Chapter 14
Kyla stood in the kitchen with one hip against the painted wooden counter and her arms tucked under her ribs. Her hair stayed half-twisted from sleep with a few coils spilling loose.
She squinted at the white blur beyond the window and pressed her palm to the glass. Cold pressed through her skin.
Everything past the back fence had vanished. Barn, feedlot, and sky dissolved into the steady fall of flakes. The windmill stood alone with its outline barely visible through the white.
Farther off, a brown smear showed where the cattle would bed down. Montana offered no polite wait for city nerves to settle.
Behind her, the kettle spat on the gas flame and sent ribbons of steam up the wall. She breathed in the kitchen air heavy with beans from the grinder, a faint trace of soap, and the metallic heat from the old oven still cooling after her early bake.
The table had been set for two hours with the blue-check cloth smoothed and two mugs turned upside down to dry. Nothing rushed. Her left thumb swept over the callus on her right palm. The routine now carried its own muscle memory fitted to these acres.
A scrape at the back door made her pulse jump, then slow. Only one person let himself in that quietly.
Titus stepped through with boots scattering dirty slush onto the mat. His coat showed white dust at the shoulders. Jeans darkened at the seams and the brim of his hat already slicked with melt.
He shrugged out of the coat without looking up. His shoulders rolled once in movements that never hurried. Steam rose behind him but did nothing to warm his raw red hands.
She did not turn but tracked him in the window reflection. The set of his mouth stayed firm and the line between his brows never faded even when he laughed. He shed his layers in silence and moved up behind her until his chest grazed her shoulder blades.
His arms slipped around her waist with elbows braced against her hips in an ease born of repetition. His chin rested heavy on her shoulder and his beard scratched over her skin.
“You up before me,” he murmured. His voice carried the first crackle of morning.
Her own exhale fogged the window. “Bad dreams. Could not go back to sleep.”
He made a sound closer to agreement than sympathy.
His fingers splayed wider at her belly. Kyla’s shoulders ticked up, then down.
Months ago, she would have stiffened at being held with no room to move free.
Now she sank back into the frame of him and felt his heart tap slow and deep against her spine.
The kettle clicked and ramped up to a frantic whine. Neither moved to answer it. Snow tapped against the tin over the porch. Even Roscoe had disappeared somewhere off chasing winter rabbits or a forgotten biscuit in the hayloft.
The house stayed near silent except for the muffled whistling and the scraping heat that came up through the old ducts.
Titus pressed a kiss low against her hair. His nose nudged the knot at the crown of her head. “You want breakfast?”
His words carried softer weight this morning, worn down by cold and six straight days working cattle through ice-crusted gates.
“I want more sleep,” she said without turning. “But I will settle for coffee and another hour with the world quiet.”
He squeezed once just above her navel, then let his hands ease apart. His palms lingered. She pressed her head back, not enough to see his eyes, but enough for her breath to catch against his throat. The skin there tasted faintly of soap and the metallic cold of snow.
The kettle’s whistle reached a fever pitch and sliced through the hush. Kyla winced, but Titus only grunted. His hands gathered her tighter as if he refused to let routine interrupt.
“You leave it too long, Chef, and you are cleaning scale for a week.”
She almost laughed, but the instinct caught in her chest. Instead, she slid her hands over his with her knuckles brushing his scarred fingers.
“One minute,” she bargained with her eyes closed.
He let her have it with his chin balanced in the crook of her neck and the slow sync of their breathing claiming its own rhythm. With her eyes shut, she matched him breath for breath.
On the stove, the kettle shrieked on and spilled steam down the stained white enamel. Kyla braced herself to break contact, but for a moment longer she stayed still and let the heat and closeness stretch until she had marked it. This quiet. This man. This landscape outside.
When she finally twisted away, Titus loosened his grip. His fingertips grazed her ribs as she reached for the kettle. He leaned against the counter with hips braced and one boot knocking lightly against hers under the table.
“It is still coming down,” he said.
She poured water over grounds and watched the swirl of dark and lighter while a shiver trailed from her wrist to elbow. “Supposed to stop by afternoon.”
“That is what you said last night.”
