A Night by my Fire Read online

  But this would not do.

  Three pages in, she snapped the book shut and glared. “That was the best I could do. I shared my best supplies.”

  “Best is subjective to opinion,” her stranger said. “But I have had much worse.”

  Elbow to the armrest, River rubbed her face. His statements of this nature were making her crazy. “Princess, you need to learn some manners.”

  “Your need to name call is asinine, as is your attempt to degrade me by comparing me to a woman. You are a woman. Your argument only makes you seem even further below me.”

  It started as a cough. The noise caught in River’s throat, her face grimaced as she tried to keep it down. But she couldn’t. Gut busting laughs took over. “You should be so lucky to possess a vagina! I call you princess because you are so damn snotty with your straight back and holier-than-thou comments. You’re a walking cliché. You are a pretentious, wanna-be prom queen, pain in the ass!”

  ***

  Stephen flushed, saw her anger had been redirected, but not the way he’d been engineering. Growling, he leaned closer, “Explain.”

  “No.”

  “Explain.”

  River simpered, looked at the agitated man and shook her head.

  “I told you the food was adequate!” He roared, raising from the couch so she might flinch as he had the first time.

  Less than one-hundred hours she’d been with the man, witnessing reactions and gauging intent, and it seemed his plan failed. The woman was unmoved.

  Worse still, it would seem she was contagious.

  He was as hotheaded as she was, no matter how he tried to hide it under his drying cement personality.

  River threw him a bone, far more amused now that he was seething. “Learn how to lie.”

  “If I told you your cooking was good... a lie of that magnitude would serve no purpose. Furthermore, you would know I was lying.”

  Tugging her braids, arranging her legs into a pretty pile, she said, “It’s polite to acknowledge effort.”

  “What effort?” Stephen demanded.” You melted snow and added powder until it curdled. I have done more with less.”

  Rapping her fingers on the armrest, the pretty female dared challenged, “Then, Prince Charming, from now on you cook.”

  He had been so close to winning—so close to shoving her down. But the woman had just stood up after her ridiculous mandate and gone to the door.

  Worse yet, she’d opened it, flooding the room in wind and snow. When it was closed, her jacket was gone, the elk rifle too.

  Two hours of dark and River came back, lips blue and empty handed. Stephen had made stew. They ate without speaking, the silence only broken by River picking up the next chapter of the discarded book.

  * * *

  The room was dark when he awoke. River still in her chair, reading aloud, having ignored the fire until it was nothing but coals.

  The way she read poetry, the oration, she knew each word by heart even though her eyes traced where they marked the page.

  She worked oration like magic.

  Yet looked exceedingly troubled.

  “That is glorious.” She sighed, lowering the book to her lap. Head tipped back in the chair, she spoke to the air. “I am a dismal poet. I can’t see the world the way Robert Frost could.”

  “Your statement is ridiculous.” Stephen sneered, highly annoyed there were only coals that he must tend, no that the voice had ceased and broken the spell. “That poem sums up things you already know.”

  “You were supposed to be asleep with all the wheezing and snores.” She rolled her head to the side to take in his profile. “I wasn’t talking to you. I don’t want to talk to you. Go back to bed.”

  “If the fire dies, you risk freezing to death.”

  River looked to the hearth and frowned. Waking up from whatever had made her voice dreamlike, she cursed. Stephen watched her scuttle, stacking a large pile straight and crossways so it might burn hottest and longest. There was no flaw, no correction he could offer to make the embers more effective. Striking a match to ignite the top, River’s face came more into view.

  She looked sad.

  “I don’t like that face you’re making.” Stephen did not even know why he said it, he just did not want to see her frown, or deal with the screeching that would follow. “It’s pointless to waste time on dissatisfaction... with your inability to see the world like Robert Frost.”

  She gave him a dazzling smile, extensively insincere. “Pointless is it?”

  The very smell of anger was upon her. “Yes.”

  “How would you know? Talking to you is like talking to a child. How could you understand what matters in my life? It isn’t pointless!”

  The animal growl of, “I am not a child,” should have withered the woman he snarled at. It didn’t. River was too far in her temper to care, no matter how he continued. “You are the one throwing a tantrum.”

  “You’re right…” The statement was shrill and followed with the woman chucking the book of poetry on the building flames... only to suck in a breath and dive in for it when it caught flame. River beat the cover, almost weeping as she smoothed the charred edges. She said it again in a tone of despair, looking at the book as if she’d wounded her lover. “You’re right.”

  This feeling. Her first concession. Stephen did not know what to do with it. “Give it to me.”

  River handed the burnt book over as if she didn’t deserve to touch the pages any longer.

  Watching large hands tug it from her grasp, she pulled her knees under her chin. All the while, her eyes did not leave the cover—ruined as it was—no matter how many times Stephen turned the warm object over in his hands.

  To torment her.

  To please her.

  To handle a thing she treasured and thumb to a random page. For the first time in his life, he began to read aloud. So she might keep her feelings quiet and not further poison the air with female emotion and uncomfortable stirrings.

