FIVE
Sloane
Something woke me up.
You know, when you wake up with a start, heart pounding, knowing it hadn't been a nightmare, but completely at a loss for what in your surroundings could startle you up like that.
My first thought was my stomach. Pain often woke me up. If I went to bed after two glasses of wine without making sure I flushed my system with some water, a blinding headache woke me up sometime in the middle of the night. But I hadn't had any wine. And my head and my stomach - and everything else for that matter - felt fine.
Things came to me in pieces as I lay there.
It was dark.
Pitch.
The kind of dark that hardly ever existed in the city with all the street lights, headlights, store signs.
The bed felt weird.
Hard, where I slept on something that could probably be mistaken for a mattress stuffed with feathers.
The sheets were off too.
A little scratchy and foreign.
Then I remembered.
The threats. The fear. The knife in my stomach.
Packing.
Running.
Asking for help yet again.
Being dragged off to the woods.
With Gunner.
"Gunner?" my voice called, mostly without even thinking. I should have kept quiet. What if the power wasn't just out, it was cut?
What if he found me again?
What if I just let him know where I was?
I mean, not that it would take him long in this shoebox of a cabin to locate me.
Even as I was trying to scramble out of the sheets to, I wasn't sure, hide under the bed maybe, a light appeared in the doorway.
A flashlight turned upward to illuminate Gunner's suddenly very welcome face.
"We're getting slammed with snow," he explained, getting right to the point as I stopped fighting the confines of the bedsheets. "The wind has been whipping. Must have taken down a tree on the lines somewhere. It's fucking March. Who thinks to check the forecast for a storm like this in March?" he added, shaking his head. "It's about to get a helluva lot more rustic from this point on."
"Do you think we'll be out long?"
"In this? Out here? I wouldn't hope for power for three days at least."
Three days.
"That is only a day longer than we planned to stay," I reasoned, trying not to think of all the ways having no power for an extended period of time could affect us.
No heat.
No water since I was sure this cabin had a well because there seemed to be no public anything nearby.
No fridge.
"Three days for power, duchess. We won't likely be able to leave for five. If they plow the main drag, that is. Once this stops, I will get working on the private drive. That alone is gonna take me a few days."
"I can help," I offered, feeling a bit out of my depths.
"Don't worry about it," he brushed me off. "Keep me fed; I'll get the road clear."
That seemed, well, fair.
Perhaps a bit sexist.
But if I were being honest, I preferred staying in and making the meals to going out and lifting heavy shovelfuls of snow.
"I can do that," I agreed, nodding even though he couldn't see me.
Seeming to sense the dilemma, he moved inward, placing the flashlight on the dresser facing the ceiling, letting the room light up enough so that we could see each other.
"We'll be fine here. After twelve hours or so, we're gonna want to move the food outside to keep it cold. We'll keep the fireplace going. This room will need to be closed off, so we will both need to be staying in the common area to keep warm. Stove is gas, so we can light the pilot with matches. Which we have plenty of. And some hurricane lamps and oil for nighttime. It'll be roughing it, but we'll be fine."
"I can... rough it for a while," I said, making sure there was some authority in my voice, even if I knew that I had perhaps been a bit too pampered by things like light switches that actually turned on lights and air ducts that never stopped blowing. I could learn to do without. It was all part of starting a new life, wasn't it? Stepping out of my old comfort zones.
"You're wearing silk pajamas, and you are sure you can rough it?" he asked, eyes going down over my silk tank and shorts.
"Just because I like wearing things that feel good on my skin doesn't mean I can't learn to live without some light."
"You don't match," he said oddly, ignoring my last comment.
He was right.
My shorts had little pink roses with green leaves on a champagne-colored background. My top was deep, royal purple.
"Yes, well, someone would not let me pack my own bags, so I would have matching clothes."
Again, he seemed to ignore what I said. "You sleep with your hair like that?" he asked, eyes scrunched up at my braid that wrapped around my head.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because it looks uncomfortable as fuck. Can't figure out why you would do that to yourself."
I didn't wear my hair down often. It was just easier to keep it in some sleek updo, so I didn't have to worry about it getting messy or in the way.
"My mom used to braid my hair before bed as a little girl to keep it from getting tangled. I'm used to it, I guess." I left out the part about how she used to rip the strands out with a brush while I screamed, then whack me with the broad side because she couldn't take my whining.
"You got family?" he asked, head ducked to the side. "Didn't see anything about that in your file."
"We've... never been close," I said carefully, knowing that dysfunctional family was like a bruise that never healed, whenever you poked it, it always smarted.
"So not close that they won't realize you suddenly fell off the face of the Earth?"
