by Maira Dawn
Still, they needed to come down for supplies now and again, which was last week. This week they came about the sickness.
Word on the mountain was that there was one almighty flu fanning out across the area and it had the brothers curious. Now they were here, there was no doubt the rumors were true. Sick people formed a line out the Doc's office door at least twenty deep, and some looked like they were hanging on by a thread. Coughing, many sat on the ground, their weakened bodies bowed, as they waited.
Dylan watched as the townsfolk actively avoided looking at the long line of Doc Kinder’s patients. People were scared of the disease.
"We need to find out more about this flu," Dylan said, "so we can tell the others." Wade nodded in agreement.
It was then, the door to the coffee shop on the other side of the street burst open. Dylan pushed himself straighter against the wall.
It was her.
Skye didn't see him, but his eyes tracked her as she tapped her way down the sidewalk. Dylan didn't know what drew him. She wasn't the type of woman that usually caught his eye. He found high-heels ridiculous, her outfit too professional for his taste, and her face and hair overly made up. Still, he couldn't help wondering what a change in clothing and a little mussing up would do.
Wade noticed Dylan's unwavering stare Skye's way. "Little brother," he laughed, "that woman ain't for you."
Dylan sent Wade an irritated look before scraping his eyes over Skye again and turning for the sidewalk. "I can still look," Dylan mumbled as he stole one last glance over his shoulder. There was something about that woman.
The smack of a wooden spoon against the steel bowl drew Dylan's attention back to the present, and he smiled. Even then, he knew she was different.
15
Womanly Attention
Dylan ran his fingers down the smooth stock of his bow. Skye started to hum in the low-lit kitchen, and once again, his gaze moved from his task at hand to her. The homey scene seemed intimate and comforting.
There had never been a woman in this kitchen, or house, for that matter, before Skye. But Dylan found that he liked her here. Not that a woman had to be in the kitchen, he corrected himself, but if she stepped in, he sure wasn't one to kick her out. In fact, Dylan reckoned, Skye would be the one to shoo him out. He wouldn't mind a bit as long as he was able to sit right here and watch her.
Dylan realized there were technical terms for every step of the recipe she worked on. She had tried to tell him what they were. But he didn't know a spoon from a spatula. When he was cooking, he just picked whatever tool seemed handy, and he was fine keeping it that way.
His eyes trailed the woman as she scraped butter and sugar together. Her whole body moved with the force of the action, almost as if she were dancing.
The sharp crack of eggs and a gritty stirring as she beat them into the mixture came next. Dylan's hand ran along his arm as his eyes moved over her.
Skye picked up a little spoon and added a few small ingredients with a twist of her wrist. Flour required more effort to mix. Her slight arm muscle, along with the rest of her, swayed with every deep stir of the dough.
Lastly, she added chocolate, slipping a few of the chips between her plump lips. Dylan imagined the silky bitter-sweet morsels melting on her tongue. He'd shared a few with her when they hid the chocolate from Jesse.
Skye brought a dough-laden finger to her mouth for a final taste.
"Mm." A little smile curved her lips as she savored its sweetness.
After pushing the dough from the spoon to the pan in little clumps, she bent to gently slid the pan into the waiting oven. Hot air escaped the stove, blowing back her hair and warming her face.
Skye closed the oven door and stood. She scraped her finger through the dough again. Then raised it to her mouth and turned toward the living room.
Dylan's eyes locked with hers and held. Skye's eyes widened before she unknowingly returned Dylan's heavy look.
Dylan's world crashed to a halt in a way he had never before experienced. He wasn't sure he drew breath but didn't care. He didn't seem to need air. Just this, whatever this was.
Then Skye moved or blinked, he wasn't sure exactly what. The small movement broke their connection. Dylan's heart ached a little at the separation.
Dylan brought his hand to his chest and rubbed. He looked at the wood floor and swallowed a few times as he tried to compose himself. It took everything he had to stay rooted to this spot, not to look at her, not to go to her.
