17

Abby woke up drained but hungry. She lay on her side in Luc’s bed and watched the light fade as the snow continued to fall, enclosing her more fully inside. What time was it? Had she slept through an entire day?

Somewhere outside, beyond the cabin’s thick log walls, a rhythmic thud told her that Luc was chopping wood. Pressed by the demands of her body, she got up, hobbled to the top of the steps, and slid downstairs on her bottom. Slow, so slow, with her stinging feet and sore ankle, every part of her body aching.

She watched him through the kitchen window as he hauled big logs and took an ax to them. His movements were practiced and skilled—the swing constant, like music—and he piled pieces neatly before repeating the entire process. Every movement was big, because the man was, but concise as well. Lord, it wasn’t right, was it, for her body to feel this…sluggishness when she looked at him? Bright and alive, but slow and heavy, all at once. It seemed wrong, given her condition.

After a bit, he tromped through the snow to his vines. Lord only knew what he did there before heading up to the barn.

Once he disappeared from view, Abby shook herself, as if coming out of a spell, and realized just how ravenous she was.

Turning from the window, she took in the kitchen. What could she eat? Bread. Bread was good. She took a slice from the loaf, munched it dry, and decided to make herself useful. She couldn’t just sit in someone’s house all day and get nothing done. But after a few minutes of puttering—sweeping and cleaning his already-spotless kitchen, ignoring the pain in her extremities—exhaustion took over. She slid another log into the fire and collapsed onto the sofa, pulling a blanket over her shoulders.

A grunt woke her up—was that her own voice?—tearing her from dreams of arms tight around her, too tight but warm, and fire on the mountain. Fire all around them.

Mindlessly, she pushed to standing and looked out the window, scanning the landscape for Luc’s form. It was almost night, although everything still had that vague, light snow glow, and the stuff was still coming down from the sky.

Oh! There he was, a silhouette against the pale earth, too far to see in detail. As she watched, the figure—just a spot, really—drew closer. With every step, something bubbled higher in her chest. Anticipation or excitement. She searched the landscape for Le Dog, who never ventured far from Luc. When she couldn’t find him, her eyes flew back to the figure, suddenly racing through possible scenarios—Luc in the barn, overtaken by Isaiah. Luc working in the fields and not hearing the attack. And now, Isaiah was here, marching toward her.

She leaned against the window, breath fast, stomach tied up in knots. Oh no. Isaiah’d hurt Luc, which meant she’d brought this to him, and now he’d come to find her. To take her back. To punish her as she’d never been punished before. Could he see her?

She shoved the curtain closed and lurched back into the room, heart racing, air wheezing through her lungs.

Beside the door stood Luc’s rifle, and although she’d never fired one, she took hold of it, let her fingers get to know its cold, steel edges. Not in the awkward, hesitant way she’d held it that first day, but decisively. She’d shoot Isaiah if she had to. Shoot any of them. No way would Isaiah or any members of the Church scare her. Not out here in the world. She wouldn’t let them.

Hefting the weapon, she hobbled to the armchair and sat, ears pricked and eyes darting, shivering with the cold.

The fire threw shadows across the room, and Abby forced her breath to even out, sinking her body deeper into the chair, ignoring the press of leather to her back. After a while, the heat calmed her—although it never warmed her bones—and her mind traveled past the possibility of immediate threat.

What was happening back home? Was Sammy having supper with the Cruddups? Were households full of the gossip of her departure? Were they looking for her? Condemning her? Escape couldn’t possibly be this easy, could it?

Was she actually free? She was. Still close, granted, but that couldn’t be helped. And she wouldn’t leave without Sammy. Tomorrow, maybe, she’d feel well enough to head back over the fence and—

A bell rang from somewhere in the house, a bright, electronic sound that had Abby jumping out of her skin before she understood what it was. It took a moment to locate its source—a small telephone, sitting on a table by the front door.

For a few seconds, she considered picking it up. Should she? No. No, it wasn’t hers to pick up. But…what if it was Luc calling the house?

It gave out another high-pitched dring, with an insect-like vibration. Don’t touch it.

A step back, then another. The phone eventually stopped, only to start up again. It did that five times, until finally, she reached out and picked it up, touching the green circle that said On.

“Allô?” said the voice on the other end. A woman. More words followed—not in English.

