Page 49 of The Widow and the Wanted

“What’s nasty about it? Because you want to fuck her?”

I give him my most surprised and appalled look, but it don’t take. He don’t flinch.

“All right,” I admit. “So what if I do? You’re fond of her too, even if you show it like a damn dictator,” I say.

“Mm.”

“Mm,” I mock back, grinning and letting my chair rock back another inch. I ought to leave it alone. I never have had much talent for that. “I see the way you look at her. You want to fuck her too.”

“Enough,” he grumbles. He wipes his face, sits up and moves to the bed. I join him, resting against his shoulder. He presses a gentle kiss to my temple, then says goodnight. Outside, the weather turns fast. Wind comes hard out of nowhere, then snow after it, thick and crooked, swallowing the yard by the minute.

The lean-to disappears first, then the woodpile, then even the dark line of the trees blurs to nothing. Before long the whole world beyond the window is just white fury. No man could cross that open ground without losing his hat, and no horse would stand it long neither. Whatever bastard was watching us this morning is out there buried same as everything else now, and for one night at least, the storm bars the way better than any bullet we’ve got.

Chapter 15

Lula

Boone sighs, cheeks flushed from the last of the whiskey. “All right, mean little thing. What game you want to play, since everything’s gotta be your way?”

“Hmm,” I think aloud. “There was a game we played on the expedition.” I get up and rush to my suitcase, where I’ve kept my large field notebook. It’s leather bound with pressed flowers and all my observations from the expedition inside. In the back is a loose parchment we’d used as a makeshift planchette board—the words yes and no in opposite corners, all the letters of the alphabet in between. I place it at the center of the table before shutting the notebook and setting it aside.

“Does anyone have a coin?” I ask.

“This one of them games where you steal my penny?” Boone says, rustling through his pocket, tongue poking from the corner of his mouth. He’s unfairly handsome tonight, the way some men can be when they’re loosened, bright-eyed and grinning from drink.

“If it were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you, now would I? No, this is called planchette.”

He sets a penny on the paper with a dramatic sigh. “If you say so.”

I rest my finger on it. “Go ahead, both of you put a finger on the penny.”

“Ain’t enough room,” Boone snaps.

“Not your whole finger, you buffoon,” I poke.

“Easy for you to say with them tiny doll hands you got,” he says, resting a calloused fingertip at the copper edge. “What kinda game is this anyhow?”

“We ask the spirits of the great beyond a question, and they communicate through⁠—”

Before I can even finish my sentence, Okee leans back. “I’m out.”

“Truly?”

“That’s divination. I’m not about to invite spirits into this cabin and neither will you.”

I laugh, so startled by the very serious concern etched in this burly man’s expression at the thought of communing with the dead that my voice goes up an octave. “You’re scared.”

“You’re damn right I am.”

Then I remember what he said about mission school and being raised strictly within his father’s religion.

Boone laughs so hard he nearly falls out of his chair. Okee’s arms are calmly crossed as he leans back, stone-faced.

“Scared of haints? If they was real, you reckon they’d be here with the likes of us, spellin’ words for sport? Only spirits I’m concerned with come in a jug.” He chuckles to himself. “And the only jugs I'm concerned with is that splendid pair you’re hidin’ under that bodice.” He leans forward as if to press his face against my bosom, but stops shy of actually touching me, then shakes his face and blubbers wickedly. The fool.

Okee drags a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “Boone,” he says, soft. So soft it’s strangely tender. He shoots me an apologetic look.

“You’re obscene,” I say to Boone, shoving against his arm.