You're going to be fine, he said. He dropped her hands. He turned to EMTT. Get them settled. Water if the line isn't frozen.
I need to check the north fence. He pulled the barn door open and walked back out into the storm. EMTT watched him go. Then he looked at Tessa. He's going to check the north fence, he said.
And then he's going to check every other fence in this storm. I know, she said. That's what he does. When something scares him, he works harder. She looked at EMTT.
Was he scared? EMTT turned to the animals and started moving them into proper stalls. He came to find me before you went out, he said. He woke me up. Said, "If he and Tessa weren't back in 30 minutes, come after us. " He paused.
He's never asked me to come after him before. Not once. She stood with that information for a moment. Then she started helping with the cattle because there was work to do and standing still thinking about Calder's 30-inute window wasn't going to get the animals settled. Back at the house, what she found was not what she'd expected.
She had expected to find Warren waiting in the kitchen with a lamp burning. She found him there, yes, but she also found the rest of the boys in various states of dressed and present. Because the storm had woken everyone, and because a house with five boys in it, even boys who range from 9 to 22, is a house that self-organizes toward crisis whether anyone asks it to or not. Alice had come down and started heating water on the stove, not because anyone told him to, but because it was what you did when people came in from weather like this. Tobin had gotten extra blankets from the linen chest and stacked them on the kitchen chair.
Even Milo, who had absolutely been told to stay on the seti until his ribs stopped hurting, was sitting up with his good arm wrapped around his knees and his eyes very serious, watching the back door. When Tessa came through it, Milo exhaled. She saw it from across the room. The way his small chest released its held breath. She filed that away somewhere private, somewhere she wasn't going to look at right now or she wouldn't be able to hold it together.
Eight, she said for the room all back. Calder and EMTT have them in the barn. Hollis, without comment, handed her the first cup of hot water. Not coffee, just hot water, which was faster, which was what she needed. She wrapped both hands around it and held it, and the warmth moved from her palms up through her wrists, and she closed her eyes for exactly 3 seconds.