Page 13 of Boy Blue
“To who?” His expression was tight, confusion in his eyes.
Fearing he wouldn’t understand, I tried again. Rattled on about how the duffel was paramount to Nimble’s survival, even though I didn’t know who that was. The words came out ina rush, my teeth chattering; the contrast between warmth and snow and Wolfe, his arm around my waist, was too much and made me dizzy.
“Look, I don’t know who that is,” he said, stern. “Don’t go out into the storm like that, especially in bare feet.”
Was he mad about the fact that I’d woken him up yet again? Or about the fact that the snow was melting into his wooden floors?
He shut the door and kicked more snow aside. Seemed ready to let me go. I couldn’t bear that. Flung my arms around his neck and held on tight, certain that the tide of snow could reach through the door and pull me under.
With a tug, he attempted to push me away, looking at me, brows wrinkled in confusion. I clung on all the tighter to my lifeboat in the nothingness.
CHAPTER 6
wolfe
Ilay awake in my bed, listening to the howl of the wind, feeling the morning grow, sensing the cold with my soul, wondering if darts I’d stitched into an old pair of jeans of mine would make a good fit on Blue’s slender waist.
Then I thought about Diamond Willow Road and how long it would take me to plow clear once I attached the snowplow to the front of the truck.
First, I’d have to dig out the truck, then I’d have to pull the plow from beneath the tarp, then attach it. Why I’d not done that the second I’d gotten home on Thursday could of course be explained by my unexpected guest.
As for Bauer Road, my main link to town, that would be up to Plowy McPlowface, the town of Hysham’s veteran snowplow, so worrying about it wouldn’t help me. I’d do my bit, they’d do theirs, and that would be that.
Then, when the roads and the weather were clear, I could take Blue to Billings and get him some boots. The blue canvas sneakers he’d been wearing and had asked about were in shreds, the sole of each shoe coming clean away from the tops. Rotted by cold and wear. I put them in the trash. There was no wayhe could get where he was going, when he left, without good footwear.
Maybe I could get Blue some clothes as well while we were in Billings, though I wasn’t flush with cash. I never was during the winter because summer was my busy season. At least last summer, my first summer, had been. I was going to make it through the winter because of Leland Tate’s saddle project, Mabel’s leather collar for Mister Rocket, and the lanyards for the Christmas bazaar.
It was Sunday, a day I typically used to lie in and linger over cups of tea. Do laundry. Light work. First, I needed to check the weather to see how soon I could start to clear my road?—
A whoosh of cold air woke me up just as the loud cry did, jolting me right out of bed. It was Blue, but what had happened? Slipping on my robe, I raced into the living room to see that the front door was wide open. Snow blew inside the cabin, and a body-shaped outline had been punched through the wall of snow in the doorway.
I watched Blue try to get up, snow flowing over him in waves. Saw him holding onto that ratty green duffel like it was treasure fit for a king. He hadn’t been out there long, but he would get very cold very fast, especially since he didn’t have shoes on and barely an ounce of fat anywhere on his body.
Stepping over the main drift, I reached for him, grabbing him up and yanking him inside, bringing a great deal of snow with me, which began to melt in the warmth of the cabin. I shut the door against the storm.
“What are you doing?” I asked, kicking at the snow, burning cold against the warmth of my skin. “Why were you out there in this? In your bare feet?”
His answer was a flurry of words, something about getting the duffel to Nimble. How Nimble would die without the duffel.Nimble was all on his own. Nimble would hate Blue forever if he didn’t get his duffel back.
He was shaking, though he didn’t seem to realize it, his eyes wide, like he was trying to focus but couldn’t. The thermal underwear I’d loaned him was now soaked through. He might not catch pneumonia, but he had to be miserable.
He clutched at me as I shut the door, his jaw tight, gaze intense, holding the duffle high where I could see it, as though he felt I didn’t get how important it was. How much Nimble, whoever that was, needed it.
His body shivered against mine, lean beneath the damp, borrowed thermals. His limbs, his feet, were like ice.
I needed to get him dried off and warm because catching a cold on top of everything else was the last thing he needed. But when I tried to pull his arms from around my neck, he held on all the tighter, like a feral cat terrified of all touches but mine.
Though fearful of attachment to anything, I let him stay where he was. Close to me, slender and damp, clinging to me. Me allowing it, my arms around his waist.
We stayed that way until my heart slowed, and his words stilled, and between us there were only shared breaths. Which made it, perhaps, the first time I’d been close to anyone in a long while.
Handshakes in town didn’t count. Tender-limbed neck hugs from Mabel did not count. And most certainly any contact in prison didn’t. Nothing I’d done there, even if it had been to survive, came even close to this sensation of connection.
My heart aching with tenderness, I bent my head to whisper into his ear as I ran a hand along the dampness of his arm. “Blue? Can you let go? I promise I’m not going anywhere.”
I stood there, rocking back and forth, listening to his breath slow, the hammer of his heart slow, and the sigh within his chest sifting warm air from his mouth across my neck.
It took a good five minutes of him clinging to me before I could pull his arms loose. I didn’t let go but instead held both his hands in mine as I willed him to focus those blue eyes, to look at me. When he did, it was with utter trust. Wide eyed. Blue-eyed, looking up at me as protectiveness surged through me.
