River simpered, looked at the agitated man and shook her head.
“I told you the food was adequate!” He roared, raising from the couch so she might flinch as he had the first time.
Less than one-hundred hours she’d been with the man, witnessing reactions and gauging intent, and it seemed his plan failed. The woman was unmoved.
Worse still, it would seem she was contagious.
He was as hotheaded as she was, no matter how he tried to hide it under his drying cement personality.
River threw him a bone, far more amused now that he was seething. “Learn how to lie.”
“If I told you your cooking was good... a lie of that magnitude would serve no purpose. Furthermore, you would know I was lying.”
Tugging her braids, arranging her legs into a pretty pile, she said, “It’s polite to acknowledge effort.”
“What effort?” Stephen demanded.” You melted snow and added powder until it curdled. I have done more with less.”
Rapping her fingers on the armrest, the pretty female dared challenged, “Then, Prince Charming, from now on you cook.”
He had been so close to winning—so close to shoving her down. But the woman had just stood up after her ridiculous mandate and gone to the door.
Worse yet, she’d opened it, flooding the room in wind and snow. When it was closed, her jacket was gone, the elk rifle too.
Two hours of dark and River came back, lips blue and empty handed. Stephen had made stew. They ate without speaking, the silence only broken by River picking up the next chapter of the discarded book.
* * *
The room was dark when he awoke. River still in her chair, reading aloud, having ignored the fire until it was nothing but coals.
The way she read poetry, the oration, she knew each word by heart even though her eyes traced where they marked the page.
She worked oration like magic.
Yet looked exceedingly troubled.
“That is glorious.” She sighed, lowering the book to her lap. Head tipped back in the chair, she spoke to the air. “I am a dismal poet. I can’t see the world the way Robert Frost could.”
“Your statement is ridiculous.” Stephen sneered, highly annoyed there were only coals that he must tend, no that the voice had ceased and broken the spell. “That poem sums up things you already know.”
“You were supposed to be asleep with all the wheezing and snores.” She rolled her head to the side to take in his profile. “I wasn’t talking to you. I don’t want to talk to you. Go back to bed.”
“If the fire dies, you risk freezing to death.”
River looked to the hearth and frowned. Waking up from whatever had made her voice dreamlike, she cursed. Stephen watched her scuttle, stacking a large pile straight and crossways so it might burn hottest and longest. There was no flaw, no correction he could offer to make the embers more effective. Striking a match to ignite the top, River’s face came more into view.
She looked sad.
“I don’t like that face you’re making.” Stephen did not even know why he said it, he just did not want to see her frown, or deal with the screeching that would follow. “It’s pointless to waste time on dissatisfaction... with your inability to see the world like Robert Frost.”
She gave him a dazzling smile, extensively insincere. “Pointless is it?”
The very smell of anger was upon her. “Yes.”
“How would you know? Talking to you is like talking to a child. How could you understand what matters in my life? It isn’t pointless!”
The animal growl of, “I am not a child,” should have withered the woman he snarled at. It didn’t. River was too far in her temper to care, no matter how he continued. “You are the one throwing a tantrum.”
“You’re right…” The statement was shrill and followed with the woman chucking the book of poetry on the building flames... only to suck in a breath and dive in for it when it caught flame. River beat the cover, almost weeping as she smoothed the charred edges. She said it again in a tone of despair, looking at the book as if she’d wounded her lover. “You’re right.”