LITMIR.BIZ

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now. Not in flip-flops.” A slip of the maul and she could lose a toe. “You can stack the split logs, if you want to.” He pulled on his work gloves and handed her the extra pair. “But take it slow and be careful.”

      “I will.”

      For a couple of hours, he worked up a sweat with the ax. He tossed the split logs away from the chopping block. She gathered them up and stacked them against the back wall of the cabin. Then when lunchtime approached, she went inside to make sandwiches. He washed up at the faucet behind the cabin and joined her on the front steps where she had the food waiting.

      They ate without sharing a word, but the silence was neither tense nor awkward. Just easy. Relaxed. After lunch, he went back to splitting wood.

      When he came to check on her later, she was sitting in one of the camp chairs drawing pictures in her notebook.

      He peeked over her shoulder at a pencil sketch of Munch snoozing at her feet. “You’re good at that.”

      “I wanted to go to art school,” she said as she shaded in Munch’s markings, the beautiful spots and patches of his blue merle coat. “I always dreamed of studying at CalArts. But my father prevailed. I went to Northwestern for a business degree and took a few art classes on the side. Then, the summer I graduated from college, I knew I had to do something to make a life on my own terms.”

      “But your dad wasn’t going for it?”

      “No, he was not. I tried to make him understand that I didn’t want to work at WellWay, that I needed a career I’d created for myself. He just wouldn’t listen.”

      “What about your mother? She wouldn’t step up and support you?”

      “My mother never goes against my dad.” She shaded in Munch’s feathery tail, her pencil strokes both light and sure. “And she basically agrees with him, anyway.”

      “So you went to work at WellWay, then?”

      “No. I tried to get away again.”

      “Again?”

      “There were several times I ran before that. The time I ran after college, I packed up my car and headed for Southern California—and was rear-ended by a drunk driver on I-70 in the middle of the night.”

      Garrett swore low, with feeling.

      “Yeah. It was bad. I almost died.”

      “That coma you mentioned last night...?”

      She nodded but didn’t look up from her drawing of Munch. “I was unconscious when they pulled me from the wreck and I stayed that way for two weeks. You probably wondered about that scar on my leg? Another souvenir of that particular escape attempt.”

      “But you made it through all right.”

      “Thanks to the best medical team money could buy and a boatload of physical therapy, yes, I did.”

      He had that yearning again to touch her. To pull her up into his arms and comfort her, though she didn’t seem the least upset.

      He was, though. Just hearing about how bad she’d been hurt made something inside him twist with anger—at her father, who wouldn’t let her live her own life. And at her mother, too, for not supporting Cami’s right to be whatever she wanted to be.

      “When I was well enough to go home, I moved back in with my parents.” She kept her head tipped down, her focus on the notebook in her lap. “My father insisted. And I was too weak to put up a fight. There was more physical therapy—and the other kind, too, for my supposed mental and emotional issues. And when I’d completely recovered from the accident and finished all the therapy, I moved to my own place at last—and started my brilliant career at WellWay.”

      He clasped her shoulder and gave it a squeeze, because he couldn’t stop himself.

      She didn’t lift her head from her focus on the sketch, but she did readjust the sketch pad on her knees enough to give his hand a pat. “It’s okay, Garrett. I’m all better now.”

      Feeling only a little foolish, he let go.

      She sighed. “Mostly, I like to create my own comic strips.” She flipped the sketchbook back a page to a cartoonlike sequence of sketches where a cute little bunny with a ribbon in her hair used a stick to fight off a bear with the help of a patch-eyed Aussie dog. A boy bunny in jeans and a T-shirt similar to Garrett’s ran toward the girl bunny wearing a freaked-out expression on his face.

      “I’m guessing that’s me?”

      She slanted him a teasing glance. “Okay. I took a little artistic license. You didn’t look that scared.”

      “Maybe I didn’t look it, but that scared is exactly how I felt.”

      A giggle escaped her. “Yeah. Well, it’s not like you were the only one.” She flipped the page back and continued working on the drawing of Munch. “I have a whole series on the bunny family. Unlike my real family, the bunny family works on their issues. They respect each other and try to give each other support and enough space that every bunny gets what she wants of life.”

      “Wishful thinking?”

      “Oh, yeah.”

      He watched her draw for a while. But there was more wood to split, so he went on around back and got busy with the maul.

      Later, he showed her how to lay and light a campfire. They had steaks and canned beans. When they went inside, he taught her the basics of how to use a woodstove.

      She took another bath. When she came back out to the main room, she smelled of soap and toothpaste. “Anything good to read around here?”

      He pulled a box full of paperbacks out from under the bed. “Help yourself.”

      She chose a tattered Western and stretched out on the couch with it. When she fell asleep, he pulled the afghan over her and turned out the light.

      The next day was pretty much the same, quiet and uneventful. She drew cartoons in her notebook. He split wood.

      Beyond getting the wood in, he’d been planning an overnight hike and some fishing for these last couple of days on the mountain. But now that he had Cami with him, he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long.

      Strangely, it was no hardship to have to stick close to the cabin for her sake. There was just something about her. He felt good around her, kind of grounded. She pulled her weight and she didn’t complain about the rustic living conditions.

      They went for a walk up the road—not too far, about a mile. With only his flip-flops to wear, her feet couldn’t take a real hike. They stopped at a point that looked out over the lower hills, some bare and rocky, others blanketed in pine and fir trees.

      “Kind of clears your mind, being up here.” She sent him one of those dazzling smiles and he marveled at what a good time he was having with her. He would miss her after he dropped her off in Denver.

      Was he growing too attached to her?

      Oh, come on. He’d known her for less than forty-eight hours. No way a guy could get overly attached in that time.

      That night, he tried to offer her the bed again. But she insisted she was comfortable on the couch.

      After he turned out the light, he could hear her wiggling around, fiddling with her pillow, settling in. “You sure you’re okay over there?”

      “Perfect.” She lay still. The cabin seemed extra quiet suddenly. Outside, faintly, he heard the hoot of an owl. There was a soft popping sound from the stove as the embers settled. “Garrett?”

      “Hmm?”

      “Tell me about you.”

      He smiled to himself. It was nice, the sound of her voice in the dark. “What do you want to know?”

      “Well, your parents. What are they like?”

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