Page 10 of Out of the Cold

Chapter Three

The smoke alarm wokehim up.

Leaping out of bed, Gabriel stood stock still in the middle of the room, his head whipsawing around as he looked for smoke.

But it wasn’t his cabin. The sound was coming from the main house.

She could have set the house on fire, or she might only have burned the toast. If it was toast, the alarm would go silent any second now.

He waited, shoulders hunched against the noise, for it to stop.

It didn’t.

Seconds later, there was a knock on his door. Lucy, already ruining another day. Why wasn’t he surprised?

He swung the door open. “What did you do?”

But she didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at his chest, which was bare because the woodstove kept the cabin so warm.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman looked at him like that. Or the last time he cared.

She hunched her shoulders. Against the cold, maybe against him. “The fire went out and I tried to start it, but now the house is filling with smoke.”

She was as pretty as he remembered, but clearly rattled. Her fair coloring contrasted with the high spots of color on her cheekbones, and her hair was coming out of a ponytail. The mountain lion screaming last night probably hadn’t helped matters. He’d seen her lights come on. Part of him had wanted to go over there and reassure her. The other part had hoped it would scare her off the mountain.

“I’ll be over in a minute,” he said.

She looked only slightly relieved before turning away.

He pulled on a pair of canvas work pants, a thermal shirt, and a flannel, then grabbed his work gloves from the bench by the door. The high shriek of the alarm got louder and more unbearable with every step, and a sharp headache began in his left temple.

Lucy was sitting on the side-door steps, petting her dog and watching his approach like she wasn’t sure if he was good news or bad.

Smoke singed his nostrils as soon as he stepped in the door. The big front room was full of smoke, and he began coughing as he made his way to the woodstove. Wood was strewn around the floor, pieces of bark and twigs littering the stone skirt in front of the stove.

He wasn’t going to be able to do anything until he had some air. Without a word he began opening windows, and Lucy followed his lead. Next, he hit the button on the smoke alarm, silencing it. He did the same to the one in the hallway and in her bedroom.

The throbbing in his head lessened, and he breathed a little easier. He headed to the stove, Lucy right behind him.

“I cleaned the chimney myself before you came, so it’s not that,” he said. He knelt down and opened the flue. “Here’s your problem. The flue wasn’t open. It was when I started it yesterday.”

She looked miserable. “The fire was dead this morning, so I watched a YouTube video about lighting one. I thought I was opening it.”

He should never have left yesterday without making sure she knew what to do. That was stupid, and now they were both paying for it.

“I don’t understand,” she went on. “I turned it both ways when it started to get smoky, and it made no difference.”

“If there’s already smoke in the room, it can be hard to tell when you’ve got it open.”

The curtains lifted as cool air blew in. His throat and eyes still stung, but the smoke was starting to clear out.

“So I guess I start all over?” she asked.

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