Sorrel is already in the mudroom, pulling on her boots. The makeshift noise makers are on the bench beside her. I grab a snow shovel from the mudroom closet. One of the pair Thomas keeps for clearing the entrance after storms.
“Why only one shovel?” she asks, watching me carefully.
I pause, shovel in hand. “Because I’m going up alone.”
“No, you’re not.” She stands and nonchalantly zips her coat. “I’m going up with you.”
“Absolutely not.” The words come out sharply. “You hold the ladder. I clear the dish. It’s too dangerous up there for you.”
“Gregory, listen to me.” She grabs my arm, forcing me to look at her. “That roof is steep and icy, yes. But you know what’s more dangerous? Me standing alone on the ground for twenty or thirtyminutes while you’re up there. Me holding a ladder. Unable to run. Unable to climb to safety. Just standing there like bait while that cougar circles.”
Fuck.
I hadn’t thought of it that way. My brain was stuck on the image of her slipping on ice, sliding off the roof, falling. The immediate physical danger of the climb itself. But she’s right.
The cougar is the bigger threat.
And my plan leaves her completely exposed and vulnerable.
The fuck is wrong with me? How could I evenconsiderdoing that to her?
“You’re right,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”
“Happens to the best of us,” she quips.
The truth is, I’d prefer it if she stayed inside entirely, but I already know that’s not going to happen.
“But you do exactly what I say up there,” I grit out. “No arguments.”
“Okay.”
I reach back into the mudroom closet and grab the second shovel. Her face shows relief that I actually agreed, but it’s gone the instant she looks at the door.
“I’m scared,” she admits quietly.
“Me too.”
She tilts her head. “You don’t seem scared.”
“That’s because I’ve had years of practice pretending I’m not. But I am. Terrified something will happen to you up there. Terrified the cougar will come back. Terrified...”
That we’ll get the dish clear and call for rescue and everything will change.
But I don’t say that latter part.
“Let’s do this,” I say. “Before I change my mind and keep you trapped here forever.”
“Would that be so bad?” she asks, and there’s something wistful in her voice that makes my heart break.
She reaches for the door with her mitten, but then I remember what happened during the firewood mission. How her fingers went bone white courtesy of her fight-or-flight response.
“Wait.” I pull out a pair of thermal liner gloves from the mudroom closet. “Put these on under your mittens.”
She looks at them, then at me. “Gregory, those are yours.”
“And you’re the one whose sympathetic nervous system sacrifices fingers to protect vital organs when you’re terrified.” I press the gloves into her hands. “Your words, not mine. We’re about to spend some time on a roof with a cougar potentially circling. So wear the damn gloves.”
Her expression softens. She takes them, pulling the thin thermal layer on before sliding her mittens over top.
