7. Cora
Cora
S tepping out of the cabin, I roll up the sleeves of one of his oversized shirts and make my way towards the fire, where he’s in the midst of roasting up a couple of rabbits for dinner.
Boone shoots a look at me as I step out of the house, the same expression on his face as he has worn since our argument the day before. Doubtful. Curious. But too proud to actually come out and ask me what’s on my mind. Well, I’m not going to be the one to break the silence, not until he does.
Which doesn’t mean I have been slacking with my chores, of course.
No, I need to earn my keep here, same as anyone else, and I am not going to forget it.
I have already scrubbed the bowls we used for breakfast down at the river and washed his clothes in the icy-cold water, determined not to give him any reason to cast aspersions on my presence here.
Not to mention the fact that I have to find out just who this girl is, the one that he told me dropped out of the sky and into the life of another one of the men who live in this place.
I have been turning over the thought of her in my head all night, questions hot on my tongue as I lay there in the dark – he slept on the floor next door, arm tossed out protectively over Woodrow, much to my relief.
Being close to him feels like a risk I can’t take, not till I get what I need.
Did we both whirl through time to end up here, me and this other woman?
She married him, this man she found out here, and I can’t help but wonder if she was drawn to him like I was drawn to Boone.
Though it’s hard to believe her other half would have brushed her off so swiftly when she had asked for explanation. ..
Boone lifts his chin in greeting, the last of the dusk sun catching his face. When he notices that I am not carrying the staff he made with me, he frowns.
"Your leg alright?”
"Much better," I reply, and I glance down at the spot where the wound once stood. "I grabbed some burdock leaves and made a poultice for it, it’s already healing up."
He eyes me for a moment, clearly surprised. The flames flicker off his face as he turns the rabbits on the stake over the fire.
"Didn’t know you knew about all that."
"Of course I do," I reply, wrapping my arms around myself protectively, even though the warmth of the fire is more than enough to warm my bones.
He pauses for a moment, the crackle the only thing between us for a moment. The smell of the rabbits is making my mouth water, and I’m not the only one, Woodrow winding in and out between us like he can’t wait to take his share.
"What do you use for sickness?” he asks, and I raise my eyebrows at him.
"You testing me, Boone?”
"Seeing how much you know," he fires back, without missing a beat. "So?”
I hesitate, casting my mind back to what I was taught in nursing school. Sickness – peppermint tablets, that’s what we always used.
"Mint," I reply, as though it should be obvious. He parts his lips to ask another question, but I jump in before he can.
"And boiled water to clean a wound," I go on. "And stitches to bring together the two ends of a wound, and boiled rags for a woman giving birth. That good enough for you?"
Though my voice has a note of challenge in it, I can’t help but notice the way he grins at my defiance. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he liked it when I talked back to him this way, like he wanted me to lash him with my tongue.
Just like he had a few days before...
He doesn’t reply, instead turning his attention to the fire again. I bite my lip as he uses a large stick to stoke the flames, tossing another couple of logs on to it to make sure it doesn’t go down.
"How do you know all of that, Cora?"
"You seem to know plenty," I point out. "You dressed my wounds, when I got here..."
"My wife taught me to do that," he replies bluntly, and I freeze, a cold wash of guilt running through me. After everything, now he’s got a wife, too...?
"Your wife?” I whisper, barely able to get the words out.
"Anna," he replies, almost matter-of-fact. "She passed a few years back. Fever."
"Oh, Boone, I’m so sorry-"
"Nothing for you to be sorry about," he replies, not taking his eyes off the fire. "Not your fault. Not anyone’s fault."
There’s a gruff edge to his voice that speaks to the depths of his grief, though he clearly doesn’t want me to hear it. I think of reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder, to assure him that it’s alright if he’s hurting, but I get the feeling he’d just brush me off.
A long silence hangs there between us before either of us speaks again.
"So how did you learn?” he asks, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. "Married yourself?"
I shake my head.
"No, just...educated."
"How’d you come by that?"
"Good luck, I guess."
It's the only answer I can think of right now, given that I can hardly tell him I came from another time.
I shift a little closer to him as a breeze rushes out of the forest, a sudden chill moving through my bones.
