Page 109

Alive.

Home had sent something to meet me.

"I know," I said into her fur. "I know. I'm late."

Biscuit pulled free and ran six feet into the storm.

Stopped.

Looked back.

Barked.

The old working-dog verdict.

Move.

I stood.

Beyond her, faint and yellow and trembling through the snow, the yard light appeared.

Then the calving barn rose from the white.

Long. Low. Lamplit.

The small door glowed around its edges.

Biscuit reached it first and barked herself hoarse at the wood until somebody inside lifted the latch.

Chapter 19

Boone

The door opened, and I turned toward it because I had been turning toward it all night. Every gust. Every latch rattle. Every ranch hand coming through with snow on his shoulders.

This time the shape in the doorway was small. It was her. She was really there.

Biscuit barked and ran in circles of excitement as Josie stood on the threshold.

For one second, I didn't understand what I saw. Snow packed her from her knit cap to her knees. Ice hung in her braid. Her barn coat had gone stiff across the shoulders. A gray blanket bunched beneath it, wet and dragging. Her face was white except for raw patches across her cheeks.

Real.

She was real.

I crossed the barn in three strides.

Her knees folded on the second.

I caught her before she hit the straw and had her off the ground before I decided to lift. She weighed nothing. Wet wool, snow, narrow bones, and the hard shaking of a body that had spent too long making its own heat.

Her arms came around my neck.

Not tightly. Her fingers didn't seem to work.

"Boone."

I got my hand behind her head and held her against my chest. Ice from her braid struck my wrist.