Page 51 of Little Bird
He scowls like that was the wrong thing to say and makes to walk past me. “I am your father. And I’m taking care of you. You were out in the snow last night. Now it’s my turn.”
“Your turn to what?” another voice asks.
My dad and I both turn, surprised to see Taryn standing at the other end of the kitchen looking sleep-mussed and flushed, and I nearly drop to my knees in sheer relief that she’s on her feet and looking relatively normal. All her fingers and toes seem to be whole—I know because I count them—and she doesn’t look like she has any lasting damage from last night.
I don’t know how that can be true after what she went through, but I’m not going to ask too many questions. I’m too happy to see her healthy. I still can’t believe how close we came to losing her. If I hadn’t followed her immediately and happened to see the tracks where she left the road, she could have frozen to death. If she’d slid off the road anywhere else, she would have met a drop hundreds of feet high. If a bear had decided it was too interested in her...
God, she could have died.
My Taryn could have died last night.
I flex my hands, desperate to run to her and take her in my arms. Make sure she’s still whole and healthy and warm. Still alive. But I hold myself in place, unsure of how she’d take such a show of emotion.
Unwilling to admit to myself how scared I was, because admitting that is akin to opening myself up to more damage.
“You’re up early,” I say instead, looking for something neutral. “How are you feeling? How are your fingers and toes? Your nose? Any tingling anywhere?”
She gives me a narrow-eyed glance. “If I’d known I was going to get the Spanish Inquisition without any coffee, I would have stayed upstairs. I feel fine. What are you two arguing about?”
“We’re snowed in and need more firewood,” my father says, skipping the details of why and just expecting her to take his word for it.
Typical.
“So we’re going outside to cut firewood?” she asks, her eyes snapping to the window and clouding. “Let me get dressed. Do you guys have a jacket I can borrow? I don’t think I brought anything heavy enough.”
“No,” my father says sharply. “You’re not going. Neither is Gabe.”
I’m not surprised when she walks up to him and pokes him in the chest. “So what, you’re going to go out there and do everything on your own, despite how cold it is? Despite the fact that it makes no sense to do it that way? Not happening. Sorry.”
He opens his mouth, definitely intending to argue with her, but she pokes him again.
“I said no. I need a coat. Are you going to get me one or what?”
I am surprised when he closes his mouth, gives her a long look, and then walks toward the closet to look through our stash of jackets. When Taryn turns to me, though, a smile hidden in the corner of her mouth, I laugh.
She’s been here three days.
Of course she’s already figured out how to wrap my father around her little finger.
“Go get dressed,” I say, grinning. “Jeans and a few layers of shirts. Boots. I’ll get the four-wheelers ready.”
We start in the barn, spreading additional bedding in each stall and checking the weatherproofing on the windows and around the doors. We don’t have many animals up here—a couple horses for when we need to travel to an area where the ATVs won’t work, and a couple cows for milk. Chickens and ducks for eggs and bug control. Cats that are here for pest control, in theory, but spend most of their time lazing about the place and enjoying their free ride.
“They have to come inside,” Taryn says quickly. “They’ll freeze out here. Everyone else has enough fat to manage. We’re putting heaters out here right?”
My dad gives her a surprised look, but her tone brooks no argument and he finally nods. “The barn has its own generator so we’ll keep it warm as long as the generator keeps up its end of the bargain. The cats?—”
“Go in the house,” she repeats. “Non-negotiable.”
I hide my smile at that, but I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up my throat when my father just nods. The man has never given in to anyone. He always insists on being in charge, control freak that he is. But Taryn has somehow gone from being the girl he basically ignores to the one ordering him around.
And honestly, I’m here for it. The old man needs to let someone else make some decisions for him.
Taryn shoots me a victorious grin, and then we head for the ATVs again. With the animals secured, we can get to the important stuff: wood gathering. My father takes one ATV while Taryn and I take one of our own, falling into place behind my father.
“I can’t believe you just got him to agree to taking the cats in the house,” I shout as I steer through the snow, carefully following the path my father is creating. Around us, the snow is blinding in the daylight, the trees groaning under their burdens of fresh ice and snow. It’s cold and biting out here, and I’m glad it’s at least light out. This sort of storm brings brutally cold temperatures with it, and we won’t be venturing out after dark until it passes. Honestly, we’re lucky we didn’t lose any of the animals last night. We should have been out gathering them the moment it started snowing.
Except Taryn was more important.