Abby couldn’t respond. Frantically, she looked for a button to stop this call she shouldn’t have taken. She finally found a red End circle and put the thing down, returning to the chair to wait.

* * *

Luc felt the strangest, most unexpected warmth at the sight of his cabin with smoke billowing from the chimney and light glowing from the windows. It was pleasant, although he wasn’t keen on the reasons for it. Nobody would wish this situation on a woman.

Nobody would wish it on him, either.

Her presence in his life—and everything it seemed to bring with it—had been clawing at his throat all afternoon, burning at his gut as he worked.

Anger at what they’d done to her, anger that there was nothing he could do about it, and anger that he’d let that kid go back. But how the hell was he supposed to have stopped them?

It speared him in the chest, that thought, so mixed up with everything Abby made him feel. He’d gone up to the cabin before noon to find her snoring quietly on the sofa, and if he hadn’t forced himself back out, he could have spent the rest of the day there, warming her in his arms. Or just sitting with her. But neither of those things would have satisfied this jumbled, roiling, ball of emotions inside of him: the anger and frustration, yes, but also something so protective it burned his sinuses and hurt his chest. And all of it laced with a sexual need that felt entirely inappropriate with her injured and snoring on his sofa.

So he’d gone back out into the never-ending snowstorm to work, with only the occasional break to check on her. The last time he’d gone in, her forehead had felt cool and her sleep hadn’t seemed so fitful, which was an enormous relief.

He spent a good chunk of time making sure everything was prepped for the power outage they were sure to get. Last year’s storms had been nothing compared to this one, and the power had eventually gone. He’d learned that it was just the way things happened here on the mountain, which was the last place the power company checked on their route. The generator was gassed up and would at least ensure the winery stayed warm enough. The cabin would be fine with the woodstove.

He was hungry by the time he got home and shoved open the kitchen door, a pile of firewood balanced in his arms. The smell of cooking hit him in a moist burst of steamy air, and there she was, at the stove, stirring the pot, as if she belonged.

“You heated up the sauce,” he said in lieu of greeting.

“Oh.”

He squatted, dropped the wood beside the kitchen stove, and looked up at her from his spot on the floor. “Oh?”

“Sauce.”

“Yes. For spaghetti.”

She looked at him blankly, brows raised.

“You don’t know spaghetti?” he asked. She shook her head. “Pasta. Noodles?”

“Oh. I used to eat that when I was little. I remember sucking down these long noodles.” She paused, red as the sauce in the pot. “But I thought it was a stew or something. I didn’t know.” She lost her smile and indicated his sparsely stocked cupboard, chewing her bottom lip with what looked like consternation. “So many things. So much choice.”

“In there?”

“There’s rice. I recognize rice. But the package said it was dirty. Beans are obvious, but that one said risotto and there it’s orzo and… What on earth is orzo?” Her eyes met his, and for the first time, he understood the enormity of this for her.

But she was smiling, which alleviated some of the tension inside him. Not just fear and anger from what those men had done to her, but the pressure of being host and guide to this stranger in a strange land. Of all the people in the world, he was probably the least qualified.

“Let’s get some water on to boil,” he said finally.

He filled a pot at the sink, relieved that the power hadn’t gone out yet, and thought about how it would feel to have no experience of modern life. Because even Luc, country boy though he was, had flown on an airplane to get here. Backward though he was, he still used a mobile phone. He glanced at her, beautiful despite being covered from neck to toe in his ugly clothes. Except for her back, which he wouldn’t let himself look at—partly because those scars would only rile him up again and she didn’t need his rage, but also because he wanted to so badly.

Ripping his thoughts away from what he now knew about her body, he sought for something mundane.

“Orzo is another kind of pasta,” he explained. “Also Italian, like spaghetti.”

“It’s shaped like rice.”

He smiled a response, put the water on to boil, and strode into the other room to check the fire. Everything seemed to be doing just fine without him, which he appreciated. She’d taken care of things in his absence.

“Where do you usually eat?” she asked when he returned to the kitchen.

“At the kitchen table.”

She nodded, got the second wooden chair from the living room, and set it at the table before pulling two forks from the kitchen’s lone drawer and two plates from the cabinet above.

They were quiet, and with six minutes on the timer when they finished setting up, there was nothing left to do but stand there and not look at each other.

It made him nervous—her proximity, her presence in his kitchen.

Without thinking, he reached into a lower cabinet for a bottle of wine, which he opened and served. He lifted his head to find her…staring.

