Ren shook his head. “Actually, probably the opposite. This is a hikers/hunters cabin. For use when people are going to be away on extended trips.” He pulled out his phone and made a show of checking it. “Still no signal.”
She didn’t look nearly as upset as he’d expected her to at the news.
“Well, at least we have shelter and a little food.” She began counting and organizing. “Enough for today at least. I’ll start dinner, I’m starving.”
They worked together in the kitchen, finding what they needed to open the can of vegetable soup and a pot to pour it in. Ren also brought in some snow to heat over the fire so they could have drinking water through her filtration bottle.
“Tomorrow I’ll go out and set some traps. See if I can catch us some food. Or there must be a river nearby since there are fishing poles in the corner.”
“Do you think a storm is still coming in?”
He nodded. “The heaviness in the air when it’s this cold? Definitely more snow. We might be trapped here for a few days.”
He was hoping the thought of being trapped would push her toward wanting to make a call. But he was beginning to believe her when she said she didn’t have anyone to call. Maybe she and Freihof had a no-contact pact in situations like this.
Tomorrow he would be checking in with Steve Drackett and needed to have a plan. The problem was, the more time he spent with Natalie, the less confident he was that she was conspiring with her ex.
But he couldn’t say for sure. That was the problem.
They ate, not nearly enough to be full, but enough to push away actual hunger pains. Afterward they washed their meager dishes in the faucetless sink with the now-melted snow Ren had brought in. Then Natalie searched the entire cabin and laid out everything that could be eaten, as well as anything that could be used to help them in other ways: tools, knives, the fishing poles.
She hadn’t stopped moving since they’d arrived, and that was after they’d already walked nearly ten miles today in the snow. As the sun went down, she’d just gotten more frantic in her activities.
“Hey, Peaches, you want to sit for a while? We’ve had a long day and you haven’t slowed down since the moment we got here.” He patted the couch cushion next to him.
She turned from rearranging the supplies—again—and gave him a sheepish grin. “Yeah, sorry, I like to have things in order. Know where stuff is.” She looked from the door to the cabin’s two windows. “Just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
She walked over to the door. “Just in case there’s no time to sort through stuff if there’s an emergency. Better to be prepared.”
“Okay, I think we’re suitably prepared. Why don’t you take a load off?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “There’s no lock on this door.”
“No, there’s not supposed to be. This cabin is open for anyone who needs it. We have a number of similar ones throughout Montana. Just for people who maybe get stranded and, of course, people who plan to use it. So, no locks.”
“No locks,” she whispered. She walked to the windows, checked them also.
Ren stood. What exactly was happening here? “No locks on those, either.”
“Right.” She gave a little laugh that didn’t hold any humor. “Because why would you put locks on a window when you didn’t have one on the door?”
“Exactly.”
Her back was stiff again, and although she wasn’t jumping straight into the deep end of a panic attack like she had with the snow, she was definitely becoming more tense.
“Natalie.”
She didn’t respond, just kept looking at one window, then the other.
He walked over and put his hands gently on her shoulders. She didn’t even jump like he half expected her to. “Natalie. You’re tired. Come sit down, okay?”
“It’s dark out,” she whispered. “I always check the locks. And the sticky notes won’t help if there aren’t any locks on the doors or windows.”
He had no idea what the sticky notes comment was about. He pulled her over to the couch and sat down with her, her hands in his. “You’re tired, Peaches.”
“I shouldn’t be tired. It’s still pretty early.”
