“I, uh,” she said, holding up her still-sleeved arm for my attention. I didn’t want to risk standing her up to take my shirt off her.
She sighed when the hot water enveloped her, sinking down in and closing her eyes.
“Will you get this shirt off me?” She slurred her words. I prayed it was the whiskey and the warmth getting to her, finally pushing out the pain.
“Sure,” I said. Her eyes fluttered open, and she watched my hands as I undid the buttons on the front of the flannel and slipped it off her shoulders so she wouldn’t have to lift her arms. I reached over and turned on the jets so she’d have at least that much privacy, and I wrung out my wet shirt into the sink.
After that, I had no business being in the bathroom with my naked houseguest. I stood there awkwardly. “Well,” I said, “I guess, let me know if you—”
“Would you wash my hair? I can’t…I mean, I don’t have the…”
“Oh, um, yeah. Of course I can. I don’t have any fancy stuff for hair washing, though. Just the one soap.” She lay her head back on the rim of the tub and shut her eyes again.
She didn’t need to hear me prattling on. I pulled up the old wooden step stool and sat down, too distracted by the suggestion of her leg in the water, and squeezed out my bottle of soap-shampoo-everything-goo right onto the floor instead of into my hand.
Get a grip.
I gave it another go and massaged the soap into her scalp in small movements, as careful as I could.
I thought to point out my favorite tree to her, right outside the window, but she’d already fallen asleep. Lips slightly parted, snoring sweetly.
I sat there, my hands soapy, her hair sudsed, and listened to the burble of the tub and to the rain on the roof, and I thanked God she hadn’t been killed last night.
“What you need is a good, long rest,” I said. “What do you think?” I pulled another old flannel shirt over her head and down as far as it would go. If we kept going through them at this rate, we’d be out of shirts in no time. “I’ll put you out near the fire, where it’s warmer, while I go work on the downed tree and check on your car, get your things.”
The temperature had taken a sharp dive since the rains came back with a vengeance. I’d need to bring in some more wood for the fire. Didn’t look like we were going to get much of a reprieve today.
She nodded, her eyelids heavy. She’d slept in the bath for a good twenty minutes, and only woke because I’d dropped the rinsing cup on the floor.
I scooped her up from the bed. I still wanted her to test and see if she could put pressure on that leg, but this wasn’t the right time.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice low and breathy in a way that pulled hard on my heart.
She lay her cheek and her hand on my chest and sighed heavily.
Oh Mia.
Her eyes were practically rolling back into her head. Too much to drink, too much trauma in the past 24 hours. Not enough food or bona fide sleep. I’d have to get down off the mountain and get something of substance for her to eat instead of this sorry bachelor’s charcuterie I kept feeding her.
I lay her on the sofa, minding her tender shoulder and hip, and I covered her with my best wooly blanket.
“I’ll leave some water and snacks here near the couch for you, in case you wake up hungry and thirsty. Hopefully I won’t be gone too long.”
“Thanks, Armin,” she said. She took my hand in hers, and held it, and looked deep into my eyes. “I mean it. Thank you.”
I hadn’t heard my real name in decades. It drummed an old memory loose in me, of who I was before becoming a sheriff, before the army, back when I was just a hungry kid, desperate to eat more than once a day. I pushed it out of my head, and I focused on her.
“It’s um…it’s nothing.”
“No it isn’t,” she said. She let my hand go. “It’s not nothing.”
I threw another couple of logs on the fire and stoked them into place so that it would roar up good and keep her warm.
“Be right back.” I grabbed my jacket, my hat, and my work gloves, and took one more look at the shape of Mia, under my blanket, on my couch by the fireplace.
I imagined kissing the top of her head, my lips on those wet ringlets.
I hurried out the front door, grabbed my axe from off the top of the woodpile on the side of the cabin, and hustled to my truck.
