Atlas stirs from his spot near the door. He sits, his ears swiveling, his tail giving a single, tentative thump against the floor. He looks at me, his gaze clear and bright. He’s moving better this morning; the stiffness in his shoulder has eased by the warmth of the woodstove and the medicine Wyatt gave him.
I kneel beside him, burying my fingers in his thick, coarse fur. “Morning, boy.” I press my forehead to his temple, matching his slow breathing. “How’s the shoulder?”
He nudges my knee, a wet, cold press of his nose that makes me smile. He doesn’t have the frantic energy he had in the city apartment, where he paced the narrow halls like a caged animal. Here, despite the storm and the dark, he looks grounded. Like he belongs.
I stand and open the door.
The clinic corridor is freezing. The emergency lamps are still cast in their low amber glow, but daylight is beginning to struggle through the high, frosted windows of the exam room. Dolly, the blind collie, stands at the gate of her recovery run. She turns her head toward the sound of my approach, her nose twitching.
“Hey, Dolly.” I step closer, sliding my fingers through the wire mesh. She presses her muzzle against my hand, her tail wagging in slow, rhythmic sweeps.
In the kitchen alcove, the two pups Wyatt rescued are curled together in a cardboard box lined with blankets, their breathing steady, warm, and content. I check their water bowl and find it dry. I fill it from the tap, the cold water splashing loudly in the quiet clinic.
There’s no sign of Wyatt.
I walk down the back hall. His door is slightly ajar. I stop, my hand resting on the doorframe, my breath catching in my throat.
His bedroom is empty. The wool blanket is thrown back, the mattress still showing the indent of his body. Wyatt’s heavy work boots are gone from the rug. In the front office, the budgetspreadsheet lies on the desk under a brass weight, the red ink lines crossing out Cascade’s offer catching the grey morning light.
I step into the room, drawn to the desk. I look at the columns of numbers, the veterinary supply invoices, the feed bills. It’s a record of a man fighting a losing battle against a mounting wall of debt, refusing to take the easy way out because he promised a dead man he wouldn’t.
“Looking for something?”
The gravelly voice comes from the back door.
I jump, my heart hammering against my ribs. I turn.
Wyatt stands in the doorway of the clinic entry. He has his heavy canvas coat on, the shoulders caked with fresh snow. A dark knit cap is pulled low over his forehead, and his cheeks are raw and flushed from the cold. He holds a metal snow shovel in one gloved hand, the steel blade dripping onto the linoleum.
“I was...” I clear my throat, stepping back from the desk. “I was just checking on the dogs. Dolly was awake.”
Wyatt’s storm-grey eyes track my movement, settling on the borrowed sweater I’m wearing. His gaze lingers on the cuffs where my hands are tucked inside the sleeves, then moves slowly, deliberately, up to the collar.
It feels like a physical touch, a slow heat tracing the line of my neck. There’s a flash of something dark and heavy in his eyes before his jaw works and he looks down at his boots.
“The sheepdog’s temp is down.” Wyatt keeps his gaze level, though his voice is rougher than usual. “Pups are eating. Dollyneeds to go out, but the runs have drifted over. Got three feet of wet pack blocking the gates.”
“I can help.”
“It’s twenty degrees out there. The wind is down, and the snow is heavy.” He looks back up, his eyebrows drawing together.
“I have boots.” I gesture toward the mudroom where my leather boots are drying. “And I’m not afraid of a little snow.”
He studies me for a long beat. The silence stretches, heavy and thick with the memory of the kitchen floor, of my face buried in his neck. I want to look away, to hide behind the counselor’s calm, but my body refuses. I stay pinned under his gaze, my pulse racing, my skin flushing hot under the wool.
“Don’t touch the drifts by the barn. The roof is loaded, and it’s going to slide when the sun hits it.” He turns back toward the outer door.
He steps out, the heavy door clicking shut behind him.
I let out a slow, shaking breath. My hands are trembling.
I retrieve my boots, pulling them on over two pairs of thick socks. I find a spare pair of Wyatt’s insulated work gloves on the shelf. Or maybe these were Jesse’s. They’re huge on my hands, smelling of dry leather and straw, but they’re warm.
When I step out the back door, the cold strikes like a physical blow, clearing the cobwebs from my head. The sky is a brilliant, blinding blue, the sun reflecting off the pristine, unbroken expanse of white that covers the yard. The spruce trees are loaded with thick, heavy pillows of snow, their branches bowing toward the ground.
Wyatt is already at work on the recovery runs, his shovel throwing clean, white arcs of snow over the fence. He’s taken off his coat, working in just his flannel shirt, the grey fabric damp across his broad shoulders. The muscles of his back and arms bunch, stretching with every swing of the shovel—powerful and tireless.
I grab a second shovel from the porch and walk down the cleared path.