"So not close that they probably already think I have." His brows drew together at that, some look in his eyes that I couldn't quite make out. "What?"
"You have secrets, duchess, don't you?" There was something odd in his tone, something a mix of curious and thoughtful, and maybe even a hint of worry.
"Everyone has secrets."
"People on the run, they can't have secrets. Not from the person who is in charge of protecting them. That paperwork Quin had you fill out wasn't for shits and giggles. We need to know everything."
"Some questions are invasive," I hedged, not wanting to go there.
"Asking for your cup size and menstrual cycle is invasive," he shot back. "Demanding you tell us about all the people you are connected to is necessary. These people who you might end up missing, and will call, and it will trace back to your new location that I am going to bust my ass to make sure no one knows about."
"I would sooner call Rodrigo Cortez to come and finish the job than call my family," I said carefully, choosing the words so that they would have the impact I needed them to without having to give the details I didn't want to.
"Bad, huh?" he asked, voice doing that soft thing again, and this time, it was making my insides do something odd, foreign. It was making them feel almost... melty? That was absurd, of course, but that was somehow what it felt like.
"Bad," I agreed, barely recognizing my own voice. There was something thick in it.
"Okay," he agreed, nodding, letting it drop. "You want to grab the sheets and pillows, and move out onto the couch, so you don't get cold?"
"But what about..." I started to object, then trailed off when he stormed - I would say walked, but this man kind of always stormed everywhere - across the room, and started stripping the bed himself.
"Grab the pillows and flashlight," he demanded, walking out into the darkness blind.
With that, I did.
To find he had set up a fire already, the light casting the whole living space in a warm, comforting glow and warmth.
"You don't have to do that," I said, watching as Gunner tucked the sheet and blanket under the cushion at the end of the couch.
"Well, your butler isn't here; figure I should step in."
"I never had a butler," I insisted as he pulled the pillows out of my hands. "If I had, wouldn't he have been in your paperwork you are so fond of?"
"Your exes weren't," he shot back.
"Because the paperwork asked for the names of any exes from the past three years."
"Yeah," he agreed, standing up, facing me, doing his arm-crossing thing that shouldn't have been sexy, but I found it so anyway. "You expect me to believe you've been single for three years?"
"Believing implies there is something to disbelieve. Since it is a fact, there isn't."
"Three years."
"Yes, three years," I agreed, not realizing I mimicked his skeptical voice and arm-cross until he chuckled at me, dropping his hands.
"Fine. But Quin meant any kind of relationships with men. Not necessarily serious only. Relationships that never went anywhere. One-night-stands. Fuck-buddies."
"The answer is the same," I said, shrugging.
"You're shitting me. You haven't been fucked in three years?"
He made it sound absurd.
In my experience, most of the women I knew like me who owned a successful business, who were married to it because it meant the world to them, they barely had time to see their friends, let alone make time for men. Hell, I'd had dinner and drinks with a whole table of women like me, and we'd - after way too many bottomless sangrias - all compared brands and types of vibrators since none of us had been laid in so long.
"I've been building a business," I told him, trying to convince myself not to be embarrassed. It was ridiculous to feel insecure that I wasn't having a ton of sex.
"Last I checked, businesses close at a certain point."
"Businesses never close when you are running them. I wake up at two in the morning to write down things to add to my to-do list."
"Christ, duchess. You're wound like a fucking clock."
"I am going to assume that you think the cure to this is me having sex."
His lips quirked up at that. "It couldn't hurt, that's for damn sure. But, actually, I was going to say that the cure is to take a step back. Which, well, is what life is forcing you to do now."
"I am going to assume that starting over means I will have to work just as hard to get on my feet. Whereas before, I just had to stay on them."
"Staying on them shouldn't be quite as hard as it was in Manhattan."
"I'm pretty sure the only place more expensive than Manhattan is San Fransisco," I agreed. It was a fact I knew because I had done a lot of research in high school about where I would finally run off to once I was free of my parents.
San Fransisco was nice, bright, sunny. But not quite the right fit for someone like me.
D.C. Was too political.
Boston was a bit rough for my taste.
And, well, anyone who wanted to claw their way up the ladder, and carve a name for themselves in the world... they went to New York City. That was simply what you did.
So, with just a couple hundred dollars of birthday money from my grandparents in my backpack, that was where I went.
And never looked back.
Because, well, the city was made for people like me. The ones who were focused on their careers, on their growth, on their connections, and their aspirations. And, to be completely honest, money.
Money was a factor for me.
Because broke was something I knew the taste and texture of for a long, long time before I got to know what wealth felt like on the tongue and fingertips.
