Another lie—I shake my head.
“When the fighting stopped, I thought I could get food… I guess I wasn’t thinking right… I don’t know,” she says, bewilderment etched on her face.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re exhausted. You’re tired. You’re hungry. But I don’t want you to worry about food. I will get us food.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I’m sorry for being such a bother. I just wanted to help.”
I look at her in awe. She’s injured, starving, and probably in some kind of shock, but she still wants to help. Seeing that she needs a job, I show her how to pile snow into a small pot she brought with her and heat it over the fire. “Boil it to kill anything in the water that might make us sick.”
She nods her head and goes about filling the pot with snow, but when she sits down next to the fire, holding the pot, I can still see the fear in her face and the question of did she see what she thought she saw.
I set the canteens down in front of her and leave her to get to work, more worried about getting her food now than ever.
I go back to retrieve my kill and find that another animal has already dragged it away. I’m forced to keep hunting and to gather more wood to burn.
When I return, Keri has filled three canteens with clean water and is boiling more. She’s taken off her jacket to dry by the fire. And her tight thermal shirt shows off exactly how curvy she really is.
She has a rosy look to her face, and I try to figure out what’s different with her. “You look like you’re feeling better. You have more color to your face.”
She turns pink in the cheeks. “The warm water was so tempting. I cleaned myself up a little and already feel like a new woman.”
I’ve always thought she was beautiful, but even more so now. With the dirt smudges gone from her face, I see her freckles, and her smile is bright as she looks up at me. “You brought dinner?”
My first thought is if this is what it’d be like if we went out on a date for dinner. Would she smile at me like she is right now, looking at me like I’m about to serve her a fancy dinner instead of a fox I was able to find along with some more firewood?
I set the fox down and start stoking the fire. “Yep. It’s only a fox, but it’s food, right?”
She caps another canteen. “It seems like all I do is thank you, but I have to say it again.”
I shake my head. “You don’t have to thank me. You don’t owe me anything, Keri.”
She puts her hand out and wraps it around my forearm. “Yes, I do. You keep saving me, Ray. I know you didn’t ask for any of this and I also know you could have easily just have left me here—"
The thought of leaving her has blood raging through my veins. “No, I couldn’t. I never would leave you out here, so stop thinking that way. We’re getting out. You’ll get on with your life, and so will I.”
She picks up the fox and holds her hand out to me. “What?” I ask her.
“Your knife? Can I borrow it?”
I try not to smirk, thinking there’s no way she knows how to skin a fox, but I hand her the knife anyway. She opens it with expertise and starts skinning the fox. Without a grimace or even a look of disgust, she goes to work, and I can’t take my eyes off her. She keeps surprising me. Everything she does makes me like her more. Aside from being beautiful, she is quick and eager to learn and help out.
“So tell me about your life,” she asks as she works.
I add wood to the fire and stoke it. “There’s not much to tell. I belong to the New Law.”
She stops what she’s doing and looks up at me. “The motorcycle gang?”
“It’s a club. More like a family than anything.”
She averts her eyes and concentrates on what she’s doing. “So do you have family? A wife… or girlfriend?”
“If I had either, I wouldn’t have held you in my arms last night, honey.”
Again with the endearment. I have no idea where it’s coming from. She’s making me soft. I throw another log on the fire too hard, and sparks shoot up, but I don’t care. She has me wanting things I shouldn’t want. I can’t want.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. There’s no way she has a man if she’s traipsing through the woods alone. Fuck, if she was mine, I wouldn’t want her out of my sight.