It’s at that moment that I understand something about the woman who’s about to become—no, she alreadyis—my girlfriend.
Gil Travis was right about his daughter.She’s a pit bull with a porkchop, and I’m just going to admit it to myself right now—I’m fucking in love with her, stubbornness and all.
Sparks fly in the wind.Black smoke billows up through the heavy snowfall and floats skyward.Just then, one of the already broken windows blows out from the thermal shock and sprays shards of glass everywhere.
“Back!”I yell to Phoebe.
“Evander!”
I feel a sting, then look down to see that a piece of glass has punctured through every layer of fabric covering my forearm.I yank it out and toss it aside.
I grab the rest of the wood.I’m about to make a run for it when the last piece of upright framing decides to topple and lands right on the sleeve of my coveralls.Instantly, I feel it burn my flesh.
I drop my armload of wood and lift off the heavy wood beam, but it’s made contact with my body long enough that my flesh sizzles.
I grab the wood and run.The pain is inconvenient, but I’ll be fine.I’m just pissed off at myself for a lot of shit I just let happen.
I didn’t anticipate that the shack would go up in a blaze as fast as it did.
I allowed Phoebe to make decisions that put her life at risk.She could have been killed.
I allowed myself to get injured.
And I’m fucking pissed off by all of it.I’m pissed off at myself.
If Phoebe thinks she’s seen me at my ugliest, she’s about to find out she was mistaken.
CHAPTER 45
Phoebe
This has been the longest four hours of my life.
Evander is so angry that he won’t speak to me.Except for one exception—he conveyed detailed instructions about how to dig out an attached fire pit from inside the cave.
And while I did that, Evander tunneled down from above, creating an exhaust hole for the smoke.That’s been the only time we’ve met halfway on anything in the last four hours.
As we worked, the shack burned.I asked Evander if the heat would melt our little dugout shelter, and he shook his head to indicate the negative.
Nice talking with you.
No, I didn’t follow his orders to the letter.
Yes, I’d promised him that I would.
Sure, that means I broke that promise.
But if I hadn’t done what I did, when I did it, we’d be in a crap-ton of trouble right now.We’re both alive.We have the essentials we need to survive, for at least a bit longer.
I try not to dwell on what might have happened.But I can’t help but think that if I’d run out here to the shelter while Evander gathered supplies, like he told me to do, the building would have come down on him.
He’d be dead.
I’d rather have him pissed off at me than dead.
That said, it’s been unpleasant.
Once we completed the firepit, we turned our attention to increasing the size of the burrow.I shoveled snow.Evander scooped it up with the snow shovel and took it outside to discard.Then we scraped down the walls.Next, we leveled and smoothed the floor.
