Chapter 15: The Court Convenes

Hazel's POV

I woke to gray light on the tent roof and an empty cot beside me.

The blanket still smelled of smoke and him.

Rowan sat on the floor with his back against the pole and a square of brown paper in his hand.

"What's that?" I said.

He held it out without a word.

I read the stamp and then the neat round writing underneath.

Standing monthly order. For Hazel. Account opened ten years ago this month.

"Ruby's hand," I said.

"The same as the thank-you card."

My stomach turned over.

"She wasn't Ramsay's helper," I said. "She was in it before the tent was folded."

"She ordered it from the first week."

I folded the paper along its crease and put it in the pocket of the flannel shirt.

"Nobody sees this until the doctor is in the room," I said.

"That's what I thought."

He didn't get up.

He sat looking at the burn scar on his hand.

I waited, because I knew the shape of a man working up to a sentence.

"I'm going to say something unfair," he said.

"Say it."

"Every night, I'd think, she never called."

I went still.

"Then I'd remember you couldn't. You had no phone, no door, no road."

His mouth twisted.

"I knew that, and I still lay there angry at you for ten years."

"That's the worst thing I've ever done with my head."

"You were angry at me."

"I was angry at a girl who was locked in a cabin." He looked up. "I'm not asking you to say it's all right."

I got off the cot and knelt in front of him.

I took his burned hand and turned it over and kissed the scar.

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