And he refilled her coffee twice without being asked, and he did not ask a single question. At first she thought it was indifference. Later she would understand it differently. Later she would understand that Gideon Mercer had seen enough of people arriving broken at his door. Or rather, he had lived enough of his own arriving broken to know that questions were the thing people least needed at first.
Right now they needed to eat, so they ate. Toby fell asleep before he finished his cornbread, listing sideways against the bench with a piece still in his hand. Gideon caught it before it hit the floor. He looked at the sleeping boy for a moment with an expression Mara couldn't fully read. Not entirely blank, but guarded.
The way someone looks at a thing they're being careful not to feel too much about. He set the cornbread down and looked at Mara. You don't have to tell me anything, he said. It was not an invitation. It was something more rare, a genuine statement that she could take as literally as she wanted to.
Mara looked at her son at the oil cloth packet inside her coat that she could feel even now. At the window where the dark had fully settled in and the cold pressed against the glass. Someone is looking for me, she said. Gideon's expression didn't change. I figured his name is Silus Ror.
She watched his face for recognition. Got a small controlled reaction. Not shock but the particular tightening of someone who has heard a name before and not in good circumstances. You know who he is. I know of him, Gideon said.
Everybody in the territory knows of him. Then you know he isn't the kind of man who stops looking. Gideon was quiet for a moment. Outside the wind picked up. Pushing against the cabin in long, insistent gusts.
Your ankle isn't going to be walkable for a week, he said finally. A minimum. Maybe longer. Mara looked at him steadily. I can't stay here that long.
That's not what I asked. She blinked. He hadn't asked anything. She realized she'd been arguing with a statement of medical fact because arguing felt like doing something. Gideon stood up, moved toward the window without looking out of it, just standing near it.
The way a person stands when they're thinking rather than watching. You sleep, he said. We'll figure the rest out when you're not half frozen. Mara wanted to explain that she couldn't sleep, that she hadn't really slept in 4 days. Not properly, not safely, only the half-conscious drop of pure exhaustion that snapped her awake at every sound.