“You’re not,” he says, shouldering the door closed. “You’re staying alive and not making me dig you out of a drift at dusk.”
“When you put it that way, I love not dying.”
He ushers me onto the porch with a hand at my elbow that’s all business. Snow swirls sideways. The trees shudder again. He unlocks the door, pushes us inside, and the quiet hits like a blanket. The little stove snaps hello.
I stand on the braided rug and try to inflict as little of myself on the room as possible. “House rules,” I blurt. “Lay them on me. No shoes? No filming? No breathing too loud?”
He hangs his coat, then reaches for mine and shakes it off before hooking it near the door. “Shoes off. No filming. You can breathe.”
“Thank you,” I say like he has bestowed a great gift.
He toes off his boots, nabs a wool hat from a peg, and tosses it to a hook. “We go into storm mode. Make coffee. Bring in extrawood. Keep taps dripping. If the power blinks, stove keeps the place warm. Batteries are in the drawer by the sink.”
“Okay,” I say, dropping my tote by the door where it will do the least harm. We move, and it feels like choreography. He grabs the coffee pot as I set out two mugs—the mug that lives by the stove and, okay, a second mug that I fish out of the cabinet like it’s a rare animal.
“Text the inn,” he says. “Tell Keely you’re here. Reception’s better by the north window.”
“On it.” I scurry to the window he nods at. One bar. Blessed faint civilization. I fire off three messages: Keely (Safe! Road blocked by fallen tree; staying at Rhett’s to ride out storm. Please tell Mayor. All good, promise). Mayor Turner (So sorry—stuck up the ridge with Rhett until the wind relaxes. Will deliver content soon!). Margo (Storm delay. Promise of bells and glow remains ironclad).
I consider texting Melanie—Trapped with the grumpy horse whisperer. Send soup!—but she has a baby about to be born, and also she will send a series of kissy-face emojis that will spontaneously combust my phone.
A gust shoulder-checks the cabin. The window rattles. And I shiver, even though I’m not cold. I’m hyper-aware of every movement Rhett makes, and he’s so quiet. Once again I feel bad for encroaching on his space. He must hate having me here.
“I can sleep on the couch,” I blurt out. “Sorry. Storm mode. I can do quiet. I can do small.”
Rhett pauses mid-log and assesses me like I am a new piece of equipment he’s not sure he ordered. “You’ll take the bed.”
“I can’t.”
“You can and you will.” He sets the log, shuts the stove door, and looks at me full-on, steady and infuriating. “It’s warmer. I’ll take the couch.”
“I promise I don’t drool or anything like that,” I tell him, and then immediately mentally kick myself.
He almost—almost—smiles. “Noted.”
I tighten my hold on my mug. “I’ll stay out of your way,” I say. “I won’t touch anything. I won’t…work, unless you want storm audio later, but I can live without it.”
He nods once. “You being here is work enough.”
“I can be very low-maintenance.”
“You’re a human candy cane.”
“I can be a mini candy cane,” I amend. “Fun-sized.”
He huffs, which in Rhett-speak might be a laugh. It does a little clap at the back of my heart.
He moves through the rest of storm mode: bucket of water by the stove in case pipes sulk, flashlight on the table, a quick check of the radio (dead air, then a distant weather man who sounds like an apologetic uncle). I tuck my tote under the bench and fish out my emergency snacks. “Do you want trail mix? Peppermint bark? I also have something called reindeer jerky which I regret on principle.”
“Trail mix,” he says. “Keep the bark. Jared will mutiny if I show up without sugar.”
We stand at the window for a minute, the two of us side by side, mugs warming our hands as the outside world goes white. The tree line sways, then stills, and sways again.
“Does it—” I start, then abort, because I’m not going to ask the heavy Iraq thing now when we’re balancing a log cabin on a snow globe. “Does it get like this a lot?”
“Often enough,” he says. “Yesterday the wind came down mean. Today it’s just showing off.”
“Ahh,” I say.
