My eyes burn, snowflakes stick to my eyelashes. One hand reaches into my pocket and pulls out the bone roses, fingers curling around them. The other digs deep into the ice beneath the fresh snow.
Home. I just want to go home to the farmhouse to be with them. I’ve done what I could. Got what I was told to get. Saw what I wish I never saw.
He doesn’t get up to leave. Instead, a hand touches my shoulder and pulls back my tangled mahogany hair, a few strands at a time.
“You remind me a lot of him you know.” His accent tumbles within the words as he plucks a twig from my hair. “He never wanted to be a soldier either. Neither of my two adopted little brothers did. One didn’t get a choice. The other? He made his own way, like you. He was still a soldier. Smart, just, not the rifle-carrying shoot-’em-up kind the other became. His heart was in the right place though.”
Another twig lands in the snow.
“I miss him. Right now, especially.” He looks down at me. “It could be the end of the world and he always seemed to know what to do. He was that kind of person. Always had a plan and if he didn’t, he still had something. Giving up wasn’t in his vocabulary.”
“He sounds like a wise person,” I whisper, watching white flakes stick to tree bark.
“He was,” Colton’s voice holds a prideful edge. “Matty was the wisest of our little mismatched ‘family.’ He knew what was going on before I even did, and I’m the luresman for old gods and goddesses’ sakes, but he was a much better one than I could ever hope to be.”
I don’t look up; simply stay down in the snow, letting the young man pick twigs from my hair. Matthew . . . You really were one of them, weren’t you? The thought stings.
“I miss him, now especially.” He lets my hair fall over my shoulders. “You’re very much like him though.” His fingers toy with my hair. “He wanted to save Tobar. Could’ve taken the entire Kingdom too with the way he negotiated things. But unlike you, he saw his campaign was flawed and did the smart thing by backing off from Hyperion’s territory and surrendering it before anyone knew he was involved.”
“I’m not running away.”
“No, but you’re fighting for a doomed settlement. Only, unlike Tobar, Rondo’s destruction will be anything but quiet. Hyperion wants everyone to know about Rondo and while there’s no saving the settlement, you could at least save yourself like he did.”
I turn my face away in disgust. “Matthew didn’t run away.”
He sighs. “If Matty was sitting here picking twigs from a pretty, miserable, rustler’s hair telling her the same thing, you’d think differently.”
Snow shakes from my clothing and I plant my buckskin-clad legs in the thickening snow.
“He’s not.”
“No, but I am.” Colton looks up at me, hands on his thighs. “And while I don’t agree that Rondo is worth fighting for, he would have stood beside you, even if you were the only ones standing. He couldn’t save Tobar anymore than you can save Rondo but damned if the three of us didn’t regret everything we didn’t do that day.”
I turn away. That sounds like Matthew. The one I know. He’d stand with us, K. C. or not.
Colton stands up and steps closer. His gentle hand touches my shoulder. He draws close, the lingering diesel fuel and vanilla smell invaded by wet, decaying roots and horse sweat.
“I’d hate for you to have those same regrets me and my little brothers had. So if you’re willing to accept it, my help is yours, Frost Flea. Don’t expect miracles. Don’t expect a win, but know that I won’t tell Henny your little wilderness secrets.”
A part of me wants to believe his soft words are sincere. That he’s really here to help us instead of hurt us. The other part knows it’s all for show to benefit the Kingdom.
“I know it’s hard, but I’m asking you to trust me. Unholy hell, it’s hard for me given what I’ve seen you do. But I can’t help you if you won’t meet me even a little bit of the way. I can help you understand Henny’s base. I owe my fallen brother that much.”
He flicks snowflakes from my hair.
“You’re smart, Frost Flea.” He allows a sad smile. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re also very dangerous. Henny is hunched over his little worktable right now, wracking his brain trying to figure you out because he’s never fought someone like you. Few rustlers ever live up to their bounties and reputations. You’ve exceeded them.”
“It’s not like it matters.” Bitterness clings to the words. We’re still going to die.
“Of course it matters,” his voice softens. Another hand takes hold of the other shoulder and he turns me to face him.
