Chapter 22
Kellan had made himself completely intolerable.
Ever since Lettie had woken up curled practically on top of him, he wouldn't be more than three feet from her.
She stood up to stretch, Kellan suddenly needed to adjust the lanterns. If she so much as looked vaguely cold, a blanket materialized around her shoulders with the speed and precision of military strategy. Lettie reached for the kettle once and Kellan had nearly vaulted across the campfire.
Unfortunately, Lettie refused to look at anyone, which only made Kellan impossibly worse.
Reis sat against a pile of saddlebags, whittling kindling and looking clearly irritated by all of it.
Mirielle, however, found it incredibly funny. She smiled from behind the cup of tea warming her fingers while she watched them.
Meanwhile, Lettie sat rigidly near the fire, trying to ignore all of them while Kellan hovered nearby pretending not to hover.
"I think I'll make soup," Kellan announced, grabbing a pot from next to her.
Dane immediately stood and grabbed the pot from his hands.
"You set water on fire yesterday."
Kellan looked horribly betrayed.
"That was one time."
"It was snow."
Reis sighed the sigh of a man who had seen war.
Kellan snatched the pot back anyway. “I am an excellent cook,” he declared while throwing dried meat, herbs and vegetables into the cook pot with theatrical confidence. “That’s part of why Lettie loves me.”
Dane stared at the pot with visible internal conflict. For a moment, it looked as though he was debating whether to tackle him. Eventually, he sat back down with the grim resignation of a man accepting fate.
"I did not say that," Lettie proclaimed.
"You were practically in my lap.”
“It was freezing.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit survival instincts.”
“Your survival instincts have excellent taste."
Dane stood back up at once and shoved Kellan aside with his shoulder.
"Excuse me," Kellan protested.
"It's burning."
"It is not."
"It's on fire."
Kellan finally looked down at the pot, where flames flickered cheerfully along the inner rim.
Reis rubbed both hands down his face.
"You can't flirt and cook at the same time," Dane scolded.
"I can do two things at once."
"You can't even do one thing at once."
"I most certainly can."
"You walked into a tree earlier because you were staring at her."
"That tree came out of nowhere."
Mirielle burst into giggles. Reis looked up at her from his hands.
"Kellan," Lettie finally spoke up, "yer behavin' like a lunatic."
Kellan opened his mouth to defend himself but paused.
Because Lettie was smiling.
Not a tiny reluctant smile—big and broad and warm.
Suddenly Kellan forgot everything. Forgot the argument, forgot the culinary disaster Dane was frantically trying to clean up behind him. The scheming grin wiped from his face completely.
For one moment, all he could see was the woman smiling in front of him, warm cheeks, copper hair glowing gold next to the fire. He looked like a man witnessing sunlight after years underground.
Lettie’s smile faltered beneath the full force of it.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That.” She gestured vaguely toward his face. "Whatever that expression is.”
“My face?”
“Yes.”
“My loving face?”
Mirielle nearly choked on her tea.
Lettie pointed at Kellan. "Yer impossible."
"Yet you slept with me."
"I slept next to you."
"She drooled on me too.”
“I DID NOT.”
“You did a little,” Kellan said fondly. "You also held onto my shirt in your sleep.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “I did not!”
“You did.” His smile softened into something devastatingly genuine. “Wouldn’t let go.”
The tent went silent.
Because for just a moment Kellan's voice lost its playfulness, like it was a memory that mattered.
Lettie noticed it too.
Kellan looked at her with unbearable softness, the kind that felt dangerous in a way the cold never could.
Smoke began to billow from the pot.
Dane closed his eyes.
"Kellan."
"What?"
"The soup is on fire again."
*
Kellan was destroying Dane at a game of cards while Lettie watched with the fascinated horror of someone watching a public execution.
The storm raged through the day, alternating from heavy snowdrifts to blizzard-like winds. The trees dropped piles of snow on the canvas canopy above them while the snowdrifts rose on the canvas walls, slowly encapsulating the tent.
Mirielle was fascinated by all of it.
When Reis was distracted cleaning his boots, she slowly crept out of her furs to the entrance and peeked between the narrow slit. She peeled away the tent flap and a burst of cold air blew through the tent.
"Mirielle," came a low warning voice from behind her.
"Hmm?"
"Close the tent."
"I'm only looking."
"You've looked seven times in the last hour."
"It's grown a foot already." Her voice was quiet awe.
Reis stared at her. "You're measuring snow growth.”
“Yes.”
Kellan sighed dramatically. “She has become one with the north.”
“She’s becoming a problem,” Reis muttered.
"It buried Hank,” she whispered in amazement.
From somewhere outside came an offended horse sound.
"What if it buries the tent?"
"That can happen," Dane chimed in.
Reis slowly turned his head to Dane with a look of murderous warning as if to say: stop scaring her I will fell winter myself if it tries.
"Though it is unlikely," Dane announced slightly loudly and in a somewhat rehearsed tone.
Mirielle opened the tent flap a little more and a cold wind rushed in, spraying snow across the tent floor and brushing flakes against Reis's boots.
Reis watched her for one moment. Snowflakes drifted, clinging like stars across her dark hair. Wonder wrote across her face like she’d never seen anything so beautiful before.
Then another violent shiver ran through her body.
That ended it.
Reis rose and, crossing the tent in a single stride, grabbed her by the waist and hauled her back to her spot next to him and covered her in furs.
"Reis!" Mirielle complained.
"No."
"I was just looking."
"You were just trying to freeze to death."
Mirielle huffed and tried to squirm away from him. He locked his arm around her.
"Stay warm for five consecutive minutes," Reis ordered.
"I'm not cold."
"You're freezing."