Maybe that was shallow, to want to be well-off.
But when you went to bed hungry more nights than you did with a full stomach, then you could lecture me about how empty my dreams were for life.
My life had been about chasing the comfort of a full bank account, something that would assure me that I would never again know the feeling of a gnawing stomach with no hope in sight for fullness.
"Well, you can visit San Fransisco by a long train ride if you miss the lavish life."
"I'm going to California," I guessed.
"Carson City," Gunner corrected, almost seeming apologetic.
"Nevada."
"Yeah."
"I don't understand," I said, shaking my head. "Carson City isn't that big of a city. Wouldn't a big city be easier for me to get lost in?"
"Sometimes. But big cities also have something else in common. Big organized crime. If Cortez put feelers out, and men on the street came looking, your neighbors in a city wouldn't think twice about talking about you. A smaller, western town... they'd question why you were asking. Their knee-jerk reaction would be to try to protect you from unwanted attention."
"They won't consider me an... outsider?" I asked, stomach clenching at the idea of not fitting in.
"I wouldn't worry about that. You'd be a single woman in a new town with no family there or big job to draw you to the area. They'd likely figure you were there because you were running from some shithead boyfriend. They'd embrace you. You might have to put a little effort in at first, but you'll get there."
"Does everyone?"
"Who?"
"All these people that you, what did Quin call it?"
"Ghost."
"Yes, all these people that you ghost. Do they all build good lives in their new locations?"
"Honestly, duchess, I have no fucking clue."
"You don't keep touch?"
"I don't," he agreed, but he almost sounded like he didn't want to admit that.
I would be completely on my own.
I mean, to be fair, I was alone a lot.
But I had my people.
I had my name.
All that would be gone.
I would be no one.
I tried to shake the thought, knowing that I had done this before. I could do it again. I had to do it again.
"Okay," I said when the silence hung for too long.
"You'll be fine."
"I know," I agreed.
"Come on," he said, moving away from the side of the couch. "Hop in. I have a cot to set up."
With that, I hopped in, pulling the sheets up over my body as Gunner moved off back into the bedroom, slamming around, then coming back with a folded metal cot, popping it open, then dressing it.
The head of his cot butted up to the edge of the couch where my feet were situated under the blankets. No matter how I tried, I couldn't seem to force my eyes to look away as he emptied out his pockets, tossing the contents on the table. A wallet, a cell, the keys, some kind of small multi-purpose tool. Reaching behind him, he pulled out the gun before suddenly looking over at me, lips tipped up. "Can I trust you not to shoot your - or my - foot off if I leave it here?" he asked, motioning to the coffee table.
"I wouldn't even know how to," I admitted, shrugging. "I won't touch it," I added as he put it down, then lowered himself down on the cot. The creaking sound of the springs was sharp and promised a night of uncomfortable sleep.
"We'll take turns on the couch," I offered. "I will take the cot tomorrow."
At that, his head cocked to the side. "Why?"
"Because if it feels as uncomfortable as it sounds, you aren't going to be feeling great tomorrow. And after shoveling, you are going to need a good night of sleep. It's the most fair solution."
"Fair," he said, scoffing a little as he lowered his gaze to the floor for a long moment. "You're going through the most unfair thing you possibly could be, and you're worried about what is fair to me."
"Well, it isn't your fault that I am going through what I am going through. You're trying to help."
"You're paying me to."
Right.
That was right.
I was a job.
It was easy to maybe confuse this in my head, to think he was doing this because he was simply a giving human being, because he liked helping those in need.
But that wasn't true.
I was a paycheck.
I was something he had to handle so he could get back to his real life.
Nothing less.
But certainly nothing more.
"Okay. If you don't want the couch, I will keep it."
He had nothing to say to that, simply moved to rest on his back, yanking the blanket up over his body, and closing his eyes.
Sometimes, it wasn't the big things you forgot about being around men. The sex. The chest to sleep on. It was things like this that always seemed to fascinate me, watching a man - big, strong, meant to be in motion - at rest, his powerful body still, his hard features softened a bit.
"Quit staring, and get to sleep."
His eyes were closed!
His eyes were closed, but he somehow knew I was looking at him.
He was a very interesting man.
I closed my eyes, lulled to sleep by the soft crackling of the logs on the fire.
The next thing I knew, I felt hands touching me.
Waking up in a panic, I shoved against them, a scream rising in my throat.
"Shh, duchess," Gunner's voice said, soft, almost sleepy-sounding.
"What are you doing?" I whisper-yelled at him as his arms kept trying to slide under me.
"The fire died out. Your chattering teeth woke me up."