I try to pull away but his grip tightens.
His green eyes fix on mine and he brushes hair away from the scar with his thumb. “You’re scared though—just like he was the night before Tobar. That’s okay. Even the finest soldiers tremble when they know they might die. Hyperion and Henny don’t know that though and who am I to tell them. So don’t think that it didn’t matter because it does more than you’ll ever know.”
My eyes drift away from his and to the ground. “Would you help me, even if there was nothing to gain for your side from this?”
Colton’s hand guides my chin upward. A sad look replaces the soft one. “It would be criminal not to.”
“But would you help someone like me?”
His lip twitches upward. “I’m standing eye to eye with one of the most notorious rustlers in the world and she hasn’t put a hunting knife in my chest or shot me yet. Of course I’d help you.”
A gust of wind stirs the branches. Nigel raises his head and flicks his ears forward. Snow continues to fall around us. I glance over at the marked trees and back to him.
“Help me understand then. That base, what those things were—how to save my family.”
Colton offers a confident smile. “Let’s get out of the cold, Frost Flea. I’m cold, you look cold, and I think that mule and mare are conspiring to leave us both here.”
I wave the mule closer. He stretches his neck forward and shakes the snow from his ears with a heavy sigh. Tamblin snorts and eyes Colton warily as he takes her reins and swings up into the saddle.
I sneak a leg over Nigel’s rump, heels brush his sides, cueing him to take us home.
Chapter Thirty-Three
By the time we navigate the embankment and reach the barn, snow falls so thick you can’t even see across the field. Dark black clouds cover the sky in what will be a frigid, early nightfall on Rondo. The wind gusts against the barn roof.
Nigel stomps a hoof and greedily reaches for the hay I pitch into the feed trough. My hurried brush strokes smooth his damp hide. It’s not the best grooming he’s ever had but it gets the snow off and he’ll stay warmer tonight.
The mule swishes his tail and turns his rump to the wall. I reach up and pat his neck, thankful he’s such a good sport about working so hard to get me from Rondo to Henny’s base and back.
Two small metal milk cans clank against cement just inside the big barn door.
“Aye, Frost Flea, I’ve forgotten just how much work farm critters are. Been a couple years since I’ve tried to milk anything that couldn’t slap or sue me but I managed it.”
“I appreciate the help.” Nigel’s stall door closes and I carry his tack to the wall to put it with Tamblin’s.
“Nah, don’t mention it. Might as well earn my keep while I’m here at least. You just about ready? Because it’s freezing out there.”
I pull my wolfskin satchel over my shoulder with the rifle and double-check that every animal’s stall door is secured. In a storm like this, anything that gets lost out in it likely won’t be found alive.
“It’s going to be a big storm.” I drag the milk cans to the coldest spot in the barn and set them in the snow-filled icebox until we can get them back to the storehouse. That taken care of, I snuff out the lantern’s flame, step into the cold, and close the door behind us.
Wind blasts over the snowfield. I hunch
my shoulders, trying to keep warm as the cold sneaks through my buckskin jacket. Colton breathes heavily and trudges alongside me. The warehouses’ ruins offer little defense against the falling snow.
When we reach the farmhouse, the snow falls so thick it’s difficult to even see beyond the willow in the yard. I lean against the farmhouse door; my trembling hands fumble with the knob before the door opens into the kitchen shrouded in darkness. Warmth from a smoldering woodstove greets us, not much warmer than outside but still better than being in the wind.
Colton hurries into the building, shaking snowflakes from his shaggy hair and stamping his boots against the floor in an effort to remove the sticky snow.
“Sheesh, you weren’t kidding about the storm.” He runs a hand through his red hair, only managing to make it stand on end. “Henny won’t be moving anything in that weather.”
“That’s the only thing we have going for us right now.” I shake the last bits of snow from my fringes and move into the living room. The woodstove door opens with a metal shriek. I jab at the ashes and expose a few leftover embers.
Tracker hasn’t been home in a while from the looks of things. I reach over and pull a small fire log from a pile and feed it through the open door. Tiny flames peek from the embers and lick the wood.
