Awol Bride

“I think that may be optimistic and we have to plan for a little longer than that.”

“How long?” she asked, trying to keep her distaste for that idea out of her tone.

“I don’t know. I just know that we have to conserve supplies, just in case. It’s impossible to tell at this point how long we’ll be here, but better safe than sorry.”

Maicy clenched her teeth to keep from making a snide comment about that being his guiding rule.

“Here’s how it is up here,” he continued. “We’re off the grid. That means no electricity, limited water. The water in the storage tank downstairs is the only non-drinking water, and the only power we have comes from a solar-powered generator. Both of those are at about half capacity. I can get us by for a while with what we have, but only if we’re careful. The water in the tank isn’t for eating or drinking but there’s plenty of bottled water for that. We have a pretty good stock of dried and canned food. The woodpile is high—that’s good. But, for instance, something like taking a shower—”

“No showers?” Maicy said in horror, thinking of how sticky she felt with the blood in her hair and down her neck.

“Yes, showers, but here’s how they happen—there’s a propane tank hooked to the water heater in the basement. I can turn on the gas and heat the water but every time I do that, we’re using up propane and water. So to shower it’ll take half an hour to heat the water. Then, in the shower, there’s a chain to pull to turn the pump on and off. You pull the chain, get wet, stop the water. Lather up. Pull the chain to rinse off. All as quick as possible so you use as little water as you can.”

“Okay...” she said, already missing the long, steamy showers she ordinarily took. But trying to look on the bright side, she said, “So this must mean that there is a bathroom?”

“There’s a room,” he hedged. “Off the bedroom. That’s where the shower is, along with a composting toilet.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a john that’ll take some explanation, too. But it looks like a regular one, if that helps,” he joked, giving her that familiar one-sided smile that had made her feel better about most anything when she’d liked him.

It still worked, damn him.

“I also stocked the bathroom with candles and some kerosene lanterns, so you’ll have light in there, anyway,” he said.

He was so confident, so sure of himself. No wonder she’d believed in him when she’d been at her most distressed...

“I’ve been in worse,” he concluded. “We’ll be fine, we just need to conserve what resources we have.” He’d finished with the firewood and he stood up, unbuttoning his coat and taking it off. “Let me get a lantern and check your head,” he said next. “Any nausea or are you getting hungry?”

Food was the last thing on her mind. But she said, “I’m not nauseous.”

“Good. For tonight I just want to get some food and water in you, and get you to bed.”

There wasn’t any insinuation in that but still it set off a tiny titillation in her that she tried to tell herself was just the chill.

“Where are you sleeping?” she heard herself ask.

He laughed.

No, no, no, not his laugh. She’d always had a weakness for his laugh, too...

“I’ll take the couch,” he assured her. “But we’re playing hospital tonight so I’ll be in every couple of hours to check on you.”

And crawl into bed with her and hold her and keep her warm with those massively muscled arms wrapped around her?

Ohhh, that was some weird flashback to the teenage Maicy’s fantasies...

A blow to the head... I’ve suffered a severe blow to the head. It must have knocked something loose...

Something she would make sure was tightened up again.

“We’ll deal with everything else tomorrow,” she heard him say into the chaos of her thoughts.

“So I can’t shower tonight?” she said when that sank in.

“Nope. I’ll heat enough on the stove for you to clean up a little better, but I want you down until tomorrow. We’ll see then if you can shower,” he decreed, before heading to get the lantern.

And as much as she didn’t want to, Maicy couldn’t help checking out his walk-away.

That had gotten better, too.

But it’s what’s inside that counts, she lectured herself.

And she didn’t mean what was inside those jeans.

It was what was inside the man that counted.

The man whom she had—once upon a time—asked to marry her.

Only to have him turn her down.

Chapter Three (#ueb723fff-1f40-5264-b3b8-0a3f2883755e)

Maicy would have slept much better on Sunday night had Conor not come in every two hours to check on her—the way he’d warned her he would.

The four-poster bed was the most comfortable thing she’d ever slept on. Conor had given her a brand new T-shirt and sweatpants straight out of the packages to use as pajamas, the sheets were clean, and with two downy quilts covering her and the slowly burning fire in the shared fireplace—that Conor also kept watch over all night—it would have been heavenly if not for her headache, and the interruptions.

She awoke Monday morning to the sound of wood being split outside. Using the blanket that had covered her on the sofa the night before as a robe, she tested her strength and balance rather than bounding out of the bed.

She was still weak and sore in spots, but much better than the night before. So she left the bedroom and went into the kitchen.

Looking out the window over the sink she could see that the wind had calmed slightly, but snow was still falling heavily on top of what looked to be more than two feet already on the ground.

Conor had shoveled a path to the woodpile and was there, splitting logs with the swing of an ax.

That was a sight to wake up to!

One she was leery of standing there to watch.

She was not going to be sucked into admiring the fine specimen of a man he’d become. There was nothing personal between them at all anymore, and that was the way it would stay. Their former connection had died an ugly death. And even before it had, it clearly hadn’t been as meaningful to him as it was to her. So what he was doing for her now was merely being a good Samaritan, there wasn’t anything else to it.

She just had to stop cataloging—and yeah, okay, admiring—his physical improvements, and make certain that she didn’t read anything into his behavior. He was a doctor—taking care of injured women who fell in his path was just part of his job. It didn’t mean anything. She didn’t want it to mean anything. She was indifferent to him now. So she didn’t let herself stay at the sink and watch him splitting logs. Instead, she moved across the room to the front window to survey that side of the cabin.

He’d shoveled off the front porch and cleared the snow from his SUV but she wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. There was no driving on the road with all that snow.

“Come on, snow, just stop,” she beseeched the weather to no avail, plopping down onto the couch dejectedly.

Conor came in not long after and made powdered eggs that weren’t too unpalatable, and then removed the dressing from her head.