Page 35 of The Winter Husband
Her blue gaze faltered. “The winter is going to be long.”
Longer than you know.
“We need to make rules.” A stripe of light rippled across the curve of her cheek as she leaned back. “There should be no misunderstanding between us. We need…boundaries.”
“I’ll sleep here,” he said. “You’ll sleep in the cabin.”
“That isn’t necessary. The bolt on the bedroom door is strong.”
She dropped her gaze. A faint flush colored her cheeks. He imagined her testing that bedroom bolt after he left, rattling it, her rabbit’s heart pounding. She knew he could shatter that door with one good kick. Did she know his head still echoed with the sound of her moaning?
“I’ll sleep here,” he repeated, louder than he needed to.
She sighed hard. “I suppose,” she said, glancing around, “you’re used to living like a soldier on the march.”
He glanced around the barn, seeing it through her eyes. The dirt floor, scattered crates, collection of tools hanging on the wall. A rusty bucket of water sat next to another crate that held his straight razor and mirror, neither of which he’d made much use of lately. A clean pair of small clothes dangled on a peg. A dirty pair hung drying.
Hell, he hadn’t invited her in.
“If you insist on this, then I’ll bring some furs from the cabin bedroom,” she said into the stretching silence. “Is there anything else you would like?”
Peace. Solitude.
You.
“I’ll take your silence as a no. Now it’s my turn.” She shifted her position on the crate, moving that plump, lovely bottom in ways he didn’t want to think about. “Since we’re to sleep in different buildings, I would prefer you knock before you come into the cabin.”
Irritation skittered through him. “You’re going to force me to knock on the door of my own home?”
“You tend to burst in without warning. I need some privacy. We are husband and wife in name only.”
Not for long, if he didn’t stop thinking about his rolled-up pallet within arm’s reach and her spread naked upon it.
“I’ll expect you for meals, of course,” she added. “I won’t neglect my duties, as few as they are and as badly as I fulfill them.”
Three meals a day might be too much temptation, but a man couldn’t live forever on pemmican.
“Also, Lucas, I’m not used to idleness. Though I didn’t have many chores in the orphanage, we were always busy, and I was never alone. The nights here are long, and without female company, I need something to occupy my mind as well as my hands, besides reading.”
He imagined exactly what she could do with those hands.
“Perhaps you can teach me how to do that.” She pointed to the snowshoe he’d pulled back onto his lap.
He shifted it to block her view of his crotch.
“I should be able to make one of those,” she continued. “I need a pair of snowshoes for myself. As it is, I sink to my knees in the drifts every time I fetch water from the river or meat from the storehouse.”
He said through an iron jaw, “I’ll find some birch staves and bend them to your size.”
“You’ll teach me?”
“It’ll take some weeks. When the frame is ready, and I’ve got enough strips of moose hide, I’ll show you how to weave them.”
“Good.” She tugged on the end of her shawl. “Another thought.”
God save him.
“If our situation…becomes unbearable.” She huffed out a little breath. “Perhaps you could go away for a day or two. For a hunt.”
