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“Up and on the side of the trees that aren’t wet. Some of the wood is wet, but I’ll use my knife to remove the wet parts. Hopefully, it will be dry inside.”
Okay. I was suitably impressed. Growing up, we’d always had wood ready. There wasn’t a time I could remember where we’d been caught without enough wood to last the night.
“Where is your mustang?” he asked.
That had been hard. “I let her go. She can survive in the wild, but not confined up here in these conditions.” The opening in our hut was too small for her to fit.
He just nodded. I was grateful he didn’t tell me how foolish I’d been to ride her. Even in the same circumstances, I would have done it again.
“Why are you here?” I asked as he worked his knife to split open tree limbs that were palm-sized in diameter.
“I heard on the news that a storm not meant for us took a turn in our direction. I didn’t know if you planned for it.”
I hadn’t. “No.” I’d checked the night before. I might have checked before leaving with Avery if the mustang hadn’t shown up. “And you came.”
“I came.”
My heart grew triple its size with those two words. “I don’t have much here. They took Dad’s bearskins.” We didn’t kill animals for no reason as a rule. If that need arose, we used everything to its fullest in honor of the slain. Still, I choked up at the loss. I hadn’t realized how much the loss of these things hurt until I said it out loud. So many things I’d left because I didn’t have the means to store them. Though I’d come to terms with the fact they might not be here when I returned, it couldn’t account for the reality of it.
“I brought some blankets.”
I glanced at his pack. He wouldn’t have enough for us not to freeze to death if we couldn’t keep a fire going. I reached above the inner stone wall where it met the roof and took down a bedroll. It was nothing more than waterproof canvas to keep the user dry from the dirt floor below them. This one wouldn’t keep us warm. Dad had always put them beneath the bearskins.
My parents had taught me that hiding things in plain sight was the best. Whoever had raided the place had looked for the flashy, obvious things. They hadn’t really done a thorough search. I rolled the first one near the fire. Then I went for another bedroll.
“We should share body heat,” he said when I moved to place the other bedroll kitty-corner to the first.
That wasn’t a surprise. I just didn’t want to assume. I laid the bedroll parallel to the other. He’d added wood to the fire, but his teeth were still chattering.
“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” I said, watching stray snowflakes blowing through the smoke flap that allowed an open fire inside, at the same time protecting the inside from rain or elements.
It was magical. The snow looked like fairy dust in the firelight. I tried to keep my eyes on it and not the man undressing feet in front of me.
“You too,” he said.
I looked down at myself. I’d been so in my head, I hadn’t taken stock of my clothes. I turned. There wasn’t privacy in here and I’d never undressed in front of a man before.
It wasn’t until my shirt was off I remembered Mom’s clothesline. I walked over and pulled the cord on a pulley and hooked it to the other side of the structure. Then I hung my shirt there, not realizing I was facing Mitchell in my bra.
Just like the last time, I was starstruck by his body. When he turned in my direction, I quickly went to remove my pants. His were off, as he’d bent to undo his pack.
“Sunny,” he said. I looked up in time to hold out my hand to catch the water bottle he tossed me. Then he sent a protein bar my way.
Quickly, I moved to sit on the bedroll in front of the fire to warm my skin. Only, I was already scorching hot from my toes to my cheeks for other reasons.
Then he was there, his enormous body pressed shoulder to shoulder with me while wrapping a blanket around our backs. “This is pretty cool,” he said. “Did your father build it?”
TWENTY-THREE
Mitchell
Sunshine was pure fire. I tried not to look, but there she only wore a modest pink bra and panty set. So she wouldn’t see how hard I was for her, I’d gone and sat next to her and placed a blanket around our shoulders.
I followed her gaze to the dancing snowflakes swirling in the air from the opening in the roof above.
“This is pretty cool. Did your dad build it?” I hadn’t seen anything like it. From the outside, it had the appearance of a portable yurt.
