Chapter 16: The Line Cabin

The horse ran until the rifle was a mile behind us.

Jonas pulled it down to a walk in a stand of cedar, and we sat in the dark and listened.

A truck engine whined somewhere below.

Then it went quiet, and then it started again, and the sound drew off down the mountain.

"They've lost the track," Jonas said.

"For tonight."

The line cabin sat in a fold of the ridge, one room with a tin roof and a woodstove.

He lifted me down and set me on my feet.

I stood by myself with the wet horse blanket at my back, and then I took the first step toward the door.

I took the second.

I made a dozen steps to the porch before my legs began to shake.

"Carry me," I said.

He lifted me before I had finished the word.

He put me on the narrow bed against the wall, lit the stove, and knelt to unlace my shoes.

The creek had soaked me to the skin, and my teeth were chattering.

He peeled off my wet jacket, and then my shirt, and he did it with his eyes on my face.

"You can look," I said.

"I know."

"I want you to."

His hands stopped on my waist.

He was soot-black and soaked, with a burn across his forearm and a scrape down his jaw.

He looked at me and did not blink.

"I thought he had you," he said, and his voice cracked in the middle.

"I came around that barn and your hand was on the window of that truck."

"Jonas."

"I have never been so afraid in my life."

"I got out."

"You got out."

"I walked, Jonas."

"You walked."

I took his face in my hands.

"Get these wet clothes off me," I said. "And then get yours off. I need to feel warm."

He undressed me slowly in the glow of the stove.

He peeled the soaked jeans down my legs, and when he reached the scars he kissed them, one at a time, from knee to ankle.

I felt every kiss.

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