Chapter 18
Lula
We sip whiskey on the floor in front of the hearth, and I’m stuck in a haze that took hold as soon as Boone rode in half dead.
It’s only begun to fade. Okee is somewhere else in his mind.
Carried off by his thoughts as he often is.
The warmth of the fire, of the spirits, soothes me, and I hum without intending to, then open my eyes.
Though his earlier attention was fixed on the flames, as soon as my eyes open they’re met with his.
Those dark eyes catching the firelight until they seem almost black, reflective as polished onyx. He looks away with a grin.
“What?” I ask.
He chuckles, shaking his head like he’d rather not say.
I flex my foot and tap him against his knee. “What? Tell me.”
“The way you were sitting just now. Your little smile. Like you were in a hammock and not hiding for your life in a cabin with strange men.”
I laugh, embarrassed, struck, suddenly, by the firelight carving the planes of his face, the long fall of dark hair at his neck, the stillness of him.
“I’m just so relieved. He’s not clear of it all just yet, but he’s on his way back, I think.”
He shifts, almost imperceptibly, closer. Not enough to alarm. Just enough that his shoulder brushes mine. Heat transfers. I don’t move away.
Minutes pass. Or seconds.
At some point, without either of us quite deciding it, we are sitting fully together—my side against his chest, his arm settling around me. I fit there more easily than I expect. The weight of him is steady, protective. His hand rests at my upper arm, thumb warm through the fabric.
I lean back, cautiously at first. When he doesn’t tense, I allow myself to settle.
The fire breathes and whiskey hums in my veins.
And for a moment, I do feel like I’m lounging somewhere peaceful.
There’s something steady about him. Solid.
Even Boone yields to it. When a problem arises, all eyes are on Okee.
It’s a curious power, and even now, as we take sanctuary in this small cabin with not nearly enough supplies to survive winter and the frost taking hold outside, I feel secure under Okee’s wing.
His chin dips, just slightly. I can feel his breath at my temple. Then his hand shifts—careful. He turns my face a fraction, and he kisses me. It’s so tender that, if I weren’t already sitting, I’m certain my knees would give out.
He pulls back, resting his forehead to mine. “Thank you. This would have gone differently were it not for your competent hands.”
The words hit me strangely. Men have thanked me before, certainly. Men have wanted me before. But never like this.
Competent. A word for ledgers and stitching and keeping one’s head when others lose theirs. Yet in his voice it becomes something intimate. A kind of admiration I have never been offered without condition.
My throat thickens and heat rises in me. I think of every time I’ve been praised for being pretty. For being sweet. For being agreeable. And now here is a man kissing me and thanking me for being capable—as though that is what draws him close.
I swallow and manage, “I only did what the moment required.”
“Yes,” he says, gently, as if he won’t allow me to make myself smaller to fit the moment. “And you did it well.”
His thumb brushes once along my cheekbone. “Boone is alive because you were steady.”
My legs lose all feeling. I run my fingers through his long black hair. They glide through it, smooth as strands of silk.
“I was going to tell him,” he says, tilting his head toward Boone where he snores on the cot.
“About?”
“Us,” he says. “And then he came home shot.” A quiet, humorless sound leaves him. “He rather ruined my timing.”
Us. Two little letters bearing the weight of such consequence.
The kind of meaning that should horrify me.
We merely kissed, and already he’s decided there is a connection worth naming.
But something about the title coming from Okee, a man who chooses each word with such care he needn’t say much for all others to listen, turns me boneless in his arms.
“You can tell him in the morning.”
His eyes go distant and he shakes his head. “I’ll be gone before daylight. To Okmulgee. To find my father.”
I sit up straighter, everything in me sinking at once. “Boone will be furious.”
“He’ll survive it. Despite his stubborn pride, this course is what is best and he knows it. Trust me, this isn’t something I would do unless circumstances were dire—and they are. I don’t know who else to trust outside of these walls.”
The way Boone shouted, the hurt in his disapproval was palpable. I thought he’d work himself up into a fit or pass out. He nearly had.
“What happened that makes Boone hate your father so?”
Okee sighs, dragging knuckles affectionately down my arm.
“There was a time when I brought Boone home with me for family occasions. Back when the work we did was still somewhat honorable. At least by the law’s standards.
We claimed bounties. Provided protection to families crossing the Territory.
Even then, my father felt the work was beneath me.
He wanted me to take a post with the Interior. A desk, a salary.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Okee’s mouth tightens, not quite a smile. He keeps his hand on my arm, knuckles tracing once more.
“Because I have already tried his idea of respectable,” he says.
“I speak his language. Learned his prayers. Fought in his war.” His gaze drifts to the hearth.
“And still, to most of them, I was less than a man. One cannot spend one’s life serving a machine built to grind people down while pretending it is saving them. ”
A bitter breath leaves him. “He blamed Boone for my cynicism. For the work. For everything that came with him. But Boone does not bow, does not flatter, and never lets a slight pass unanswered—least of all when it comes to me.”
Okee’s jaw flexes once. “I chose Boone,” he answers simply. “My father still has not forgiven me for it.”
The fire pops. Outside, the wind howls.
“So you stopped going home,” I say.