"I run naturally cold."
"You run naturally towards bad decisions."
A large pile of snow shifted from the canvas ceiling down the side of the tent.
Mirielle's attention went to it instantly.
"No," Reis warned.
"I was just..."
"No."
Mirielle huffed and tried to shuffle out of his hold.
Without thinking, Reis easily caught her wrists with one hand, held them to her abdomen and forced her body against his.
Mirielle stilled.
The fight seemed to vanish from her all at once. Her shoulders and back seemed to lock and her breath hitched.
Reis frowned. For a moment he didn't understand. Then he followed her gaze to the hand wrapped around her wrists.
The color drained from his face. He released her so quickly it was almost a recoil.
"Mirielle—" A terrible expression crossed his face.
Kellan and Dane's gazes snapped to her as if instinct had warned them of danger. Mirielle's eyes stayed fixed on her free hands half hidden beneath blankets, needing to see them to convince herself they were unbound.
Reis felt Mirielle's heartbeat flutter unevenly in her chest. He slowly tucked another blanket around her shoulders, deliberately avoiding her hands and settled his chin on her head.
"Sorry," he muttered from above her.
For a moment, the only sounds filling the tent were the crackling fire and wind outside.
Mirielle slowly let out a breath. Then another. Reis closed his eyes and listened as her breathing returned to a steady rhythm, the tension draining from her shoulders little by little. Guilt tore through his chest as he felt her fight her own body for control.
Across the tent, Dane looked at his cards with a dark expression. Kellan rubbed his hand over his jaw.
Mirielle turned to look at Reis. Her hand rested on his arm, still holding her waist. Not barring anymore, not restraining her, only comforting and stabilizing.
"I'm alright."
Pain laced his features.
"Liar."
Mirielle's lip twitched. It stole some of the misery from the tent, but only some.
Reis looked away before she could argue. He couldn't bear to hear her explain that she was alright when she clearly wasn't. So he simply pulled the blanket more tightly around her. Mirielle's body loosened bit by bit as she slowly relaxed into his arms.
Across the tent, Kellan quietly gathered cards.
"No more games tonight."
Nobody argued. Dane threw his hand into the pile.
Mirielle's breathing eventually evened into a deep, peaceful sleep. Reis lay awake for a while, making sure that her heartbeat was at its normal rhythm, that her breathing was steady.
Only when he was sure she was sleeping without fear did he finally allow himself to sleep.
His arm still hung loosely over her waist.
This time when he held her, he made sure she could leave whenever she wished.
*
Dane could feel Mirielle's gaze on the back of his head.
She had been watching him since he went to the saddlebags to pull out his small leather pouch with wax thread, leather needles and an awl.
The weather had finally broken and Reis and Kellan were packing camp while Dane fixed the damaged gear.
Lettie had been ordered by Kellan to sit by the fire.
Reis, of course, also ordered Mirielle to sit still by the fire but she couldn't seem to keep herself planted in one spot for more than a minute.
Since the sun was out and she wasn't shivering, he ignored it.
He sat on a log near the horses mending the saddle strap that had broken.
The trees above him, still heavy with snow, provided him shade from the blaring sun.
He would puncture holes into leather using the awl, thread the needle, then pull it through the holes until it created a thick seal.
His stitches weren't pretty. They were strong, meant to last decades.
She had been standing at the edge of the clearing just behind his left shoulder, a safe distance away. Safe from him.
But she was slowly moving closer. He could hear the snow shift under her shuffling feet every few minutes as she moved to get a better view of his work.
Dane tried to make himself smaller. He slumped his shoulders, relaxed his feet underneath him, lowered his head and pretended not to notice her.
He didn't dare talk to her, didn't dare look at her. He wanted her to be used to him, wanted his presence to not disrupt her security. So he would let her come to him. He would find things to fix all morning if he had to.
So he was patient. He focused on his task. He put thread between his lips to wet it before carefully threading it through the eye of the needle, then he pulled the thread through the holes he had already created.
Reis was watching too. Dane knew it. Reis knew Dane knew it. He would glance at them every few seconds while disassembling the tent nearby.
She shifted closer again, now less than five feet away. Dane still pretended not to notice.
The leather creaked softly in his hands as he pulled another stitch through. The waxed thread bit into the strap—strong, sturdy, good enough.
He heard snow shift again.
Closer.
Dane kept his eyes on his work.
A few moments passed.
"What does that do?" she asked quietly from behind him.
Dane fought the smile tugging at his lips. "The awl?"
"The pointy thing."
Dane held it up without turning around. "Makes holes."
"Oh."
Silence. He returned to stitching.
"You make the holes first and then pull the thread through."
"Mm." Dane put his lips together to hide a smile and nodded.
"Oh."
Snow shifted again and now Dane could see her cloak just at the edge of his vision.
Reis had stopped working and was watching them both intently from across the clearing. Not obviously, but Dane knew it. He was watching her body language and his, making sure nobody needed to be stabbed.
Dane glanced his way briefly.
Mirielle pointed at the edge. "Why do you cross them there?"
"The edge is more prone to tear."
"Oh."
A comfortable silence settled over them. Dane's ears burned with her closeness but he ignored his own body's response. Instead, he used a small knife to trim the frayed edges off another broken strap.
"Could you teach someone how to do that?"
Dane nearly stabbed his own thumb.
"Anyone can learn."
There was a pause that seemed to last an eternity.
"Could you teach me?"
Across the clearing, Reis froze.
Dane glanced at her before he could stop himself.
Silver eyes filled with wonder. Not with fear.
He immediately turned back to his hands, but he couldn't seem to move them.
Because Mirielle had just asked to spend time with him voluntarily.
"Alright..."