She turned toward him and put a hand on his arm. “Aren’t you just a little worried you could turn out like that old guy you took care of? Alone on a mountain for fifty years?”

“I’ve thought about it a time or two,” he said. “I plan to keep going to the dentist at least once every other year—I’d like to go out with all my own teeth. Old Raleigh couldn’t eat much that wasn’t soft. But in all other ways, he didn’t have a bad life.”

“Okay, wouldn’t you rather have a better way to earn money than selling firewood?”

He shot her a surprised look. “I don’t sell wood because I’m poor and stupid—I sell wood because it’s good money. The trees are free. There’s no mark-up. I like cutting ’em down and chopping ’em up. I work at it year-round and make a lot of money when I sell the cut and split logs. I work for the furniture mover in spring and summer, while business is heavy for him. It lets me tend the garden and fish, not to mention get ahead on winter firewood—it has to be seasoned for six months. The river up here is pure and deep. The fish are fat and delicious. It’s incredible. Listen, if I needed anything more, I’d work more.”

“No regrets then?” she braved.

He snorted. “Marcie, I have lots of regrets. But not about how I live or what I do.”

She chewed on her lip for a moment. Then she coughed until it bent her at the waist.

“This truck is too cold for you,” he said. “We shouldn’t have gone to the bar—we should’ve gone home. You get straight to the couch when we’re home. Cough medicine and bed.”

She took a breath. “Do you regret leaving Shelly?”

He glared at her for a moment, putting her on notice that she was getting too close to that forbidden territory again. But to her surprise, he answered. “It didn’t go exactly that way. I’m not sure who left who.” And then he fixed his eyes ahead again and started up the mountain to his cabin.

“But she said—”

His head jerked back to her. “You talked to her?”

“I was trying to locate you,” she said weakly, like the wimp she’d suddenly become.

“Okay, this conversation will have to wait. No more.”

And that was that. Silence reigned in the truck the rest of the way up the hill and she was afraid she’d made him very angry. She wondered if this was the point at which he’d load her up in his truck—maybe first thing the next morning—and take her to town, to Mel at the clinic, turning her over. This could be the point at which he was through putting up with her and all her talk about what had happened four years ago.

When they made the top of the hill, they each took their turns in the outhouse before entering the cabin. She dutifully took her cough medicine, hacking the whole time, and he turned his back while she got down to just his shirt and her panties and planted herself on the couch. He fed the woodstove, prepared his coffeepot for morning, rolled out his pallet and heavy blanket for bed.

Then he came to the couch. He scooted her over with a brush of his hand and sat on the edge.

“While I was in Iraq, Shelly was planning our wedding. It was set to happen a few weeks after I got back, and while I was gone, it turned into a frickin’ coronation. My fault—I’d said, ‘Anything that makes you happy.’ But when I got back I told her I needed some time, that I was in no shape to be a husband. I was barely in shape to be a marine, which was supposed to be my life’s work. I asked her to postpone the wedding—but she was in full bride mode. There are things I barely remember about that talk—something about the dress being fitted, invitations out, deposits made. I tried to convince myself to just close my eyes, lock up my brain for a few weeks and get it done. But I knew I’d be letting her down, letting a lot of people down. I knew I was screwed up and needed to decompress. Also, I knew she had no earthly idea what was happening to me—how could she? I barely knew. She said a lot of things, but what I remember most was that she said if I didn’t let this wedding she’d worked so hard on happen, I could go straight to hell.”

Marcie’s eyes were wide, bright green. “Ian, I—”

“I don’t want to hear her version,” he said, holding up a hand. “I hope she’s happy. I hope I didn’t screw up her life too much. Believe me, if I’d married her then, it would have been worse for her. Now—you get some rest. I’ll be back early in the day tomorrow. Don’t do too much. Read one of your books. And take the medicine.”

“She’s married,” Marcie said softly. “Pregnant.”

“Good for her,” he said easily. “It all worked out, then. Now, tomorrow try to get a handle on the cough.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Of course, yes.”

Ten

M arcie had slept surprisingly well, despite her conversation with Ian right before falling asleep. She could see him in her mind—a thirty-year-old marine, home from some devastating war experiences, still scarred from being wounded—scarred on the inside from all he’d been through. And the love of his life doesn’t have a care about any of that as long as she gets to wear a white lacy dress on her special day.

This brought some things to mind for Marcie, things she hadn’t even considered when she’d gone to see Shelly to ask if she’d ever heard from Ian. Shelly had still been angry and had no interest in knowing whether Ian was all right. But after hearing Ian’s side of things, Marcie recalled a conversation she’d had with Shelly when their men were in Iraq together. Marcie had called Shelly, suggesting they meet since their husbands were such good friends. But Shelly was very busy. “Planning a big wedding is a lot of work,” Shelly had said by way of an excuse.

“I’d be happy to help,” Marcie had offered.

“Thanks, but between my mother, aunts and bridesmaids, I’m up to my eyeballs in help. Still, it seems to take every spare minute I have.”

