by Selena Kitt
“Bad dream,” she whispered.
He sat on the edge. “Do you remember?”
“No.” It was hard to explain to someone how you could be so afraid of something you couldn’t recall, but that overwhelming sense of terror wouldn’t leave her limbs—they trembled under the blankets.
“Are you cold? Do you want me to put more wood in the stove?” He adjusted her covers in the darkness.
“No.” She shivered. He started to stand and she grabbed his arm. “Please. Stay for a while?”
His weight made the little bed creak as he sat. She didn’t let go, gripping the thick expanse of his forearm. They stayed that way for a few moments, quiet, their breath the only sound in the room.
“Would you talk to me?” she whispered, swallowing past her fear.
He shifted on the bed. “What about?”
“Anything.” Her hand slid down, finding its way into his.
Silas cleared his throat, squeezing her hand gently, and she waited, her heart still trying to find a normal beat. Just his presence helped, but the calming sound of his voice was better.
“I saw a wolf today,” he said finally. “She was really something.”
“You did?” She half-sat, already interested. “How do you know it was a ‘she’?”
“Females are smaller than males,” he explained. “I wish you could have seen her. I was out back getting wood and I looked up and there she was, right at the top of the hill.”
“Were you scared?”
“No.”
She smiled in the darkness. “Are you ever scared, Silas?”
“Yeah,” he admitted softly. His other hand moved over hers, petting her skin.
“Was she a gray wolf?”
“Black,” he corrected. “Beautiful. She reminded me of you.”
She felt warm at his words. “What did you do?”
“I just watched her.”
She tried to imagine it, face to face with such a wild animal. She’d seen her fair share of deer and coyotes, even a bobcat once, but never a wolf. “Aren’t you worried about her coming back and attacking us?”
“No. My father always said, anyone who’s afraid of the wolf shouldn’t live in the forest.”
She frowned, something flashing into consciousness. It was brief, fleeting, a cross between déjà vu and the sense that something was right at the tip of her tongue, if she could just remember…
“You’re safe here,” Silas assured her.
“I’ve never been safe anywhere.” The feeling was true even if there was no real memory to accompany it. She struggled with trying to remember anything about her life, even her own name. Again, it was that feeling, like it was all on the tip of her tongue, if only she could speak. Silas had been patient, prompting her often, but she could tell he was worried. She was worried too, but the snow falling outside kept them from making a much-needed hospital visit.
She turned toward the big man sitting on the edge of her bed, wondering about him. He seemed to have as much of a missing history as she did. He was quiet to the point of being laconic, giving her lots of space and privacy, although she had caught him checking in on her a lot in the past day or two. And the mask thing was strange, but everything felt weird, off-kilter, and he hadn’t given her any real reason not to trust him, after all.
She gasped as a low, silvery flood lit the room from the window pane, a cloud moving from across the face of a full moon. The light was dim but she could see his profile.
“You’re not wearing a mask.” She reached out without thinking, but he grabbed her hand, shaking his head, turning away.
“Don’t.” Silas stood, his back to the window, his face in shadow. “I should go to bed.”
The light dimmed, the moon playing hide and seek, as he moved away.
“Do you think the wolf will come back?” she asked as he opened the door.
“She was a lone wolf.”
She nodded. “My father always said they were the most dangerous kind.”
They were both silent, the air pregnant with the pause.
“My father…” She said the words again and they both let them dangle at the edge of comprehension. Her breath had turned to ice in her throat, her body moving from hot to cold and back to hot again. The world tilted up and down and back and she opened her mouth to speak, the first memory coming, the rest falling like dominoes behind it. It was a horrifying relief, that flood of memories, and all she could manage was a distressed cry.
Silas was by her side in an instant, pulling her trembling body into his arms.
“He killed my father,” she choked, hiding her face against his chest. He wore a pair of white long-underwear and moved like a ghost in the darkness.
“Who?” he asked sharply.
