Page 91

You’re good for something, old man.

“That hurts. Real bad,” Knox said.

Thank God.

“Hurting is good,” I said. “You want it to hurt. Hurting means you get to keep your fingers.”

I let go and stood, anger surging. “What in God’s name were you doing out there?”

“Trying to talk to Madeleine.” He sounded like an old man, croaky and faint. “She wouldn’t let me in. So I left but I got turned around.”

“You were headed for the creek.” I said. Just saying the words made my blood run cold. “Another few minutes.” I left it at that. We both knew what would have happened had I not been there. “Take off your clothes. Let’s get you into something dry.”

Somehow I got his pants and flannel shirt off and got him dressed in a new pair of jeans and a sweater. His teeth were still chattering as he sank into one of the leather chairs by the fire.

“Do you have any booze?” I asked, covering him with the blanket.

“Jack on the shelf,” he said through gritted teeth.

I found the bottle and poured a generous one for him. “Drink that. Nice and slow.”

He didn’t listen and tossed it back fast, which made him cough. The man never listened.

I poured myself a drink and joined him in front of the fire. We sat quietly for a few moments, perhaps too stunned by what had happened to think of what to say next.

“How did you know I was out there?” Knox asked, holding out his glass.

I splashed another two fingers into his glass. “I saw you knocking on Madeleine’s cabin door and then stumble out into the storm. Used the ropes with some skills I learned from my dad. He used to blindfold me back on the farm so I could figure out how to get home from wherever he dropped me.”

His eyes were as wide as quarters. “Um, yeah, okay. So your unhinged father actually helped you save my life. Here’s to Daddy Walker.”

We clinked glasses.

I could only imagine how smug my dad would be to know his abusive behavior had essentially saved a man’s life.

I got undressed and then borrowed something warm from his stash. He was so dazed he didn’t seem to notice, just stared into the fire, shaking.

The sweatpants were four inches too short but I didn’t think even the fashion police would judge me for that.

Perhaps it was because we felt stripped of every pretense after nearly dying, but we started talking. Not the usual jokes and ribbing, which were our love language, but the real stuff.

“For real, though,” Knox said. “Thank you. I thought I was going to die.”

“What were you doing? Besides scaring a man half to death?”

He told me it was for Madeleine. They’d spent a lot of time together over the last few weeks and he understood now, after all the years of fighting with her, that he was actually in love with her. But then she’d let him go back out into the storm. “She left me out there to die. After I told her I loved her. Who does that?”

“I can’t believe she would do that,” I said. There was no way Madeleine Price would ever do that to another human, whether she loved them or not. “She must not have heard you.”

“Seems unlikely. Small cabin.”

“But the wind was howling pretty good,” I said.

“I let myself fall really hard. I don’t know who I’m angrier at—her or myself.”

“You deserve a conversation and some answers,” I said. “She owes you that much.”

“She hates the word ‘owe.’”