“Maybe you’ll come up with a break in your schedule and we could meet for coffee,” Marcie said. “Since our guys are best friends and we live not ten minutes from each other.”

And Shelly had said, “Give me your number and if I find the time, I’ll give you a call.”

But she never did. Clearly, never intended to. And for the first time ever, Marcie wondered—would we have been invited to the wedding?

Ian had left a half pot of coffee on top of the woodstove but, while Marcie had slept, the fire had died down. The coffee had cooled. She remembered having that great, rich, steaming hot coffee at Jack’s, and it set up a real craving in her. Ian’s coffee wasn’t bad, but it would be a lot better if it was hot.

She fed the stove, but she didn’t have the patience to wait for it to flare and heat that coffee. She eyeballed the little propane stove and thought, that’s a quicker option. She took the pot to the stove and studied the dials carefully. Gas on. Simple enough. She turned the dial but nothing happened. She blew on it like she had to do on her dad’s old stove. Nothing happened; there was no spark. She smelled the gas however. She gave it a second and said a chant over it—light! Heat the coffee! She turned the knob again—and again there was no spark and the smell of gas was evident. A third try produced nothing.

Then she noticed the matches on the counter and thought, so that’s it. Turn on the gas, light the stove! With the pot on the burner, she turned on the gas again and struck a match. And poof! The flame shot about three feet in the air, hitting her square in the face.

She shrieked and whirled, patting her face and hair, running her hands over the rest of her wild red mop to check for fire. She felt the burn on her face. When she looked at the little stove, the flame was just normal, burning nicely under the pot, but her face felt as hot as a poker!

She started to whimper like a baby, all shook up by what could have been a disastrous accident. She rushed to the couch, pulled on her boots and, in Ian’s chambray shirt, she ran outside to her car, disregarding all manner of possible vicious wildlife. There wasn’t a mirror in the entire house; that much she already knew. She used the sleeve of the shirt to wipe off the little bug’s side mirror and took a look. Then she screamed.

Her face was bright red, like a sunburn, and her hairline was singed. Little black squiggles seemed to sprout from her forehead. Her eyebrows, which weren’t much to start with and were nearly blond, seemed to be even less significant, and if she was seeing correctly—her lashes were shorter!

Ice, she thought. Something cold to relieve the burn before it blistered and swelled.

She ran back inside, turned off the little stove and cursed at it, then started digging around for a cloth. He always laid these things out for her on bath days, but there was nothing handy right now. She was finally pushed to look through the trunks. The first one in which she looked held clothing, but in the second she found some towels and washcloths. She grabbed one, wet it from the chilled water that came straight from the sink pump and pressed it to her face. “God,” she said in relief. “Oh, God.”

An hour later when Ian walked into his cabin, what he saw startled him. Marcie was lying on the couch in his shirt and her boots, her legs bare, with a cloth pressed over her face. He knelt beside the couch in a near panic and gently pulled her hands away. “Marcie?” he asked softly.

When she lowered her hands along with the cold, wet cloth, he gasped. “Are you having a relapse? Fever? Should I take you to—”

“It’s not a fever!” she nearly shouted at him.

“But your face—”

“Is bright red! I know. And my hair is burned off around my face. And if you bother to look, there don’t seem to be eyebrows there either, not that I ever had much for eyebrows.”

“Jesus,” he said in a breath, sitting back on his heels.

“I was trying to heat up the coffee on the propane stove—and apparently I don’t know how to use the stove.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“Hurt? I’m pretty ugly, but I don’t know if it’s permanent.” She relayed the events of lighting the stove, coming too late with the match or too early with the gas and how it all poofed in her face and scorched her.

His rough finger glanced along the hair above her face and beneath that massive beard his lips twitched slightly. “I have some salve. And this will probably grow back…”

“You’re laughing!” she accused. “You are fucking laughing!”

He shook his head vigorously but he still showed teeth. Teeth she’d rarely seen. “No. No. It’s just that—”

“What? It’s just that what?”

“I’m sorry, Marcie. I’m sure it’s all my fault. I should have showed you how to—”

“You’re damn straight it’s all your fault! Starting with roaring at me like a goddamn lion and making me scared and making me stubborn and then not showing me how to light the damn stove and then—”

Suddenly he was all teeth behind his red beard. “Making you stubborn?” he asked, barely concealing the laughter.

“Well, I’m at my best when people just do what I ask! And what’s so goddamn funny?”

His arms went around his torso to hug himself and he rolled backward onto the floor, erupting into laughter. His mouth opened wide, his eyes squinched and he bellowed. Between gasping and belly laughs, he choked out—“You’re bright red! And it’s my fault for making you—stubborn! God—you’re priceless!” And he laughed himself crazy. She sat on the edge of the couch, boots on the floor, red face staring down at him, glowering.

It took him a while to get himself under control. His laughter ebbed into pants and gasps; he wiped at his watering eyes. Then he finally looked at her.