Dylan knew Skye still stared at him, he could sense it. Nervously, he scuffed his foot. I gotta get out of here. Dylan kept his head down and mumbled the need to check on Wade.
The door smacked behind him as he closed it harder than he intended. Dylan sagged against it. His hand strayed back to his thumping heart. Dylan laid his palm on the middle of his chest, feeling its frantic movement.
This new emotion shot to the very core of him. Desire was there, of that there was no doubt, but there was more. Something far deeper stirred in Dylan. Something he had never known before.
Dylan thought of how much brighter the house was now Skye was here, of how a helpless gesture from her had him by her side in an instant, of how he put himself in danger to keep her safe. It all led to this.
An emotion so raw, he felt vulnerable and exposed. Dylan didn't like it. It frightened him, though he would hardly admit that to himself.
I'm an idiot. Get hurt and have a little womanly attention, and I go all soft inside. Well, that ends today, I ain't allowing no more of it. Dylan pushed off the door and walked into the darkness sure that his strong will would put an end to all this nonsense.
But it wasn't the end of it. In the days that followed, Dylan found the sensation stayed with him. It burned a hole in him as sure as a living ember would. Even when he left the cabin, going far into the woods to escape Skye, she lingered in his mind. Dylan would think he had control only to find thoughts of her tumbling through his mind with no warning.
Some mornings he unconsciously delayed before escaping outside. Dylan often heard Wade snicker and realized he had been staring at Skye for too long. Angry, Dylan would bang out of the cabin, startling everyone.
For some men, love comes easy, an exhilarating experience that makes them want to share it with the world. But not for Dylan. He hated these feelings. He felt frustrated, out of control, a wild mess he no longer recognized and couldn't understand.
But as hard as Dylan fought it, more and more often, the cabin drew him -- to her. It wore at him and, try as he might, there was nothing he could do to stop it.
16
No Sense in Freezing
Skye stood in the kitchen precisely as Dylan left her, the cookie dough melting in her mouth. She stared at her bare feet. I swear my toes curled.
To see Dylan's thoughts revealed so openly on his face had been a shock. The man hardly expressed his feelings, and Skye barely understood him on a good day. She glanced at the door. Dylan's rushed exit told her how he felt about the lapse in his guard.
He had been acting a little strange. He showed up around the cabin more, but there always seemed to be a reason. Skye and Dylan got along better, but other than that little had changed.
Skye giggled. Strange was not exactly unusual for Dylan. He'd acted strangely before, and she never knew the reason. He wasn't easy to read. But she liked that. After spending years in college learning how to decode a person's behavior, it seemed refreshing to be around someone she wasn't always three steps ahead of. The surprise was part of his appeal -- most of the time.
Skye turned to take the baked cookies out of the oven. He was probably working through something. Between Dylan's confession of hating the overlook -- whatever that was about -- Jesse's near death, his own injury and the battle he had gone through, Dylan had to have a lot on his mind.
Two evenings later, the weather, which had already cooled off, got considerably colder. When the fire burned low toward morning, everyone shivered. Skye wanted one
comfortable night.
She lit the black pot-bellied stove. Today was the coldest yet, so they expected the night to be more of the same. She and Jesse pulled the mattresses off the bed, onto the floor, closer to the stove.
Skye laid down and tucked a small blanket around first Jesse, then herself, then laid a larger one over the two of them and fell to sleep.
Dylan sat by the window and watched as Wade came in from the cold, stomping his feet and rubbing his arms.
Wade surveyed mattresses on the floor, Jesse and Skye asleep on them. "Looks like we're down to body heat."
Dylan returned his gaze to the scene outside the window. "Yeah, no sense in freezin alone, I guess. Not sure it'll be necessary to keep watch tonight, even the Sick and Infected should know to stay in from the cold."
