Page 101 of Westin

“I think she missed you,” I say, kicking my boots free of snow and shutting the door.

Diane scrambles to her feet. “Do you have any dog food?”

“There’s some up at the house,” I say.

She bites her lip. I know she’s not ready to go up to the house where everyone else lives. I go to the fridge and pull out some chicken breast left over from a few nights ago. Diane takes the bag from me and tears it into shreds, reaching for a bowl.

“Give her a handful and see if it stays down,” I say. “She hasn’t been fed in a few days so her stomach is sensitive. I’ll get the dog food later.”

She nods, obeying. Billie shoves down the chicken and starts rummaging for more. I click my fingers once, making a sharp noise. She backs up and sits.

“Good girl,” I say. “You lay down.”

She slinks to the living room and curls up on the rug before the fire. Diane watches her with a strange look on her face, almost wistful.

“Thank you for finding her,” she says. “I know you probably didn’t want to go out in the cold.”

I decide not to mention I actually went out to burn the Garrisons and their home. Instead, I take her by the waist and pull her against me. She’s too thin; she needs to rest and recover.

“I wish you’d told me how bad it was at the Garrisons’,” I say.

She shakes her head. “You wouldn’t have let me stay.”

“No, I wouldn’t have.” My voice is tinged with cold.

She shakes back her flyaway hairs and, for the first time in a year, I see a tiny flicker of the girl I met before all the sweetness and hope was taken from her eyes.

Right then and there, I swear to myself I’ll do anything I can so she can be soft again. When summer comes, she’ll be sun-kissed, in the passenger side of my truck, my hat on her blonde head, not a single care in the world.

“Diane,” I say. “What can I do to fix this?”

Her brows draw together. “You mean when you lied to me?”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t regret that. You’re hardheaded, darling. You’d have let them kill you to save your land, I see that now. I’m so fucking sorry.”

She touches my chin. “It’s not your fault.”

My mind flashes with a single image: my father, standing at the edge of the woods by our house. He takes two bullets from his pocket and fits them into the shotgun. I stare up at him, the sun making my eyes stream. He’s big and strong, my father.

“Let me tell you something, son,” he says. “We’re just complicated animals. At the end of the day, it’s survival of the fittest.”

I don’t understand what that means, but I remember the silhouette of my father as he clicks the gun into place and lifts it. A shot rings out.

He ejects the casing with a savage snap. “Now, go on, let me teach you how to gut an animal.”

Diane is saying something. I jerk back to the present. Maybe my father was right to raise me the way he did. Maybe if I’d been more like him, Diane would never have endured so much pain at the hands of the Garrisons.

My father shot first and took what he wanted.

I hesitated. I waited.

And now, her light is dimmed.

I put her hand in mine and kiss her forehead. She gives me a little smile. I sit down at the head of the table with the ghost of my father hanging over my head. Diane makes up my plate and sets it before me. When she turns to leave, I catch her arm and pull her into my lap.

“I need you to know that I’m never leaving you alone again,” I say quietly.

Her eyes are big, staring up at me. “It’s okay.”

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