Chapter 18 #2
He clears his throat, the sound loud in the quiet room. He pulls his hand back as if he’s been burned. The loss of his warmth is immediate and jarring.
He stands up abruptly, putting distance between us. He runs a hand through his own hair, messing it up.
“You should get some sleep,” he says, his voice back to its usual gruff cadence. “Rhett said the storm should break by morning.”
He turns and walks back to the armchair. He sinks into it, turning his body toward the fire, away from me.
“Goodnight, Saramaria.”
I lie there, staring at his back. The blanket is pulled up to my chin, Wellsy a warm weight at my feet. Blue is snoring softly near the rug.
“Goodnight,” I whisper.
The room is dark now, save for the glowing embers. I close my eyes, waiting for the usual spiral of thoughts to start. The list of things I need to do. The legal briefs I need to write. The anger I need to hold onto.
But it doesn’t come.
The room smells like all of them.
Knox’s whiskey and ginger. Rhett’s cinnamon and espresso. Boone’s rosemary and mint. And underneath it all, the scent of the woodsmoke and the wet dog and the rain outside.
It’s a cacophony of scents, a wall of Alpha presence that should make me feel crowded. Should make me feel trapped.
But it doesn’t.
It’s soothing. It wraps around me like a heavy quilt, settling my frayed nerves in a way nothing else has all day. It feels safe. It feels like a pack.
I have always had such a problem falling asleep. My mind runs too fast. The world is too loud. But tonight, the exhaustion is a physical weight, dragging me down. The storm outside creates a white noise that blocks out the world.
I push the thought away. I push away the confusion about Boone’s touch, and the memory of the dream, and the worry about the morning.
I curl onto my side, pulling my knees up. Wellsy sighs in his sleep.
I hope I don’t have dreams. Or if I do, I hope they are just of sleep. Not of them. Not of hands and mouths and fire.
I let the darkness take me, and for the first time in years, I don’t fight it.
I wake to a cold room.
The sensation is jarring. I reach out, my hand seeking the warmth of a small, furry body, but I find only empty sheets and cool fabric. I force my eyes open. The room is dim, gray light filtering through the heavy curtains. The storm is over, replaced by a flat, silver dawn.
I sit up, clutching the quilt to my chest. The fire in the hearth is nothing but a pile of gray ash. The room is freezing.
I’m alone.
Even the dogs are gone. There’s no sign of either of them.
Panic flares for a second before I remember. They found him last night. He’s safe. He’s probably outside with Blue, doing dog things.
I climb out of bed. The floorboards are biting cold against my bare feet. I pull on my boots and wrap the quilt around my shoulders like a cape. I need coffee. I need to see them. I need to make sure last night wasn’t a fever dream born of exhaustion and stress.
I walk out of the the living room to the front door and open it.
The air smells of wet earth and pine needles. The rain has stopped, but the sky is weeping, a fine, cold drizzle misting the air. The yard is a disaster—mud, branches, debris scattered everywhere. But the clouds are breaking up in the west, offering a glimpse of pale blue.
I hear a voice. Low, conversational.
I step off the porch, heading toward the sound. It leads me past the garden, now a trampled mess, toward the chicken coop.
I stop. I lean against the fence post, watching.
Knox is standing inside the coop, leaning against the wooden frame. He is wearing a thick plaid coat and his boots are caked in mud. He’s holding a handful of grain, scattering it on the ground.
“...and then she says, ‘I don’t care if it’s a prize bull, you can’t bring it in the house.’ Can you believe that?” he says to the hens. They cluck around his boots, pecking at the dirt. “I mean, where else is he supposed to sleep? The barn is drafty.”
I smile. I can’t help it.
“Good morning,” I say.
Knox jumps, nearly dropping the rest of the grain. He spins around, a guilty expression on his face. When he sees me, it relaxes into a grin.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he says. “I was just catching the ladies up on current events.”
“I can see that,” I say. “Where’s everyone?”
“Boone is down at the lower pasture,” he says, dusting off his hands. “Checking the fences and moving the cattle to the high ground before the runoff floods the creek. Rhett’s in the kitchen. He’s attempting to make breakfast on the wood stove since we still don’t have power.”
My stomach gives a hopeful lurch. “Breakfast?”
“Don’t get too excited,” Knox warns. “I think it’s just eggs and bacon. But Rhett takes his cooking seriously.” He leans against the fence, looking me over. “How did you sleep?”
“Okay,” I say. It’s the truth. Once I was out, I was dead to the world. No dreams. No nightmares. Just black, restful void. “I haven’t slept that well in... years.”
“That’s good,” he says. “You needed it.”
“How long was I out?” I ask.
He checks his watch. “It’s almost ten. We woke up a couple of hours ago. Tried to let you sleep. Boone actually shushed me when I dropped a log on the floor.”
Ten o’clock. I haven’t slept that late since I was a teenager with a hangover.
“Your phone has been vibrating all morning,” Knox adds, pointing back toward the house. “It’s on the mantle. Rhett didn’t want to wake you up to answer it.”
My stomach drops. “My phone?”
“I figured it was important,” he says. “It didn’t stop buzzing for about an hour.”
I abandon the chickens and the conversation. I hurry back to the house, the damp quilt flapping behind me. I push through the front door and scan the room.
There it is, sitting on the stone mantle. My lifeline to the real world.