"Yeah, let's board it all up and take turns dozing." After everything was done, Wade crawled into the makeshift bed on Jesse's side, turned his back to everyone and started snoring almost immediately.
Dylan shifted toward the sleeping trio, chewing his nail. Skye's dark hair fanned out against the white of her pillow. A pleasant expression covered her face as if all her troubles were gone for the night.
Dylan worried about his own problems. There wasn't a lot of bed left, and it would be close quarters if he laid down beside her. Things were bad enough for him as it was.
He eyed their old couch with distaste. He needed sleep, and that lumpy thing didn't allow much rest.
Dylan's eyes moved from the couch, to Skye, and out the window to scan the grounds. The couch, Skye, and the grounds became his routine for the next several minutes until he found his gaze lingering on Skye longer than the others. Dylan scolded himself, calling himself every kind of fool. He'd spent the last two days putting distance between himself and the woman, and here he was back where he started. Dylan rubbed his chest in that place that seemed to ache just for her.
His eyes drifted back to Skye. How could he resist?
Dylan tapped Wade on the shoulder, letting him know it was his turn to keep an ear open for anything unusual. Wade snorted and turned, but he didn't snore again. He was good.
Dylan slipped into the bed beside Skye. She stirred and turned toward Dylan but didn't wake up. Her dark lashes lay against her pale skin, and a light rose color touched her cheeks. Skye quietly inhaled and exhaled. It calmed Dylan's thumping heart, and he drifted off to sleep.
Skye woke slowly, surprisingly warm. Strong arms surrounded her, her head comfortable against a firm chest, tucked beneath someone's chin. Half-asleep and for a minute in another place and time, Skye snuggled and tightened her arms.
She inhaled, searching for the scent of him, but something was off. This man smelled of wood fire and deep forests, not the expensive cologne Skye always bought for him.
These muscles were too defined, the arms holding her too long. And her husband never liked laying together like this. He preferred her to stay on her own side of the bed.
Skye blinked her eyes open and looked up. A stubbled chin. His head tipped toward hers, dark hair and tanned skin showing off blue eyes.
A million memories of her husband, good and bad, passed through Skye's mind as she fully woke and remembered the last time she slept content in a man's arms. Tears filled her eyes as Skye recalled the sad ending to that particular story.
Now she laid here, arms around Dylan, making things awkward for both of them.
"Dylan!" Skye's face reddened as she tried to pull away from him. "Umm...so sorry."
"Don't apologize. Best mornin I've had in a while now." He smiled and tightened his hand holding her waist to stop her from moving too far away.
Skye winced as old memories of her less gentle ex continued to tumble through her mind. "No! Don't." Skye's tone sounded unusually sharp as she pushed further away.
Dylan tensed. He squinted as a shutter came down over his eyes. Skye's brow crinkled, and she bit her lip as she returned her hand to his chest. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything. I was just -- just not awake yet."
Dylan jerked his head in some semblance of a nod and yanked his arm from her as he jumped up from the mattress.
Skye looked down. Well, that just made it worse.
"Dylan?" she called out, but he was already half-way out the door. There was no answer.
Skye sighed and flopped over onto her back and directly into the giggling, smirking faces of Jesse and Wade. Skye rolled her eyes and stood, heading for the isolation of the bathroom.
17
Ain’t Any Good
Skye and Jesse continued their training on target practice and foraging wild food. The morning tired her, and Skye needed a break. She looked over the novels in the Cole's tiny library. It was clear they were not big readers, but they had a few How-To books that seemed promising.
Skye pulled out a book on water collection. Her training needed to include anything and everything that could help her through the upcoming years. This may just be what saved her one day.
Skye took the volume outside, settling back against the rough bark of a large tree. The cold night had brought a beautiful, sunny morning, and though a slight chill hung in the air, it wasn't so much she was uncomfortable.
