She whispered:
“What if I don't know how long deciding takes?”
Elias looked at her.
“I have a stove.”
She laughed.
Could not stop herself.
Elias smiled too.
The dangerous tenderness returned.
Clara went to bed alone.
But that night loneliness felt different.
Less like rejection.
More like waiting.
Winter settled fully around them.
Snow covered roads.
Days shortened.
Their world narrowed to cabin, barn, woodpile, and each other.
Clara should have hated the isolation.
Instead she discovered peace.
She read aloud after supper.
Elias pretended this was for her benefit.
Then she deliberately stopped halfway through The Count of Monte Cristo.
He stared.
“What happens?”
Clara closed the book.
“Tired.”
“You cannot stop there.”
“I thought you weren't interested.”
Elias looked offended.
“The man has escaped prison.”
“So?”
“So?”
Clara smiled.
He muttered something under his breath.
She read another chapter.
He carved small wooden objects while listening.
One evening she noticed the shape becoming a bird.
“That's beautiful.”
“It’s crooked.”
“So are trees.”
“That your professional literary assessment?”
“Yes.”
He handed it to her three days later.
A small carved swallow.
Clara kept it beside her bed.
She cooked better than Elias.
He chopped wood better than Clara.
She repaired mechanisms.
He built shelves wherever her books multiplied.
She learned to shoot.
Badly.
He learned to pronounce French.
Worse.
Sometimes their hands touched.
Each time Clara felt it for hours afterward.
One morning he stood behind her showing her how to brace a rifle.
His chest almost touched her back.
“Shoulder tighter.”
Clara tried.
“Like this?”
“Closer.”
She moved.
His hand settled briefly at her waist to adjust her stance.
Every thought disappeared.
Elias removed his hand instantly.
Clara fired.
Missed the target by three feet.
He stared.
“You were improving.”
“You distracted me.”
“With what?”
Clara turned.
He looked genuinely confused.
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
He watched her walk away.
Then looked down at his own hand.
Clara saw that through the cabin window.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
The trouble began with a storm.
Three days before Christmas, clouds consumed the mountains.
Elias stood on the porch studying them.
“Bad?”
Clara asked.
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Bring extra wood inside.”
That was bad enough.
By afternoon, snow moved horizontally.
Wind struck the cabin like something alive.