He said nothing but turned the meat. When it was done, he pulled a branch from the fire and tested it.
“It’s ready.” He handed it to her.
“I’ve not eaten hare before.”
He waited to see if she would turn her nose up at it.
But after studying it for a moment, she pulled off a piece and put it in her mouth. Her eyes closed, and she made a small sound of appreciation. She took another bite, swallowed, licked grease from her fingers.
He dragged his eyes off her and focused on stripping the rest of the meat off the branch.
“Thank you. It’s good.”
“It’s hare.”
“Well.” She met his eyes. “It’s good hare.”
He nodded and took a bite of his own. Food was fuel. Calories against the cold, protein for the muscles, energy for the walk ahead. He chewed and swallowed.
Harper finished first.
She reached behind and produced a tin of condensed milk. She held it up with a triumphant expression. “Found it in the mess. They missed it.”
She’d saved it. Kept it to share while she sat alone waiting for him.
No one did that for him.
“Can I borrow your knife?”
He handed it to her, and she prized the tin open with a competence that no longer surprised him. She poured the thick milk into the tin mug and offered it to him. “You first. You caught dinner.”
He hesitated and then accepted the mug. The sweetness was almost violent after hours of nothing—dense and warm, coating his tongue and the back of his throat.
He handed it back, his fingers brushing hers.
She drank from the same place his mouth had been.
Deliberate.
Or not.
He didn’t know which was worse.
And why the hell did it even matter?
He stared more intently at the flames. Maybe he took a knock on the head earlier.
Harper stood up, lifting more wood from the pile she’d collected to feed to the stove. There was a micro-hesitation in her step. A fractional shift of weight from her left foot to her right, so brief it would be invisible to anyone unless you were watching closely.
“Sit down.”
She kept moving toward the wood pile. “I’m fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I’m stiff. We’ve been walking for?—”
“Sit down, Harper.”
