Chapter 7
WIRE
Melinda
T he branch snap wakes me up.
Not the sound but the movement and absence of him.
His couch creaks in a way I've learned as he shifts weight when he sits up.
I hear the pause where he listens.
The quiet way he moves when he's already decided to move.
I'm sitting up in the dark before I think about it.
The hallway is cold under my bare feet.
I stop at the edge of the main room.
He's at the window, just to the side of it, the way he always stands.
His body is offset from the glass.
The kind of position you take when you don't want to be a target.
He doesn't turn around.
"Go back to bed."
"What did you hear?"
"A branch."
"That's not nothing or you wouldn't be at the window."
A long silence.
"It's probably nothing."
"Probably."
He turns his head slightly. Looks at me over his shoulder. His face is in the dark. I can only see the line of his jaw and the way his eyes move.
"Melinda."
"I'm not going back to bed."
He looks at the window and looks at me.
"Then come here, away from the line of the door."
I cross to him. He puts his hand on my lower back. Guides me to the side of the window opposite his.
We are both offset from the glass now, the cold pressing against the night side of the cabin, the dark tree line out beyond the fence.
He doesn't move his hand.
"Wind?" I say. Quietly.
"Maybe."
"Animal."
"Maybe."
"Person."
He doesn't answer that one.
We stand there for what is probably four minutes and feels like forty.
He watches the tree line and I watch his face.
His eyes do the thing they do. They scan from the road, mirror, road, tree, fence, tree.
His thumb has started to move against my back.
It’s slow and he doesn't know he's doing it.
I can tell by how steady the rest of him is.
I don't say anything about the thumb; I just enjoy his touch.
Eventually his shoulders come down half an inch.
"It was probably wind." The voice he uses when he's not entirely persuading himself but is persuading the room.
"Probably."
"You should sleep."
"You should too."
He looks at me. The dark. His hand on my back. The cold from the window and the warmth of him along my side.
"I'm not tired."
"Neither am I."
We are both lying. We are both lying about different things.
His hand moves slightly. From the small of my back to my hip. He doesn't look at me when he does it. He keeps watching the window.
I lean my head against his shoulder.
He goes still.
Then his hand tightens on my hip. Just slightly. Just enough.
"Melinda."
"Yeah."
"We should not be doing this."
"We're not doing anything wrong."
"We're not not doing anything."
I look up at him. He is looking down at me now.
The window is forgotten.
He moves first this time.
His mouth is on mine in the dark, his hand on my jaw, the other still on my hip and pulling me closer.
It’s not the impulse of the morning kiss and not the excitement that ends with the wall.
It’s something between the two of them.
It’s slow because he can.
It’s urgent because the night has been too long and we have both been too careful, for too many hours.
My hands find his chest. His t-shirt under my palms.
His heartbeat fast and steady and very much not the heartbeat of a man running a routine threat assessment.
He walks me back inside and again my shoulders find the wall again.
The same wall. The cold of it through my shirt.
His hands on my waist, his mouth on my throat, the place below my ear is on fire as he kisses lightly.
"Kaden."
"I know."
"This is?—"
"I know."
He doesn't stop. His hand slides under my shirt.
They are warm against my ribs.
He runs them slow over the curve of my waist.
The deliberate path of someone who has been thinking about the route.
My breath catches when his thumb finds the soft place just under my ribs and presses there.
I feel him inhale against my throat.
"Bedroom," I say.
"Yes."
He picks me up and I make a sound.
He carries me down the hall like I weigh nothing, which I do not.
But he is handling it with the same straightforward physical certainty he handles everything.
He sets me on the bed and comes down over me.
He kisses me while his hands map me through my clothes.
For a moment, he pulls back.
"Wait."
"Why?"
"Window."
"What?"
"The branch."
I look up at him.
He has gone still in a different way.
Not the stillness of a man pulling back from something.
It’s the stillness of a man who is half thinking about danger.
"You think there's someone out there?"
"I think probably not."
"Probably."
"Probably."
He looks at me with dark eyes.
His hand braced beside my head and his weight half over me.
Then he closes his eyes.
"I cannot do this right now." Quietly. To himself more than to me.
"What?"
"This with you. While there's a probably out there. I could be overlooking something critical."
"It was wind, Kaden."
"Probably wind."
"Kaden."
He opens his eyes and looks at me.
"If I have you right now," he says. "Right now, in this bed. With a probably out there. I will not be paying attention to the probably."
I look at him.
I want to argue.
I am also a doctor who has watched the consequences of people not paying attention to the probably.
"Okay."
He doesn't move. He looks at me, like he's apologizing without saying it.
Then he lowers his forehead to mine.
We stay like that.
"I'm sorry. Can we pick back up after I’ve looked thoroughly."
"Don't be sorry. Of course."
"I'm sorry anyway."
"Kaden."
"Yes."
"This is not over."
"I know."
He gets up. Goes back to the window.
I lie in the dark in the bedroom and listen to him walk the cabin once.
Then a second time.
Then the front door, the careful click of it opening and closing as he steps out onto the porch.
He's out there twenty minutes.
When he comes back, I can hear him at the kitchen sink.
I hear the water running, the cabinet close and the sound of the kettle.
He's making tea.
I get up and pull on his flannel shirt over my t-shirt and pad out to the kitchen in my socks.
He's at the counter. He doesn't turn around.
"Deer."
"Sorry?"
"It was a deer. North fence. Two tracks where it came up to the wire and then turned around."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He turns and hands me a mug. Chamomile, of all things. Eagle apparently offers soothing tea.
"You'll get back to sleep."
"Will I?"
"Yes. I made it strong."
I look at the mug. I look at him.
"You made me tea."
"Yes."
"You stopped what we were doing because of a deer, and then you went outside and confirmed it was a deer, and then you came back and made me tea."
"Yes."
"Kaden."
"What?"
I want to say several things. I do not say any of them. I take a sip of the tea. It is, in fact, strong.
"Thank you."
He looks at me. Something in his expression moves.
This is a new thing I have seen and have not named yet.
"You're welcome."
He drinks his tea standing at the counter.
I drink mine sitting at the table.
The cabin is very quiet around us. The kettle clicks as it cools.
When I finish the tea, I stand up and take my mug to the sink.
I stop next to him at the counter.
I don't say anything. I just stand there.
He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his side.
We stand there for a while.
"Get back to bed."
"Yeah."
I don't move yet. He doesn't make me. His arm stays around me.
The cabin is the warmest thing I have ever stood inside of.
"Kaden."
"Yes."
"For the record."
"Yes."
"I am glad it was wind."
"It was a deer."
"I'm glad it was a deer."
The corner of his mouth.
"Go back to bed, Melinda."
I go back to bed.
He stays at the window.
I do not, in fact, sleep.
But I lie in the dark and I think about a man who stopped what he was doing because of a probably and went outside in the cold to confirm it.
And then came back and made me tea.
And I think: this is what it looks like.
I do not name what it is yet.
But I file it. Carefully. Where I can find it later.