Page 33 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
Jace steeled himself. “It’s just me, sir. Sorry, I forgot about the dogs.”
Holly watched anxiously from the top of the stairs.
“Hell are you doing here at the crack of oh dark thirty, son?” the Colonel demanded.
Yeah. Whatwashe doing here, exactly? Definitely not sneaking out after sleeping in the Colonel’s daughter’s room.Holly seemed to be trying to convey something with gestures, but with both her hands occupied mainly with dog, he had no idea what she was semaphoring at him.
“I—er—didn’t realize it was this early, sir. Sorry. I thought you’d be up. I figured I’d come down—and—see if I could help out with the morning farm chores.” The words came a little easier as he started to figure out an excuse that might have a chance of not landing like the flaming Hindenburg. “Once I was inside, I realized everyone was asleep and I was going to leave, but I woke up the dogs. I apologize, sir.”
The Colonel stared at him for a minute. So did Holly. “Huh,” he said at last. “So for the future, son, if there’s no light in the window, no one’s up.”
“I didn’t think of that. I’m used to the city.”
Which made exactly zero sense, and he saw Holly roll her eyes, but the Colonel turned away with another grunt. “May as well get up since we’re all up anyway. Did I see you up there, Holly?”
Holly, who had started to retreat into the upstairs hall, stopped in mid-step. “Yeah, I, uh, I couldn’t sleep through the racket. Oh!” She did an exaggerated double take. “Is that Jace there?”
Holly was a terrible liar. “It’s me,” Jace said. “Let me make up for waking everyone up by making breakfast.”
The Colonel turned back to skewer him with a stare. “You cook?”
“I can make eggs, sir.”
Half an hour later, Holly and the Colonel were both in the kitchen while Jace flipped omelets. Holly looked sleepy but incredibly fetching with her hair damp and rumpled from a shower, wearing an oversized cable-knit sweater that she had to keep pushing up so the sleeves didn’t cover her hands.
As for covering his own hands, Jace had compromised ona light pair of dishwashing gloves he found under the sink. If anyone noticed, they were polite enough not to say anything.
Jace hadn’t made omelets in a while—he hadn’t generally been living in places with decent cooking facilities—but it was one of the few cooking things he knew he was pretty good at. As well as fresh farm eggs, Holly and her dad had a variety of ingredients available. He found peppers and rich, flavorful cheese in the fridge, as well as an herb pot in the windowsill that he trimmed for fresh parsley and chives. There was also a fat slab of thick bacon that he cooked up alongside the omelets. Holly made toast.
It was simple but delicious, and once again, as seemed to have become typical for him since he’d been staying here, he filled up on two omelets and several thick slices of homemade bread.I’m going to gain five pounds a day if I stay here too long,he thought.
When they were finished and he got up to clear away, the Colonel set down his fork and cleared his throat. “I’m gonna go feed the chickens. You can come along.” It was a soft order, but it wasn’t a question. “I’ll show you the ropes.”
Jace glanced at Holly, who looked startled and a little worried. “Do you want help cleaning up first, sir?”
“Holly can do it.”
Holly didn’t look overly happy about this, but she nodded and got up, collecting their plates.
As Jace followed the Colonel out of the kitchen, Holly called after them, “There’s a coat for Jace in the mud room, Dad. It’s your old brown one.”
The Colonel made a harrumphing noise and didn’t answer.
The coat was hanging in the foyer. It was lumpy, brown, and heavy, and it settled over Jace like a shroud. But he could tell it was a lot warmer than the one he’d been wearing.
The Colonel put on a heavy sheepskin coat that made him look a bit like a bear.
“Good coat you got there,” the Colonel remarked as they walked out to the barn, their breath steaming in the air. Daylight had dawned, but the sky was covered with a gray wall of clouds; there was no sign of the sun. “Got a lot of use out of it. It’ll treat you well.”
“Thank you for the loan, sir.”
A rooster crowed as they approached the barn through a fluffy layer of new snow, just about an inch or two, so light that his approaching footsteps displaced it. Jace had no idea what to expect from the inside of an actual, working barn. The reality was at least partly an equipment shed as much as a barn. It was a big open space with high wooden rafters, lit up by a string of electric bulbs down the middle when the Colonel flipped the switch. It smelled like motor oil, hay, and chickens. There were some half-dismantled engines, including one thing he recognized as an outboard boat motor, an actual tractor with the big back tires and some kind of torture-implement looking thing hooked to the back, and an antique truck with a plow on the front. A few other equipment-type things were also covered with tarps. Further down the open space, there were some stalls with hay in them, apparently empty.
The space for the chickens was walled off from the rest of the barn with wire netting and wooden slats, creating a space-within-a-space, presumably so they wouldn’t run all over the barn. Sleepy clucking greeted them. The Colonel stopped to dip a scoop into a feed bin, then showed Jace how to unlatch the man-sized door to the chicken area. It was relatively clean, with hay on the floor. Inside, the Colonel opened a hatch door to the outside, letting in daylight. Some of the chickens seemed to consider it, saw the snow, and settled down to pecking at the feed he scattered inside. Afterthrowing a few handfuls out into the snow-covered yard area as well, he collected a dozen or so brown and pale blue eggs from the nest boxes into the scoop.
“Easy enough,” he remarked, handing the scoop to Jace. “Their water is here. Just fill it from the inside hose. Rinse and dump outside if it’s dirty. There’s a dish for crushed oyster shell, makes their eggshells strong, and you refill that from the bin there, but they don’t need it often.”
“Yes, sir.” Jace made mental notes. He didn’t think the Colonel seemed like someone who wanted to give instructions twice.