Not at the thought of how much I have left behind – but rather, the thought of what is waiting for me there when I go back.
No matter how crazy it is that I have ended up here, I can’t stop thinking about my other life.
My real life, I suppose. Are they missing me there?
Are they wondering where I am? Has a moment even passed since I vanished, or does time warp out of place in these parts?
I have no idea, and it’s not like there’s some sort of manual I can flip through to get the answers to everything.
Finally, he speaks once more, his voice lower than before, like he’s not even sure he wants to hear the answer.
"You want to go back?”
"To what?”
"To your...to your education," he replies, not looking up. "Your old life."
The question surprises me. It’s not one I have spent a lot of time considering, given that I have no clue if I can leave this place at all. I might be stuck here forever, but even if I wasn’t, even if some doorway did open back up to my old life...would I go?
"I...I don’t know," I confess softly, and I sneak a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. I hardly dare voice what’s in my head, certain that he’ll be angry with me.
"Why not?" he mutters.
He knows the answer. The answer is standing right next to me, by the fire, making food for me.
The answer has been taking care of me ever since I had that fall, bringing me back here like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
The chemistry crackles in the air between us, the same as the heat from the fire, only it feels as though this burns a million times hotter.
I don’t know who makes the first move. I don’t know who reaches for who first. But his hand brushes against mine, and I turn to him, and in the softening dusk, our mouths find each other once more.
He slides his hands to my waist, pulling me against him with a passion that makes my whole body light up.
I gasp into his mouth, all the questions and doubts and fears that I have been clinging to all this time vanishing in a single touch, as he hitches me off the ground and pushes me back against the small woodshed where he stores his wood for burning.
I am pinned between him and the shed, my hands grasping for him as I part my legs and wrap them around him – the twine I used to keep his pants in place on me falls away with ease, and he presses himself into me, making sure I can feel the fullness of what he has for me right there against my thigh.
I shift, grinding into him, my ankles tangling behind his back, and he kisses me against, this time hard enough that his teeth catch against my lips.
He draws himself into his hand and I look down, just able to make out the shape of him before he presses himself to my entrance.
My back arches towards him and I let out a cry that must have been heard across the whole prairie as he fills me in one, smooth motion, burying himself inside of me like this is what he has been waiting for all along – like this, and only this, is what he wants, what he has always wanted.
"Look at me," he growls against my lips, as he stills himself within me, holding himself there and letting me get used to the feel of him inside of me.
I clasp his face, smoothing my thumbs along his cheeks and doing as I am told.
There is something so freeing about letting him have me like this, letting him call the shots.
For so long, I have tried to run things exactly how I thought they should have been run, praying that it would be enough to keep me from suffering any more than I had.
But here, now, he is willing to take that weight for me, and allow me to lose myself to the feeling of our bodies coming together just the way I need them to.
As soon as he is sure that my gaze is on him, he starts to move – really move inside of me, slamming his full length into me again and again.
Shockwaves of pleasure rush from between my thighs and across my whole body as he takes me, and it’s all I can do to hang on for dear life and try to keep the lewd noises to a minimum.
Even over the rush of the fire behind us, I’m sure that we are about to be exposed at any moment. ..
And that just serves to send another throb through my whole system. My orgasm is cresting fast, the same way it did before. His roughness stirs something in me, something I have tried for so long to hide from, but something that this place has allowed.
The emotion and the passion blend together until there is little room for anything else, and all I can do is stare at him and rock my body back against him over and over again.
I drag my thumb over his bottom lip, watching as he responds in turn with fingers digging in to my hips, and the dark fire in his eyes outdoes anything burning behind us. ..
When the orgasm hits me, it feels like a release.
More than just of the pleasure, but of everything I have held back, too.
My vision blurs and I clutch to him, crying out a thousand tears of pent-up feeling, and I feel him flood me with his seed, plunging inside of me one last time before he reaches his own release.
I clutch to him, panting hard, the pulsations of my orgasm running around my body like electricity through a wire.
But, as he draws back, I realize something else – that there is a wetness at my cheeks that wasn’t there before.
His eyes widen when he sees me, and he moves to pull me against him against at once.
"Cora, what’s wrong?”
And, as I look up and into his eyes, my face crumples, and I finally start to let it all out.