Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Ryder
“Behind the barn!” Laney’s voice carries through the crisp morning air, muffled by distance and the snow-heavy ground.
I navigate around the woodpile, following the sound. Finding her already knee-deep in project mode at—I check my watch—eight in the morning, which shouldn’t surprise me anymore.
She’s using a shovel to scrape snow away from beneath a cluster of pines, hunting for pinecones like they’re buried treasure. A thermos sits in the snow beside her, steam curling from the lid.
“Morning, Sunshine,” I say, and this time the endearment rolls off my tongue naturally. No flinching from her, just a quick smile over her shoulder that makes something warm settle in my chest.
“Good morning!” She stands, brushing snow off her knees, a grin lighting up her face. “Ready to turn into a Christmas elf? We’ve got serious crafting to do. I’ve been thinking about your idea all night.”
All night. The way she says it makes me wonder if she was thinking about other things too—like the way we’d worked together yesterday, hands touching, trust building… kissing. One thing is certain; I was certainly thinking about it.
She gestures at the growing pile beside her. “There’s a treasure trove of pinecones out here. Most of them are in good enough shape for crafting. Coffee?” She offers the thermos.
I accept gratefully, the warmth seeping into my cold hands. “What’s the plan?”
“Operation Christmas Magic,” she announces with authority, eyes sparkling with genuine excitement. “Step one: scavenge for materials. Step two: turn that cabin into something that would make Martha Stewart weep with envy. Step three: try not to let Hamlet destroy—or eat—everything we create.”
As if summoned by his name, the pig emerges from where he’s been cavorting in the snow with the dogs behind one of the outbuildings. He snorts his approval at being included in the morning’s agenda.
All the dogs opted to leave the barn when Laney opened the doors to their enclosures. Even old Max is diving into the snowbanks and romping like a puppy. The goats opted to stay warm and dry.
“Your plan sounds ambitious,” I say. “What’s my assignment?”
“Berry collection duty.” She points toward a dense row of bushes behind the barn, their branches heavy with bright orange-red clusters. “Those pyracantha bushes are loaded with berries—perfect for garlands. Unless you’re afraid of thorny bushes?”
The teasing in her voice is gentle, referencing yesterday’s snake lesson without making it feel like a failure.
“I’ve pulled people out of blackberry thickets during wildfire evacs,” I say. “Pyracantha shouldn’t be a problem.”
An hour later, I’m discovering that pyracantha bushes are basically nature’s way of making you earn every berry.
The thorns are vicious, and the berries are positioned as if they’re playing hard to get.
But there’s something satisfying about the challenge, especially when I can see Laney through the kitchen window, popping corn and looking genuinely excited about our project.
I pause my self-inflicted acupuncture and call the dogs into the barn.
Each one gets a rubdown with old towels as well as food and water in their bowls.
Bonnie and Clyde haven’t figured out how to open their enclosure, so they’re both bleating for some attention.
Fresh straw, food and a vigorous rub and they are both happy.
After making sure Napoleon and the girls are content, I head back to picking berries.
By the time I return with my hard-earned bounty—and a few new puncture wounds—Laney’s set up a whole operation in the living room. Popcorn cooling in bowls, needles and thread laid out like surgical instruments, and pinecones arranged by size.
“Impressive haul,” she says, examining my berry collection. “These are perfect. The color will be gorgeous with the—”
“Clashes! Clashes!” Peanut squawks from his cage, eyeing the orange-red berries with obvious disdain. “Bad!”
“If you’re not helping, you can’t be the sidewalk superintendent,” Laney mutters, but she’s smiling. “We’re going for rustic charm, not design magazine perfection.”
“Terrible!”
I can’t help but laugh. “I think he’s appointed himself as decorator-in-chief.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Laney says, settling onto the floor beside the coffee table she’s converted into our workstation. “He’s already got opinions about everything else.”
I join her on the floor, settling into the workspace she’s organized with characteristic efficiency. She doesn’t pull away when our knees brush. Progress.
“So,” she says, threading a needle with green embroidery floss, “popcorn garland first, or berry strings?”
“Your project, your rules.”
“Popcorn,” she decides. “It’s more forgiving for beginners.”
She demonstrates the technique—pushing the needle through each kernel, creating a chain of white puffs. It looks simple until I try it and immediately split three pieces in a row.
From his cage, Peanut offers helpful commentary: “Oops!”
