Page 25 of Due North
Was that crying?
I hesitated before I took the next step. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a bobcat fight up on the ridge. I didn’t want to walk up on something like that, gun or no gun. The sound came again, and my chin hit my chest. It wasn’t a bobcat.
“Caleb!” Cece called over the wail of an angry three-year-old.
“Ba! Ba!”
I turned to see Cece struggling up the hill while wrangling the baby in her arms. “Stop!” I yelled, working my way back down carefully so I didn’t fall. “You’re going to get hurt. Stop!”
She halted, and Poppy was startled enough by the motion that she stopped her wailing to catch her breath.
“You shouldn’t have followed me,” I scolded, grabbing Poppy as she threw herself into my arms. I drew her in close to me and took a step back to keep from falling. “It’s dangerous out here at night.”
Cece tossed her arms up and let them drop. “You know you can’t just dump her off without saying goodbye. She’s not going to settle down until you do.”
Poppy was already resting on my chest, her thumb in her mouth right through her mitten. “She’s tired,” I said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay, Caleb. I didn’t come after you so you’d beat yourself up. I came after you because I’m worried about you.”
“Nothing to worry about,” I promised, rubbing Poppy’s back while she snuggled in closer to me. “I just needed some air. Some alone time. Sometimes too many people in one place can be overwhelming for me.”
“Especially when they’re asking questions about your past, right?”
I stared over the top of her head rather than meet her gaze. “I won’t be doing that anymore,” I said firmly. “It’s not smart. We should take Poppy to bed. She’s going to get cold out here.”
“Everyone else is still by the fire. Let’s go to your cabin for a bit until they close it down for the night. She will sleep anywhere as long as I’m there.”
She turned and walked down the hill again. I followed, shifting my load so I didn’t get off-kilter and fall. I was relieved when we reached the gravel path and fell into a leisurely stroll.
“Blaze was right, though,” she said into the darkness.
So much for a leisurely stroll.
“No, he wasn’t,” I said quietly. “Heaven is brave. I’m a coward. I don’t want to talk about this.”
Her hand came up to rub my back as we walked, and I was glad my thick coat kept me from feeling the heat of her hand against me. It was difficult enough to ignore my feelings for her, much less when her warmth soaked into my chilled body.
“You don’t have to talk about it then.” I whipped my head to the side to look at her. Her shoulder shrugged, and she climbed the stairs of my cottage and opened the door for me. “I’m not here to make you talk about things you don’t want to talk about, Caleb. A friend doesn’t do that. A friend listens when you want to talk or sits quietly with you when you don’t.”
I motioned for her to take off her boots and then handed her Poppy while I did the same. By the time she got Poppy’s boots and coat off, she was snuffling around, unhappy we’d interrupted her sleep.
“I’ll take her,” I whispered, settling her back on my chest and walking from the room toward my bedroom. I would make her a nest in the center of my bed, so she could sleep there for a little while until it was time to go home. I’d carry her back to the house wrapped up in a comforter to keep from bundling her up again. I tucked her pink blankie by her face, and her tiny fingers gripped it tightly even with her thumb in her mouth. I brushed the hair off her face and rubbed her back until she settled down, her body relaxing into the mattress and her thumb sucking lessening until it fell from her mouth in sleep. I ducked into my bathroom to wash up and take a deep breath before I went back out there. It was going to take all my willpower not to lay my lips on hers again. I steeled myself against the desire coursing through me.
“You can’t do it, man,” I said to the guy in the mirror. “You can’t poison her too. She’s too innocent and sweet. She’s been hurt enough by life. She doesn’t need you to add to it.”
I stared at the man in the mirror and sighed. Keeping my lips off hers was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life. I pushed off the sink and checked on Poppy one last time before I strolled back to the living room. The cottage was small, just a bedroom, bath, kitchen, and sitting room, but I didn’t need more than that. I was rarely home and just needed a place to eat, shower, and fall into bed every night. Now that winter was almost here, I was looking forward to stoking the fire in the little stove and enjoying the bit of a break I’d get for a few months. At least when we opened the ranch again, I’d have Tobi’s help, and that made me feel better.
“She’s out,” I said, tossing a couple of smaller logs into the little pot-bellied stove near the couch. When Heaven built the cabin for me, my only request was a small wood stove for the cold Wisconsin nights. I wasn’t a fan of fireplaces, and the cottage wasn’t big enough for one, but the stove was perfect for heating the space without using too much wood.
“Thanks,” she said from behind me when I stood up. “She is a little drama queen when she feels slighted.”
I sat next to her because my tired legs were about to give out. “I shouldn’t have done that, but I had to get out of there. The tension was too much for me. I felt like I was going to snap.”
“Tension?” she asked, her head cocked. “There was no tension in that circle tonight, Caleb. Everyone was relaxed and eager to hear what you had to say.”
I nodded while I stared at the flames licking their way up the window of the stove. “I didn’t say in the circle. I said the tension was too much for me. That was the first time I’ve talked about my siblings in ten years. The amount of empathy and pity rolling off everyone else was just too much,” I said, holding my head in my hands.
She rubbed my back patiently while I took some deep breaths to clear my head and shift my emotions back into some semblance of order.
