Chapter 6 #2
She held her ground. Her chin lifted higher, and I caught the rapid rise and fall of her chest. "I know you took the fall for your brother without hesitation, so he wouldn't be taken from Tori and Viola.
I know you helped an elderly woman change a tire even though you were a fugitive.
I know you're loyal and protective and—"
She stopped abruptly. A flush crept up her neck, staining her cheeks pink.
"And what?" I kept my voice soft, but I didn't move back. Didn't give her space.
"And infuriating." She turned back to the groceries with more force than necessary, her movements jerky now.
I stared at her, something tightening in my chest. She was so small compared to me—barely came up to my shoulder—but in that moment, she seemed larger than life. Fierce and unbreakable and absolutely terrifying in her conviction.
"Your friends are lucky to have you." The words came out rougher than I intended, weighted with something I wasn't ready to name.
She stilled. Her hands paused on a box of crackers. "I'm lucky to have them."
When she turned back, the flush on her cheeks had deepened. She wouldn't quite meet my eyes. "Now stop being sentimental and help me get this place livable. We've been driving all night, and I need coffee before I pass out."
I moved to help, but she was already in motion—pulling open cabinets, assessing what needed to be done. The lawyer in her, I realized. Always strategizing, always three steps ahead.
"Firewood." She nodded toward the wood stove in the corner, her voice back to business. "I'll handle the dust situation before we all suffocate."
"Bossy." I murmured it low enough that she had to strain to hear.
"Efficient."
"Same thing."
"Not even close."
The wood stove was ancient—cast iron with a belly door that creaked when I opened it. Someone had left kindling and newspaper inside, dry and ready. I headed back outside to the woodpile, grateful for something physical to do after hours cramped in the Jeep.
The air was sharp and clean, carrying the scent of pine resin and morning dew. Dawn was breaking over the mountains, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. I heard a creek somewhere below, the rush of water over stones, and the distant call of a hawk circling overhead.
The woodpile was neatly stacked under its tarp, protected from the elements. I pulled back the covering and selected several split logs—oak, mostly, with some hickory mixed in. Good burning wood. Rufus had known what he was doing.
I carried an armload back inside, my boots heavy on the porch steps.
Through the window, I saw Sarah attacking the main room with a broom she'd found in the closet, raising clouds of dust that caught the early morning light.
She'd tied her hair back with something and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
She looked... focused. Determined. Like she was personally offended by the dust.
I couldn't help but smile.
Inside, I arranged the logs in the stove—kindling first, then smaller pieces, then the larger logs on top. I struck a match from the box on the mantel and held it to the newspaper. The flame caught immediately, spreading to the kindling with a soft crackle.
She glanced at me. Nodded once. Then went back to sweeping, the rhythm of her movements almost hypnotic—steady, efficient, thorough. She worked her way across the floor, pushing dust and debris toward the door, then swept it all out onto the porch in one decisive motion.
I watched the way her body moved. The flex of her shoulders. The determined set of her jaw. The way she attacked each corner like it had personally wronged her.
Something warm unfurled in my chest.
I straightened, brushing bark from my hands. "Water pump's next. Where is it?"
"Back porch. There's a well out there—hand pump. It's temperamental."
"Like you?"
She shot me a look over her shoulder. "Like you want to pump your own water for the next five days?"
"Point taken."
Temperamental was an understatement.
The pump was old, probably original to the cabin, with a long handle and a spout that emptied into a bucket. I worked the handle a few times, feeling the resistance, the way the mechanism groaned and protested. Nothing came out but air and a faint metallic smell.
I kept pumping. Up and down, up and down, putting my weight into it. My shoulders burned, but I didn't stop. Somewhere deep below, I could hear water moving, the pipes filling.
Then, finally, a sputter. A cough. And clear, cold water gushed from the spout.
I let it run for a minute, watching the initial rust-colored water clear to crystal. Then I filled the bucket and carried it inside, setting it on the counter.
"We have water," I announced.
Sarah looked up from where she was wiping down the kitchen counter with a rag. Her face lit up—genuine pleasure at this small victory. "Thank God. I was not looking forward to five days without running water."
"It's not exactly running water," I pointed out. "More like... manually operated water."
"Close enough." She rinsed her rag in the bucket, wrung it out, and went back to cleaning.