As the panic rushed away, so did the adrenaline, leaving me to feel the full force of the coldness in the room that must have been without a heating source for hours.
"Relax," he said again in that sleepy, sweet voice as he curled me onto my side, then lowered down. "I'm just going to warm you up," he explained, yanking up the blanket, the cold air prickling over my skin for a moment before his body moved under, and the blankets fell again, trapping both our body heat together.
One small couch.
Two not-exactly-petite people.
There wasn't even a sliver of space between us as we faced each other on the cushions.
It didn't occur to me that my nipples were hardened until I felt his solid chest brush over them.
And judging by the way his body stiffened, I knew he felt it the same as I did.
"How did it get so cold so fast?" I asked, trying to hold still even if every inch of me was begging to move closer to the man who seemed to be radiating heat somehow.
"The wind," he said, shaking his head. "This place isn't insulated that well. The wind is still crazy out there. I'll stay up," he added. "To make sure the fire doesn't go out again."
"No, that's not necessary."
"Says the woman whose entire fucking body feels like an ice cube," he said, giving me a brow lift as though he was daring me to contradict him as his hand moved out to touch the bare skin on my arm, making a shiver course through me at the heat of the contact on admittedly cold skin.
"I'm warmer now," I tried. "No teeth chattering."
"Yeah, 'cause I'm here." When I had no argument to rebut that, his eyes seemed to maybe do that soft thing they did occasionally. "You want me to stay here?"
Oddly, I did.
Me, Miss Personal Space, did want that.
Him right where he was.
For as long as possible.
But I couldn't let him know how much I wanted it.
"If it means you can get some sleep too, then yes," I offered, shrugging under the blankets.
"Alright," he agreed, voice sounding off. Not cocky or frustrated or even that sweet tone he used once in a while. It was something else. Something I didn't know him well enough to interpret, but found myself wanting to.
"Alright," I said as well, giving him a small nod that he snorted at.
"Go to sleep, duchess," he commanded, and this time, just this one time, his pet name didn't bother me.
And with his warmth enveloping me like a warm hug, I did.
I slept.
And woke up, well, on top of him.
My head was pressed into the center of his chest, my hand cupping his strong shoulder, my hip cocked over his pelvis, knee wedged between both of his thighs.
Intimate.
It took a long couple of seconds for me to realize that one of his arms was around my back, holding me tight, his fingers holding onto my hip. The other was resting heavily on my thigh.
And everything, from the feel of his solid chest against me, to his personal scent, to the way his arms were holding me... it all felt good. Way, way too good.
"Once you're out, you're really out, huh?" he asked, seeming to know I was up.
"Did you try to wake me?" I asked, immediately self-conscious, even though I knew I had to set my alarm clock clear across the room at foghorn level for it to wake me up in the morning. I always figured I was such a deep sleeper because I slept so little; my body wanted to milk what it got for all it was worth. I had more sleep in the forty-eight hours I had been away from my life than I had likely had in half a week in it.
"Called your name a few times," he informed me.
"Sorry. You could have just... pushed me off," I offered, though I had yet to move, to put some healthy distance between us again.
"The fire just banked out. But you were warm enough."
Of course I was.
I was like a clinging vine all over him.
"Thanks for letting me sleep," I offered, feeling something I hadn't felt in more years than I could remember - rested. I woke up tired every morning. I counteracted that with too much coffee, and a packed schedule that didn't let me slow down enough to even feel the effects of it, but it was always there, a constant thing.
"Yep. Now how about you hop-to making my breakfast, so I can go out and do the manly shoveling thing."
"The manly shoveling thing?" I asked, pushing up to smile down at him, finding his lips quirked up, but his eyes thoughtful.
"That's a good look," he said oddly.
"Is my hair a mess?" I asked, wanting to reach up to flatten it, but I was using both my hands to hold my body up from his.
"Well, yeah," he told me with a smirk. "But I meant the smile. For a second there, you didn't seem so tense."
Tense.
I hated that word.
Mainly because I got called that word a lot.
Along with the phrases You need to loosen up and You need to find a work/life balance.
Like I was some robotic, boring, stick-up-my-butt person.
But, then again, who knows. Maybe that was how others saw me. You never really knew, did you? How you came off to others? If they saw you the way you saw yourself? Better? Worse? It wasn't something I generally had much time to devote to worrying about. But for some reason, it was on my mind now.
"And there it is," Gunner said, suddenly starting to fold up, making me have to press back onto my heels so he could slide out from under me.
"There what is?"
"That Miss Blythe-Meuller thing."
"I don't know what that is supposed to mean." But I did pick up on the tone that suggested it was an insult.