Okee’s eyes lower, and for a moment he looks very young.
“I stopped offering my father opportunities to be disappointed.” His fingers drift from my arm to my hand and lace there as if it is the most ordinary thing in the world.
He lifts my hand, knuckles brushing his mouth, before pressing a kiss there.
Although I advise against it, he leaves before sunrise. As I tend to Boone, I feel complicit in Okee’s absence. Though I must trust that Okee is capable of assessing what Boone can tolerate. I don’t volunteer the information. I wait for him to notice for himself.
He’s quite drowsy at first. Forehead too warm. I take water cooled outside and soak a rag in it, folding it and resting it against his head.
“By God, you are an angel,” he says, eyes cracking open.
I cannot help but smile at the woozy compliment, though I say nothing.
“You know that?” he goes on. “A beautiful angel sent from the heavens.”
“You’re feverish.”
“I know my own meanin’, and by God, I can’t stop thinkin’ on what woulda happened if that bastard shopkeep killed me dead.”
“Don’t speak of such things.”
“I should have kissed you. In the loft that day. I almost did, but I ain’t had the nerve.”
The words strike low, beneath propriety, beneath sense. I press the cloth to his brow harder than necessary, with a soft thud against his forehead. “Boone.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh if it didn’t hurt him. “Mean thing, can’t you let a man confess his feelings before he dies?”
“You are not dying. I’ve seen buckshot bigger than that little pea bullet I picked out of you.”
“Coulda fooled me,” he murmurs, eyes bright and unfocused.
“One second I’m buyin’ beans and the next I’m bleedin’ on a shop floor.
Now I’m burnin’ up. It’s the rot settin’ in.
My soul startin’ to slip.” His gaze catches mine again, sudden and intent.
“And all I can see is you. Up in that loft. Lookin’ at me like you could put me in my place.
Body soft in all the right places pressed up against me.
Good night alive, don’t you know what you do to a man? ”
Heat crawls up my throat.
“Don’t be stupid,” I whisper, but it has no authority.
Boone’s hand drifts, searching—clumsy with fever—until his fingers find my wrist. His grip is urgent. He tugs as if he means to pull me down onto him.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
He tries to lever himself upright on his arm. Pain flickers across his face, but desire or delirium has him stubborn. His mouth lifts toward mine, eyes half-lidded like he’s already decided the outcome.
“No,” I say, and it comes out sharper than I intend. I press him back to the bed with the flat of my hand on his chest.
He exhales, frustrated—then winces as the movement tugs his wound. “Christ,” he mutters. “You got a spiteful streak.”
“You are not to sit up. You are not to kiss anyone. You are to heal.”
“You don’t want it?” he asks, and there’s a brittle sort of hurt in it that makes my insides twist. His forehead is damp, cheeks flushed.
I hesitate. That is the danger. One pause, and the truth spills.
“I do,” I say carefully.
Boone’s gaze sharpens by a degree. “Then what is it?”
I draw a breath.
I could lie. I could let this pass as mere delirium. I could wait until Okee returns and make him bear the weight of it.
But Okee is not here.
And Boone does not deserve to wake up and be ambushed by absence and silence both.
I keep my hand on his chest. “After you left,” I begin, and my mouth goes dry, “I kissed Okee.”
For a beat there is only the crackle of the fire and Boone’s breathing. He pushes up again, abruptly, as if surprise has restored the strength the fever took from him. Pain flashes through him. His face tightens, but he doesn’t stop.
“Where is he?”
“Boone—lie back.”
“Where is Okee?” he repeats, louder now, the words cutting through the cabin like a scythe.
“He left,” I say, because the truth will not be held any longer. “To Okmulgee.”
Boone goes still. The stillness is worse than shouting.
“Goddamn him,” he grunts. “Leavin’ me in bed, half dead, to let his bastard father save the day with a big ol’ told you so.”
“You are feverish,” I insist, because it is the only rope I have to hold him with. “And wounded. Now isn’t the time to be upset.”
“You’re the one keeps givin’ me upsettin’ news.”
I pause. He’s right. I flip the cloth, pressing the cool side to his skin, then say, “I’m sorry. You must think ill of it—”
He drags a breath in, trying to gather himself, but steam keeps leaking through the seams. “I should be out there with him. Protectin’ him. And goddamn it, why are you tellin’ me? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He meant to, but then you nearly died on our doorstep. It wasn’t the right time.”
“Well it ain’t better now.” He sinks back with a harsh exhale. “I’m a damn fool. Thought maybe I weren’t the only one wantin’ somethin’ I ain’t supposed to. Turns out I’m just the last to find out what already happened.”
I look at him, searching for words that all seem inadequate.
The logs crackle. Wind forces through the seams between logs with a low hiss.
His eyes cut to mine, sharp despite the fever.
He drags a hand through his hair, frustrated with his own body for being stuck in bed.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he admits, voice rough.
“You show up in our mess like you been meant for it. You keep me alive. You look at me like—” He breaks off, jaw flexing.
“Like I’m a horse needs breakin’, and you cain’t decide whether to whip me or climb on.
But if it’s Okee you want to kiss, go right ahead.
Have at him. But ain’t a thing keepin’ me out. You’ll just have to put up with me.”