I made several more trips to the woodpile, stacking logs beside the stove until we had enough to last a couple of days. The fire was burning well now, taking the chill off the air, filling the cabin with warmth and the pleasant smell of burning oak.
By the time I finished, Sarah had transformed the main room. The surfaces were clean, the cobwebs gone, the windows wiped clear. It still looked old and worn, but it looked lived in now. Cared for.
"I'm going to change," she said, grabbing one of the shopping bags. "This blazer was not designed for manual labor."
She disappeared into the bedroom, and I busied myself checking the solar panel setup.
There was a small battery bank in the corner, connected to panels on the roof.
The charge indicator showed about sixty percent—enough for lights and maybe the small refrigerator, but not much else. We'd have to be conservative.
The setup reminded me of the village. We ran mostly off-grid, relying on candlelight and wood stoves for the most part.
But there were solar panels too, especially for Jordan's clinic.
I'd helped install the panels last spring, spending an afternoon on the clinic roof while Ruka shouted instructions from below.
That felt like a lifetime ago now.
I was studying the wiring when Sarah emerged from the bedroom.
And I made the mistake of looking up.
She'd changed into jeans—dark blue, fitted—and a soft gray sweater. Nothing fancy. Nothing revealing. Just... normal clothes.
But the jeans fit her perfectly, hugging curves I'd been carefully not noticing for the past several hours. And the sweater, being oversized, somehow made her look smaller. More delicate.
More...
Stop it.
I forced my gaze back to the battery, my jaw tight. She was my lawyer. My co-conspirator. The woman who'd risked everything to keep me alive.
She was not someone I could think about like that.
Even if her scent—vanilla and steel and something uniquely her—was making it very difficult to concentrate on electrical system.
"Better?" she asked, moving past me to the kitchen.
I looked up again—I couldn't help it—and caught her glancing back at me. The moment our eyes met, she went rigid. Not the fearful rigidity from the station, but something different. Something that made her cheeks flush a deep pink that had nothing to do with the warmth of the fire.
She looked away quickly, busying herself with the shopping bags with sudden, intense focus.
"Much more practical," I managed, keeping my eyes on the battery indicator like it was the most fascinating thing I'd ever seen.
But I wasn't really looking at the battery anymore. I was watching her in my peripheral vision, curious now. Intrigued.
She'd noticed me looking. And it had flustered her.
She started pulling food from the bags—eggs, bacon, bread, butter—with movements that were slightly too quick, slightly too deliberate. "I'm making breakfast. You must be starving."
I was, actually. I hadn't eaten since the jail slop at dinner, and that felt like a lifetime ago.
"You don't have to—"
"I'm hungry too," she interrupted, already pulling out a cast-iron skillet from under the stove.
I held up my hands in surrender and settled onto the sagging couch, watching as she worked.
She moved around the small kitchen with surprising ease, like she'd done this a hundred times before. Probably had, I realized. This had been her uncle's place. She'd spent time here, learned the quirks of the old stove, knew which burner heated fastest.
But now she was hyperaware of my presence. I could tell by the way she kept her back to me, by the slight tension in her shoulders. By the way she didn't glance over her shoulder the way she had before.
The bacon started sizzling, filling the cabin with a smell that made my stomach growl audibly.
Sarah glanced over her shoulder—just barely, just enough to acknowledge the sound—but her eyes didn't quite meet mine. They landed somewhere in the vicinity of my chest before she quickly looked back at the stove. "Patience, it's almost ready."
"I'm very patient."
"You broke out of jail after less than twenty-four hours."
"That was strategic, not impatient."
"Uh-huh." She cracked eggs into the pan, the whites spreading and bubbling around the yolks. Her neck was flushed now, a deeper pink than her cheeks. "You want coffee?"
"Please."
She paused, looking at me with surprise—but this time she held my gaze for a fraction of a second longer than necessary before looking away. "Really? I thought Orcs hated coffee."
"Most do. Too bitter."
"But not you?"
"I like bitter things."
Her hands stilled for just a moment before she resumed her work. "That's... unexpected."
"I'm full of surprises."
"Apparently." She filled an old percolator with water from the bucket and set it on the stove, keeping herself busy, keeping her distance. "What else do you like that most Orcs don't?"
"Bossy human lawyers."