Visible.
Still.
“You don’t have to believe me tonight.”
She blinked.
“Then when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“And after that?”
“The day after.”
“You think trust works like that?”
“I don’t know.”
He smiled faintly.
“I have more experience trapping beaver.”
She laughed through tears.
He continued:
“But I know I can’t demand eighteen years of fear disappear because I’ve behaved decently for one evening.”
Her hand moved toward his face.
She stopped.
He waited.
Then she touched his cheek.
His eyes closed.
The huge mountain man leaned into her palm so slightly she almost missed it.
The tenderness of that tiny movement hurt.
Her first husband had always expected affection to travel toward him.
Never had she experienced a man receiving touch as though it were a gift he might lose by moving too quickly.
She whispered:
“You asked me something before.”
His eyes opened.
“What?”
“After the kiss.”
He looked embarrassed.
“I asked whether I had done something wrong.”
“After that.”
He remembered.
His face flushed beneath his beard.
She smiled.
“You didn’t finish.”
The mountain man looked toward the fire.
“Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“I want you to.”
He hesitated.
Then:
“I was going to ask what you like.”
Silence.
The woman felt the words more deeply than he could understand.
Her first husband had asked what she liked once.
During their courtship.
He meant food.
When she answered, he spent years using the information to police what she ate.
No man had ever asked what tenderness she liked.
What touch.
What pace.
What made her comfortable.
She had barely asked herself.
Her eyes filled.
The mountain man misread the tears immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
He started standing.
She held his hand.
“Don’t go.”
He stopped.
“I’m not crying because you frightened me.”
“Then why?”
“Because I don’t know.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“What I like.”
She looked ashamed.
He understood before she finished.
“My husband never cared.”
The mountain man’s expression became something dangerous for the first time that evening.
Not toward her.
Toward a dead man.
His jaw tightened.
She felt his hand curl.
Then deliberately relax.
He said quietly:
“Then we don’t need to know tonight.”
She stared.
“We can learn slowly.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
The word broke something open inside her.
Not violently.
Like ice beginning to thaw.
She lowered herself back into the chair.
He remained kneeling.
The woman took his hand.
Placed it against the side of her face.
He did not move until she leaned into it.
Then his thumb brushed her cheek.
Slowly.