Page 85 of The Widow and the Wanted

But this⁠—

Romance.

This is worse.

I clear my throat. “Well, of course. But this is just a fleeting thing. You two have found everlasting happiness together.”

Boone’s face is struck with a kind of wounded impatience, as if I have said something foolish on purpose.

“Why’s it got to be fleeting?” he asks.

Okee shifts. “Boone⁠—”

“No, I mean it.” Boone pushes himself up a little higher on his elbow, blanket slipping lower on his hips without him seeming to notice. “Why’s it got to be some little pretty interlude? Why can’t it be a thing in its own right?”

My mouth parts, but no answer comes.

Okee drags a hand over his face. “You are being intense.”

“I’m being honest.” Boone’s eyes stay on mine, bright and earnest in a way that feels far more dangerous than his flirting ever did. “I like the hell out of you, Lula.”

The words hit me square in the chest.

Boone goes on, as if once started he cannot quite stop. “I like the way you look at me like you’re halfway to scoldin’ or halfway to kissin’. I like the way you stew up flowers to make the cabin smell nice. I like the way you cared for me when I was laid up. Plus you’re clever. And kind. And not just with sweet words, but the kind of kindness that’ll curse you for bein’ so stupid while you’re savin’ ’em.”

I stare at him, clutching the blanket tighter.

Beside me, Okee mutters, “Christ.”

Boone throws a hand in his direction without looking. “Don’t ‘Christ’ me. She said fleeting. Ain’t that a word for somethin’ that flies by like nothin’?”

“She said it because she has sense.”

“Well, I don’t much care for it.”

A laugh almost rises in me at that, except I am too startled to let it out. My pulse is all wrong. Too quick. Too warm.

Boone runs a hand through his hair. “I only mean,” he says, slower now, “that I hate hearing you talk like this was just us scratching an itch.”

All at once I become very aware of how naked I am. Of Okee’s bare shoulder only inches from mine. Of the fact that there is nowhere in this cabin to put my blush where either of them cannot see it.

Okee’s voice softens when he speaks again. “What Boone is failing to say with any finesse at all is that neither of us takes you lightly.”

He says it so simply. Which somehow makes it worse.

My throat goes dry. I have no idea what to do with men like this.

“Perhaps I had better get dressed,” I say, trying not to look as flustered as I feel, which is impossible because I am, in fact, naked and flustered nearly to death.

Okee rises first. He only gathers his trousers from the floor and turns his back to offer me what privacy a one-room cabin can.

I pause with the blanket still gathered to me, my chemise somewhere in the tangle of sheets, and look up.

Boone has gone pink at the ears, as if Okee’s plainness embarrasses him more than his own outburst did. Okee only reaches for his shirt with studied calm, though he does not quite meet my eyes.

As I gather up my scattered clothes and turn away to dress, I cannot quite stop thinking about the possibility that they might want me to stay.

I can scarcely imagine how we’ll survive winter cooped up in here. Beyond this?