Snowed In With the Park Ranger Who Hates Rangers novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Blue Mug

Bea tells Astrid how her lead dog died; later she finds a photo of two rangers laughing and Astrid walks in on her holding it.

The storm did not let up, and by afternoon the cabin felt like the inside of a drum.

Astrid sat at the table cleaning a shotgun that I hoped she never used.

I stood at the counter and washed the breakfast mugs in a basin of stove water.

Four mugs hung on hooks above the sink, three white and one blue enamel with a chipped rim.

I reached for the blue one because it was the closest.

"Not that one," Astrid said.

She said it so sharply that I dropped the sponge.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't know."

"It's fine." She put the shotgun down and came across the room in three steps.

She took the blue mug off my fingers and hung it back on its hook, very carefully.

"It was my partner's," she said. "I don't use it."

"Your partner's coming back?"

"No."

The word sat between us, and I understood that I should not touch it again.

I washed the rest of the mugs and dried them with a dish towel that smelled of woodsmoke.

Astrid went to the stove and added a log, and her shoulders stayed rigid.

"I'll make dinner," I said. "I can't pay you for the food, but I can cook it."

"You don't have to."

"I know. I want to."

She shrugged, which I took for yes.

There was rice, a can of beans, an onion and a jar of her own pickled peppers.

I cooked it in one pot on the stove with a shake of salt, and the cabin filled with the smell of food.

Astrid ate three helpings and pretended she had not.

"Where did you learn to cook on a woodstove?" she asked.

"My grandfather's place," I said. "A sauna cabin on a lake north of here. I was going there when the truck quit."

"Going to stay?"

"To live." I scraped the pot. "I sold my kennel in October, everything but these four dogs. The cabin's all I have left."

"You sold the whole kennel?"

"Forty dogs." My throat tightened. "I couldn't run them anymore."

"Because of the race."

I looked up, and Astrid was watching me across the table, quiet and direct.

"I read the papers," she said. "Last winter, a lead dog died on the trail, and the musher scratched at mile three hundred."

"His name was Pilot," I said.

The cabin was so still that I could hear the clock tick on the wall.

"He was seven," I said. "His heart just stopped."

He was running, and then he was lying in the snow, and I was holding his head.

I had told no one that, not even my sister.

"I'm sorry," Astrid said.

She did not say it like a stranger.

She said it like someone who knew what it cost.

"I haven't been on a runner since," I said. "I have four old dogs, no truck and no plan."

"You have a plan," Astrid said. "You're going to a lake cabin."

"That's not a plan. That's hiding."

"Sometimes hiding is a plan," she said, and the corner of her mouth lifted.

It was the first time I had seen her smile, and it changed her whole face.

The smile made her look younger, and it also made her look tired.

My glove had split along the thumb from the long walk, and I tried to pull the thread with my teeth.

"Give it here," Astrid said.

She sat on a chair by the stove and took the glove and a needle from a tin.

I sat down on the floor beside her chair and watched her mend it with small stitches.

Her knee pressed against my shoulder, and neither of us moved it.

The stove ticked, and her breath moved the hair at my temple.

"You sew well," I said.

"I fix what's in front of me," Astrid said. "It keeps my hands busy."

She tied off the thread, bit it, and set the glove in my lap.

Our fingers touched on the leather, and she let hers stay a moment too long.

"Go to sleep, Lindqvist," she said, very low.

"My name is Bea."

"Go to sleep, Bea."

I lay in the green bag and listened to her breathe, and I thought it was the best my name had ever sounded.

Near midnight I woke because I needed the outhouse, and Astrid's bunk was empty.

Her pac boots were gone, and a thin line of cold came under the door.

She was out in the snow, somewhere, probably checking the dogs.

I rolled out of the bag and went to the shelf over the table for the flashlight.

It was beside the radio, and next to it stood a small frame lying face down in the dust.

I should not have touched it.

I turned it over because my hand did it before my head could stop it.

Two women in green ranger jackets laughed in front of a spring lake with thin gray ice.

One was Astrid with her hair longer and no silver in it, and her whole face open.

The other was a woman with a freckled nose and a wide grin, her arm hooked around Astrid's neck.

On the back, someone had written in pencil: Mae and C, last April, ice-out.

The door opened behind me, and cold air swept across my neck.

Astrid stood in the doorway with snow on her shoulders.

Her eyes went to the frame in my hands, and every bit of color left her face.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend