"You underestimate me."
"I've watched you hop to the bathroom three times today. I am not underestimating you. I am correctly estimating you."
She laughs. Real laugh. Low and surprised like it caught her off guard.
I look up before I can stop myself.
Firelight is doing something to her face. Bruise at her temple healing yellow now, not purple. Freckles across her nose. Dark hair half up, half down. The field vest is gone. She's in one of my Henleys because her shirt was torn and bloody and Parker hasn't been able to drop supplies yet. The Henley swallows her shoulders and ends mid-thigh and she's got bare legs tucked under the quilt and I'm staring again.
She catches me.
Doesn't duck this time.
Just looks back.
My pulse goes somewhere it doesn't belong.
I stand up. "Going to check the perimeter."
"It's dark."
"That's why I check it."
"Hawk."
I stop at the door with my hand on my jacket.
"I wasn't laughing at you."
"I know."
"I was laughing because you're funny. You don't know you're funny. That's the best kind."
"I'll add it to the list of things you're wrong about."
"Number one was what."
"Being able to cook on one foot."
"Noted."
I pull the door shut behind me before I say something else.
The air outside is sharp cold and the sky above the ridge is the kind of black you only get this far from anything. I walk the tree line with a flashlight and my rifle and a head full of things that aren't perimeter checks.
Four years I've lived up here without wanting a single thing I didn't already have.
Four years.
And a geologist with a broken ankle and a notebook full of evidence has me splitting wood I don't need and staring at her mouth when she talks.
I do the full loop. South side clear. East clear. Ghost would be with me if I'd let him but I left him inside with her. He's the better early warning system anyway. Anything comes close to that cabin he'll tell us before any motion sensor does.
I come back in stamping my boots on the mat.
She's asleep.
Head tipped against the side of the armchair, notebook slid off her lap to the floor. Pen on her chest. Quilt kicked half off.
