She looks at me, and the look in her eyes makes my chest ache. It’s a look of pure, unadulterated distress.
“Everything is all wrong,” she says, her voice rising an octave. “I’m dirty. The mud... it’s on me. It’s on my socks. It’s everywhere. I can feel it.”
I look at her, at the way she’s picking at the hem of her sweater, her fingers moving frantically. The way she keeps rubbing her palms against her thighs, trying to wipe something away that isn’t there.
She isn’t just cold. She isn’t just upset about the dog. She’s unraveling. The neat, controlled layer she wears like armor is cracking, and underneath is a raw, frantic panic.
I walk over to her and crouch down, bringing myself to eye level. The heat from the fire radiates against my back, but she seems oblivious to it.
“Saramaria,” I keep my voice low, “are you cold?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m... I’m just gross. I need it off. I need it all off.” She pulls at the neck of her sweater, her breath hitching. “I can’t think. I can’t breathe. The grime is... it’s crawling on me.”
I realize then that this isn’t just about the mud from the yard. It’s about the day. The smoke, the gas from the pumps, the touch of strangers in town, the stress of the papers. It’s a sensory overload that her brain can’t process. She needs a reset.
“Hey,” I say softly. “It’s okay. We’re going to fix this.”
“Boone was right,” she says, tears spilling over her lashes. “I’m going to get sick. I’m going to die out here and no one will care.”
“That’s not true,” I say firmly. “We’re going to find Wellsy. Boone and Knox are out there right now. They won’t come back without him. I promise you that.”
“But I can’t...” She trails off, squeezing her eyes shut. “I just feel so weird. I feel disgusting. I need to shower. I need to scrub.”
I look at the bathroom door down the hall. The power is out. The pump is dead.
“You can’t shower,” I say gently. “There’s no power.”
Her face crumples and she lets out a sound. It’s such a small thing, but it sounds so close to a sob that it punches me in the gut. It shakes me more than the storm outside.
I’ve seen her angry. I’ve seen her cold. I’ve never seen her broken like this.
I reach out and take her cold, wet hands in mine. They’re like ice. I pull her forward, off the sofa and into my arms. She comes without resistance, collapsing against my chest.
“Shh,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around her shivering frame. She’s soaked through, her wet sweater seeping into my shirt, but I don’t care. I run my hand through her wet hair, feeling the tangled strands against my palm.
Fuck. The scent of her is everywhere—vanilla and honey, diluted by rain and fear. It intoxicates me, even while she is falling apart.
“We can fix this,” I say again. “We can get you clean.”
“How?” she mumbles against my chest. “No power.”
“We don’t need power,” I tell her. “We have fire. We have pots.”
She pulls back slightly, looking at me with confusion. “What?”
I keep one arm around her waist and gesture to the hearth with the other. “You think we have electric water heaters out in the barn? We heat water the old-fashioned way. We fill a pot and put it on the stove.”
“You... you boil water?”
“Exactly,” I say. “When we milk the cows, we have to wash the udders and our hands. We can’t use cold water on a full bag; it hurts them and ruins the milk flow. So, we keep a big pot on the wood stove. It stays hot all the time. We use it for washing equipment, for cleaning up.”
I look her in the eye. “I can do that for you. I can get a pot, fill it with water from the reserve, and heat it right here on the fire. It won’t be a shower with fancy pressure, but we can get you warm. We can get you clean.”
She stares at me, processing this. The frantic spinning of her thoughts seems to slow down. Logic is returning.
“A sponge bath?” she asks, her voice small.
“Whatever you need,” I say. “A warm washcloth. Soap. We can fix the dirty feeling.”