“Are you okay?” he asked, because really, she looked at him as though he were an alien. Which wasn’t all that odd, considering how bad he was with these situations. He’d clearly done something wrong, not asked her something he should have or—

“Thank you, Luc.”

“Oh,” he stammered. “You’re welcome.”

With a breath in, she looked at the table. “So. Spaghetti is Italian.”

“Yes,” he said. “And with spaghetti, you drink wine.” He handed Abby the cork from the bottle he’d opened. “Smell that.”

After examining it for a moment, she put it to her nose, breathed in, turned it, and did the same on the other side. The wine-stained side.

“Smells old.”

“Yes? Anything else?”

“It reminds me of that room up in the barn, with all the barrels.” She looked at him. “Is that strange?”

Heart quickening, he shook his head and looked away. No. No, it wasn’t strange at all. It was beautiful, like this woman. Though she was injured and just recently feverish and dangerous to begin with, he couldn’t help wanting her as he’d wanted nothing before. He reached for his glass and took a long swig of wine.

And all of this, he knew, was a bad idea.

* * *

Abby watched Luc use tongs to take two knots of spaghetti from the pot and put it onto their plates with a deft twist of the wrist and top each with a ladle full of thick, red sauce. All of it—her intense hunger, the smell, that practiced move, the way his handsome face creased in concentration—settled in her chest.

His back, thick and vital, stretched the shirt he wore, his strength painfully evident. And despite that obvious strength, she felt no fear when she watched him. Only affection.

That was a lie. There was more than affection simmering inside. There was that tension he always seemed to bring out in her. Like excitement, except darker. Deeper, maybe.

A clatter from the sink brought Abby’s mind back to the mind-boggling fact that he’d helped her prepare dinner. And served it to her, while she sat at the table. The sight of him rinsing off the serving spoon should have made everything seem practical or utilitarian, but even that didn’t rid her of that feeling.

“I can do that,” she said, rising to stand beside him.

“I’m sure you could” was his only response. She waited impatiently for him to stop, turn around, leave the job to her. Women’s work. He put the spoon in the drying rack. “Sit and eat your food,” he said, holding out her chair with a smile.

Oh, that smile.

After a brief hesitation, during which everything—every life experience Abby had ever had—did a final, definitive flip-flop in her brain, winding up somewhere below her belly button, she finally sat down. I belong here. The words shimmered in her brain, although she wasn’t sure if they meant “out here in the world” or “here, with him.”

She smiled at him shyly and turned her eyes to the food on her plate—much easier than looking at the man, because goodness, he was blinding.

As they ate, she found herself sinking again into a desire to touch him, to test his skin and run her fingers through his hair. She couldn’t guess if it would be soft or coarse, and in a moment of utter certainty, she knew she didn’t want to guess. She wanted to know. All of it—how the longish hair would feel against the skin of her face. And those hands, deft and efficient—how would they touch her body? With power and competence, she suspected, which had quite the appeal.

She felt his eyes on her and wondered how long she’d spent in her dreamland.

“There’s a specific way to eat spaghetti, if you’re interested.”

“Like pruning?”

He smiled. “Yes. We Europeans enjoy our traditions.”

Using his fork, he gathered the long strands and wound them into the bowl of his spoon. For a brief, nearly hysterical moment, Abby thought she might swoon from the beauty of him. In any other household, anywhere in the world, this would be mundane—but here, with her a freakish outsider, this was incredibly sensual.

Only the man doesn’t know it. Time to calm down.

She tried imitating his moves, with half of his ability and some success. Still, the spaghetti was…

Around a mouthful of the stuff, she said, “This is divine.” Her eyes closed of their own accord, giving her tongue a chance to take it all in without him distracting her. Another bite—not too fast, not too fast—was slightly different. The flavors came together with notes she recognized: herbs, tomatoes, onions. She’d thought the pasta would taste like bread, but it didn’t. It was soft and chewy. And—

Luc cleared his throat across from her, and Abby looked up to find him focused on her, his blue eyes glittering, mouth not quite closed. Goodness, she’d disappeared again, hadn’t she? Embarrassed, she swallowed too much too soon, sputtered a bit, and said, “I’ve been told I have my head in the clouds.”

After a beat, he answered, “If I had to guess, I wouldn’t say in the clouds.”

She swallowed. “Where, then?”

