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Then she turned and grabbed up the cage by its handle and took it to the cabin, setting it on the far side of the room from the spot where her father lay, so that when Georgina began singing she wouldn’t wake him up.
Mia paused long enough to look at her father again, something inside her telling her that he might be worse than he had tried to claim. He rarely dropped off to sleep this early in the evening. And he still seemed to be breathing shallowly.
All of these things made her feel terribly anxious, for she knew that if anything happened to her father, she would find it hard to make it in this lonely world with only her bird as a companion.
She turned with a start at the sound of footsteps entering the cabin, breathing a sigh of relief when she found that Tiny had returned. He brought with him an armload of wood.
She truly had never thought the sight of him would be welcome to her, but she had to admit to herself that he was a lifeline of sorts now that her father was disabled.
“I’ll get a fire goin’ in no time flat,” Tiny said, dropping the wood to the floor in front of the fireplace. He laughed to himself when the sudden noise and movement made Mia’s bird flap frantically around in her cage.
“You frightened her,” Mia said, hurrying to Georgina’s rescue. She picked the cage up and brought it close to her face. “Sweetie, calm down. Nothing is going to happen to you. Not while I’m here to protect you.”
Mia’s soothing voice calmed the bird, but across the room, stacking wood in the fireplace, Tiny gave the bird an evil glare over his shoulder.
He could hardly wait to open the door of that cage and watch the bird fly out of it.
He could hardly wait to see Mia’s face when she saw that it was gone.
These thoughts made his work seem effortless as he got a huge fire going in the fireplace, and then also in the potbellied stove.
“Ready for the cook here,” Tiny said, stepping aside so that Mia could get started with the evening meal, which would be made from the canned goods she had brought into the cabin.
He just wasn’t ready to go hunting for meat tonight.
He’d take this time to relax and wait for just the right moment to make this pretty little thing’s world turn upside down. He was going to release her bird as soon as Mia was fast asleep tonight.
“I wonder what’s in those other cabins out there?” he asked idly, sitting on a rickety chair that stood beside a faded old oak table. He shrugged. “Probably nothin’ worth lookin’ at, or takin’.”
Mia stirred the tomato soup.
The tantalizing aroma awakened Mia’s father.
He sat up, then lay back down when he felt an unaccustomed dizziness.
He didn’t complain to Mia about it. She had enough worries on those pretty, tiny shoulders of hers.
Mia was aware of mosquitoes buzzing around in the room. She eyed her father. If he got malaria from mosquito bites, that would be the last of him.
She stepped away from the stove and went looking inside the wooden cabinets that lined half of one wall opposite the fireplace.
She smiled when she found some folded mosquito netting. No doubt mosquitoes were always a problem there beside the river.
She unfolded the netting and stretched it over her father, even covering his head, securing it so that he had enough room between his face and the netting to breathe.
She wondered if she should awaken him for supper?
But yes, she knew that she should. Her father would not want to pass up an opportunity to eat his wife’s home cooking!
She went back to the stove and continued stirring the soup, the delicious aroma from it now spiraling slowly into the air. She was eager to eat, too, for the soup was a dear reminder of her mother.
She glanced at Tiny, who sat a few feet away on the floor before the fire in the fireplace, playing cards with a pretend partner.
She stiffened when she heard the distant baying of a wolf. Suddenly she felt very, very vulnerable!
Chapter Five
One word is too often profound
