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Melinda ignored the tremble in her hand and reached for the slender black stove handle. The catch released at her downward twist and she enjoyed a brief thrill of success. Look at that, I didn’t explode. The crowd goes wild. She tugged the door open wide and warm air sucked the moisture from her eyeballs.
Melinda perused the ingredients at her disposal. Third step: newspaper. Newspaper—was that right? Should it be flat? Tented? Folded into a crane? Melinda closed her eyes and tried to remember. What had her troop done? She was thirty-two now, so it must have been twenty-three years ago, when she was nine. Who could remember building a fire twenty-three years ago? Melinda squashed three sheets of paper into something resembling snowballs and dared the coals to contradict her. She added the newspaper to the coals and watched them smoke lightly and then incinerate themselves into nothing.
“No, no! Stop!” she hissed. She grabbed a handful of kindling and shoved it on the expiring newspaper with a desperate prayer.
The kindling rested with what appeared to be cool comfort atop the mocking coals. She had better hurry up with step four.
“Easier said than done,” she muttered and grabbed two rough-split logs. She manhandled them into the stove and groaned as she knocked aside the underperforming twigs.
“Kuttar bachcha,” she whispered at the place where a fire should be. Son of a bitch.
“You tell ’im,” rumbled a voice behind her, and Melinda jerked around to see Grant propped on one elbow as he watched her from the floor.
“This thing won’t work,” she sputtered, simultaneously frustrated and embarrassed.
“You’re off to a great start, though,” Grant said. Smooth as a panther, he sat upright, stretched, and rolled his shoulders. He dropped his head to elongate his neck and twist his torso left and right.
Melinda forgot about the fire.
“Want a hand?” he asked.
“I need way more than a hand,” she muttered as she watched his display, and then she blushed. “I need an intervention,” she added hastily. Was everything she said innuendo? “Can you do this and I’ll take care of the oatmeal?” She stumbled to her feet. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“Getting paid in food for lighting someone’s fire works for me.”
Melinda hid her smile and Grant threw back his blankets to stand.
Suddenly serious, he asked, “How’s the head? I’m glad to see you moving around, even though I wish you’d let me take care of things this morning.”
“I’m a little stiff but the pain is much less,” she said, brushing her skull with tentative fingertips. “It’s a little tender for sure. But I can turn my head all right. I even bent over in the pantry earlier!” Melinda’s face flamed at the picture she’d painted. Grant’s words appeared to stall in his mouth.
“Uh, and did you feel pressure?” he managed.
Melinda imagined his face got a little redder at that comment.
“In your head. Did your head hurt when you were, uh, in the pantry?”
“Not really. Definitely not as bad as yesterday,” she said, hoping the oatmeal would boil over and give her an excuse to leave.
“Well, progress, then,” he said. “Have you had any fish oil yet?”
“Ick, no. Not before breakfast,” she said. “It should be done by now. Do you think Paul has a serving tray?”
“He must. This place is deluxe,” Grant said wryly.
Melinda laughed and escaped to the kitchen.
~
Grant shoved his hands through his hair and stretched both arms overhead to work the stiffness from his involuntary slumber party. He wished Melinda hadn’t beaten him to wakefulness today, but perhaps last night had been worse for him than for her. She seemed to be moving around well. Her attempt at a fire was heartening as well as endearing. He walked to the stove, whose door she’d left ajar in her haste, and evaluated the scene. It was about time to start from scratch, anyway.
Grant carefully extracted the ash tray, dumped the contents into the metal ash bucket, then recreated the fire. He fingered his stubbly jaw and realized it was time to ask Melinda’s permission to intrude on the bathroom.
He found her in the kitchen, tinkering with something on the range.
“Hi,” he said, relieved when she didn’t jump.
“Hi,” she replied and half-turned to face him, a question in her tone.
