Immediately I realized the problem. She’d stuffed too many large logs in the fire place. All they were doing was smoldering, which was causing all the smoke. I took two out, carefully trying not to burn myself as I did it. I made sure neither log was on fire before I put them back on the woodpile. Once there was more oxygen, the fire picked up and the smoke started to clear.
“You can shut the door now,” I snapped, happy to have a reason to bite off her head, which was less about her and more about my unhappy dick.
“You were gone, and it was cold. I just thought—”
“Yeah, well, you thought wrong. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you ask first.”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. Something I didn’t think Olivia had.
Great. Now I felt like an asshole. “It’s fine. No damage.”
I took my coat off and sat in the chair running through my mantra of the amount of time I had to get through before this ordeal would be over. Before she would be gone and on her way to Anchorage and corporate headquarters.
She sat in the chair opposite me, and we both were silent as we stared at the fire.
“About this morning—” she began.
“Forget about it.” There was no point in discussing it. She was only going to say she hadn’t realized what she was doing, and I already knew that. Just like I would have said yesterday that I didn’t know what I was doing until she beat me to it.
“Should we eat something?”
I thought about the rations. “Not until tonight. Storm’s over. They should find us soon, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Does Cal know about this cabin?”
“I don’t know, but Zeke does. And Zeke knows I know about it. He’ll make sure Cal knows that.”
“You’re mad at me.”
I sighed. “I’m not mad, Olivia.”
“You’re something. You won’t even look at me.”
Because it hurt. It hurt to look at her and know she wasn’t going to be mine. It hurt knowing she was hungry, and I hadn’t caught anything to feed her. That she’d been cold, and I’d stormed out without leaving her with a proper fire to keep her warm.
Everything about her made me ache to my teeth.
I turned to her and tried to think of something I could say that might make it evident to her but, in the end, I just shrugged. “You want to play rummy?”
That made her perk up. “I’ll get the cards.”
We planted ourselves on the sleeping bag and Olivia dealt out the cards leaving the rest of the deck between us. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, she was laying down her last pair.
I had three cards left.
“Eighteen,” I said, counting my points.
“That’s one-sixty to seven,” she said.
“Oh no. We’re not counting yesterday’s points. This is a new game,” I said. One I might have a chance to win.
“But that’s how rummy is played. You keep a running total. My parents have had a running total for thirty-seven years.”
“Well, we’re starting over so I have a chance at catching up.”
She looked like she wanted to object further but stopped herself. “Fine. Eighteen to nothing.”
Another hand, another victory for her.
