Page 20 of A Wilderness Within

“You make the mac and cheese? Then yes.”

His smug, cocky look was one of a man slowly winning an argument she didn’t even know they were having.

“Go stretch your ankle some more. I’ll handle dinner.”

He turned on a few lamps and drew the curtains tight around the kitchen as darkness descended on the landscape. She walked over to the stairs and stood so that the balls of her feet were on the bottom step, doing the poses he’d shown her earlier that morning. Then she lowered her body so her heels sank below the lip of that stair. It stretched her calves and the tight knot around her ankle. She repeated this stretch a dozen times.

As she stretched, she listened to the comforting sounds coming from the kitchen, the water running, the clang of pots, and the music. Lincoln always seemed to play music when he cooked. Tonight it was classical, soft and melodic. He had a lot of music on his phone. And for that she was truly grateful, because music for a brief few moments each day drowned out the silence and killed the weight she carried on her shoulders.

She didn’t want to interrupt Lincoln, so she explored more of the house after she finished her stretches. There was a small office that had a desk littered with papers, a laptop, and a printer. More happy family photos decorated the walls.

Caroline reached out and touched the edge of one picture frame, sending up a silent prayer to whoever these people had been. She glanced about the room and saw the black upright piano in the corner by the window. She lifted the lid off the keys and pressed down on the middle C. The note rang in the air, slightly off-key. She’d had piano lessons along with her sister as a child, and she could still remember a song or two, but it felt wrong to play now. Like it would disrupt its resting place in this family’s tomb.

“Dinner’s ready.” Lincoln’s voice startled her so much that she jumped and clutched at her chest. He was right behind her.

“Jesus, warn me next time, Delta Force, or I’ll tie a cat bell on you.” His lean, muscled form was filling the narrow doorway. His arms were crossed, not in a way that suggested he was mad, but rather relaxed. She had begun over the last few days to piece together more and more of the puzzle that was Lincoln Atwood. There was something to be said for having no modern-day electronic distractions. She realized she actually could decipher more of him because watching Lincoln was one of the few things she could do. And he was damned fascinating.

“Mac and cheese?” she asked.

“You bet, honey.” He winked and then turned his back on her as he headed into the kitchen. She tried to ignore the way her stomach fluttered when he called herhoney.

He had set up the table for two, clearing away all the guns. There was candlelight and even two glasses of white wine.

“Wine?” she asked, nodding at the bottle. He picked it up and waved a hand at the label like a sommelier at a five-star restaurant.

“I believe this pinot grigio brings out the best tastes of the artificial cheese sauce and shell pasta.” He winked at her, and she laughed as she sat down. When he’d seated himself opposite her, she raised her glass in the air.

“A toast,” she suggested. When he clinked his glass against hers, she continued. “To saving the world.”

He echoed the words, but she didn’t miss the flickering shadows in his eyes. She wasn’t surprised. Everyone was dead. Almost everyone, anyway. But she had to keep hope alive.

“You think you can really save it?” he asked. His tone was soft rather than hard and mocking like she might have expected at first.

“Maybe. If we can get enough people in the right place, at the right time, with clear heads, we can work on restoring power, gas, water…and from there we start spreading it outward. Once we restore the necessities, we can restore the structure, government, law and order. It won’t be easy, but I think it could be done.” In the hours she wasn’t thinking about Lincoln or her family, she’d been making plans, thinking over how she’d go about resurrecting society if she ever had the chance. She wasn’t naïve enough to think it would be easy, but if she saw a window of opportunity, she’d leap through without a second thought.

She took a bite of the shell mac and cheese. It was as good as before, maybe better. “Do you still have family?”

“I… did. My mother and father.” He didn’t volunteer any more information.

“Do you know if…?”

“Gone. I’m pretty sure.”

“Where do they live? We can go check on”

The decisive look on his face warned her not to push any further.

They ate their meal in silence, and she finished her glass of wine, grateful for the distraction of a slight buzz. She helped Lincoln wash the dishes and almost giggled. It was like they were an old married couple—dinner, dishes, wine, and candlelight, along with very little conversation.

“Could we listen to some more music?” she asked. She expected him to say no, that they needed to conserve energy, but to her surprise, he agreed.

“Anything in particular?”

“Surprise me.” She wiped her hands on the dish towel and finished putting away the glasses in the cupboards while Lincoln turned on his phone. Seconds later “Stand by Me”began to play.

“I love this one!” Caroline exclaimed, and she couldn’t resist humming along.

Lincoln started loading his guns into a black duffel bag on the sideboard table by the kitchen. Caroline watched him, her heart hammering as she debated with herself. She did like him, even though he had infuriated her when they first met. His intensity still scared her. But shelikedhim. She liked the way he always tucked her beneath the blankets, how he’d taken care of her ankle, how he cooked for her, the way he looked in the early-morning light when she caught sight of the faint freckles on his nose and cheeks, and the way he held her when she felt like the world was disintegrating around her.

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