she’s not capable of caring for her.”
“It was true at the time she said it,” Eli answered. “But she’s doing better, physically anyway. All the wildness of this place scares her though. She only leaves the house to visit the baby’s grave.”
“There’s no shame in being scared,” Lynn said. “I imagine if I were plunked down in the middle of Entargo I’d probably hide too.”
“Our mom thought there was shame in it,” Eli said. “Even back in the city, Neva jumped at the smallest things. Mom wanted the best possible wife for Bradley, said he was the kind of person that needed to keep the race going. A girl who cries when there’s a mouse in the kitchen didn’t exactly fit the ideal Mom had in mind for him.”
“What about you? Aren’t you the type that’s supposed to carry on the race?”
For the first time Eli’s smile wasn’t a nice one. “Oh, I’m not Bradley. That’s something I’ve known since I could see. The population schedules are figured according to the male. So a woman could have two kids but each of them would have a different father, one child per male. My dad died before I was born so I don’t know what he was like, but he certainly didn’t have the place in Mom’s heart that Bradley’s dad did. If I’d had a child when we were still in the city, it wouldn’t have been half the event Bradley’s was.”
Lynn nodded and looked at Eli in the firelight. She hadn’t seen him without layers of clothing since their first meeting by the stream, and he had improved since then. Sinewy muscles lined his arms, the hollows in his cheeks were filled. He caught her looking and she glanced away, clearing her throat.
“But you said your mom had a musician picked out for you?”
“She said my best attribute was my voice, and she found me a nice little pianist.”
“I’d say your bow shot is your best attribute,” Lynn said.
“That would win me a lot of girls back in the city,” Eli said. “They all want a man that can nail a squirrel at fifty yards.” They both laughed. “Besides,” he went on, “Stebbs says I’ve got nothing on you.”
“True enough,” Lynn said, and they laughed again. “I’m better with the rifle though,” she added. “I spend so much time prone on the roof peering through that scope my neck’s got a permanent crick in it.”
“Oh, really?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Lynn cracked her neck to illustrate.
“You know, that pianist told me I give pretty good back rubs.”
“Oh, did she now?”
“Yup.” Eli smiled at her. “Course I imagine you’ve got more stress than a city musician.”
“A bit.”
“A fellow can try though, right?”
Lynn eyed him gravely for a moment. “You’re not going to try to have sex with me, are you?”
For the briefest moment, Eli was speechless and Lynn felt a flush running up her neck at the thought that she’d said something stupid. The moment was broken when he threw both hands in the air in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it! Well . . . I might dream—” Lynn tossed her boot at him, cutting him off mid sentence. He swatted it out of the air with ease. “Get over here.”
Lynn laughed and scooted over the floor to lean back against his legs. He touched her gently at first, only on the shoulders, and Lynn felt her entire body tense under the contact. He moved slowly but thoroughly, running his thumbs up and down the strong cords of her neck and down to the tops of her shoulder blades. Soon the newness of being touched by him was less alarming and more pleasant, and Lynn sagged against him, allowing all the tension of her life to seep out under his practiced hands.
“Yeah, you’re okay at this,” she said eventually, breaking the silence.
“Don’t be so critical. You’re slightly more tense than the pianist.”
“Oh, am I?” Lynn asked, but she noticed that Eli had yet to call his old girlfriend by her name. “What was she like?”
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“Oh, well . . .” Eli’s hands stopped moving for one second, but he picked the rhythm back up. “She was a nice girl, and we got along fine, but that spark was missing, you know?”
“I don’t know. The only people I knew in my life before you guys were Mother and Stebbs.”
“There’s no real way to explain it,” Eli said. “Sometimes you meet a person, and even if you don’t know them at all you can’t stop thinking about them. And every time you talk to them you get nervous, and when you go home you think about every word you said to each other, replaying it in your mind.”
Lynn rested her head against Eli’s knee, relishing the feel of his hands against her neck. “I guess I do know,” she said.
His hands came to rest on her shoulders. “It wouldn’t take all that much for me to tune the guitar, if you want.”
“Really?”
“Give me a few minutes,” he said, propping her up gently and easing out from behind her shoulders.
She watched his hands moving expertly up and down the strings, as familiar with the instrument as she was with her gun. His head cocked to the side as each note, all new to her ear, was adjusted to his liking. When he was finished, he struck a simple chord, the sound echoing inside the stone walls.
“I feel bad Stebbs is missing it,” Eli said. “I know he said it’s been a while since he heard music. Not that I don’t like having you to myself.”
“I’ve never heard music,” Lynn said.
Eli’s hand stopped moving over the strings. “Never? Not once?”
She shrugged. “How would I? We had bigger worries.”
“No pressure on me then,” Eli joked. “It’s only the deciding moment on whether or not you reject music for the rest of your life.”
“I already like it.”
“All you heard was the C chord.”
“Then shut up and play something.”
Eli tossed a pillow at her but she caught it deftly, the teasing smile on her face dissipating as he began his song, a slow, lilting melody that filled the dark corners of the basement. His voice joined the tune, very different from his speaking voice, lower and throbbing with the depth of the emotions that existed under his jokes. She watched him as he played, studying the small muscles in his arms that jumped as he picked the strings, the slight squinting of his eyes as he concentrated. He came to a slow stop and smiled apologetically.
“That’s as far as a I got, back home in Entargo.”
“You wrote that?”
“Yup. It’s not like holding a deer heart in your hand or anything, but it passes the time.”
The sound of spitting ice hitting the window brought them both out of their pleasant reverie. “Shit.” Eli stood and tapped at the window, but the freezing glaze on the other side didn’t move. “Do you think Stebbs and Lucy made it home in time?”
Lynn rose from the floor and stretched, still lost in the spell of his song. “Definitely, it only takes a few minutes, and he’s smart enough to have hurried her along.”
“I imagine it’d be pretty unpleasant to be stuck outside.”
“If you’re looking for an invitation to stay, you don’t have to fish for it. I won’t send you out in this. Will Neva worry though?”
“Doubt it. She’s probably asleep already.”
“All right then.” Lynn closed the door to the stove, dropping the basement into blackness.
“Damn,” Eli said. “I can’t see a thing. Is this your plan for me to break a leg and keep me prisoner?”
Lynn found his hand with hers. “Follow me,” she said, and led him to Lucy’s cot by the fire. “You can sleep here.”
“Wait.” His hand squeezed hers. “Who said that’s the end of the backrub?”
Lynn snorted in the dark. “There’s not room for both of us in there.”
“We’ll make it work.” He tugged on her in the dark, and she hesitated. “I don’t want anything from you, but I’m not ready to let go yet.”
She wordlessly climbed into the cot. Eli slipped his shirt off and slid in beside her, snaking one arm around
