sheet with a hand, then drew it back hurriedly at the feel of its damp chill. "Wayne!" she protested. "I can't lie down there!"
"You can or you'll freeze," he predicted grimly. "I'll cover you with the blankets and be with you in a minute. Then it won't be so bad."
Jessie sat down on the sheet, then yelped as its iciness penetrated her half-numbed buttocks. She plunged full-length down into the bed without giving herself time to think, then listened to her own loud panting as she tried to force breath through her parched-feeling lungs. She had never felt so dismally, miserably, excruciatingly cold! She hugged herself with her arms and tried to blank out her mind to the acute nature of her distress.
She felt Wayne piling blankets on top of her, and in a moment she heard him slapping ice free from his own garments before he pulled them off. In seconds he came to the bed, lifted the blankets, and crawled in beside Jessie. She almost yelled at the icy feel of his nude body, but Wayne pulled her into his arms and held her tightly as their frigid flesh coalesced for the entire lengths of their bodies.
"Be better-in few minutes," Wayne said, trying to still his chattering teeth. "Body heat -greatest thing in world."
Silence fell upon the cabin except for the popping and cracking of the bark on the larger logs which had begun to burn. Jessie gradually became aware of the exact nature of her position in the bed with Wayne's arms around her and one of his hands in the small of her back. "Don't go to getting any ideas," she said, but with no real snap of bite to her tone. She had known Wayne Evans for seven years, ever since they had been first employed at the bank during a summer program when they had both still been in high school.
"You can't be so cold when you're thinking of the amenities like who's in bed with you," Wayne replied.
Jessie smiled to herself and burrowed deeper under the blankets. She still felt like a block of ice, but not with the breathtaking severity of a few moments ago. Tiny tingling prickles of feeling danced through her legs and thighs. Her original fear that she would never be warm again faded into the dim distance.
"Speaking of bed," Wayne resumed, "why aren't you making it with King at the bank?"
Jessie roused herself from a drowsy sensation that was beginning to overcome her. "Would you believe that it's because I just don't care for our executive vice president?" she answered.
"But you're bucking for the cashier's slot, and Milton King is the man who's going to make the appointment," Wayne said. "Milton King has an eye for a girl's legs, but you come to work in pants-suits. If Milton had wanted to look at trousers he'd have hired men. Your native intelligence must be in low gear, Jessie."
"If I have to screw Milt King to get the job, I don't want the job!" Jessie countered swiftly. "He's an insufferable smartass who thinks all women stretch out on their backs for him automatically."
"A good many do," Wayne said. "And you want the job, don't you?"
"I'm entitled to the job!" Jessie answered indignantly. "I have the qualifications and the seniority."
"But Milton King makes the selection," Wayne said. "And Gloria Carson has been taking weekend trips with Milton."
Jessie felt a sinking sensation. She raised herself on an elbow, then ducked under the blankets again as icy air poured in over her bare shoulders. "Wayne?" she said. "You mean Milton has already picked Gloria?"
"I'd say he's about two more weekends away from making the announcement," Wayne replied.
"But he can't! She's not qualified! She's-"
"In bed she's qualified. Smarten up, Jessie, if you really want the position."
"Certainly I want the position! I've worked for it like a dog! But-" Jessie hesitated. "Why don't I just go to Mr. Abercrombie and say that Gloria is literally screwing me out of the position that's rightfully mine?"
"Because our beloved chairman of the board no longer cares to be burdened with the details of the day-to-day bank operation, that's why," Wayne answered. "He'll brush you off with a fatherly 'He-ha, m' dear girl, no exaggerations now, no exaggerations.'"
Jessie almost giggled as Wayne's voice caught almost exactly the prissy enunciation of the bank's board chairman. "What d'you think Mr. Abercrombie would say if he could see me now?" she asked her icy bedfellow.
