At some point in the night he’d carried her to the bedroom, but she wasn’t awake for that. She wasn’t awake when he tucked her into his side and pulled the blankets over them both, his arm around her, holding her close. His body was heat and muscle at her back, his legs drawn up behind hers. She came awake only when she became aware of his deep voice at her ear, murmuring something that ended with “…forever.” “What?” She blinked into the unfamiliar room. A candle in a little saucer on a dresser across the room sent up a merry flame that flickered and spun, a warm yellow spot of light in the darkness. He pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” But she couldn’t, now that she was awake and the ice storm was howling inside her head again. He was right, before. His crass way of informing her exactly how she needed to “work” things out had been successful. He had taken the sharp edge of her anguish and dulled it with his body. And for that she was profoundly grateful, because she wasn’t sure she would have survived the night without it.