"Of course you don't," he agreed, standing, and moving off toward the bathroom. I was still tidying the couch, piling all the blankets and pillows onto the cot I had already made when he came back out. "Toilet should be fine for this morning," he said, making me straighten. "It's gonna stop working eventually. I'll drag a bucket in full of snow to melt. You can pour it in to flush it."
"That is... handy knowledge," I said carefully, realizing how screwed I would be in a situation like this. What would I have done if the toilet stopped working and I was alone? I guess I would have had to, well, start using the outdoors - as unpleasant as that sounded.
"Want to be really impressed, I can build a composting toilet from scratch." At what had to have been a curious look on my face, his lips curved up at one side. "One of our coworkers, Miller, she has this one rule. She has to have a working toilet. Sometimes, a real one isn't an option. We learned to get crafty."
"That's very interesting," I said, meaning it, as I moved to the kitchen to fetch the eggs, cheese, onions, and peppers out, intent on making him an omelet. He was right; if he was going to be doing something as labor-intensive as shoveling the giant drive, he needed real fuel.
"As for the bathing thing... we're gonna have to get used to whore's baths for a while."
"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, turning my head to look at him peeking out the back window, the blinding white of the sun on the snow hurting my eyes.
"Whore's bath," he said, looking over at me with a smirk. "Meaning soap and water and a washcloth. Clean the necessary places. Not overly ideal, but what we have to do."
That sounded about just as unpleasant as an outdoor bathroom situation. I liked a good shower every day. Sometimes, even two. One in the morning so I could look my best; one at night so I could unwind after work, wash the day away.
But, well, what was there to wash away here? All I would be doing was cooking and straightening up. I wouldn't break a sweat.
"Smells good," Gunner said, coming out of the bathroom again, this time in heavier layers than his usual jeans and tee, big, insulated boots on his feet. He looked a bit like a lumberjack. And while I already knew he had a tan Carhartt heavy-duty jacket, I couldn't help but picture him in a red, white, and black flannel jacket instead. "What?" he asked, making me realize I had been staring, and likely doing so somewhat goofily.
"I think all that outfit needs is a flannel jacket," I admitted.
"Having thoughts about me out there chopping wood, huh?" he asked, grabbing a piece of pepper and popping it into his mouth raw. "Getting you all hot and bothered?" he went on, lips twitching, green eyes dancing.
The crazy thing was, as he popped that idea into my head, the exact reaction he mentioned started in my body, making me flushed, my heart pound, my skin feel over-sensitive, and - as if all that wasn't enough - made my sex clench hard.
A whole body reaction.
To a simple idea of a simple action with a man who was most decidedly not my type.
What was going on with me?
"Not to backseat cook here," he said, literally from over my shoulder, looking down at the skillet as I added in the ingredients to the eggs, "but that doesn't seem like enough for two."
"It's not meant for two," I agreed.
"What are you having then?"
"There's some yogurt in there," I said, shrugging.
"That why there's no fat to pinch on you?" he asked oddly, going into the fridge, pulling out the yogurt... and two pears. "You don't eat?"
"I eat," I objected, not wanting anyone to think I was starving myself. I didn't do that. Sure, when I was stressed, I had a tendency not to eat much, but I always ate something.
"You ate your salad, and poked at the rest of your food. This morning, you're making me eggs, but eating yogurt," he recalled as he sliced up the pears, putting them pointedly on two different plates.
"I don't like big breakfasts. It makes me feel slow all day. Besides, you don't have any fat to pinch either."
"Yeah, 'cause I'm all muscle," he supplied, daring me to rebut him. And there simply was no way to do that. He was very solidly built.
"Yes, and you need to maintain that muscle with all this protein," I agreed, folding the omelet over, then sliding it onto the plate he was holding out. "I don't. What?" I asked when he took his plate and sighed out his breath.
"Arguing over fucking diets," he said, looking down at his plate, his voice making it sound like it was the most absurd conversation two people could have.
Feeling awkward, I silently ate my yogurt and the pear he forced on me. I drank my water, wishing it was coffee, wondering if there was a way I could make that without electricity.
"Alright," he declared, the scrape of his chair across the floor making me jerk upright. "I am heading out. If you're looking for something to do, you can start moving the food out into the snow."
"No problem," I agreed, feeling like it was the least I could do. "Will you be in for lunch?"
"If you're making something."
"Then you'll be in for lunch," I agreed, taking his plate, and going to the sink, piling it in. "Oh, water," I remembered, looking over at him.
"I'll bring in some buckets. Got a dozen of them laying around."
"Okay, thanks," I agreed, giving him a small smile.