She shot him a look, but his mouth showed the tiniest ghost of a smile, the kind only she ever seemed to see. His gaze dropped to her legs, bare feet with the hem of sweatpants tucked up above her ankles and one heel notched onto the other for balance.
Her chest eased open.
He caught her watching him in the window reflection and for a breath recognition flickered between them. The soundless knowledge that neither one had run yet.
She poured coffee and slid his mug down the table without asking if he wanted milk. He took it black always. He propped one elbow near hers with his hand steady and fingers squared around the battered handle.
“What did you dream?” he asked.
She hesitated. The truth came out clipped. “Nothing good. Kitchen closed. Lock on the door.”
He did not offer false comfort or push. Instead, he took her free hand and ran his thumb along her scar, the faint line from the Brooklyn kitchen fire that branded her differently than this place ever could.
“Can not lock you out here,” he said.
She shrugged with her lips pressed in a line and let her thumb tap the table. A habit she had never dropped. “Can not lock you out either,” she replied with her voice soft.
Outside, the world kept vanishing inch by inch. Inside, she took up space against the window within his arms and beside his careful silences. For a long stretch of morning, she and Titus drank their coffee in a room pressed in by snow, neither asking what the rest of winter would cost.
The blizzard did not let up for three days. By the second morning, Kyla had lost track of how many times she had circled the kitchen with her shoulder bumping the same open drawer and her socks catching on the split between floorboards.
The muffled roar outside made every nerve twitch. The ranch house shrank with every hour Titus spent repairing a hinge or sharpening knives. Their words turned brittle in the drift of snow that refused to end.
A flicker of sun filtered through cotton curtains just long enough for her to wish for escape.
Instead, she banged her hip against the kitchen island and hissed out a curse.
She swept crumbs off the counter with the side of her hand.
The coffee carafe rattled against the burner, low and shrill, and wore a groove in her brain.
Titus stayed in the pantry shuffling bags and muttering under his breath with his voice muffled but persistent. She caught the end of it.
Flour does not go there, Chef.
She bristled. “It is my damn kitchen,” she tossed back.
He emerged with an armful of baking soda and one eyebrow cocked. “Your kitchen is not the only one in this house.”
The tension lingered with neither willing to let it settle. Kyla yanked open a lower cabinet intent on some hidden order only she understood. Her knee knocked a pot loose. The clang rattled through her chest. She slammed it back harder than needed.
“You moving the glassware again?” he asked while he held her gaze. “It was fine where it was.”
“If you are drinking bourbon at noon because the roads are gone, you can damn well reach overhead.” The words sharpened without warning and snared them both.
He shot her a look. “I do not drink at noon.”
“Yet,” she muttered while she organized jars, first by color, then by size, with neither arrangement right.
It became impossible to ignore his boots planted in her way.
For two breaths she did not look up. She felt him braced behind her, big with heat radiating in the narrow kitchen, and it would have taken so little for her to give in.
Instead, she spun to face him with her spine rigid and her eyes narrowed.
“Do not stand there acting like it is only me making a mess,” she said with her voice low.
“I never said it was,” he replied. “But every time you touch these cabinets, I spend an hour figuring out where you hid the goddamn spatulas.”
“They are in the same drawer as always, Titus. You want a label, grab a marker.”
That did it. His jaw set. He ran one hand over his mouth with the scrape loud, then crossed his arms. “I do not need a label, Kyla. I need a place that feels like mine once in a while.”
Something bitter rose. “Go build your own kitchen. You want to carve your name into something, there is three acres of lumber out back.”
His glare flared with his eyes bright. “So that is how it is.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing landed right, only anger and the ache of feeling small in a place she had poured herself into all winter. Her shoulders pressed forward. She lifted her chin.
“It is how it is today,” she said. “You want to move cabinets, move them. You want to move me—”
His hand slammed flat on the island with the sound sharp. “I want you to quit acting like I am some intruder in my own damn house.”
They stood inches apart with breathing harsh in the kitchen already warm from the oven’s ghost heat. Her heart ran wild with every pulse a dare.
She shoved him then, flat-palmed, hard enough to make him stagger half a step. Before he could spit out a retort, she crowded in with her hands gripping his shirt and kissed him rough and punishing.