“Oh my god.” The tears came in a flood like the memories and she clung to him, feeling his arms tighten at her back. “Carlos killed my father! He tried to kill me too!”
He prompted her like he had been for days. “What do you remember?”
“Everything. Everything.” It was true. Her name, her life, her near-death, Jolee remembered it all in one terrifying, mind-blowing instant. “I’m so afraid.” She quivered. “I want to go home.”
He stroked her hair. “You’re safe here.”
“I don’t have a home.” She sobbed against his chest. This realization was the worst. For days she’d wondered about her family, the people who might be missing her, worried and waiting for her to return. Did she have a husband? Children? A mother and a father?
“Your father’s dead?” he asked.
“Years ago.”
“So where is home?”
“With my husband,” she whispered, closing her eyes at the memory of Carlos, who he was, what he had done. Her emotions hadn’t caught up with her brain, but they were coming—she could feel them lurking in the shadows, ready to spring her limbs and squeeze her heart.
Silas stiffened at her response. “But you said you don’t have a home…”
“I can’t ever go back there,” she confessed, realizing the truth of her statement. Home wasn’t safe. There was nowhere in the world that would be safe from Carlos.
“Why?”
She realized how cryptic and strange her words must be and tried to explain. “Because Carlos is my husband. He’s the man who tried to kill me. Those men you found, they were his. He hired them, told them, to kill me.” They both sat in silence, letting that knowledge sink in. “What am I going to do?”
He sighed, rocking her in the darkness. “You don’t need to think about it now.”
“You found me,” she whispered, incredulous. He had been her rescuer from the beginning, but she hadn’t understood just what he had saved her from, and clearly he hadn’t either. It wasn’t just the accident—in fact, the accident had been part of her salvation. “You saved me from those men. They were going to kill me.”
“They’re dead.” His voice was like steel.
“If that elk hadn’t come along…”
“But it did.”
She tried to hide the sob rising in her throat and it came out anyway. He tried to hold her but she struggled, pushing at him. “I thought if I could remember, everything would be okay again. But it’s worse. Everything’s worse.”
She twisted and buried her head in the pillow, still hiding her tears, although they were coming, whether she wanted them or not.
“I’m sorry,” Silas murmured. She felt his big hand pressed against her shoulder. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need to.”
She turned toward the window. The moon was a high, yellow, silver-lidded eye. “I guess I don’t have anywhere else to go…”
Silas stood. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“I want to go to sleep.” She closed her eyes. “I wish I hadn’t remembered anything.”
“Try to sleep.” He moved to the door and then turned to ask, “Do you remember your name?”
“Jolee Mercier.”
&n
bsp; He stood for a long time. So long she turned to see if he was still there, framed in the doorway.
“Silas?”
“You should know.” He cleared his throat. “Carlos Mercier is my brother.”
Jolee gave a short, sharp laugh, but the man didn’t return her mirth. He was serious. It wasn’t possible, couldn’t be true. Carlos’s brother was gone, dead, that’s what he’d told her, told everyone. But that was all she’d ever known about her husband’s only sibling. She tried to remember more and couldn’t.
“Goodnight, Jolee.”
She tried to see him in the moonlight but could only discern his outline. “Goodnight, Silas.”
Overwhelmed with the crushing impact of chance, she turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes, wishing again for oblivion.
* * * *
The woman was impossible.
He’d wanted to take her into a hospital when the snow finally stopped, but Jolee refused, too afraid Carlos could find the records, trace her somehow.
“There are privacy laws,” he’d reminded her, but she just gave him a long, steady look and shook her head.
She did seem to be getting better, her cut healing, memory returning, but he would have felt better if he’d had confirmation from an emergency room doctor, or at least a few x-rays or an MRI.
Then he’d tried to take her into town for clothes. “You can’t live in my t-shirts forever,” he’d teased. But she didn’t want to go. Even when he’d offered to drive three hours away, to a different town, she refused.