I grab it. The screen is cracked—I must have dropped it in the mud yesterday—but it lights up. Dozens of notifications.
I swipe the screen open.
Messages from Penelope. Are you okay? Please call me. I’m so sorry.
Messages from Richard. We need to talk. Don’t be childish.
I delete those.
Messages from the book club group chat.
Dot: Storm is coming in hard! Everyone safe?
Pearl: I have wine if anyone needs shelter.
Baby: Stay off the roads!
And then, one name stands out. One name that makes my breath catch in my throat.
Willa: Hey. I heard you were at the clinic yesterday. I’m sorry I missed you. I’m glad you’re okay. How are you holding up?
The time stamp is twenty minutes ago.
My hands shake. This is the first time she has reached out since the news broke. Since the world found out what Jack Dalton tried to do to her. If she’s texting me... if she’s reaching out...
I have to go see her. I have to know she’s really okay. Text isn’t enough.
I hit the call button. I press the phone to my ear, my heart pounding.
Riiing. Riiing.
“Come on, Willa,” I whisper.
“The person you are calling is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone.”
I stare at the phone. “Shit.”
The signal is probably down. Or maybe she turned it off. Maybe she can’t deal with the noise of the world right now. But I can’t just sit here. I can’t just wait for the digital world to fix itself.
I need to go to her.
I turn around, intending to grab my coat and keys.
Rhett walks out of the kitchen, carrying two mugs. He’s wearing a sweater that looks soft enough to sleep in, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
“Coffee,” he says, holding one out to me.
I take it, my eyes drawn immediately to his right hand.
The knuckles are bruised. An angry, mottled purple and blue, the skin scraped raw in places.
“What happened?” I ask, nodding toward his hand.
He follows my gaze. He pulls his sleeve down, trying to hide it. “Oh. That. I... hurt myself yesterday. Caught my hand on a latch. It looks worse than it is.”
It doesn’t look like a latch injury. It looks like he punched something. Or someone. But I don’t push it. I have bigger things to worry about.
“I have to go see Willa,” I say, setting the coffee down on the table. “She texted me. I tried to call her, but she didn’t answer.”
Rhett frowns. “The roads must be bad with the rain we had last night. The creeks are high.”
“I don’t care,” I say, grabbing my coat from the rack. “I have to go. She’s alone. She’s... she’s going through hell, Rhett. I can’t just sit here drinking coffee while my friend is hurting.”
“It’s not safe to drive alone,” he says, his voice reasonable but firm. “And your truck might not make it through the mud on the access road.”
“I’ll walk if I have to.”
Just then, the front door opens. Boone walks in, followed by Knox. They smell of cold air, wet leather, and horse. Boone is stomping his boots to get the mud off.
“What’s going on?” Boone asks, looking between us. He looks at Rhett, then at me, his eyes narrowing. “You’re packing.”
“She wants to go to Willa’s,” Rhett explains.
Boone’s jaw tightens. “You can’t go anywhere. The power is still out. The lines are down along the highway. We’re isolated.”
“I have to try,” I say, my voice rising. “She texted me. She reached out. I can’t ignore that.”
Boone looks at me. He studies my face for a long second. He sees the desperation. He sees that I’m not going to back down.
He lets out a long breath, the air whistling through his teeth.
“I need to go into town anyway,” he says.
I blink. “You do?”
“Generators,” he says. “The well pump runs on electricity. We can’t go without water indefinitely, not with this many people and animals. I need to go to the hardware store, see if I can rent a couple of big portable units. Get the lights back on.”
He looks at Rhett. “Knox and I can take my truck. It has four-wheel drive. We can drop Saramaria at Willa’s on the way.”
Relief washes over me, so strong it makes my knees weak. “Really?”
“We aren’t letting you drive that rental truck in this mud,” Boone says. “You’d slide into a ditch before you hit the main road.”
“Thank you,” I say. I mean it.
Boone nods, not meeting my eyes. He turns to Knox. “Go grab the chains from the barn. Just in case.”
“On it,” Knox says, vanishing back out the door.
Boone looks at Rhett. “You stay here. Keep the fire going. Check on the horses. If the power comes back, flip the breakers.”
“Understood,” Rhett says.
Boone looks at me. “Five minutes. Grab whatever you need. And put on some dry boots. Yours are soaked.”
I look down at my feet. He’s right. My socks are wet.
I hurry to the bedroom, grabbing a fresh pair of socks and my sturdy boots. I shove my phone into my pocket and grab my purse.
When I come back out, Boone is waiting by the door. He has his hat pulled low, his collar turned up against the chill. He looks imposing and capable and incredibly reliable.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Ready,” I say.
We walk out into the drizzle. The air is crisp, the sky a bruised purple as the sun tries to break through. Knox is waiting by the truck, the tire chains clanking in his hands.
I climb into the back seat. The cab smells like Boone. It’s a comforting scent.
Knox climbs into his own seat and turns the radio on. Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” blasts from the speakers.
Boone puts the truck in gear. “Hold on,” he says.
We pull out of the driveway, churning through the mud. I look back at the house. Rhett’s standing on the porch, holding his coffee mug. He raises a hand in a wave.
I’m assaulted with the memory of the last time, and how instead of Rhett, it was Boone who stood there and watched me drive away.
I turn around in my seat, facing the road.