For endless seconds, he felt the blue eyes look into his as though she could see down to the bottom of his shriveled soul. And no matter what he knew or what he believed, he could not look away, nor could he speak.
Then her lashes flickered, and her eyes closed.
And like a prisoner who has seen a glimpse of sunlight from the dungeon, Mitch felt forgotten yearning shudder through him. Averting his mind’s eye from the sight, he took her to her bed and escaped the room with all haste.
Behind the closed door of his own bedroom, Mitch drew in his first deep breath of the night.
Perrie awoke, blinking against the bars of buttery-yellow sunlight making the log walls glow golden. She stretched, then glanced over to see Davey’s cot empty. Listening for sounds to indicate that he and Mitch were inside, she heard nothing.
Mornings were already cold. Sweeping the quilt aside, she glanced down at the thick socks on her feet. By all rights, they should be able to stand by themselves, she’d had them on so long. She needed to get to the car to get more clothes but as she stood up, she quickly realized that she was far from ready to walk the two miles.
Making her way across the room, Perrie paused by the tall pine chest that flanked the doorway, running her hands across the surface of it, still covered with that same strip of once-bright Mexican cloth. Her mind’s eye returned to the past when she couldn’t see to the top of the chest, could only see the edges of the cloth’s fringe. Grandpa Cy had finally asked her one day what she was staring at so intently.
He’d laughed when she’d told him that she wondered what was up there. Picking her up, he let her look where she had imagined treasures. Instead, she’d found little. Change from his pocket. A photo of her mother as a girl. Perrie’s own school picture, front tooth missing. And a dark, grainy photo of Cy and his beloved Adele, the grandmother she’d never known.
They hadn’t seemed treasures to her then, but now she wished with all her heart to see them just once more.
Maybe Mitch… She shook her head. Would he have kept them? Likely not.
Perrie swept her fingers over the carved square wooden pulls of the top drawer, wondering if the chest contained her grandfather’s things, or Mitch’s. Had he given up this room to them or made the second bedroom his own? Her fingers hovered over the pull.
No. It wasn’t right. She was a guest here, nothing more. Maybe she’d come here expecting to be family, but that was not the reality she’d found. Sliding her fingers across the rough wood, she turned away and headed for the living room.
Sunlight flooded through the small window over the sink in the kitchen area to her left. Straight ahead, the window beside the front door was shadowed by the porch, but more sunlight brightened the living area from the window off to her right. In the fireplace, flames crackled.
On the old oak kitchen table, the torn edge of a brown paper sack stood against the salt shaker. Davey’s with me, it read, in a bold, masculine scrawl.
No signature, but none was needed. The handwriting was like the man, strong and to the point. Not one superfluous word. She smiled. Mitch guarded words as though he couldn’t replace the ones he used.
At least he’d thought to prevent her worry. Mitch will take care of us, Mom. Her smile vanished. Davey had opened his heart to Mitch, but she couldn’t. He was too full of contradictions, too much a mystery.
Just for a moment, an image darted across her mind. Strong arms beneath her, hard chest against her cheek. The smell of a man’s sweat and wood smoke and piney forest. Eyes burning amber locked on hers.
She wanted to understand their pain, the source of the dark shadows. To burrow closer and lose herself in their depths.
Shivering at the memory, Perrie moved near the fireplace to snag the quilt she’d used to cover Mitch, wrapping it around her. With brisk steps, she headed for the woodstove and poured herself a cup of the coffee he had left warming on the back.
Stay busy, Perrie. Make yourself useful. And stay out of his way.
In the corner, she saw a barrel Mitch used to store water. She checked the reservoir on the right side of the woodstove, finding it already full of still-warm water. She would wash herself with it, then heat more.
Then she’d wash their clothes and scrub away foolish thoughts in the process.
“How come you don’t have a TV, Mitch?” Davey asked from his perch on Mitch’s back.
The boy had lasted longer than Mitch had expected, hiking a good mile and a half without complaint. Probably closer to three miles, if you counted all the times he’d darted off to the side to find some new treasure. And he’d asked at least a million questions. Maybe two million.
“Don’t need one.”