away from him when she felt it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, that the worry wasn’t there.
“Have you never hunted before?” she asked as she checked on the biscuits in the oven, mainly as a way to distract herself from her own thoughts. He answered as she pulled the golden-brown buttermilk biscuits from the oven.
“No, it’s not something my family ever really participated in, as far as I know. We’re city people and our food has always come from a butcher or a grocery store. We don’t kill wild animals for sport either.” Something in his tone told her that there was more to that last sentence, something along the lines of: “we don’t kill wild animals that are human unless they cross us in some way”.
She didn’t want to think about that either, right now, and turned to the sausage now finished in the pan. “Do you want gravy with breakfast, or shall we just have sausage biscuits with scrambled eggs?”
“Sausage biscuits are fine.” He poured three glasses of orange juice and set them on the table as Anton came into the kitchen.
“It smells lovely, as always,” the big man said as he went to sit in his usual chair, at the other end of the rectangular table.
The room was filled with windows so there was plenty of natural light as the sun streamed down onto snow that reflected it back with bright, piercing beams. It was too cold for the snow to melt but the sun tried to do its job.
Marie set the food down onto the table and sat quietly as the men discussed security. They’d repaired the fence the bear had broken in through the day before and had checked the rest of the perimeter. The only way anyone could slip in now was through the gate, which was basically just a cattle gate, meant to keep vehicles out. That’s how the turkeys had gotten in, Marie thought as she glanced out of the window in front of the table.
“I called the owner and he said we can replace the gate if we want to, at our expense of course,” Anton told Matteo as he placed scrambled egg onto the biscuit and then a piece of sausage. He glanced up at Matteo and then, swiftly, at Marie.
She hid a smile behind her biscuit as she took a bite. He was getting used to being around her. That was good. She had started to feel bad for him, that he had to be around her so much when it obviously made him uncomfortable. He was coming around, though, and that was a good thing.
“You going to run into town and get that?” Matteo asked as he built another biscuit, then went to the fridge to bring back slices of cheddar.
Marie took one of the slices and assembled her own biscuit. “If you’re going into town, can you stop at the store and get a beef roast? I think I’d like to cook one for dinner.”
She’d found a slow cooker in one of the cabinets earlier and wanted to use it. Matteo had already banned her from wood-carrying duty for the day because it was so cold, so she needed something to fill her time. She could only do so much knitting and reading could consume days, but none of the books she’d bought really grabbed her now that she was back at the cabin. Maybe a day of cooking would do her some good.
“Sure, Marie.” Anton nodded and smiled at her quickly, before he looked away, his face now red because their eyes had come together. That poor man, she thought and got up from the table.
“I’ll get everything started here for dinner and put the meat in when you get back then.”
She put the dishes in the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen while the men got ready to get on their way.
Matteo would spend a couple of hours bringing in firewood while Anton was gone. Marie watched him for a moment from one of the windows, long after Anton had gone, and wondered at how strong he was. He might be a city boy, but he worked hard, all day long.
She admired the way his body moved as he brought in armfuls of wood, even under the thick coat he’d found in town. It was a black, insulated coat, typical of those in the farming community because it was able to keep the wearer warm, even in the coldest of temperatures. It wasn’t