Page 19 of The Widow and the Wanted

He grins, half sheepish, as he picks up his step.

Lula doesn’t turn around. Whether she hears him or not, she doesn’t show it.

We follow the land as it rises, boots punching through the crust. Ice clings to the pines above, dripping melt on our hats. The wind picks up on the ridge. I move forward, closing the space between her and me.

She exhales hard, cheeks flushed pink. “Snow like this makes everything feel farther than it is.”

Boone’s voice lifts from behind. “You sure you don’t want me to carry that case?” It’s the third time he’s asked.

“I’ve carried heavier,” she replies.

“Hard to picture,” he says. “You’re about the size of a rifle stock.”

She stops short and casts him a mean look over her shoulder. “Size is a poor measure of what a body can bear,” she says, breath ragged but steady. “I’ve hauled water buckets and dead men farther than this. This case is nothing.”

Boone raises both hands in surrender, though the corner of his mouth lifts anyway. “Yes, ma’am. Just hate to see a lady overburdened.”

She doesn’t miss a step. “I’m not a lady today,” she says, the words ghosting white into the cold. “I’m a woman trying not to freeze to death or get shot in the back. Save your chivalry for someone who has time to blush.”

That stops him short, then he laughs, louder than I expect. It echoes off the ridge.

“My God,” he says, shaking his head, “you’re a West Virginian woman if I ever met one.”

Lula doesn’t look back, but the set of her shoulders softens a fraction. Her pace doesn’t change, but as I keep pace with her, I see the smallest tug of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

I like this version of her. Still sharp, but the teeth do not draw blood. The bite’s there, but it’s starting to feel more like play than threat.

We walk on. The trees thin a little as the land opens. Boone’s footsteps shift behind me, slower, more careful. “I’d’ve bet money,” he says after a while, “you were the sort wore white gloves to church. Teachin’ little girls how to curtsy.”

Lula laughs, and a black crow breaks from the bare branch overhead in protest.

Boone startles, then grins. “What’s funny?”

She shakes her head, the smile still playing around her mouth. “You really think I was sipping tea with my ankles crossed?”

“Well,” he says, “you speak like a woman with schoolin’. Got that fancy manner to you.”

She gives him a look. “I grew up in a whorehouse, mister,” she says simply. “Before I took up with Eli.”

I stumble over myself slightly, grateful to catch my balance before slipping on ice. Boone blinks, stealing a sideways glance as if to make sure we both heard correctly.

“I prefer whiskey to tea. I wasn’t much of a curtsying type, and the white gloves never stayed white for long.”

Boone exhales slow and lets out a low whistle. “Well. Hell.”

To my surprise, he says nothing else.

A rare mercy. He’s a man who’ll fill silence like it’s a dry well and he’s got buckets to spare.

“And you,” Lula starts. “You seem like someone raised gentle. Father who worked his own land, a mother who tended house. Then the war came and made a man of you whether you were ready or not.”

Our footsteps crunch through the snow, breath fogging the air. My chest aches with the quiet of an answer he hesitates to say aloud. The peace between us has only just settled, but I can tell her presumption lights a fuse. After a silence that lingers more than what’s comfortable, he manages, “Not quite.”

She smiles. “You just seem like a sensitive soul. Too tenderhearted to be a real outlaw.”

He scoffs, and it’s obvious the comment landed as half joke, half insult. “Be grateful for my tenderness, Mrs. Clay. If I ain’t had the heart I do, those men would’ve had their fun with you before they killed you. Guarantee the bastards back there ain’t wasting tears on your friends in the snow.”

I hold my face still, though my cheek twitches. Boone could laugh easy, cry easy, and shatter a man’s jaw for taking either as weakness. There is more honor in him than in most men who’ve never stolen a thing.