I glance over at the parrot, who’s watching our decorating efforts with intense interest. “Thanks for the encouragement, Peanut.”
“Pretty! Make it pretty!” he squawks, bobbing his head.
Laney laughs. “At least someone has faith in us.” She scoots closer to guide my hands. “Gentle pressure, like you’re handling Jasper. Firm but not aggressive.”
Her fingers cover mine, warm and sure, and suddenly I’m not thinking about popcorn at all. I’m thinking about yesterday, about trust and gentleness and the way she’d looked at me when I called her Sunshine.
“There,” she says softly. “Good.”
Two hours pass in comfortable silence, broken only by Peanut’s occasional derisive commentary and the crackle of the fire. The garlands grow slowly, our combined efforts creating something imperfect but undeniably charming.
Without thinking, I start humming. It’s an old song from home, something my mother used to sing while she worked. The melody is simple, repetitive, and designed for long winter tasks.
“That’s beautiful,” Laney says, looking up from her garland. “What is it?”
I stop humming. “Just something from An’Wa. A working song.” After returning to the song, I let the familiar melody fill the space between us.
“It sounds… ancient. Like it’s been around forever.”
“It probably has. It’s about winter fires and waiting for spring. The kind of song you sing when you’re making things last through the cold months.”
There’s something in her expression that makes my breath catch. Like she’s seeing something she likes.
“Could you teach it to me?”
The request catches me off guard. “You want to learn an Orcish song?”
“Why not? It’s beautiful, and…” She pauses, threading another piece of popcorn. “It seems important to you.”
Important doesn’t begin to cover it. Music was one of the few things my father never lost, even when everything else about Earth disappointed him. Teaching her feels like sharing something precious.
“It’s called ‘Gath Mor Selen,’” I say slowly. “It means ‘fire through the darkness.’”
I sing the first verse softly, letting her hear the rhythm and the way the words flow together. Her eyes never leave my face. She mouths the unfamiliar syllables, catching the melody.
“The words sound so… textured,” she says. “Like they have weight.”
“Orcish is a guttural language. Lots of sounds you don’t have in English.” I demonstrate a few of the harder consonants as she tries to mimic them.
“Gath mor…” she attempts, but the pronunciation is too soft, too human.
“More from your throat,” I suggest. “Like a growl, but musical.”
She tries again, getting closer but still not quite right. The sound needs to come from deeper, from the chest.
“Here,” I say, setting down my needle and moving closer. “May I?”
At her nod, I close the distance between us until we’re close enough that I catch the faint vanilla scent of her hair, close enough to see the way her pupils dilate.
I place my fingers along her throat with deliberate care, feeling for the vocal cords. Her pulse hammers beneath my fingertips—rapid, telling. The contact is innocent, instructional, but my skin hums with awareness.
“The sound starts here,” I say, my voice dropping lower. I apply the lightest pressure. “Feel that?”
She nods, and the movement makes her throat flex beneath my palm. I’m acutely aware of every point where we’re almost touching—my knee a breath away from hers, my chest close enough that if she leaned forward even slightly, we’d be pressed together.
“Now try,” I whisper.
“Gath mor,” she attempts, and this time the sound is deeper, richer. Still not quite Orcish, but beautiful in its own way.
“Better,” I say, but I don’t move my hand. She doesn’t move away.
The moment stretches between us, charged with something that has nothing to do with language lessons and everything to do with the way she’s looking at me. Like maybe she’s letting herself feel it too—this pull between us that grows stronger every day.
A loud snort from the floor breaks the spell, and we spring apart to find Hamlet standing next to our work area, somehow tangled in six feet of popcorn garland.
“Hamlet!” Laney laughs, but there’s a breathless quality to her voice. “How did you even manage that?”
The pig looks supremely pleased with himself, wearing the garland like some kind of festive collar. When he moves, more popcorn scatters across the floor, which immediately attracts Duchess’s attention.
“I think we’ve lost our first garland to the cause,” I observe, trying not to laugh as the mama cat pounces on a piece of escaped popcorn and bats it under the couch.
“I guess it’s a good thing the kittens are still blind, or we’d have a free-for-all.”
“Loser!” Peanut squawks, apparently delighted by the chaos.
“Traitor,” Laney scolds the parrot, but she’s grinning as she carefully untangles Hamlet from our handiwork. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Pretty side!”