"And if the fire starts to look low," he added, moving over toward where it seemed to be crackling happily still, "just throw a log on it. But layered. Don't smother the flame."
"Got it," I agreed, but I wasn't as confident as I sounded. I would figure it out.
"Be back in a couple hours," he told me, then grabbed his tan jacket, and was out the door. He came back ten minutes later with three giant buckets of snow which he dragged near the fire to melt.
I washed the dishes with the snow water, doing so more carefully than I had ever washed something before, conserving as much of it as possible, before I located a pitcher in a cabinet, filling it, then bringing it into the bathroom with me, intent on attempting a 'whore's bath,' and brushing my teeth.
It was strange how easily things like this could come to you, this ability to adapt, to be able to live without comforts. By the time I came out of the bathroom, I was clean everywhere but my hair because that seemed to require some ability to be a gymnast to pull it off, and dressed in a pair of thin off-white linen pants and a heavy knit gray sweater.
After digging around in my bags for about ten minutes, I realized something that had my belly sinking a bit.
My contacts must have been in one of my other bags.
And I couldn't leave the ones in my eyes anymore.
No one, save for my eye doctor himself, ever saw me with my glasses on. My giant black-framed glasses that swallowed up a big part of my face.
On a sigh, I did what needed to be done, reaching up to pile my hair on the top of my head, thinking it would distract from the fact that I could swear the roots were looking a little greasy.
With that, and nothing else to do with my time, I grabbed my sketchpad and colored pencils, going back to the living room to lose myself in some drawing in front of the fire.
"What happened to you?" Gunner's voice boomed into the space that had been silent except for the cracking of the logs that I had successfully managed to keep going despite my doubts, making me jolt, my head whipping over to where he was standing inside the door, looking at me like I had sprouted another head.
"I'm sorry?" I asked, brows furrowing.
"Couple hours ago, I left Miss Blythe-Meuller. Who is this?" he asked, waving a glove-clad hand at me.
"Oh," I said, having been so lost in my own world that I had forgotten. My hand moved up, touching the side of my glasses. "Yeah. My supply of contacts must have been in one of my other bags," I told him, trying to feel as dismissive about it as the shrug I gave him implied.
A strange look still in his eye, he stripped off his layers, carrying them all over to the fire to dry them more quickly.
"You did good with the fire," he told me, poking at it a little to make the flames lap higher, warming his hands in front of it for a long minute. "Doesn't look like purses," he said oddly as he turned to face me.
"I'm sorry?"
"Your file," he told me, waving toward where he left it on the counter. I hadn't looked at it. I knew what it would say. Right down to my credit score and weight. "It said you were some big shot purse designer. I didn't know such a thing existed."
"Such a thing?"
"A 'big shot purse designer.'"
"You've never heard of Birkin bags? Coach? Gucci?"
"Didn't figure there was a way to have a name alongside them."
"You have to work for it, like anything else," I said, shrugging, though there was nothing to shrug about. I put my lifeblood into making my name. I went sleepless nights to do it. I sacrificed relationships and friends to it. I survived on bread and cheese sandwiches for it. It was nothing to shrug off.
"You care that much about bags?" he asked, looking dubious.
"I'm very good at it."
"So, that's a no," he guessed. His hand reached out so suddenly that I couldn't react quickly enough to pull back when he snagged my sketchpad and pulled it away from me. "Duchess, what the fuck?" he asked after a long, nerve-racking moment of staring down at my sketchpad, flipping back and forth between the two most recent pages.
The one I had been working on was a drawing of the cabin we were currently staying in. The one directly before was the common room of the upstairs in his office, complete with my pile of pink and gold luggage on the floor.
"It's just a... doodle," I defended, hating the word, but not liking the weird thickness in the air around us, made that way with his undefinable reaction and my own insecurity.
"It's something you could frame and throw on the wall," he countered as he dropped down next to me on the couch, flipping back another couple of pages, finding an old sketch of my apartment building in Manhattan. Seeing it now, it felt like it was lightyears away instead of just a few days, a few hundred miles. "This your old place?" he asked, looking over at me, searching for something. "Think I get it."
"Get what?" I asked, shaking my head.
"Why you have been so tense," he explained. "You're giving up a fuckuva lot."
The words made my belly drop a bit, a sensation I didn't have a name for, didn't know how to handle.
It was right about then that I felt his hand - wide, firm, strong - close around my knee, giving it what could only be called a reassuring squeeze.
"Fucking sucks, duchess," he said, shaking his head. "But no one can take this," he added, gesturing with his free hand to my sketchpad. "You can't do bags anymore, but you can draw, paint, do something else with this. It'd be a waste not to. You clearly love it." I must have stiffened or jerked back or something because he added, "It's the most peaceful I've seen you look. You didn't even hear me when I stomped up the path and opened the door."