  And magic was discovered.

  He read her to sleep, River sprawled on the floor and too near the flames. Through the oration, he watched to make certain no flying ember sparked her, annoyed, yet grasping the opportunity to see such a thing so near the light—the shade of River’s skin, dark and satiny. The shape of her arms, gentle. She’d chewed her nails to stubs, yet still there was grit under each fingertip from hard work and careless inattention to one’s body.

  He could smell River’s sweat as he’d smelled the men he trained with, but at the same time, it was absolutely different. It seemed almost a natural highlight, that odor—like it belonged to her and her glossy braids.

  Before the storm made it impossible, every heated shower had been for him, and for the first time, Stephen wondered if she’d missed her bathing ritual. He could not be sorry for it though, not when it gave him the chance to smell and analyze female. A wild female.

  River had claimed she’d seen other men naked, Stephen had not forgotten. She’d fornicated; claimed to prefer weather-beaten males.

  Trained from childhood to serve as Mikhailov’s elite soldier, Stephen had taken a vow of chastity. The only female bodies he’d ever seen naked were ones he’d been ordered to dispose of. And they had been in pieces.

  To the silence, to her slumber, he whispered, “I am scarred. My flesh is worn. I am not pretty.”

  River only groaned in sleep, turning so her back might feel the heat of the flames.

  Whatever possessed him to argue his aptitude as a male under her qualifications was silenced. Feeling foolish, Stephen was unsure why he had spoken at all.

  But then why shouldn’t he speak? He had been cast off, his vows no longer held weight. He was a virile male; she was a young, apparently shrewd female.

  Thoughts began to percolate.

  The sleeping shrew became more interesting. After all, why should he not partake? Why should he limit himself by vows made to a master who’d betrayed him? From that moment forward, there
were no rules but those he chose to make.

  He would do as he pleased.

  For the first time in many years, he felt a twinge and looked down at his crotch as if such a thing were astounding. More blood pumped to quell the anger and hurt of rejection, but not enough. Half-hard, Stephen glanced back at the sleeping monster and hated her for knowing things he did not.

  * * *

  After sleeping on the chair, then the floor, River was sore and stiff. She wanted her couch back, but the wail of wind slapping against the logs of her house made it clear the storm was a long way from letting up.

  The loud breathing animal that stole half her air had soured on her.

  He was always in the way.

  If the fucker bumped her one more time, she was going to poison his food.

  “Why do you have no husband?”

  It was questions of that nature that were making homicide far more appealing. “I’m a lesbian.”

  “You previously claimed to like men.”

  Rubbing her temples, River sighed. “I don’t need a husband. If anyone in this room needs a husband, it’s you. Maybe he could even dislodge that stick crammed up your ass.”

  “I do not care for sexual interactions with men.”

  That... that very way he spoke so honestly in reaction to her mockery always made her snicker. She just couldn’t help it.

  “What is funny?”

  River flat out giggled, a thing so girlish her cheeks went red. Seeing she had to answer or he would continue with his poking questions, she offered, “But you cook so well... You know, melting snow and adding powder to it until it is far superior to all other melted snow and powder. You, stranger, are an exemplary housewife.”

  The man snarled, “I am the male. A great soldier! I provide and others follow.”

  A playful punch hit his arm, the man looking down to where she’d struck him as if he could not comprehend the swat.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, lighten up. I provided all the food. The meat I killed, the wood I chopped, everything you are sheltered within came from me.” Rolling her eyes, River walked away muttering, “Guess that makes me the male in your chauvinistic classification of things.”

  “You would be torn apart in seconds where I came from, small woman. Ripped to shreds for speaking to a man in such a way. Had you known me, you would come running, begging for my shelter.” His chest puffed up proud as you please after the rant, as if he’d offered her something of value in the ugliest of ways.

  The comedy was over. River gnawed a nail, hating the way he could color a room and remind her that he was actually terrifying beyond his bumbling inquiries. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Not in my world. There you would die.” Stephen’s answer was matter of fact, the man going back to drying the clean dish she had handed him. “The way you smell would only bring that end sooner.”

  The psycho’s insults were easier to stomach than his alluded to craziness. Handing over the last dish, River glared, held the animated eyes of the man and said nothing.

  His gaze narrowed. “Take your hair from the braids.”

  “No.” River let the plate slip from between them to clatter on the wood floor, walking away.

  Chapter Six

  The woman was in the bathroom, scrubbing her body with the bucket of fresh powder collected after she’d dug out the door. Like a metronome, there was a muffled shriek then a curse, the sound of her elbow banging the wall, over and over.

  Ankle improved, Stephen paced, slowly strengthening the limb and easing any lingering swelling through careful exercise. Back and forth before her bookcases, he shuffled, staring at various covers more interesting than the wood walls. Having already read through all the trail guides as she slept, possessing a fair grasp of where he was now and which map he would need, he ignored them in place of poetry and fiction, novels well-worn and fading, a large book on cosmetics. He pulled it out to see the pages were still glossy, though it was clear she had at least skimmed through it. Grabbing a book that looked different than the rest, he lay back on the couch and began to read.