"He'd say, 'Move over.' If he had a brain in his head, which I doubt," Wayne added. He moved the hand in the hollow of Jessie's back slightly lower.
Jessie stirred at the touch. "Hey, what's going on down there?" she inquired. She looked at Wayne's acne-scarred face on the pillow, then looked away. She liked Wayne; he was a good friend, but she had no sexual feeling for him at all. She had never thought he had any for her, but the feel of that palm-
And then Wayne dropped his hand frankly upon Jessie's chilled buttock area and began to stroke her soft globes lightly. "Gorgeous!" he sighed, palpating a bouncing beauty.
"Listen!" Jessie warned, "we're supposed to get warm, but not that warm." But she made no effort to withdraw. They did need to get warm, and she felt entirely in control of the situation. Although they were almost the same age, with Jessie twenty-six to Wayne's twenty-five, she had always felt much older in knowledge of the world and had in fact assumed a protective attitude toward Wayne.
Their position in the bed had Jessie's full breasts crowded against Wayne's chest. As body heat gradually enveloped them, Jessie's nipples, pinpoints from the cold at first, gradually expanded. Wayne felt them, too. "You're a real hunk of female, Jess," he said softly. "I always wished I knew how to turn you on towards me." His palm, which had warmed a sleek haunch, moved over to its twin.
Jessie's nude belly, softly curved, drew back slightly from its contact with Wayne's harder one. "Don't get yourself worked up, Wayne," she said quietly. "We've got to get our clothes dry and get out of here and back to the farmhouse and the car. Why don't you hang our things in front of the fire?"
He sighed deeply, but after a moment inched out of the bed, wrapping his arms around himself quickly. Hurriedly he draped the sodden clothing over chairbacks in front of the fireplace, then dived hurriedly back into the warming bed. It was Jessie's turn to sigh as Wayne's hands immediately became bolder.
"Wayne," she said, but then fell silent. Wayne wasn't her brother, although her relationship with him had always been sisterly. Why should she expect him to ignore such a proffered opportunity? Wayne's right hand had dipped between her thighs and was stroking her mound, teasing the pussy-hair which had contained icicles such a short time before. Against her thigh Jessie could feel a hard bulge which lengthened and thickened.
Wayne surged halfway up over her as he changed position, and the movement brought his face directly within her purview. She stared at the hard-looking, shiny, scaly acne-scars, and looked quickly away. She didn't realize that Wayne had noticed her instinctive gesture of aversion until he slumped down beside her heavily and withdrew the questing hand.
"Wayne?" she said. "What is it, Wayne?"
"Ahhhhhh, forget it," he said miserably. "I don't want any charity from you."
"Charity?"
"That's right. Charity." He flung himself onto his back and stared up at the shaggy-barked beams. "You know you can't stand the sight of my face."
It was true, but Jessie had had no intention of hurting Wayne's feelings. And it certainly wasn't as true as the bitter tone of his accusation would indicate. She liked Wayne. He was clever, entirely presentable except for his face, and good company. Starting in the bank together almost at the same time the way they had, they made common cause against a number of stuffy behavioral codes and stuffy individuals.
But Jessie had to admit that there had never been anything of a sexual nature between them, and it had been primarily her doing. Wayne had made a couple of tentative passes early in their relationship, but Jessie had always smilingly turned them aside. She wasn't a virgin, but Wayne did nothing for her. And after a while he had stopped making passes and she enjoyed the relationship.
But now she felt guilty about it. After all, Wayne wouldn't have been human if he hadn't reacted to finding himself naked in bed with her, would he? Despite the entirely innocent background which had placed him there? She moved slightly closer to him in the bed, the sheets of which no longer felt like an icy shroud each time she changed position. Body heat and the emanation from the roaring fire had dissolved the shivering, shuddering shakes that had gripped her when she first crawled into the bed.
She placed a hand on Wayne's shoulder, but he remained unresponsive. "Don't act like a martyr, Wayne," she said softly. "You know I consider you my best male friend."
