Chapter 12: Thanksgiving Eve

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I stood in Holt's kitchen with flour to my elbows and two pies in the oven.

Eleven days had gone by since the casserole.

We had walked Bear every morning at six, and the river path had frozen into hard ridges under our boots.

I had slept at his place four nights and at mine three.

Brent had gone quiet.

His post was still up, and mine was still under it, and the comments had slowly turned my way.

He hadn't paid me a dime.

"You're hovering," I said.

Holt stood behind me with his hands in his pockets.

"I'm not."

"You've straightened that dish towel four times."

"It was crooked."

"You're nervous."

"My sister is a lot," he said. "She'll look at you for a long time and say nothing. Then she'll ask something that sounds friendly."

"Is that a warning?"

"It's a weather report."

I wiped my hands on my apron.

Bear had stationed himself under the table with his chin on my slipper.

Above the sofa hung a framed photograph of a man with the same dark hair and big shoulders, leaning on the side of a half-built boat and grinning.

Next to him, a skinny girl of about ten with a gap in her teeth held up a fish by the tail.

"That's her," Holt said.

"The girl with the fish?"

"Dacey. She wouldn't let him throw it back."

"I like her already."

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