Page 73 of The Widow and the Wanted

“Well that’s certainly sage advice,” she says at last, “from a man sitting in a barrel like a pickled ham.”

I can’t help but laugh at that even as I shiver. Lula looks at me a long second, like she’s deciding whether to drown me or laugh. Then her hand goes to my forehead. “You’re cooled down. Come on then,” she says, and steps back to give me room.

Lula’s already got a towel in her hands, coarse and thin. She slaps it against my chest.

“Hold that,” she orders, and my fingers close around it like a man obeying without meaning to.

The towel’s scratchy and cold at first. I wipe my face, my hair, water dripping down my neck and onto the floor. Lula turns away, busying herself, swiping water with a rag.

I’m shivering hard enough my teeth clack. My hands are clumsy with cold. I wrap the towel round my middle, then sink down on the edge of the bed just long enough to catch my breath.

Lula turns back to me. Her eyes make that quick, doctoring sweep before she steps in close and lays the back of her hand against my forehead.

“You’ve come down well,” she says.

Seems like I ought to have some smart thing ready. I don’t.

I just watch her while she fusses over me. Pretty little thing.

Funny, the things I took to in her ain’t anything like Okee. First time I laid eyes on him—tall and broad, all bronze and long black hair, built like his Creator had taken His time—I knew I was done for. Then he went and turned out rare in every way a man can be, and that was the end of me.

This is different.

Lula’s a little general in a skirt. Mouth made for cussin’. Green eyes quick and cutting as a cat’s. I knew she was trouble the minute she looked at me mean. But being shut up here with her, day after day, learning the ways of her. Thought makes my knees weak.

Lula’s skirt sways as she moves about, straightening my sheets.

“Now let’s pray that fever was just your body complainin’ about being shot and not infection.”

I get up with a plan to find pants when I notice one of her hair pins has come loose. It’s hanging half out near her temple, a thin bit of metal that glints in the firelight, caught in a gold strand that’s slipped free.

“Hold on,” I say.

Lula blinks, already ready to snap. “What?”

“Your hair,” I tell her.

“My hair’s fine.”

She says it real confident, like she ain’t got a piece of metal dangling above her ear.

“It ain’t.”

She starts to step past me toward the washstand, muttering something about men and their opinions, and I lift my hand to stop her. My fingers close around her wrist gentle enough, even though she stills like I’ve put a brand on her.

“What are you doing?” she snaps.

“Fixin’ it,” I say, and my throat feels thick. “You got a pin hangin’ like you been in a fistfight.”

Her eyes narrow, but she don’t pull away. She’s close enough now that I can see the faint flush still in her cheeks from the cold, and the tiny wet freckles of barrel water dried on her skin.

I ease the pin free. Careful. The metal’s warm from her head. Her breath catches, a small hitch as I lift the loose strand with two fingers and smooth it back, the way I’ve seen women do with each other, the way Okee sometimes does when his hair’s fallen in his eyes.

Lula’s chin lifts a fraction, like she’s letting me.

I slide the pin in where it ought to sit. My knuckles brush her temple. A soft bit of hair threads through my fingers.

And when the last rebellious strand is caught and tamed—I sit back down on the cot’s edge.