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make the first move. She did have some standards with men she’d just met who weren’t her type.
    “Two rooms? Nope, can’t do it. We don’t get much business here and I’m semi-retired and well, I haven’t kept things up as good as I could have and the place needs a new roof. With all the snow, seven of the eight rooms have leaks with buckets in them. There’s only one that’s fine and it’s the one closest to the office here where my grandson did a patch on the roof.”
    “You can take that,” Christian said, looking at her. “I’ll take the one with the least leaking, I don’t mind.”
    Was there a pause there? Was he waiting for her to say something? Blue wasn’t sure, but she realized he wasn’t going to throw it out there in front of the old guy, and he was clearly trying to be a gentleman. Blue hadn’t been aware that those still existed, but apparently she’d been wrong. Maybe about a lot of things.
    “Christian, you don’t have to take a leaky room. You can just share mine, it’s not a big deal.”
    “Are you sure?” He smiled and it wasn’t a ‘gee, thanks’ kind of smile. It was a ‘I’m going to ignore my bed and be in yours’ kind of smile.
    Perfect. “Yes. I have to warn you, I’m kind of a slob, though.”
    “I wouldn’t have believed anything else.” He turned back to the motel owner. “Okay, we’ll take the good room. How much will that be, sir?”
    “Oh, I don’t take credit cards,” the manager said, when he saw Christian pulling his out of his wallet. “But don’t worry about it, I’m not going to charge folks who are stranded on Christmas Eve.”
    “It’s no trouble,” Christian insisted, pulling several twenties out of his wallet. “We’re just grateful you can put us up.”
    “Put your money away.” He waved his hand and looked offended. “I’m not having none of that.”
    “Well, thank you,” Christian said. “We appreciate it. I’m Christian, by the way, and this is Blue.”
    “What did you say?” He scrunched his eyes up at Blue. “Did he say your name is Blue?”
    “Yes.” She shrugged. “My mom was trying to be unique.”
    “Huh. I knew a fella named Red once, but that was his nickname. Never met anyone named after a Crayola crayon before. But my grandson’s name is Rock so I guess if you can be named for something no one ever wants to be as dumb as, I guess you might as well name someone after a color in the rainbow. Not sure what happened to Sarah and William though.”
    “My sister’s name is Sarah,” Blue told him, rocking on her heels, amused by his assessment of the randomness of name choices. “I think my father saw the error of his ways.”
    He nodded. “I can see that.” Then he winked behind his thick glasses. “Though I reckon you’re the prettier one anyway. I’m Roy, by the way.”
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Roy.”
    “Is there any chance I can borrow your phone, Roy? I just want to call my friend and let her know what happened to me.”
    “Sure, sure, no problem.” He pushed the phone over to her.
    Blue dialed Emily and left her a voice mail explaining the situation when she didn’t pick up her phone. She handed the phone to Christian, who called his parents. Curious, she half-listened to his conversation, noting that he was both respectful and comfortable in tone.
    “Where were you headed?” Roy asked Blue.
    “Florida. I was supposed to be going on a cruise.”
    “Oh, boy. Mother Nature can be a bitch, can’t she?”
    That made Blue nod grimly. “Yes, she can be, Roy.”
    As Christian hung up the phone, Roy got them a key and handed it to him. “If you all are up and hungry in the morning, come on over to the office here and have some breakfast with me. Doesn’t look like my grandkids will be able to collect me until the afternoon with the weather like this, and I’d enjoy the company.”
    “We’d love to,” Blue said, knowing instinctively that Christian would be on board with that. A