"Friend!" he responded contemptuously. "You're a beautiful girl, Jessie. Do you think I don't have any balls? Do you think I'm a eunuch?"
She slid her hand down from his shoulder to his smooth upper arm and stroked it lightly. "I don't denigrate the word 'friend' the way you do," she answered spiritedly. "If that's the way you feel about it, go ahead and fuck me, since that seems to be what's on your mind."
But he made no move. "I don't want you letting me do it," he said uncomfortably. "I want you to want it, too." For the first time since he had removed his hand from her mound, still damp from its icy soaking, he turned his head and looked at her. His deep-set eyes, almost spaniel-like in the intensity of their gaze, regarded her pleadingly. "Is it too much to ask?"
"Wayne," Jessie said seriously, "I don't know how many girls you've had, and I don't want to know, but didn't it ever occur to you that you have to make the girl want it?"
"Make her?" he said in a tone of disbelief.
Jessie sighed. "We're all Christian ladies, Wayne, which places men at a disadvantage. But some men are born knowing that we're also female animals, and those men never make the mistake of asking a girl for anything. They take it."
"You mean-rape?" Wayne's disbelief had turned to awe.
"Of course I don't mean rape," Jessie said briskly. "We like to have a say in the matter. We insist upon it, in fact. But when we say 'no' we don't always mean no. We're adhering to the female convention while expecting the men to react according to male convention."
Wayne half-turned in the bed until they were almost body-to-body again. His hand returned to her naked belly with renewed eagerness, his fingers twining themselves in the thick curls of her dark pubic hair. His middle finger separated itself from the rest and probed his bed-companion's silky sex-slit, coming to rest at the entrance to her grotto.
Jessie made herself relax while she experienced the tentative probing of the finger. Despite her moralizing little homily to Wayne, she knew she didn't really want him. What would it do to his undernourished psyche, however, if she refused him the fruit of the unexpected proximity? A man was probably entitled to expect the obvious when he found himself in bed with a bareass girl. Certainly a man thought he was entitled. If she said no to Wayne now, could she really call herself his friend?
The probing finger separated the cluster of Jessie's moist pussy-hair and nudged her vaginal orifice lightly. She widened her thighs under the blankets, and Wayne eagerly pursued his advantage. He immersed the finger to the first knuckle inside her vaginal orifice and moved it in and out. Jessie found herself holding her breath as a hot spark ignited in her sexual depths.
"You're getting wet," Wayne whispered.
"Yes," Jessie breathed acknowledgment. To herself she thought: "Don't talk! Don't talk!" But she remained silent, moving her thighs again to accommodate Wayne's wrist between them as he plunged the finger more deeply.
His frigging of her was more awkward than it was expert, but Jessie's hot spark flared to a flaming intensity. Instinctively she reached for the penis she had previously felt pressing against her thigh. She seized the erection in her palm, closing her fingers over it, and Wayne's whole body trembled at the shock of the sensation.
The ravaging finger boldly finger-fucked her sex-chute as deeply as it could reach. Jessie could hear her own audible sighs and feel her own squirming. More truly than she had intended, the female animal had suddenly taken over. A female animal with cunt in heat and a hard-gristled prick at hand. Jessie stroked with her thumb the soft, rubbery-feeling head of the prick in her hand while her fingers continued to squeeze the shaft.
Wayne lunged up in the bed suddenly and surged over her. The blankets fell away from them but Jessie hardly noticed the remaining chill in the cabin air. She wormed her hips a bit more into the bed's center as the male body lowered itself upon her. She widened her thighs, then bit her lip as she felt Wayne's prong and balls drag lightly across her gaping pussy.