A healthy fire soon consumes it and I latch the door shut and peel the gloves from my hands. My fingers stiffen and tingle at the newfound warmth.
Colton’s bare hands join mine. A sheepish smile, the familiar kind Matthew always offered after a long day filled with working the farmstead follows, and he crouches on the floor.
“Lionel usually leaves you home alone like this?” He watches the flames through the tiny slits in the metal door.
“He had business with Jericho today.” It’s not like him to be gone after dusk, though, and never like this in a snowstorm. His arthritis usually cuts everything, even important raids, short when the weather gets this bad.
Jericho must really have something important to talk about if he’s been there long enough to let the woodstove just about go out.
“Aye, that Jericho fella. He seems smart.” Colton nods and rubs his hands together.
“He’s Rondo’s leader.” I stand up and drop the satchel on the couch but keep the rifle over my shoulder. “Of course he’s smart.”
“Leader, eh?” Colton tilts his head back and stays crouched on the floor. “He seems like he knows what he’s doing.”
“He does.”
“Any chance he served in the K. C. at some point? He looks familiar but I can’t place him.”
“I wouldn’t know. He was in Rondo before I got here three years ago.”
“Three years?” He stares at me. “He reminds me of someone I saw a few times before. Not in Rondo though, but Tobar and another settlement in the Midland Territory called Lexicon. My brother knew a guy who looked like him, only his eyes weren’t brown. They were blue. Kind of like yours, but darker. Had a hellish bounty out on him for some of the rustling he managed too, but no one knows what became of him. Probably got shot by the K. C.”
I tense. Who hasn’t served in the K. C.? It can’t be. Not Jericho too. His eyes are brown though. Definitely brown. Colton must be thinking about someone else. Jericho’s never been a rustler either. He once told us he got his limp falling off a horse but now I’m not so sure.
“Something wrong, Frost Flea?”
“I’m cold and my blanket’s upstairs.” The excuse rolls off my tongue. “Be right back.”
“Can’t fault you for that. Got another one by any chance?”
Colton sits cross-legged in front of the woodstove and doesn’t look up as I dump the blankets over the couch a few minutes later.
“I found one for you.” A rough, crocheted blanket lands beside him.
He picks it up and examines it. A smile crosses his lips and he tosses it around his shoulders like a cape.
“Did you make this one?” An impish twinkle hides in his eyes as a finger traces the lopsided, flowery pattern Sadie unsuccessfully attempted to teach me years ago.
Warmth floods my cheeks.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” he smirks. “I think it’s very pretty.”
I set the rifle on one of the couch cushions beside my satchel, flop down on the couch, and draw the blanket over my lap. “I’m not good at girly stuff.”
He laughs, a smooth, lighthearted sound that couldn’t even match Matthew’s. Both of his hands reach back, palms flat against the wooden floor and he reclines backward, looking up at me.
“You’re funny. If it makes you feel any better, Henny once told me I have penmanship like a girl and Hyperion himself is downright embarrassed by my less-than-manly shooting abilities. Almost nineteen years old and I’d still rather sling arrows and fire bolts from my crossbow than carry a rifle.”
I can’t hold back a smile despite everything warning me not to acknowledge this foreigner more than I have to.
He watches the woodstove cast soft light across us both. “I missed this sort of thing back home in Edmonda. Granted, we don’t get half the brutality of the snowstorms the Northeast Territory gets but it’s still eternal winter no matter which territory you’re in and cold is still cold. Makes me really feel bad for you guys out here. You don’t have much of anything to fight back with.”
He waves me down onto the floor with him.
I frown and don’t budge from my perch on the couch. He’s not Matthew and it’s wrong to curl up on the floor beside someone I barely know sitting in his spot.
“It’s warmer down here on the floor,” he says, his accent curling around the words. Firelight highlights the freckles on his boyish face and makes the thin golden chain around his neck glow. He flashes me a devious, toothy grin.
Don’t do it. That little voice warns. The look Colton is giving me is anything but the way Matthew looked at me when he was sitting in that same spot.
