Page 34 of Holly & Hemlock
He pulls another blanket from the wooden chest and drapes it over my shoulders, then kneels beside my chair to unwrap my boots, which I realize with embarrassment are frozen solid and leaking a slush of dirty ice onto his floor. His hands are rough, but he is gentle with the laces, working them free without comment or judgment.
When he stands, his gaze moves up my body—not lecherous, just systematic—cataloguing the shivers, the blue tinge of my nails, the way I clamp my jaw to stop the rattling. He disappears to the stove, pours a basin of steaming water, and returns with a clean towel.
He presses the towel to my face, then my hands, the heat both excruciating and necessary. I can’t hold back a noise,something between a yelp and a sob, but Lane only nods and keeps going, wrapping my fingers in the cloth and rubbing them until sensation returns in angry, stabbing waves.
At last he pours another glass of whiskey, bigger this time, and sets it in my hand. “Drink,” he orders, and I obey. The taste is sweet, smoky, medicinal. I let it flare in my chest, and for the first time since leaving the house I think I might survive the night.
Lane sits across from me again, elbows braced on the table, hands folded so tight the veins stand out along his wrists. His eyes are pale, almost translucent, and fixed not on my face, but somewhere just past it. He waits for me to speak, but when I can’t, he does it for me.
“Worst storm we’ve had in years.”
“How long will it last?” I ask, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
He shrugs. “Could be hours, could be till morning. If it calms, I’ll walk you back. If not, you stay here.”
I nod, uncertain if I want the storm to end or not.
Lane stands, pours himself a finger of whiskey, and sips it. For a long time, neither of us moves. The warmth from the stove and the whiskey and the blankets combine into a kind of narcotic haze, dulling the edges of pain and making the world feel smaller, more manageable.
I let myself scan the room—tools hung in precise lines on the wall, a pile of work shirts folded with military neatness, a small cot by the fire, a door to what looks like a bedroom. A photograph sits on a shelf: Lane as a child, grinning and gap-toothed, standing in with a man who looks like grown-up Lane in front of the same cottage.
He comes back to the table and places both hands flat, as if anchoring himself. “You want food?” he asks. “I can make tea.Soup.”
The offer is so gentle, so absurdly normal in the context, that I almost laugh. “Yes,” I say. “Please.”
He moves to the stove again, and within minutes the air is scented with tea—real tea leaves, not the bagged dust I would drink in the city. The soup is broth and carrot, maybe a hint of onion, but it’s the best thing I’ve tasted in a month.
Lane eats nothing. He watches me, hands wrapped around his cup, shoulders hunched as if ready for the next disaster. The wind rattles the shutters, shakes the walls, but inside it is calm, the silence broken only by the scrape of my spoon on the ceramic.
When I’m done, Lane clears the table and washes the bowl, then hangs the towel by the stove to dry. He sets the empty glass beside the whiskey bottle, aligning it with care.
“Fire’s good,” he says, nodding at the stove. “But it’ll get colder as the night goes. If you want the cot, take it. Way warmer than the bedroom. If you need more blankets, say.”
He stands there, waiting for a reply, but I am too tired for words. I nod, and Lane turns off the lamp, leaving just the firelight.
He disappears through the bedroom door, but doesn’t close it to keep the heat from the fire flowing.
The wind howls, but the cottage holds. I wrap myself in the blankets and let the warmth numb my skin. In the darkness, I hear Lane breathing, steady and deliberate.
My heart pitter patters at how sweet this bull of a man truly is under the gruff exterior. I smile to myself, grateful that, for tonight, I don’t have to be alone with the storm.
I don’t knowhow long I lie awake, counting the seconds between gusts, cataloguing the minute shifts of darknessagainst the cottage ceiling, and the louder, more insistent shifts inside my own skull. Sometime after four a.m., the storm finds a new gear, the wind rattling the panes with a violence that feels less like weather and more like siege.
I throw off the blanket and shuffle toward the woodstove, both for the warmth and the motion, the need to occupy myself. I stand, arms crossed, and let the heat bite the chill off my face. It takes me a minute to notice Lane sitting at the table, reading with gray, watchful, eyes. He tracks my movement, not suspicious, just curious.
My gaze wanders to the clutter of Lane’s workbench: a chaos of screwdrivers and chisels, a row of cleaned bottles, a half-dissected radio. There is a quiet pride in the arrangement, a kind of second language written in order and repetition.
Lane starts to say something, then stops, fingers flexing as if negotiating with the words before they’re allowed out.
I say, “You always sleep with one eye open?” because silence feels dangerous, like a loose thread that will unravel us both if left alone.
He smiles—not the smirk or the grimace I’ve come to expect, but something small and real. “Sometimes I doze. Never for long.”
I join him at the table, on the other side of the fire, settling into the warmth, letting the back of my neck unclench. I catch Lane looking at my scar, and I flush, suddenly fifteen and awkward again.
He doesn’t look away. He leans in, elbows on knees, and studies the scar like it’s a map to somewhere he wants to go.
“How’d you get that?” he asks, voice softer now, rough sanded down to velvet.