Both his hands were at her trim waist as he bumped his prick-head against her mustached cloister. Jessie reached down swiftly and took the blind-questing prick in her hand again, guiding it to its goal. "Ahhhhhh!" she sighed involuntarily as she felt the initial penetration and distension. The sturdy shaft eased its way into her heated passage, and then Wayne's hips flurried and he plunged into her until he was solidly lodged. "Ahhhhhh!" Jessie exclaimed, her voice turning shrill. Her legs came up and locked over Wayne's bare back.
Wayne began to move upon her, working his shaft in and out. His movements were uncoordinated, and Jessie's sleek bottom, eager to join in the dance, had difficulty matching its own gyrations to the tempo of the stout cock lodged in Jessie's pussy-depths. Her hands instinctively clutched Wayne's shoulders, seeking to control his rhythm, but to no avail.
Wayne's knees scrabbled on the bed as he tried for more leverage in his poking of the lubricated channel whose tight clutch delighted his prick. A starburst of sensation at the tip of his penis assailed him, startling him into momentary immobility. Then he powerdived furiously upon the quiescent crypt encompassing his tingling prong as he shot load after load of sperm into Jessie's cunt.
She lay on her back as Wayne collapsed upon her. Her hands lightly patted his shoulders and back but her mind was a long way off. The hot-glowing coal in her interior had died out to be replaced by a vacantly aching sensation. She could feel the cock inside her shriveling after Wayne's climax.
He stirred upon her warmed flesh. "You didn't come," he said hoarsely. Disappointment dripped from every self-accusing syllable.
"A girl doesn't come every time," Jessie said softly.
"No, it's me," Wayne said. His voice was almost a groan. "I'm no damn good in bed. I should apologize to you."
"Stop it!" Jessie said firmly. "Don't be silly, Wayne." She made herself continue the smooth-stroking motions of her palms along his prostrate back. His shrunken penis oozed from her cunt with a soft plop, and after a moment he raised himself and dropped down beside her. His eyes refused to meet hers.
Jessie remained on her back while she felt Wayne's spend trickling from her pussy down into her bottom-crack. There was no water in the cabin, and Wayne hadn't worn a rubber. She wasn't on The Pill. Wouldn't it be ironic if in accommodating a friend she became pregnant? That would really finish off her chance of getting the cashier's appointment at the bank.
"I'm no damn good in bed," Wayne repeated into the silence in the cabin. "I always know what I want to do but I'm never able to do it. I get too excited."
Jessie almost made the mistake of saying that was because he hadn't had much experience. Instead, she reached for his hand and pressed it lightly. "Not every male-female coupling is a perfect blending," she said quietly. "And I doubt that either of us was at our best today after that tumble into the freezing pond." She sought for additional words. She didn't want to say next time it would be better, because she felt no inducement toward a next time. She felt she had done her duty, if that was the phrase for it. "I hope it was good for you, Wayne," she concluded. She knew it was lame, but it was the best she could manage.
"You know it was good!" he said fervently. His free hand sought her bare breast and fumbled with it clumsily. "You're so beautiful, Jessie and you have such a marvelous body." His eyes were devouring her hungrily again as she still remained sprawled on her back.
Jessie maneuvered her breast out of range gently. "I'm getting chilly again," she said.
Wayne took the hint and covered her reluctantly with the blankets. Then he slumped down in the bed with his hands locked behind his head while he once more stared up at the bark-beamed roof of the cabin. "I really do thank you, Jessie," he said without looking at her. "I always told myself I'd never ask you, but I couldn't help myself this afternoon."
Jessie felt even more embarrassed at his grateful appreciation than she had at initially rebuffing him. She tried to form a soothing reply, then gave it up. What was the sense in attempting to boost Wayne's ego when he had so little of it? The slight frustration-cramp in her lower belly was proof enough in this case that least said soonest mended.
Wayne spoke again after another extended silence. "You really ought to think over the situation at the bank," he said. His tone was serious. "I'd hate to see Gloria get the job just because Milton's laying her. You've got the qualifications. She hasn't."
"Didn't you hear me say if I had to fuck for the job I didn't want it?" Jessie asked.