Dylan and Wade were busy with projects of their own, and Jesse was exploring to the side of the house whenever the men didn't call the boy over for his help. From where she sat, Skye could keep an eye on Jesse. It still made her nervous when he was out of her sight.
A few pages into the instruction manual and Skye had a new appreciation of Wade's roof fascination. It was part of their water collection system. Having lived where a public water system had always been available, she'd never really thought a lot about how the water got to her. She'd just turned on the tap, and it poured out, pretty much whenever she needed it. But here they didn't have that luxury, so the ability to get water depended mostly on Wade's creation.
She glanced from the book's diagram to the cabin's roof and gutters, then back to the book again. Skye traced the picture of the holding tank as she studied the pipes attached to their own reservoir of water. Wade had followed the manual to the letter. It was perfect.
What an ingenious system!
A sharp clanging and a few loud curses came from Dylan as he worked under his old truck. Though he had a new one, he still tinkered with the red one from time to time.
Skye bit the inside of her cheek as she debated the pros and cons of approaching Dylan. After this morning, she was nervous, but she had to face him sometime.
She stood, called out to Jesse and pointed to her destination, "Jesse, stay in the yard. I will be right over here."
"I know," Jesse said, his words drawn-out and resigned.
Dylan watched Skye's feet as she approached the truck and closed his eyes, sighing. He wanted... needed a little breathing room. The emotions twisting through him were bad enough without her being near him.
Skye stopped at the side of the truck, then knelt down and stuck her head under it to peer at Dylan. "What are you working on?"
"Brakes." When Skye seemed to want more, he asked, "What've you been up to?"
"I'm reading a book about the water collection thing you have going on up there on the roof, I had no idea. It's a great system."
Dylan banged on the truck a couple more times. "Crazy gettin it all in place, but it works real good."
"I bet. I just hadn't -- I don't know -- noticed. Something else for me to learn." Skye laughed. "Sometimes, It seems like I am getting another college education living up here."
Dylan snorted and hammered the truck again.
Silence. Maybe she would go away.
Instead, Skye dropped down and scooted under the vehicle, settling beside him.
No, clearly not.
Hopes dashed, Dylan tried a different tactic. He put Skye to work. "Can you hand me that wrench stickin outta the toolbox there?"
Skye's brows came together as she reached toward the pile of tools. She hesitated a moment before choosing one and
handing it over, studying Dylan's face as she gave it to him. When he took it without complaints, she smiled.
Dylan worked on the brakes without a word, hoping Skye would get bored and leave. No doubt she was feeling bad about this morning and trying to make up for it, but he wasn't in the mood.
When there was a break in his clanging, Skye took her hands from her ears and asked, "Can I help?"
"Nope."
"I can help. You can teach me."
"Nah, ya can't. Go read."
"Dylan, don't be rude. Is it this morning? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -- to be insensitive."
"I ain't bein rude. I don't want to talk about this. You wanted to read. Go read."
Skye glanced away from him to the other end of the truck but didn't move. He was trying so hard, couldn't she be happy with that?
Dylan gritted his teeth, and as if dealing with a small child, he said, "There's nothing wrong, Skye. We're all good."
"We're good?" She stared, obviously not believing him.
"Yeah. Good." He stared right back. It was, after all, his specialty.
Skye broke first, turning her head away and heaving a little sigh. "Okay. I have the ingredients for some apple muffins. I guess I'll go make those."
Apple muffins were Dylan's favorite, and she knew it. He watched her wiggle herself back out from under the truck and head to the house.
Dylan sighed. She must feel pretty bad. Whatever was going on here wasn't any good for either one of them. Something needed to be done to give them both some peace.
Soon, the enticing smell of baking muffins drew Dylan, almost against his will, into the cabin. When he entered the house, he saw Skye dealing with the hot little pieces of bread. Without speaking, he walked over and pulled them from the pan for her. He took an apple muffin for himself and sat it on the table, waiting for it to cool as he sat down in one of the kitchen chairs.