“He’ll find me.”
Silas didn’t point out the holes in her logic. If Carlos found the car, if he discovered her body missing from the wreck, that would prompt a sweep of the area—and being anywhere near the accident site would then be the worst place to be. No, he didn’t emphasize that fact at all.
But he did bolster his security around the cabin—not lights or alarms, but traps and snares. And he watched, and waited and tried not to leave her alone. But he couldn’t always be there. He’d had to run to town for supplies, going three hours away, as he promised, getting them staples like sugar and salt, things he only had enough stocked of for one. He’d bought her clothes too, some jeans and shirts, both a little too snug—she seemed smaller to him than she was, apparently—along with underwear and socks.
“No bras?” Jolee had asked in wonder as she pawed through the bags.
Silas had flushed and shrugged and turned away to finish putting away groceries. What did he know about women’s clothes? The truth was, he had looked at bras, lacy, strappy things, small and soft in his hands. They made him dizzy, and the woman who had come out to help him had just made him feel more uncomfortable, so he’d left. He bought underwear for her somewhere else, plain white cotton, the kind that came in a plastic package, the kind he didn’t have to handle or touch. That seemed safer.
Of course, now the woman was walking around braless in t-shirts and driving him further to distraction. Lesson learned. But she’d really liked the oranges he brought home and had delighted in the bar of chocolate he’d splurged on. That alone made the trip worth it, in spite of her protest and worry and constant questions.
Silas wasn’t used to living with someone—he knew that was part of it. And the mask was a bone of contention between them that wouldn’t go away. He hated wearing it, she hated him wearing it, and yet he couldn’t take it off. Revealing himself to her would be a mistake, he was sure of it, and so he tried to deflect, change the subject, make a joke instead. It didn’t always work.
Just that day, she’d been eating her lunch in bed. He still made her take a mid-afternoon nap, even if she protested, like a child, “I’m not tired!” She always slept though, and he would bring her lunch on a tray. He liked seeing that sleepy smile on her face when she woke.
“What is this?” she’d asked, sipping from her spoon. “It’s so good!”
“Elk stew.” He’d had his before bringing hers, but now sat in the chair beside her bed while she ate to keep her company. The chair was a convenience for her nightmares, which came and went, but she liked to fall asleep after a bad dream holding his hand.
“My elk?” Her head lifted, eyes wide.
He raised an eyebrow. “I seem to remember having something to do with bringing him down.”
“Oh sure, take all the credit.” Jolee laughed, spooning another bite. “Just because you tracked him, shot him, dressed him…”
Silas smiled at her teasing. “I admit, it’s the only thing I’ve ever eaten killed by BMW.”
“Does food taste better when you’ve hunted it yourself?” she inquired, drinking her milk. Big Anna, his Irish Dexter cow, provided them with fresh, whole milk, and the three chickens, which the wolf had been eyeing, he was sure, when she showed up on the hill, gave them eggs for breakfast every day.
“I think it does.” He nodded. “Wait ’til I make the chops.”
“Mmm.” Her eyes lit up. He loved the way they did that whenever she got excited about something. “I haven’t had elk chops in years. My father used to make them.”
“He was a hunter?” Silas had asked her as much as he dared about her family and the circumstances surrounding her father’s death, although he’d been careful about what he, in turn, shared with her about his own life.
Carlos hated the unions, and it didn’t surprise him at all to hear he’d been getting rid of loggers like Jolee’s father who were organizing, although it made him furious. But most things about Carlos made him angry, although very little surprised him anymore.
Jolee smiled. “Know any loggers out here who aren’t?”
“Good point,” he conceded. He watched her eating and felt a deep ache in his chest. She looked a great deal like Isabelle, and he supposed that was one of the reasons Carlos had married her. That, and the fact that he’d killed her father and left her practically an orphan right out of high school. Carlos had created the perfect damsel in distress to rescue. Besides, his brother lived by the credo—keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Silas noticed her looking at him and he let his gaze shift to the window, the pine trees sagging like a cluster of fat brides under the weight of the snow. He tried to keep himself from her as much as he could, to reveal as little as possible while still maintaining her trust, but it wasn’t easy when she looked at him like that. He sensed the question coming before she even asked it.
