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I head to the door and push it open, wanting to demand to know what’s going on, at the same time realizing that he didn’t use his newfound strength to leave when he obviously could have.
But he stayed. He stayed, and he’s chopping wood.
I blink when I get to the bottom of the cottage stairs, looking up at him. He’s taller than me, I realize for the first time. Before, he was always bent over, as I had to all but carry him.
But now I see that, no, he’s tall. He stands about a head over me, in fact. I can only blink at him, my mouth dropping open when it hits me—his new physique isn’t the only thing that’s changed.
He’s shaved his beard and combed his wild hair back.
I can finally see his face.
And he’s absolutely stunning. A face like a chiseled god’s.
When he sets the ax down and looks at me, I’m completely dumbfounded. I’d had something on my mind to say to him, to ask him, but I suddenly can’t conjure a single thought. I’m completely ridiculous, but I can’t help but just stand there.
“I apologize,” he says, “but I smelled the meat you had cooking all night and came out earlier. And I, well, I finally felt really hungry, so I ate it all.”
I blink out of my momentary stupor and look toward the rudimentary iron smoker beside the cabin where I laid out the deer meat last night and set it smoking. “Oh.” And then I really hear his words, and my head snaps back to him. “You ate all of it?”
His cheeks are already ruddy from the wood-chopping and cold morning air, but I swear they get a little pinker. “I didn’t mean to, I was just so hungry—”
“No, no, it’s totally fine. We can always get more. It’s great that your appetite is back. And it’s obviously helped.” I gesture vaguely at his chest. “You look… different.”
He glances down at himself and, as if only then realizing his bare chest is exposed, reaches for a flannel shirt he tossed near the big stack of chopped wood and tugs it on, quickly stabbing a few buttons through holes. “I heal fast.”
I scoff at that as I walk toward him. “Yeah. Understatement. Apparently, you needed meat and a lot of it. Come here; your buttons are all out of whack.”
I reach to undo the few he’d managed, line the sides of the shirt up correctly, and start to button it again. I only realize that my knuckles are occasionally brushing against the skin of his abdomen when I hear little hisses of air escape his mouth.
Which makes me suddenly hyperaware of how close we’re standing.
And that this man… or whatever he is… is most definitely no longer some convalescing patient I can pretend I’m Florence Nightingale for.
“What now?” I whisper after I have his buttons done correctly all the way up to his collarbone. And why am I still holding onto his shirt? I make myself let go and step back, then force a smile I don’t feel. I guess he’ll go his way, and I’ll go mine, is what I expect him to say.
But instead, he says, “First, I’ve got to get you another buck to replace the one I just ate.”
“Oh.” I laugh with surprise. “Well, it was mostly for you.”
“But you need to eat.” He looks deadly serious as he says this.
I shrug. “I’ll just go hunt another deer. It’s not a big deal.”
He shakes his head. “I ate your deer. I should go hunt the next one.”
I laugh at his bravado. “You’re barely on your feet again.” But I can already see the next protest on his lips.
I’m about to cut him off, but his suggestion surprises me. “Why don’t we do it together?”
I blink, a little taken aback. I don’t do things with people. I’m not a together type of person.
I frown and start striding ahead. “Fine. At least then you’ll see why it makes sense for me to do the hunting.”
I glance over my shoulder only once to see if he’s following and keeping up. His clear, gray eyes are inquisitive, but he nods and starts jogging after me.
For someone I’ve only seen in bed for days, it’s astonishing to see him up and moving again. Half of me hoped that the wood chopping would have laid him out enough that he’d turn back once he saw the pace I was setting. But he easily keeps up with me. I even get the feeling he could go at much greater speeds, which annoys me. I decide to speed up. I was taking it easy on him.
Still, he matches me. So I go even faster, all but flying through the woods now while still being careful to make minimal sound.
