Where the ground will be cool, but dry.” She propped her hand on her hip. “Where do you store meat?”
“In barrels in the far corner of the barn. Salt beef and brined pork. I’m low on both, which is why I’m happy for the summer when the huntin’s good.”
“What can you catch for supper? I’d planned on making stew and dumplings.”
“Probably easiest to shoot a rabbit.”
She smiled widely. “Can you teach me how to skin them and clean them?”
“Whoa, you sure you’re ready for that?”
“Yes. Martha trades us rabbit meat for milk and eggs. But she keeps the skins. I’ve wondered what it’d take to clean buckshot out of the meat and tan the hides.”
Silas moved closer to touch her, just because he could. “You don’t gotta learn how to do everything in one day, Dinah.”
“You’re right. Shame though.”
“What?”
Her exaggerated sigh sent his warning bells clanging. “I’d looked forward to learning how to make you a sugar pie since it’s your favorite, but since I don’t gotta learn how to do everything in one day, I’ll just make apple brown betty instead—”
Dinah shrieked when Silas picked her up, spun her around and set her in front of the cookstove.
“I was wrong, woman. Please please please make me that pie. Right now.”
She laughed and slumped against him. “Gonna tie me to the stove until I do?”
I’d rather tie you to my bed and eat up every inch of you until you moan.
His body reacted to the idea of a naked Dinah, squirming beneath his hands and mouth.
“What were you thinking about just now? The truth.”
Pulling her hair aside, he found a spot to taste and tease on her neck. Then he sank his teeth in, latching onto her upper arms when her knees went weak. “How I can’t wait to learn all the ways to touch you that make you thrash and beg and come undone,” he murmured.
“But…I thought you said we weren’t…”
“Oh, it ain’t gonna happen tonight.” At least not the act of him rutting between her thighs. “I’ll keep my word about that. But you oughta know: I can make my body behave, but my mind wanders to us rollin’ around bare-ass nekkid in my bed…pretty damn often actually.”
Dinah turned her head and nipped his jaw. “Mine too.”
That shocked him.
And excited him.
Mostly it sent his thoughts careening back to ones where they explored this mutual desire.
She disentangled from him. “Stop distracting me. Go catch us a couple of rabbits and let me start making our supper.”
Yep. She’d be as bossy with him as she was shy with others, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Silas returned with two fat rabbits and a young wood duck.
And he’d picked her a handful of wildflowers.
She fussed over them as if he’d given her gold. After arranging the purple, yellow and orange blooms in a water-filled glass jar, she set it in the center of his table—which was now covered in a lace tablecloth.
Already making her mark.
Even though she’d left the door open, the scents of yeast and sugar filled the cabin.
A tray of biscuits cooled on the table beneath the window, next to a creamy yellow pie and two apple scrambles she’d baked in the tin cups he’d bought at the picnic. A towel covered a loaf pan, which he could see held a mound of rising dough. A pot of water boiled on the stove and she’d left a pile of chopped carrots, snap peas and onion next to a dish of butter.
Damn. The woman worked fast.
“Smells great in here, darlin’.”
“Thank you.” She slammed the cookstove door and straightened to face him. “Where are we skinning the rabbits?”
“Outside by the handpump. Less messy. I filled the tubs with cold water.”
It hadn’t occurred to him that Dinah wouldn’t be bothered by butchering until she mentioned she’d grown accustomed to seeing blood, bones and skin working with Doc.
After cleaning up the rabbits and tacking up the skins on the sunny side of the barn to dry, he brought the pot of boiling water outside. He dunked the duck in it until the pin feathers were easier to remove. Since she’d never dealt with duck, he showed her all the ways waterfowl were different from domesticated chickens, including how to pluck them. He gutted, cleaned and quartered the duck. Then he started the first step of rendering duck fat by plopping the pieces in his biggest cast iron pan with lard and salt and covering it with a lid. It’d take two days