Tracker only tolerated the behavior in the first place because he knew we wouldn’t do anything and we never tried either because unlike what most of Rondo seems to think, we weren’t together like that. He trusted Matthew like a son and we were strictly friends, albeit close ones.
Colton can’t even keep his hands to himself let alone be trusted.
“Come on. I won’t bite, promise.” He continues to hold the “come hither” smirk like it’s no big deal. “Just want to enjoy the fire and stay warm.”
I dig my fingers deeper into the blanket. My heart jumps, drawn in by the accent. Everything warns not to get down on the floor with him. He’s the enemy. That doesn’t seem to matter. If this morning’s conversation holds any truth, Matthew was an enemy too.
Still though, that floor is warmer than up here on the couch.
I slowly inch myself forward, hesitating as I slide down onto the floor, keeping the blanket between him and me like it’s some sort of force field. Try as I might though, I’m unable to stop the warmth fluttering through me at his smile, or is it from the woodstove . . .
“So . . .” he casts me a sideways glance, “I gotta admit, Frost Flea, Rondo is painfully dreary compared to Edmonda. You ever actually see the real sky out here, or is it always cloudy, gray, and snowing?”
“The real sky?” I blink.
“Yeah, you know, the sky. I know you know what that is,” he smiles. “But from the way you’re looking at me, I take it you’ve never actually seen its real color.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. It’s cloudy and gray. Nothing special.”
He shifts closer to me and motions to the woodstove as if it’s some sort of valley we’re surveying. “Aye, that’s where you’re wrong, Frost Flea. You have this gray, lifeless canvas of a sky here in Rondo. But in Edmonda, my home settlement, the sky can turn all kinds of colors depending on what time of day it is. Sometimes it can be gray, sure, but there are days where its beauty is beyond comparison and it turns this majestic shade of light blue, sort of like your eyes.”
“You
don’t say.”
“Course when I moved to the Northeastern Territory that all went away in favor of the clouds, but it’s nice to see a reminder of home every once in a while.”
We sit, side by side on the hard, wooden floorboards. His smile doesn’t let up and he pushes himself upward, still looking god-awful silly with his crocheted cape.
His grass-green eyes flash in the firelight. His hand sneaks behind me and around my midsection. I freeze, heart pounding, wanting to pull away from him and run but held there by how warm he is.
Part of me doesn’t want to move.
He leans closer, smelling strongly of decaying wood and diesel fuel with the barest hints of vanilla drudged up by the woodstove’s heat. I shiver in fear. His chapped lips move closer to my left ear. His chin brushes my wind-burnt flesh with the beginnings of stubble that can’t yet be seen.
“Your eyes are even more beautiful in the firelight.” A soft purr clings to his accent. “Like the Edmondan summer sapphire sky and just as untamed.”
This is wrong. I can’t manage the words, heart pounding, transfixed by his lethal, honey-sweet words. The bone roses jab my ribs as he moves in front of me and gently cups my chin with his steady hand.
Those grass-green eyes invite me closer and his chapped lips linger near. His nose playfully brushes mine as he tilts his head slightly. I feel his hot breath on my flesh and in an instant, his lips ghost mine, capturing them in one gentle motion. Every muscle tenses at the sudden motion, holding me in place. The rustler within warns to pull away. He’s the enemy—one of them. But I don’t . . . can’t because I’m held in place by an invisible force that I’ve never felt before.
What’s wrong with me? Why am I letting this happen? I’m a rustler, damn it. Rondo’s rustler. This isn’t right . . . My eyes remain wide open, fixed on him, a sharp, harsh warmth flooding my cheeks as his lips draw away from mine and a curious grin tugs at the corner of his mouth.
With my hands trembling I manage to fumble around my belt for Jericho’s hunting knife’s scabbard and jab it broadside against Colton’s ribs in a feeble attempt at a warning. He freezes, eyes remaining gentle and fixed on me as if puzzled by something. After several long seconds, he lets go of me and leans back slightly, a curious look about him, and raises an eyebrow.
The Bone Roses Page 20