“Why don’t you want me to see you?”
“Jolee, please…” He held up his hand, shaking his head, and stood. This was the easiest way to end a conversation he didn’t want to have.
“Just tell me why.” Her voice was soft, pleading, and goddamnit, it made him want to relent. “Is it so much to ask?”
He tried not to carry the guilt of it, because part of him wanted to tell her, wanted to share his life—or lack thereof, anymore—with this woman. Then he reminded himself of their situation, that this was his brother’s wife, a woman who was in serious danger, someone he now had to protect. Taking off his hunting mask and scaring her away wasn’t going to do anyone any good.
“I’ll be out back,” he replied gruffly, heading toward the door.
“Silas, you don’t need to run away.”
Her words made him turn on her, in spite of his best intentions. He snapped. “I’m not running away. There are things to do around here. Food doesn’t appear out of thin air you know. I’ve got wood to chop.”
He heard her gasp when he slammed the door behind him.
It felt good to be outside and he stalked past the shed, around to the wood pile, grabbing the maul and swinging it at a piece of white oak already set on the block. He set about his task, easing into a steady, lulling pace, working hard, working up a sweat. He unbuttoned his flannel shirt, peeling it off, the cold air feeling painfully good against his skin. Picking up the maul, he got back to work, setting wood, swinging in a full, round arc, hearing that satisfying ‘pop’ as the oak split apart, flying to either side of
the block. Lather, rinse, repeat. Splitting wood was like meditation, repetitive that way, giving his mind some freedom.
And he needed some freedom, because ever since he’d followed that elk onto the two-track and found Jolee in the snow, he’d been far too distracted. Life had taught him not to care, not to get too emotionally invested, but this situation had sunk him deep into something he wasn’t ready for and didn’t want. But what choice did he have?
Until this had happened, he’d had a purpose. Spring would be here before long, and his plans would come to full fruition. And he was sure to find Isabelle by then, he reasoned—although after so many years of looking, even he had to admit to losing some hope. There was a damned lot of land to cover, and he’d explored more of it than probably anyone in the history of the state.
But then this giant wrench in the works had come along…
He had his brother’s wife locked up in his cabin—a brother who thought he was dead. Hell, Carlos might even believe his wife was now dead, if they didn’t do too much investigation around the wreckage—at least until spring, when the way down the ravine was less treacherous.
We’ve got until spring, he told himself, swinging the maul again, aiming far past the point of impact, as if the top half-foot of wood didn’t even exist. The result was a fine, resounding split, the wood flying apart, the wedge of the maul separating it cleanly. His father had taught him never to split wood with an ax. A maul did the job best, and a dull one at that. A sharp maul was no good to anyone—it just got stuck in the wood.
Silas swung again, thinking about his father, gone too many years now. The old man had taught them both all of the same things. He and Carlos had grown up side by side, their mother a distant, warm, sad memory from the time Silas was about six and Carlos fifteen. Maybe the old man had spent more time with his younger son, teaching him to set traps and track and hunt. Carlos had been doing older-boy things by then, dating girls and asking for the keys to the truck all the time. Perhaps the experience of their childhoods had been more different than he realized, Silas thought.
But the old man had done the right thing, the smart thing, when he finally succumbed to the cancer eating away at his esophagus—too many years of chewing tobacco, something Silas would never do—putting provisions in his will that one son receive all the land, the other son all the money. It was supposed to get them to work together, Silas was sure, although perhaps his father had known that was an improbability. Silas had been outspoken about the rape of the natural world taking place in the logging camps and strip mines, and had made it pretty clear what he would do if he got his hands on the land.