"Why so high-and-mighty?" Wayne returned. "You can't go any higher in the bank until you've used the cashier's position as a stepping stone. And you can't wait for Gloria to die off because she's only a couple of years older than you are."
"But Milton King-"
"Oh, sure, Milton's something else with the girls," Wayne interrupted at the sound of the protest in Jessie's voice. "But we've both lived long enough to know if it wasn't him it would be someone else. That's business. Not as it's written up in the family newspaper, but that's business."
"You sound like you're ready to take down my panties for him and act as chambermaid," Jessie said resentfully. "I tell you I don't even like the man."
"What's that got to do with it?" Wayne demanded. "It would be so damn easy for you. I've seen him looking at you. Prance around in front of him for a couple days with a few buttons unfastened and you can write your own ticket. And it's no small ticket, Jessie. I'll let you in on an ill-kept secret. I'm going to get a branch managership one of these days, because I'm a man, but for a woman the only way up the ladder is a rung at a time inside the main office. And you're turning it down because you don't like Milton's arrogance."
The analysis was so acute that Jessie remained silent. There was so much truth in what Wayne said. In this day and age what mattered was a bed-session or two with Milton King! Hadn't she accommodated Wayne just now with no spark of real feeling for him except friendship?
But she almost actively disliked the bank vice-president. And the thought of coercion, even if mental, troubled her. She had always prided herself upon being a free spirit.
"Well?" Wayne said as the silence again lengthened.
She stirred uneasily under the blankets. Sometime during Wayne's unsatisfactory session with her she had lost all trace of the icily numbed feeling in her flesh she had felt when she had stumbled inside the cabin. At least she had gained that much. "You're probably right," she said at last. "Hell, I know you're right. But I don't think I can do it."
"It's your decision," Wayne sighed.
"Yes, and it's my ass, too," Jessie said impudently.
Wayne smiled, lightening the acne-dark excresences on his face. Then his expression changed. "A beautiful one," he said soberly.
"Are our clothes dry yet?" Jessie asked hastily. She was afraid he would turn himself on again via the mental image conjured up in his mind's eye.
Wayne slid from the bed, stretching luxuriantly. He padded to the fireplace and felt the clothes draped over the chair backs. "Still a little damp," he reported. "But body heat will probably dry them out after we get into them."
"Body heat probably saved us from pneumonia or something worse," Jessie said.
"I've got a better word than that to say for it," Wayne replied. He had a glint in his eye as he returned to the bed. "It made my day."
Jessie slipped out of bed on the opposite side as casually as she could manage it. "I told Irene I'd be home early," she said, walking quickly to the chairs and retrieving her long-thighed woolen panties. She inserted first one leg and then the other before wriggling them up over her plump, bell-shaped behind. "It's my turn to make dinner." Without looking at Wayne she inserted her arms through the straps of her clammy-feeling bra, encasing her large breasts as dark-blue-nippled as any Concord grape but with pink tips.
Wayne began to dress silently, lips compressed. Jessie knew he had noticed the evasion, and that his sensitive antenna had absorbed the rejection. Wayne was too sensitive for his own good, she decided.
Wayne opened the cabin door when they were ready. Jessie flinched at the blast of cold air that seemed to penetrate through her damp clothing. They had a mile to walk to the car. She took a final look around the cabin that had proved their salvation in what could have been a critical situation on such a zero day. Wayne had returned the blankets to the closet and pulled the bed away from the fireplace. Except for the embers among the nearly burned-out logs, the place looked almost as deserted as when they'd entered it.
"I'll give one of the kids a buck to load up the fireplace again," Wayne said as though reading her unspoken thought.
Jessie stepped out in her socks onto the snowy path.
They trotted to the bank of the farm pond where Wayne retrieved their skates.
They circled the pond and pulled on their shoes which were on the other side.
With no further conversation they set out for the farmhouse and the car.