Page 44 of The Widow and the Wanted

I cannot argue. I have watched it too—men speaking of wives the way they speak of acres and cattle. Even the gentlest men can do it without noticing.

That is the danger of custom. More habit than conviction.

“Do you believe marriage is necessary,” she asks, “for a life to be respectable?”

Respectable. A word used to judge a man’s choices.

“I stopped concerning myself with what folks find respectable a long time ago.”

A pleased look passes over her face.

“And you?” she says, almost reluctantly. “What do you concern yourself with, Mr. Collins?”

I could tell her the safe answer: survival. Enough provisions to get to spring.

But she is looking at me with such interest.

“I…” I start, and stop.

She waits without pressing.

At last, I say, “I only hope to be useful.”

Her face softens, but she does not patronize it. “You most certainly are,” she says simply. “We’d be lost without you.”

It should not undo me, a sentence that mild. But it does.

Somewhere beyond the walls, a branch cracks under snow. We both go still, listening.

Then another sound—boots breaking crust. A familiar step, coming up the porch. The latch lifts. Cold knifes in with him, carrying the scent of open country. Boone fills the doorway, snow crusted white along his shoulders and hat brim.

He brings no meat. That is the first bad news.

The second is the cough. It tears out of him before he can swallow it down.

“Christ alive,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his glove. “Smells like someone stuck a pine up a lumberjack’s backside in here.”

“Pine tea,” Lula offers sweetly. “May I pour you a cup? It’s good for the⁠—”

“Hell no. Liable to start growin’ branches.”

His cough comes again, deeper this time.

Lula’s expression changes.

Not fear.

Assessment.

“Boone,” I say, his gruffness toward her rubbing me more raw than usual. “She is offering her expertise in maintaining winter health.”

At that, he takes off his hat, hangs up his coat, and pauses. “You had some?”

“I did.”

“Taste terrible?”

“It would not be the worst thing you’ve imbibed.”