And so he does.
Chapter 21
Three More Years Later
Things have been different this week. Despite finally getting the windmill up with the help of a few kind strangers, Addison isn’t happy, and he can’t figure out why.
She’s on the verge of tears at the drop of a hat and short-tempered about the smallest things. Wyatt tries not to take it personally. Mood swings are normal this far into a pregnancy.
He ain’t been living under a rock his whole life. He’s well aware that hormones can have a woman acting…different. He just never assumed he’d be the one trying to handle it.
Watching her cry over a goat the other day had him feeling more than useless. She kept saying it was‘too adorable’and that she‘couldn’t handle it’before bursting into tears while cradling the poor animal who’d been trying to nap.
She is angry one moment, distraught the next, always hungry, and in the middle of it all, he’s left with only those books they looted from the library years ago to guide him through it all.
What he can do is bring home food from a hunt, and he’s eager to show her the rabbits he caught for dinner.
Her horrified reaction to his catch slices straight through to his already battered heart.
She stands on the back porch as he plops the bunnies down, her face pale and eyes watering.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He moves closer as she stares at the pile of rabbits, certain that something awful happened while he was away.
Cramps? A supply issue? A rotter broke through the fence? Any number of terrible options spring to mind until he’s ready to burst with worry.
“They have families,” she half sobs.
“What?”
“The rabbits. What if their babies are waiting for them at home? And they’ll…they’ll never….come back. Did you check the area for babies?”
He gapes at her, his heart sinking that he made her mood worse instead of better. “Um, no. But I can go back. I can check if you want?”
“No. No, it’s too dangerous to go out just for that.”
“We don’t have to eat them.”
Tears stream down her cheeks, heavier than before. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she experienced the most heart-wrenching moment of her life. “Yes, we do. We can’t let them go to waste. I have to eat them, Wyatt. It’s disrespectful not to.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Please don’t bring anything back that lives in a family, okay? Promise me?”
He tries to think of what he can hunt that doesn’t live in a pack or group. “Sweetheart, that doesn’t leave much. Not unless you want snake meat.”
“Snakes don’t live together?”
He shakes his head.
“Then that’s fine. That’s good, we can eat that, right? Is it safe?”
He nods, dumbfounded to be in a twilight zone where she’d rather eat a snake because they don’t tend to their young.
“Good. Ok, it’s settled.” She sucks in an even breath and whips out her knife to gut the game right there on the porch like it’s no big deal. “Come on, I’m starving. I’ve been craving rabbit all day.”
Oh yeah. Today is going to be interesting.
They make the usual stew, but Addison keeps a few pieces of meat out to assemble on those crackers she likes so much. He watches her put together a dozen little food towers composed of canned cranberry sauce, rabbit meat, and crushed imitation cheese balls. It’s not the flavor combinations he’d go for, but she hums in approval at the first taste, and he’s only glad she’s happy instead of crying over rabbit families.