“Right here,” he said with a smile that Abby couldn’t help but return.

“They just meant that I’m always dreaming. I go into my head or—”

“I see what they meant. They’re wrong.”

Abby stopped, fork and spoon suspended in the air. It felt like it might matter, this response. What did he see that nobody else had?

As he opened his mouth and closed it, color rose to his face to settle high and pink on his cheekbones. It was charming how often he blushed.

“Here, drink.”

He shoved one of the glasses of wine toward her, hard enough that it sloshed over the edges, and she watched as his cheeks darkened even further.

Lord, would he look like that if they… If he…

She took a sip and sighed again at the richness in her mouth, heat blooming from her throat to her middle.

He interrupted her thoughts. “I…I’m not good at this.”

“At what?”

“Small talk.”

“I’m not even sure what that is,” said Abby, feeling the holes in her education more keenly than ever. But his response helped. It helped a lot when he laughed first, because he was wonderful to look at. And the laugh, though rare, settled on his features comfortably, arching his brows, turning up the corners of his mouth, and creasing his cheeks, breathing new life into those high swathes of pink.

“We should continue to get along, then.”

The laugh disappeared, the sound of his voice faded, and their eyes met awkwardly in a dance Abby had neither learned nor perfected but was suddenly keen to understand.

She exhaled quick and hard while her body grew heavy and warm. From the wine or the man, she wasn’t entirely sure.

“I think you’re fine at talking,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Good at other stuff, too.”

His brows rose and his lips parted, making her want to taste them. His attention slid to the side, away from her, as if he was searching for something to say. Finally, he said, “You’ve never told me, and I can’t help but wonder: What is it like to live there?”

“With the Church?” She set down her flatware and thought. “I couldn’t describe it. It’s been my only life.”

“Forever?”

“Yes. Well, no. Mama brought us when I was little, but I hardly remember before.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why did she bring you? What was in it for her?”

Abby took a moment to answer. She lined her thoughts up one by one, pushing away memories that hurt too much to examine, lingering on good ones from when she was younger. This place had been much better than where they’d come from: safe and so much cleaner. Such a dream for a little girl who’d spent most of her life living out of the back of a car with her mom.

“She believes in the teachings. She’s been devout forever, went to prayer every week, no matter where we were, then she met him and…” Everything changed.

“Isaiah Bowden?”

Abby nodded. “Hamish started the church here, but Isaiah’s the prophet. He went out finding believers, while Hamish stayed here, welcoming and building. The mountain was supposed to be sacred land. Only, things have changed.”

“How so?”

“Isaiah’s not just a prophet anymore. He’s the Second Coming. Hamish was still alive when Isaiah started saying he was the Messiah.”

Abby took a sip and stared at nothing. A light film of tears covered her eyes as she let herself feel alone and maybe a bit sorry for herself.

Beside her, Luc puffed out a breath. “I can’t believe this is happening right next door to me. At least now I know why this place was so inexpensive.”

“I suppose nobody wanted us for neighbors.” After a pause, she turned to him. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, her voice small. “You gave me the courage to leave.”

“I did?”

She nodded, flushing hard at what she was divulging. “I watched you over here, doing everything on your own. You had workers when you pruned and picked the grapes, but…you were mostly alone, and you were strong and bent on getting things done. I admired that.”

Another sip, a smile, as she thought about the truth. He’d been driven and strong and able. For over two years, she’d watched him and wanted to see him close up, fantasized about the possibilities.

Reality, of course, had taught her not to dwell, but… Well, those dreams had gotten her through the hardest of times. And it had gotten her here, which wasn’t all that bad, actually. Not bad at all.

He seemed shy as they got up, and he sent her to sit in front of the fire while he did the dishes. The lights flickered, and Abby shivered.

After a bit, he joined her, wine bottle and two glasses in hand. “Want to help me kill this?”

“I’m sorry?”

He looked away, boyish and cute again. “It doesn’t work, does it? When I try the very American expressions? It means would you like to help me finish the wine?”

“Oh.”

She mulled over the question. The wine felt good—it had loosened her joints, softened her muscles, dulled the pain to a throb. But it also made her say things she normally wouldn’t say, and that might not be wise, given…everything.

But I want to say those things. I want to drink and kiss, ask questions and live.

“Yes. I’d like that,” she finally said, knowing she was agreeing to more than the drink.