Page 87 of True North

“What are you doin’ out here?” Louisa says softly.

A stone lodges in my throat so tight it burns.

Her head presses against my back, her warm breath washing over my spine. My hands hang by my side as tears burn down my cheeks. They quickly disappear in the constant breeze. My tortured soul simply offers up more, drenching my cheeks and stubbled jaw.

Louisa hasn’t left my side since they took Ma away. I can see her heart breaking alongside my own. It’s written all over her face. But I can’t find it in me to comfort her. As if, if I do, that means this is real. I’m already drowning, gasping for air. I don’t want to take Lou down with me.

My ship is sinking.

It’s a sure thing.

A wobbly sigh brushes my back before her arms slip away. She moves to stand in front of me. I force myself to meet her gaze. Her chin wobbles, but her hands cup my face.

“Come back to bed, Harry.”

I let my focus drift to the mangled fence. The wires I cut and tried to manhandle from their sagging posts.

“I can’t,” I finally breathe.

She means the big, empty bed I sleep in while she lies on the sofa.

Yeah, no thanks. Hard pass. “You should go. You have work in the morning.”

Her brows lower and her mouth falls to a thin line. “I am not leavin’ you, you hear? Not now, not ever. Most certainly not for a shift at the diner.”

Her words are fierce, as if she fought long and hard to gain this position and isn’t budging.

“Suit yourself. I need to finish this.”

“Then I’m helpin’.” She glances at the dilapidated fence.

In one of my old work shirts for a nightie, her bare legs are awash with goosebumps. Her long blonde hair is mussed and hanging around her shoulders.

“Go back to the house, Louisa.”

She picks up the pliers and closes them around the top wire, just behind the point it’s secured to. She tugs at an angle, and it slips back and through.

“Louisa...”

“I ain’t leavin’. If this fence is what you need to fix, then we fix it.”

A shiver racks her body, but she sets her jaw and stands a little taller.

“Dammit, woman. Go back inside. I ain’t askin’.”

“Neither am I,” she bites out, stepping into my space.

After a moment of the world’s most ridiculous standoff, in the middle of a field in the center of nowhere, only hours before sunrise, I look down to the only woman who’s ever held my heart captive. Now she is standing at my side, fighting for me in my darkest hour, my lowest point.

And I couldn’t love her more.

“If you say so, Captain.” I pluck the pliers from her hand and fold her into my chest.

The tool falls to the ground when she says, “I do, Harry. I do.”

* * *

Coffee sits in the mug between my hands. I sit in the chair at the head of the table while Louisa flips pancakes. I don’t feel like eatin’. She insists I must eat. So, blueberry pancakes, my favorite since I was five, are sizzling away in the pan.

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