She absorbed this. " I know this house better than he did," Cade said. " I spent 3 weeks inside every wall and floor and utility run in this building. That's worth more than a knife in a space you actually understand. She looked at him for another moment.
Then that's either very clever or very reckless. It worked out this time, he said, which was honest. They went back to the sitting room. The fire had burned lower during the time they'd been out of it, and Cade rebuilt it, methodically, not thinking, just doing the familiar work of feeding and banking and adjusting draft, while Octavia sat on the sofa with her knees together and her hands in her lap and looked at the floor. The storm outside had genuinely changed.
Not gone, still heavy, still driving, but the directional quality of the wind had shifted the way he'd noticed at 6:00 in the morning. The pressure system was moving. By noon, maybe earlier, the ceiling would lift enough for emergency services to get up the mountain by road, if not by air. He put the repaired fire poker back on its stand. Octavia, she looked up.
It's going to be a few hours still, he said. But they're coming. She nodded. He sat down in the chair beside the fireplace. His right hand was doing things he was choosing to ignore for the moment, and his shoulder had its own full-time commentary, and he was tired in the specific way that came from a full night without sleep, combined with the kind of physical and mental strain that used up resources faster than rest could replace them.
He tipped his head back. The fire made its sounds. The wind made its sounds. The house settled. After a long time, Octavia spoke. "
I was frightened," she said. She said it. The way people say things they've been holding at arms length, finally letting it land where it was always going to land. Last night, most of today, I was genuinely frightened and I didn't let myself say that. I know, he said.
I don't say that easily. I know that, too. She looked at the fire. You were scared as well. Yeah, you didn't let it drive anything.
I tried not to. He looked at her. Didn't always succeed. My pulse was pretty unreasonable most of the night. Something moved across her face that was almost a smile.
Cade. She said his name again the way she had before testing it, but differently than before. Less like information, more like something she was allowing herself. Thank you. He didn't deflect it.
He'd learned over the years that deflecting gratitude was usually about the person deflecting it, not the person offering it. He just nodded. She looked at the fire for a while. Then she got up and walked to the window and stood looking out at the white destroyed landscape of her property vehicles buried to their roof lines. The outbuildings barely visible through the residual snow that was still falling but thin now, manageable.
The mountain emerging from itself after a long night. He watched her standing there. She had her arms crossed again, that particular posture, but it was different now. not the armor it had been yesterday, more like someone who was cold and holding themselves and was comfortable enough with him not to pretend otherwise. He got up and stood beside her.
Neither of them said anything. Outside in the distance, through the still thick weather, they both heard it at the same time, faint, mechanical, the particular sound of rotors fighting altitude. A helicopter. Octavia turned and looked at him close. The relief in her face was real and unguarded in a way he hadn't seen from her before.
No management, no composure layered over it. Just real. He took her hand. She looked down at their hands, then back up at him. He meant to say something practical.
He meant to say they should get their coats and find a clear space outside to signal from. And he meant to keep a sensible few feet of distance from a woman who lived in a world that had essentially nothing in common with his. Instead, he said nothing. The helicopter sound grew. She leaned forward slightly, just slightly, and he met her.
And the kiss was brief and quiet and tasted like cold air and bad instant coffee, and a night neither of them was going to forget regardless of what came after. When she pulled back, she looked at him with an expression he couldn't quite name. Something between steadiness and something much less steady. He cleared his throat. " We should get coats," he said. "
Signal the helicopter." " Yes," she said. Neither of them moved for another 3 seconds. Then his satellite phone miraculously found a signal. It buzzed.
He looked at the screen. A message from Renata's phone. A photograph attached Brin at the kitchen table, grinning at the camera with something dark around the corner of her mouth that was probably chocolate holding up a handdrawn sign that said, "Dad, are you safe?" Below the photo in Brin's own typing with two spelling errors and zero punctuation, yes, we are fine. and I made pancakes.
Renata says to come home when you can love Brin. Cade stood with the phone in his burned, taped, ridiculous hand and felt something loosen inside his chest that had been tight since 4:15 the previous morning. He looked up. Octavia was looking at the screen. She hadn't meant to see it.
He could tell by the quick way. Her gaze moved back to his face, but she'd seen it. The photograph, the sign, the words. Her expression did something complicated and then went very still. She looks like you," Octavia said quietly. "
She looks like her mother," he said. " Around the eyes." Octavia nodded slowly and looked back toward the window where the helicopter sound was now a steady presence beating through the air. Then, very quietly, so quietly he almost missed it under the noise, she said, "Don't tell her about tonight." He looked at her. "