"It's a hobby," I insisted, feeling odd at admitting it was more.
"It's a passion," he corrected, shaking his head. "Don't do that shit."
"What?"
"Play something down that you enjoy. What's the point of that?"
"Self-preservation," I admitted, not knowing what possessed me to do so, to open up to this person. Of all of those in the world.
"Because someone belittled this," he assumed, motioning to my picture.
I was finding it hard to swallow as I nodded. "Yes."
"Your parents."
"Yes."
"You could draw like this as a kid?"
"Probably better," I told him. "I practiced more. Now, it is mostly about work designs."
"Better than this, and someone talked shit about it," he went on, sounding like he could only half-believe it. "That sucks, duchess. Your parents were fuckheads."
"Yes, they were," I agreed. "When I was thirteen," I started, almost feeling like I was going to burst if I didn't get the words out, the desire to share something very foreign to me, but in this situation, seemingly unstoppable, "I didn't have any money to buy my mom a birthday present. There was never any money for anything," I added, shrugging off something that was my driving force in life - the desire to get out of that crushing poverty. "But I wanted to get her something because my dad usually forgot. And then she would cry and drink and get mean about it."
"And you were the only target in sight," he guessed.
"Yeah," I admitted, looking off into the fire. "So I spent two weeks making this really intricate family portrait. It was good," I added. "Looked exactly like all of us. I even made this little makeshift frame for it out of woven sticks from the woods behind the house. I wrapped it up and gave it to her."
"What'd she say, duchess?" he asked, seeming to sense my need to say it, and also the need to have encouragement to get it out.
"She said I made her look like a monster. Then lit it up with the edge of her cigarette. It burned up right there in the kitchen sink. All that work," I added, the pain still a raw thing, right there in my heart. Even after all these years. Even with an adult mind that knew my mother for what she was - an abusive, alcoholic, selfish woman who had no more love for me than a dog had for his fleas.
"Your mom was a bitch," he said, the crassness making a smile tug at my lips.
"Yes, she was. Is, I imagine," I added.
"How long ago did you cut ties?"
"The day I graduated high school. I never looked back. But she's alive out there somewhere still."
"How can you be sure?"
"She sends letters," I admitted, cringing like I did every single time Mateo would bring me the mail, and I would see her handwriting there. "To my office in the city."
"What does she write?"
"Nasty things. About how I would never be where I am without her. Or how I owe her."
"Tell me you never sent her a dime."
"I sent her exactly forty dollars," I told him. At his curious brow raise, I shrugged. "That was the cost for my one and only art class before she declared I was no Michelangelo, and that she wasn't wasting her hard-earned money trying to teach a cow to speak Spanish."
"Good for you," he said, giving me those warm eyes paired with a warm smile that did that gosh darn warm thing to my insides yet again.
"You really think I could make a go of this?" I asked, taking my pad away from him, flipping the pages, and closing the cover.
"Absolutely. Won't promise you you'll make a fortune, but you could sell this stuff. People would buy it."
"Whose name will I be signing on it?" I asked, feeling my stomach churn a little at the idea of having to be someone new.
"You get to keep your first name. Time and time again, I find that changing a first name is a recipe for disaster. And since there is no clever way to cut down your first name, you'll keep it as-is. Your last names will have to go though."
"I can live with that. They're my mother and father's names anyway."
"Both?" he asked.
"Yeah. My mom's last name was Blythe. And since my dad, a Meuller, was a deadbeat who dropped in and out of her life, she said she'd be damned if she gave me his last name only. So she hyphenated to help make school paperwork and everything easier."
"Why didn't you change it before you started your career?"
"It wasn't a conscious choice. I was making moves in the design business, using my name because it was my name. I didn't have the time to try to change all my papers. Then, suddenly, someone important got a hold of one of my bags. And it was too late. My name was my identity in the business."
"Well, how do you feel about being a Livingston?"
"I can live with that," I agreed, glad it wasn't something ridiculous.
"Good. Now, what is for lunch?"
"Remember those sandwiches you spoke so highly of?" I asked as I got up to go to the fridge where I had put a few bowls of ice around his lunch to keep it cool. "I made you two turkey, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on rye," I told him, holding out the plate.
"You seriously not going to eat again?" he asked, looking actually angry at the very idea.
"I have a sandwich too," I informed him with a chin lift. "Well, I don't think you can call it a sandwich without bread."
