After a bit, he tromped through the snow to his vines. Lord only knew what he did there before heading up to the barn.
Once he disappeared from view, Abby shook herself, as if coming out of a spell, and realized just how ravenous she was.
Turning from the window, she took in the kitchen. What could she eat? Bread. Bread was good. She took a slice from the loaf, munched it dry, and decided to make herself useful. She couldn’t just sit in someone’s house all day and get nothing done. But after a few minutes of puttering—sweeping and cleaning his already-spotless kitchen, ignoring the pain in her extremities—exhaustion took over. She slid another log into the fire and collapsed onto the sofa, pulling a blanket over her shoulders.
A grunt woke her up—was that her own voice?—tearing her from dreams of arms tight around her, too tight but warm, and fire on the mountain. Fire all around them.
Mindlessly, she pushed to standing and looked out the window, scanning the landscape for Luc’s form. It was almost night, although everything still had that vague, light snow glow, and the stuff was still coming down from the sky.
Oh! There he was, a silhouette against the pale earth, too far to see in detail. As she watched, the figure—just a spot, really—drew closer. With every step, something bubbled higher in her chest. Anticipation or excitement. She searched the landscape for Le Dog, who never ventured far from Luc. When she couldn’t find him, her eyes flew back to the figure, suddenly racing through possible scenarios—Luc in the barn, overtaken by Isaiah. Luc working in the fields and not hearing the attack. And now, Isaiah was here, marching toward her.
She leaned against the window, breath fast, stomach tied up in knots. Oh no. Isaiah’d hurt Luc, which meant she’d brought this to him, and now he’d come to find her. To take her back. To punish her as she’d never been punished before. Could he see her?
She shoved the curtain closed and lurched back into the room, heart racing, air wheezing through her lungs.
Beside the door stood Luc’s rifle, and although she’d never fired one, she took hold of it, let her fingers get to know its cold, steel edges. Not in the awkward, hesitant way she’d held it that first day, but decisively. She’d shoot Isaiah if she had to. Shoot any of them. No way would Isaiah or any members of the Church scare her. Not out here in the world. She wouldn’t let them.
Hefting the weapon, she hobbled to the armchair and sat, ears pricked and eyes darting, shivering with the cold.
The fire threw shadows across the room, and Abby forced her breath to even out, sinking her body deeper into the chair, ignoring the press of leather to her back. After a while, the heat calmed her—although it never warmed her bones—and her mind traveled past the possibility of immediate threat.
What was happening back home? Was Sammy having supper with the Cruddups? Were households full of the gossip of her departure? Were they looking for her? Condemning her? Escape couldn’t possibly be this easy, could it?
Was sheactuallyfree? She was. Still close, granted, but that couldn’t be helped. And she wouldn’t leave without Sammy. Tomorrow, maybe, she’d feel well enough to head back over the fence and—
A bell rang from somewhere in the house, a bright, electronic sound that had Abby jumping out of her skin before she understood what it was. It took a moment to locate its source—a small telephone, sitting on a table by the front door.
For a few seconds, she considered picking it up. Should she? No. No, it wasn’t hers to pick up. But…what if it was Luc calling the house?
It gave out another high-pitcheddring, with an insect-like vibration.Don’t touch it.
A step back, then another. The phone eventually stopped, only to start up again. It did that five times, until finally, she reached out and picked it up, touching the green circle that said On.
“Allô?” said the voice on the other end. A woman. More words followed—not in English.
Abby couldn’t respond. Frantically, she looked for a button to stop this call she shouldn’t have taken. She finally found a red End circle and put the thing down, returning to the chair to wait.
* * *
Luc felt the strangest, most unexpected warmth at the sight of his cabin with smoke billowing from the chimney and light glowing from the windows. It was pleasant, although he wasn’t keen on the reasons for it. Nobody would wish this situation on a woman.
Nobody would wish it on him, either.
Her presence in his life—and everything it seemed to bring with it—had been clawing at his throat all afternoon, burning at his gut as he worked.
Anger at what they’d done to her, anger that there was nothing he could do about it, and anger that he’d let that kid go back. But how the hell was he supposed to have stopped them?
It speared him in the chest, that thought, so mixed up with everything Abby made him feel. He’d gone up to the cabin before noon to find her snoring quietly on the sofa, and if he hadn’t forced himself back out, he could have spent the rest of the day there, warming her in his arms. Or just sitting with her. But neither of those things would have satisfied this jumbled, roiling, ball of emotions inside of him: the anger and frustration, yes, but also something so protective it burned his sinuses and hurt his chest. And all of it laced with a sexual need that felt entirely inappropriate with her injured and snoring on his sofa.
So he’d gone back out into the never-ending snowstorm to work, with only the occasional break to check on her. The last time he’d gone in, her forehead had felt cool and her sleep hadn’t seemed so fitful, which was an enormous relief.
He spent a good chunk of time making sure everything was prepped for the power outage they were sure to get. Last year’s storms had been nothing compared to this one, and the power had eventually gone. He’d learned that it was just the way things happened here on the mountain, which was the last place the power company checked on their route. The generator was gassed up and would at least ensure the winery stayed warm enough. The cabin would be fine with the woodstove.
He was hungry by the time he got home and shoved open the kitchen door, a pile of firewood balanced in his arms. The smell of cooking hit him in a moist burst of steamy air, and there she was, at the stove, stirring the pot, as if she belonged.
“You heated up the sauce,” he said in lieu of greeting.
“Oh.”
