Chapter 13: The Cab

Signe's POV

The next evening Wyatt found me by the pasture gate and said he needed a hand with the truck.

There was nothing wrong with the truck.

We both knew it, and neither of us said so.

He drove us out to the high ground on the county road, where the fields fell away in every direction.

He killed the engine, and the dusk settled on the hood.

The sun was going down red behind a line of bare cottonwoods.

I could see the whole of the farm from there.

The barn, the shed, the tower.

Forty cooking fires and the little yellow windows.

For the first time in thirty-one days, I wasn't listening to anything.

He climbed out of the cab and came around to my door.

He opened it, and he put one hand on the roof and looked at me.

"I've been thinking," he said, "about what you said on the net."

"I said a lot of things."

"You said you thought about it. For a second," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." He smiled, slow. "I've been thinking about how long a second is."

I climbed out and he pulled me against the door.

He kissed me hard, with his hand under my jaw and his thigh between mine.

I grabbed his coat with both fists.

"Back there," he said against my mouth. "The sleeper. Now."

"Now?"

"Now."

The Peterbilt had a sleeper the size of a small room.

It had a padded bunk, a curtain, and a reading lamp with a bent neck.

It smelled of him, of diesel and coffee and clean cotton.

There was a small cross-stitch hung over the bunk that said BE STILL.

"That's my mother's," he said, following my eyes.

"Don't look at it."

"Then don't say her name," I said.

"I wasn't going to."

"Good."

He drew the curtain and pulled my coat off my shoulders.

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