I don't want her to leave.
That's the problem.
I don't want her to leave at all.
Chapter Five
COOKIE
DAY 3 ~ DECEMBER 26
Morning hits differently up here.
I wake in Red's bed. My neck has a crick from sleeping curled on one side, somehow unable to spread out into his space. The sound of movement tells me he's already up, probably couldn’t wait to get away.
The smell of coffee pulls me upright. Through the window, weak winter light filters through heavy clouds. Still snowing, still trapped.
Red's already dressed, feeding logs to the fire, his movements careful and stiff. One night in that chair and he's moving like he's eighty.
"Morning." My voice comes out rough.
He glances over his shoulder. "Morning."
I slide out of bed and pad to the kitchen area, wrapping my arms around myself. The sweater falls to mid-thigh, but thecabin's cold edges still find my bare skin, nipping at it. "Please tell me that's coffee."
He pours a mug and holds it out to me. Our fingers brush when I take it, and that same electric current from yesterday shoots up my arm.
"Thanks." I wrap both hands around the warmth and take a sip. The coffee is still way too strong, but I'm getting used to it. That probably says something about how long I've been here.
"Did you sleep okay?" He watches me over the rim of his mug.
"Like a baby. You?"
“Yeah. Much better in the bed.”
__________
By afternoon, cabin fever sets in hard.
The storm hasn't let up. If anything, it's worse—the wind howling like it’s alive, the snow piling against the windows in drifts that reach halfway up the glass. We're running out of ways to avoid each other in six hundred square feet of cabin.
Red works at his bench in the corner, sanding a piece of wood with rhythmic strokes that somehow sound both meditative and aggressive. Wood shavings curl away from his hands, falling like snow.
I watch longer than I should.
"You can help if you want," he says without looking up.
I cross to the bench. "I don't know anything about woodworking."
"Do you know how to follow directions?"
"When I feel like it, yes."
His mouth twitches, and he hands me a piece of sandpaper. "Work with the grain. Not against it."
"That sounds like a metaphor."
"It's carpentry."
