My Own People Betrayed Me at My Engagement Barbecue, So I Took the Hill Back novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Sunday House

I had swept the Sunday house twice and burned the old sheets in the yard.

Nothing in that room belonged to anyone but me.

It was the last Sunday in February, and the little stove in the corner of the one-room cabin glowed orange.

The new bedding was white cotton from the feed store, and it smelled of cold air.

The window over the iron bed looked down on the creek.

Cade filled the doorway with his hat in his hands.

"Tilly," he said. "This is where..."

"It isn't anymore."

I took the hat from him and hung it on the nail by the door.

"This is mine," I said. "Every board of it. And I want it to be yours in here too."

I shut the door and put my back against it.

I looked at him in the stove light, six foot five of him.

The room was built for people half his size.

"Take off your shirt," I said.

He took it off.

"Boots."

He sat on the bed to do it, and the iron frame groaned.

It was a narrow bed, made for one small woman and a prayer book.

His feet hung off the end even with his knees bent, and I started to laugh.

"It's too short for you," I said.

"It's too short for most things."

"Good."

I undressed in front of him slowly, button by button.

The stove warmed one side of me, and the cold came off the window on the other.

I took off my boots and my jeans.

I took off my sweater and my bra and stood naked in the glow.

I was five foot one, rosy on one side and pale on the other.

He didn't breathe.

"Come here," he said.

"No. You come here."

He caught my wrist and pulled me onto the bed.

He sat against the iron headboard with his legs stretched out on the mattress and his feet over the end.

He drew me down between his knees with my back to his chest.

His arms came around me.

They went around the front of my ribs and met, and his chin settled on my head.

I had never felt so wrapped.

I was small enough to disappear inside him, and I let myself.

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