It just about made him wish he’d shelled out the money for a gas-powered furnace or a backup generator. They had the gas stove and the hot water heater and kept a decent supply of firewood, and he’d always thought that would be enough for emergency situations. He guessed it was. As long as you were willing to do plenty of work.
He left the sled in the snow drift by the back door, shut himself inside the house, and leaned against the wall until his body went from aching to merely throbbing.
“That you?”
Tess’s voice sounded a mile away, and Warren realized he was still wearing his hat. He took it off and hung it from a series of hooks mounted beside the back door.
“Who else would it be?” he called back.
Except, of course, he knew exactly who she might think he was: the stranger she was convinced was out there in the blizzard, stalking them, toying with them.
“It’s me,” he said.
He took off his boots and his snowsuit, shivering the whole time, rubbing at his body. His breath plumed out from between his lips and floated toward the ceiling.
He eyed the pile of wood he’d carried in. It would be enough for tonight and tomorrow, and maybe even tomorrow night, depending on how well it burned, but then he’d have to go for some more.
He could only hope.
He picked up two of the larger logs and carried them into the living room. He found Tess arranging blankets on a mattress in the middle of the floor.
Frowning, he put the logs on the floor a few feet from the hearth. He said, “What…is that the mattress from our bed?”
She nodded.
“How’d you get it in here?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a muscleless blob.”
He moved to help her smooth out the topmost blanket, but she had already finished. “I know, but
“I thought it would be warmer. For…you know.”
“Our raucous lovemaking?”
She laughed. “Yeah, that. If you still want to.”
He moved to her and took her in his arms. “Just give my extremities a chance to warm up and I’ll be all over you like stink on a monkey.”
She laughed again. “Sadly, that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.” She kissed him once, playfully, and then again, more slowly, and parted his lips with the tip of her tongue.
When she pulled away, he said, “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
“I am if you are.” She patted the front of his pants and grinned.
He took her hand and led her to the mattress. Although kneeling and crawling under the blankets pained just about every joint and muscle he had (hadn’t he always said they should have bought a couch with a pull-out bed?), he managed in the end. Tess crawled in after him and gave him another long kiss.
“Bub is watching,” she said.
And he was. From his doggy bed between the two chairs.
“Turn around and watch the fire,” Warren said.
Bub panted and grinned his old, familiar grin, but he didn’t turn around.
“Feel like putting on a show?”
Warren ran a hand through her hair and caressed her jaw the way she liked. “Do I ever.”
She unbuttoned his pants and her blouse, and they did.
10
Later, after Warren had fallen into a deep, postcoital sleep, Tess slipped out of bed and hurried over to the fireplace. She was naked, and the fire had died down to almost nothing. She walked with her arms wrapped around herself, rubbing at her biceps.
She used the poker to stir the coals. The fist-sized chunk of wood left on the grate caught fire again, but it wouldn’t last long; she’d need to grab more logs from the pile Warren had brought in. She looked at the heap of clothes on her side of the bed, considered getting dressed, and decided not to mess with it. Better just to hurry up and get the fire going again so she could crawl back beneath the covers and against Warren before the cold had a chance to work its way into her.
She rushed through the kitchen, which was cold, and down the back hallway, which was colder still, barely tolerable. Her breath floated in front of her face like smoke, her nipples were stone-hard, and her toes and fingers had started to go numb. She didn’t bother picking through the logs but grabbed the first three she could wrap her fingers around. She tucked one of the chunks under her arm, and cradled the other two against her belly like a baby. The bark dug into her skin, scraped her, but she hardly noticed; compared to an exploding window to the face, a few scrapes were nothing.
As she brought the firewood into the living room, her breasts swayed (much closer to her belly, she was sorry to admit, than they’d been thirty years earlier) and her nipples still jutted. She hopped from foot to foot, trying to stay warm, aware that she probably looked ridiculous but not worried about it because there was no one around to see but Bub and Warren, who were both sleeping and snoring almost in unison.
She dropped two of the sections of wood on the coals and used the poker to scoot them together. Fresh flames curled up the sides of the logs, orange and almost unnaturally bright in the otherwise unlit room. The blizzard continued, blowing snow and ice against the house, shrieking and moaning, sounding like a tea kettle one second and a ghost the next.
When the logs looked like they would stay lit, Tess turned around and snuck past Bub.
Something vibrated in her chest, like the beginnings of a deep cough. She stopped, placed a cold hand between her breasts, and held her breath, willing herself not to cough and wake everyone up.
For a second, she thought the sensation had passed, but then the vibration came again, a tickle deep in her lungs. She coughed once—a tiny, almost polite cough—and then again, more loudly this time. Warren sniffed and shifted on the mattress but didn’t wake up. Bub never moved at all. Tess felt another cough coming on and hurried out of the room before it could escape her.
Halfway between the living room and the bathroom, in the narrow hall where she’d hung their portraits and shelved the cheap knickknacks they’d picked up over the years, she stopped, doubled over, and let loose a series of loud, hacking coughs that left her gasping and teary eyed. A string of spittle dripped from her bottom lip and fell to the floor. She listened to see if she’d woken Warren.
No sounds from the living room.
Her chest vibrated again, and she hurried into the bathroom at the end of the hall. With the door closed, she couldn’t see anything at all. Their only flashlight was on the mantle in the living room. They’d brought a box of candles and matches into each room when the lights went out, but before she could fumble around for them, another long cough rumbled its way out of her chest and throat. Thick, warm liquid flowed past her teeth, over her lips, and down her chin, and she felt her way to the toilet. The next cough brought another stream of liquid, but this time she managed to spew most of it into the commode. When her coughing finally let up, she reached blindly for the toilet paper, found it, and used a handful to wipe the gunk from her face.
It had felt almost like throwing up. She knew she should light a candle and see what exactly had happened, but she was afraid. What if the candlelight revealed a toilet bowl full of blood and hacked-up innards?
Maybe. But what had caused her to cough like that in the first place?
She stood up and ran her hands over the vanity. She thought she remembered putting the candles beside
