Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

Chapter 816

While Owen Reynolds was huffing and puffing, rolling snowballs in the yard, Roseanne was buried in data entry at the lab, her attention fixed on the numbers flickering across her computer screen.

Mamie and Scales had already gone home for the day.

She was the only one left.

She'd grown so used to Mamie's constant chatter that, for a moment that morning, the quiet felt almost unnatural as she stepped inside. But the moment she climbed onto her workbench and started her experiments, that unease melted away.

Roseanne never feared solitude. The years Murray kept her shut away in that big, empty house had already taught her how to be alone.

She could read by herself, study by herself, cook for herself, eat alone, and wait for time to pass alone.

Doing research could be a group effort or a solo journey. She'd understood that for a long time.

Around noon, Roseanne rubbed her neck, stiff from too many hours hunched over her notes, and headed to the break room for lunch.

She'd made her meal that morning-just needed to pop it in the microwave to heat it up.

She ate as she scrolled absently through her social feed.

Suddenly, a post from Stoddard, just an hour ago, caught her eye:

Text: "Rolled so many I feel sick."

Attached was a photo-three neat rows of snowballs, each one nearly identical in size, lined up in the snow.

Three rows!

was kind of

"like" and left

you're on

[It wasn't me who was

as if the last word hadn't been had, he added: [Actually,

'fire,' it's

Roseanne was lost: [??]

Stoddard didn't reply again.

iPhone? What did that even

shrugged it off, finished her lunch, stretched her legs

again would be twice as hard, and she'd rather finish her work sooner so

smoothly, so by four in the afternoon, she

she stepped into her street, she spotted two kids in front of the neighboring building, working

a bad snowman,

its neck, and they'd perched

It actually looked great.

side, watching as the kids packed handful after handful of snow onto the snowman's belly. Before long, it

Reynolds turned into the street just in time to see Roseanne, utterly absorbed, staring at the two kids as if she were conducting

up behind her,

it that much?"

crinkled with a smile the next moment. "Oh, Professor!

nodded. "Yeah, I was pretty

data analysis, he'd even learned