Page 46 of The Widow and the Wanted

He gives me a look for that, but he don’t move away when I bend in and kiss the corner of his mouth. Just one at first. Quick. Cold air on both our faces, his lips warm all the same.

I kiss his jaw this time, then his neck. He exhales sharp through his nose.

I slide both arms around him and pull him in proper, coat to coat, hat brim knocking his forehead. He lets me hold him for half a breath before his hand hooks in the front of my shirt and drags me into a kiss rough enough to pay me back for all the foolishness. I make a sound I hope the horse has the manners to ignore.

When he lets me up, his eyes are dark. He smooths my collar flat where he’s wrinkled it and glances once toward the cabin. “Compose yourself.”

“I don’t want to be composed. I want to be a mess. Why you bein’ cruel?”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to fuck out here with Lula watching our every move?”

“To hell with her watchin’, I ain’t had you in too long. I’m near beside myself.”

He gives me a look. “You’re surviving, just like I am. Now come. It’s too cold out here to drop my pants anyway.”

Cold air. Hot skin. The sting of being stretched by him. Lord have mercy. Before I can beg him anymore, he’s already walking toward the cabin. I follow, kicking a lump of snow into a ditch.

That’s when I see the tracks.

Not mine. Not Okee’s. Not Lula’s neat little prints from hauling scraps to the edge of the yard.

These are boots. Men’s, by the look. Half filled with ice and already softening at the edges, but not old enough to ignore. One set comes in from the trees. Another crosses it once near the lean-to, heel dug deeper there, like somebody has stopped to shift their weight and stare. They make a trail from the lean-to, then turn in the opposite direction of the cabin.

I crouch and brush the edge of the nearest print with a gloved finger. Frozen crust gives way beneath it.

Recent.

“Okee,” I call, before he can get too far. He stops and turns, alert, the tension in my voice enough to raise his hackles.

“You been up this way this morning?”

“What way?”

I point at the footprint and the others that follow it, up and out of the perimeter. He shakes his head, sweeping his attention over the snow-covered acres.

The tracks lead straight to the lean-to. Whoever it is has come close enough to put hands on the rail if he wants, close enough to count what we have, before turning back the way he came.

The woods stand quiet and black between the trunks, too still. The sort of still that makes a man feel watched.

The cabin sits behind me with smoke lifting clean from the chimney. Anybody with eyes can mark us easy. Count the wood stacked by the wall. Count the days we’ve been snowed in and start guessing what our supplies look like by now.

We stand there a moment longer, listening, before we turn back toward the house.

Inside, the cabin’s warm enough to make my face ache from the cold leaving it. Warm bread, woodsmoke, and the faint, clean bite of soap. Lula’s at the table with her sleeves rolled, a spread of dried leaves, little packets, and jars laid out in tidy rows over old newspapers. There’s a pot steaming low by the stove and a sharp green smell in the air under the bread and smoke.

I stop and blink. “What’s all this?”

Without looking up, she says, “A remedy.”

“For what?”

“The cough you’re pretending not to have.”

I run my fingers through my hair. The sweet thing is that she is worried about me, but there’s bigger problems at hand. “Someone’s been nosin’ around,” I say, not bothering to soften it. “Tracks by the lean-to. Boots. Recent.”

“What?” she says, her sly expression sobering.

“Boone, stop. You’ll frighten her,” Okee says.