The next morning dawns in a crazy rainstorm, with thunder, lightning, and howling wind. Knox doesn’t even head out to work, and it’s a good thing. Around noon a giant thunderclap is followed by a deafening ripping sound and an ominous thunk. A new stream of light floods into our cabin.

“Aw, fuck.” Knox looks up. The storm has torn a chunk clean out of the roof. The wind whips through our cabin, freezing cold, rain lashing through the hole.

He heads outside and comes back soaked, carrying a piece of plywood. With some nails and a hammer, he tacks it up over the hole.

But as soon as the wind and pelting rain dies down late in the afternoon, he’s outside, looking at the damage. I pull on my boots and head out, too. Tree limbs are down, any remaining leaves stripped and cast to the ground.

“You don’t have to come out in this.” He extends his hand to me as I walk in the drizzle, making my way through a squelchy patch of thick mud.

“How bad is it?” I squint up at the roof. The hole looks almost a foot wide and nearly that long.

“Bad. I’ve got to fix it now so more doesn’t tear off.”

“Now?” It’s still raining. The sun is setting and the wind could pick up again at any moment. “Are you sure?”

“You head back in and stay warm. I’ll take care of this.”

It’s tempting, but, no. I’ve done enough staying inside. I want to be part of this, fixing the problem, creating the solution. “I’ll help.”

“You sure? It’s getting dark and the rain could get heavy again.”

“I’m sure.”

He nods. “It’ll go faster with you. Come on.”

He leads me into his shed where he’s got every tool under the sun and a long workbench. Quickly setting into action mode, he assembles his equipment.

“Flashing.” He holds up a set of metal squares. “Roofing cement.” It resembles a huge glue gun, but the contents look like black tar. “Replacement shingles.” Those look familiar.

It occurs to me why Knox is usually so taciturn. In crisis situations, no one has long conversations. You have to stick to the basics, communicating only what’s necessary to execute under pressure. And crisis is Knox’s normal MO.

Outside, the rain is coming down more heavily, but I just put up my hood. If he says it needs to be fixed now, I’m sure he’s right. He gives me my job: apply cement to the small metal squares called flashing. After he positions the shingles, I hand them to him up the ladder so he can set them on and hammer them in.

As we work, the sun sets. The rain grows heavier, the wind whipping around us. Knox has to hold a flashlight while he works, slowing down the process. But, together, we finish in a little over an hour.

“Will the cement dry?” In the pelting rain, we duck into the shed to store the supplies.

“Not until tomorrow, but with the nails it should hold. And prevent more damage.”

Inside, I realize my fingers have frozen almost numb, and they’re covered with the black tar-like cement. He leads me into the bathroom and helps me peel off my soaking wet clothes. Stepping into the steaming hot shower is like heaven. But nothing’s getting off the tar, not water, not soap, until Knox returns with some cooking oil.

“What’s that for?”

He shows me as an answer, better with his hand than with words. First he works my fingers with oil while he stands outside the shower. Then he removes his clothes, his shirt, his jeans and briefs, and joins me under the water.

I start to shake again, not from cold, from being so close to him, from his size, from what even his gentle touch to my hand makes me feel. I’m so inexperienced. It’s the first time I’ve been with a naked man. I don’t know where to look, what to do with my hands, but he keeps massaging me, so I let my eyes close and enjoy the sensation.

“Thanks for helping out there,” he murmurs.

“Sure. We got it done quick.”

“We work well together.” His voice sounds gruff and I’m nearly overcome with emotion for this man, still so strange to me, but so strangely caring. He doesn’t stop until my hands are clean, then replaces the oil with soap and washes my whole body, lovingly, slowly, caressing every inch.

Dried off and changed into panties and his T-shirt, I slip into bed feeling warm and exhausted. Knox emerges from the bathroom wearing sweatpants riding low.

“How do you know how to do all this?” I gesture up at the roof, now thoroughly patched. We’re snug, dry and warm in our cabin.

“Do what?” He joins me in bed, pulling me to his side.

“Fix the roof. Chop wood. Hunt and fish.” I list a few of his many skills. He smells like soap and man and I curl into him, breathing deep.

“I did it growing up.”

“You and your dad?”

“No.”

“You and your mom?” Maybe she was an outdoorsy type.

“Just me.”

“So, when you were a kid you just taught yourself?”

He pauses before answering, his hand making lazy circles along my back as I lie on his chest. “My mom died when I was nine from ovarian cancer. My father never recovered.”

“I’m so sorry.” Nine. What a heartbreakingly young age to lose his mother.

“It was a long time ago.”

I nestle into his chest, resting my hand over his heart. The rain pounds onto our sturdy roof overhead. His heart beats steady under my cheek.

I assume that’s all I’m going to get from him, but he continues. “I learned how to fix things around the house because I had to. The outdoors stuff I learned because I liked it. And survival skills were part of my training.”

“For the SEALs?”

He nods, his chin brushing against the top of my head.

“Sounds like you had to grow up quick as a kid.”

He strokes my hair, twining it around his fingers, caressing it like fine silk. “Bet you did, too.”

I nod, and find myself telling him about how we moved almost every year, how I never got to know anyone well. My voice stays steady until I recall, “Mom went out a lot.”

“And left you alone?”

I clear my throat as all the memories stick to it. All the nights I spent alone in a new city, a new apartment, scared in my bed. Eight or nine years old, I’d like awake, listening to every noise. When I tried to talk about it, Mom would get angry. When I told her I couldn’t sleep alone in the apartment with all the noises, the creaking floor, rushing water pipes and even voices from other apartments, she’d bark, “Listen to some music.”

By 11, I was used to it. “It got easier,” I finally manage.

Knox wraps his arms around me.

“She had me young, so.” I make an excuse for her, as I often have. And that one is true. She had me at 19, a few months younger than I am right now. It was a big responsibility to take on, especially with my dad not involved. She felt she deserved some fun. The only problem was me getting in the way.

“That’s all behind you now.” Knox’s voice rumbles in his broad chest. “That’s all in the past.”

Against his chest, warm and dry with the rain overhead, my eyelids grow heavy. Our hearts beat together as I lie wrapped in the protection of his arms, relaxing into the embrace of sleep.