"How can it not have bread?" he asked, taking his food over to the table to eat, and I felt a surging feeling inside at the idea of him being so eager to eat something I made him, no matter how simple that something was.
"I have turkey and tomato wrapped in lettuce," I told him, walking over to the table to sit down with him.
"And that is gonna fill you up?" he asked, eyeing my admittedly much less-filled plate than his dubiously.
"Yes."
"It wouldn't hurt this whole starting over thing if you put on some weight."
"I can't," I told him, shrugging.
"Can't?"
"I guess it is genetic. My father was always tall and thin. My mom was almost gaunt-looking all my life. I used to be insecure about it, try to cram carbs and fat and sugar. But it never did anything but make me feel sluggish."
I had learned to embrace it, the thinness. It wasn't in vogue these days. Fuller bodies, curves, were the rage. I narrowly missed the days when mostly straight-up-and-down women were in fashion. But that was okay. I had accepted my long legs, my lack of hips, my barely-there breasts. I had learned to dress in a way that made the most of my figure, especially my behind. It worked for me. Even if it wasn't today's ideal.
"So the no bread thing isn't about avoiding carbs like those bullshit diets?"
I smiled a bit at that. "Your brain needs carbs to work right. I just prefer to eat them shamefully. Mac & cheese or pasta," I clarified. "I'd rather have that than bread with my lunch."
"Fair enough," he agreed, eating steadily.
"Do you have any ideas on how I might make coffee without electricity?" I asked, sounding about as hopeless as I thought the matter was.
"Got a coffee machine right there," he said, sounding confused. My lack of understanding must have been on my face because he shook his head at me much the way a teacher might to a student who asked a really ridiculous, common sense question. "Prepare the pot like you'd normally do, but instead of adding cold water, pour boiled water over it. Though, that's a good reminder. Gotta get a French Press up in this place for the future."
"And maybe some solar panels," I suggested. "I mean, this isn't so bad," I admitted. "You kind of get used to, ah, what's the term..."
"Roughing it," he supplied easily.
"Yeah."
"If you, Big City, can adjust, just about anyone can, I imagine."
"You make me sound so materialistic," I said, not caring that I was showing that his opinion of me was affecting me. I didn't like showing that kind of vulnerability. But here in the woods under a foot of snow with no modern comforts to distract us, I somehow felt comfortable doing something that - in my old life - I never could have.
"You had a lot of comforts in your life, duchess. Wasn't being insulting."
"But you were," I objected. Confrontation - outside of work - was never a strong suit of mine, but I somehow felt like this was important. Why? I couldn't tell you. But that was the feeling regardless of the motivation behind it. "You've made a lot of comments that imply I am spoiled."
"Because that's how you project yourself, Miss Blythe-Meuller."
"I never told anyone to call me that."
"You never corrected us either."
"It was a business interaction. Most people speak that way. With formalities."
"Well, drop them," he suggested, as though it was that easy. I had worked hard at this, cultivating myself, improving myself, being someone worthy of doing business with, investing in, being obeyed by employees. You had to project a certain image to be able to pull that off.
And, after a while, you become that person.
I became that person.
Happily, I might add.
Because then no one could see the girl I used to be. The girl in a twenty-year-old double-wide with an alcoholic mom who took her anger out on me and a father who popped in only to insult me, screw my mother, steal from us, and be off again.
"It's not that easy."
"You're gonna have to try, duchess," he told me, standing, moving to put his dish in the half-full of water and soap sink. "I'll bring in some more wood and water, but I want to get back to it while the sun is still out."
With that, he did.
I cleaned, drew, tried not to obsess, then set to work on dinner.
A chicken and rice stew.
It stole all the rice, but I figured we would get by without that for another couple days if we had to.
The odd closeness we had shared the majority of the day was gone as Gunner came back in, tired, grumpy, hungry. He ate, making no comment about the fact that I ate my food this time as well. Then he went into the bathroom, where I could hear him cursing as he scrubbed with too-cold water.
Coming back out, he had changed into soft black heavy sweatpants and a long-sleeve gray tee.
"Wanna hit the sack early?" he asked as the cabin got darker.
Seeing as there was nothing to do at night anyway without technology, I agreed, got myself ready for bed, then met him back in the living room where he had made the couch - and not the cot. The realization that he still wanted to sleep together - in the PC version of the word - sent an odd thrill through me.
"The fire should last a bit longer," he told me, turning away from where he had carefully stacked a bunch of logs before moving onto the couch. "You coming?"
Even with his somewhat surly attitude, yes, yes I was.
And as he yanked me back on his chest, mumbling something about how I would wind up there anyway, then pulled the blankets over us, I had the oddest thought.
This feels so right.