Chapter 12: The Kitchen Counter

"I'm here," I said. "What's wrong? Is it the fever?"

"No."

He sat up slowly, the blanket sliding off his bare chest.

The gold in his eyes didn't fade. If anything it got brighter.

"Don't come closer," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I can smell you."

I stayed where I was, on the floor by the couch.

"Is that bad?"

He laughed, short and shaky, and put the heels of his hands against his eyes.

"Seven years I couldn't smell bread in the oven. Now I can smell the stove, and the kids, and the snow coming, and the cattle in the barn. And you."

"What do I smell like?"

He took his hands away from his face.

"Like the thing I've been missing my whole life," he said. "And I didn't even know it was gone."

Something under my breastbone pulled.

Hard.

I put my hand over it.

He saw me do it.

He got up off the couch, too fast, and walked into the kitchen.

I heard the tap run. A glass hit the counter.

I followed him.

I didn't decide to. My feet did it.

He was standing at the sink with his back to me, both hands braced on the edge, his head down.

The kitchen was dark except for the yard light through the window.

The smell I'd caught off him in the barn was everywhere now. Warm and sharp.

It went into my lungs and stayed there.

"Gunnar."

"Go back to bed, Bryn."

"I don't have a bed. I have a couch you're sweating on."

He laughed helplessly and turned around.

There were three feet of kitchen floor between us.

The pull yanked again.

I took one step. He took one step.

His hands came up and stopped an inch from my face.

"Two years," he said hoarsely. "You want to know something nobody knows?"

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