  The female was taking an inordinate amount of time.

  Stephen checked the fire. It needed no tending. The blankets did not need folding. His eyes went back to the book, then the bathroom, then the book again. The bathroom door opened. River emerged wearing a different set of shapeless lumpy clothing, hugging herself, teeth chattering. He knew she would go to her perch by the fire to warm, a little to the left, nearer the poker, as she did every day. He also knew that speaking to her when she was very cold would result in unsavory conversation.

  His eyes went back, again, to the book. Ten minutes passed.

  “Do you like that story?”

  “No.”

  “Care to elaborate?” River scooted nearer, eyeballing the cover. “What do you dislike about it?”

  “The protagonist is unbelievable… real men do not behave in this manner.”

  Words mangled by chattering teeth, River chuckled. “No shit. That’s why women buy romance novels. Real men are usually self-serving jerks.”

  Looking at the cover where a shirtless, muscular man embraced a woman in a yellow gown Stephen asked, “Women want men to behave this way?”

  “I think you’re missing the point.” And she was laughing at him as if it was amusing that he didn’t quite grasp what was in his hand. “It’s just a story where, say, a neglected wife might pretend to be the heroine... where she’s pretty, stylish, the one the handsome stranger can’t live without. She doesn’t have to think about making dinner or getting the kids ready for bed. Books like that serve as a harmless escape—one small fling with a fantasy you don’t have to wake up next to and feed for the rest of your life.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “It came with the cabin.” River winked. “Let me choose one I think you’ll like better.” Standing, she went straight to an old hardback missing its jacket. Sitting back in her chair, she opened it and began to read aloud.

  The two stories were like night and day. There was no more pastoral setting and long flirtatious looks, but an ancient city ripe with murder. In Stephen’s opinion, it was the best book she’d chosen so far. He understood the violence, the darker thoughts of the characters... there were even parts that were funny.

  He wheezed something that sounded almost like a laugh.

  River looked up, she even smiled at him. “...he likes it.”

  Stephen’s eyes narrowed. “Continue.”

  The woman’s grin expanded. “Say please.”

  “I do not like your cooking.” Stephen stared at her, unblinking, stiff. “But you have proven to be an adequate hunter. You understand the necessities of survival here and adapt. You also read well.”

  She cocked a brow, she even clicked her tongue. “It’s just one word. You can say it and I’ll never tell.”

  “Please.”

  He’d made the woman happy with so small a thing. She glowed as she sat back in her chair, husky words spinning the tale as if she made a greater effort to do well.

  The nature of the tale was graphic, violent, but he grew soothed under the power of her voice. Perched on the couch, his ankle elevated, it seemed peaceful.

  Peaceful was abnormal, causing him to interrupt her in the middle of a very gruesome murder scene. “Why did you choose this story?”

  Resting the open book on her lap, she ran her fingers across the page. “I knew it would be comfortable for you.”

  Brows drew down over displeased eyes, aware that was not exactly a compliment. Sitting up, he leaned closer. He was going to say something cutting but it would have only proven her point.

  The lightest of quirks changed her lips, as if she knew he’d been verbally waylaid.

  “I still do not understand why you live alone in the forest.”

  The dark fringe of her lashes went down, her eyes found the book again. River continued to read.

  Very few people would dare to disregard
him, she’d done so often. “Answer the question, woman.”

  She glanced over the top of her book. “That was a statement.”

  Stephen scooted fractionally closer.

  Ignoring him, River continued the story, picking up right where they had left off.

  Fingers hooked the top of her book and Stephen pulled it down so that she had to look at him again... so he could look at her.

  So they could be honest with one another.

  The female had known he was dangerous the second she fished him out of the water, yet she had invited him in, saved him from death by exposure.

  He could hardly understand her. “Are you that naive or that fearless?”

  River spoke a simple truth. “You’re not going to kill me.”

  No, he was not. “Keep reading.”

  * * *

  Brushing against her when they tended the dishes, seeking to grab her attention with physical touch, had only irritated the woman. Demanding she take down her hair made her walk away.

  It had taken another day, but he’d found a way to entice her into watching him.

  Leaning against the wall of her house, her arms crossed over her chest, the expression on her face altered from confusion, to humor, to a sense of being impressed, all the way back to confusion again. After the more subtle failed initial attempts, gaining her attention had been almost laughably easy. All it took was simple, necessary exercises. Sit-ups had made her shake her head at him, the woman scuttling out of the way. It was the push-ups that followed... those had brought about the confounded look on her face and unwavering attention.

  “How many have you done?”

  His eyes had not once looked from the female. “Three hundred fifty-three.”

  “How many can you do?”

  Stephen answered, nonchalant, “As there is no weight on my back, at least one thousand.”

  River cocked her head. “Weight? Like a person?”

  “At my strength level, resistance is necessary for expedited improvement.”

  “So if I sit on you, this will end quicker and I can reclaim my living room?”