Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  She didn’t.

  He put the knife away. “I didn’t think so. Not so easy, is it, when it comes right down to it?”

  Her smile felt hot and wild, plastered to her face. “I believe I will get back to my family, Todd.”

  He bowed his head. “I can’t let you do that. You know that.”

  “You won’t have a choice,” Gilly said.

  March

  47

  For the first morning in a long time, Gilly’s stomach didn’t hurt. She got out of bed without the rumble and roil of nausea, and that alone was enough to put a smile on her face. The bright morning sunshine, too, lifted her spirits. Its yellow glow meant warmth. Soon, the days would get longer, the sun hotter. Soon, she thought, as she opened the pantry to look for food, the snow would melt entirely.

  Todd had risen before her. He said nothing as she prepared pancakes from a boxed powder mixed with water. Even the smell of the food didn’t make him stir from his seat. An ashtray overflowed beside him.

  “Ugh.” Gilly wrinkled her nose as she sat down across from him with her plate of pancakes. “Todd, do you have to do that at the table?”

  Silently he got up and went through the pantry. She heard the back door open and close. When he returned, the ashtray was empty.

  “Want some pancakes?” she asked around a full mouth.

  He shook his head. Brooding. Gilly took a deep breath, not sure what she was going to say, but ready to say it anyway. He cut her off with a short hand gesture.

  “Hush.”

  She chewed, though now the golden cakes stuck in her throat. She washed them down with a glass of cold, clear water, then stabbed another. She was starving.

  “My life has always been shit,” Todd said. “Can you blame me for wanting to turn it around, now?”

  “Of course not. But you broke the law, Todd. You can’t expect it to be without consequences.” She sipped water, paused, searched his face. “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

  He grimaced. “Do you really think I deserve to go back to jail? Is that what you want?”

  Did she want that? “I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you get out of the truck when I gave you the chance?” he asked. “None of this would’ve happened if you’d just got out of the damn truck.”

  “One of life’s greatest mysteries,” Gilly told him. “I don’t know that, either. It was wrong.”

  “So now we’re both fucked.”

  She got up and put her empty plate in the sink. “Maybe.”

  “Those were my last smokes,” he told her. “All gone. No more.”

  “Smoking is a bad habit,” Gilly said.

  “Bad seems to be the only kind I have,” Todd replied. “Let’s play a game.”

  48

  More days passed that way, with board games and puzzles, but Todd didn’t seem to have the patience to pay attention to any one thing for long. Gilly couldn’t blame him. Aside from her kamikaze jaunt around the house and his trips outside to cut wood, neither of them had left the tiny cabin for more than a few minutes.

  He shuffled the cards again but only halfheartedly dealt out the hand. Gilly didn’t take them. She got up from her chair and stared out the window.

  “Looks like a nice day,” she commented.

  He sighed and reached up to run a hand through his now short hair. “Yeah.”

  “Come outside with me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Didn’t we talk about that before?”

  Gilly looked back out the window. “The sun is shining. It looks a little warmer outside. It’s better than staying in here all day.”

  “Okay.”

  Gilly grinned. “You mean it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I mean it. I’ll help you build your damn snowman.” He stood and stretched, seeming impossibly tall.

  “Snow woman,” Gilly corrected. “With huge boobs.”

  Todd laughed and shook his head. “Jeez. Okay.”

  “C’mon,” Gilly said, and reached over to take his hand. “It’ll be fun.”

  But a few hours later, with snow in her face and up her shirt, Gilly didn’t think it was so fun. Todd, however, was having a blast. Now he laughed in her face while he held a huge handful of sopping snow ready to throw at her.

  “You’re bigger than I am!” Gilly cried, wriggling. “Not fair!”

  “If you can’t play with the big boys,” Todd said with an evil grin, “don’t start the game.”

  Perhaps throwing that first snowball hadn’t been such a smart idea. Gilly was willing to admit that. Taunting him hadn’t been so smart, either.

  “Get off me,” she gritted out, feeling another inch of snow creep beneath her layers of clothes. They’d stomped it down in a lot of places, but most of it was still up to her knees.

  He did, then held out a hand to help her up. “You started it.”

  His dripping face was evidence of that. Gilly slapped at the snow on her clothes, then lifted her face to the sunshine. Thank God it was warmer today than it had been last week. It hadn’t made a lot of difference in the depth of the snow…not yet. But it would.

  She waved her hand at the huge snow woman they’d built. “Aren’t you ashamed to act this way in front of your girlfriend?”

  Todd trudged over and slapped a couple of handfuls onto the already gigantic chest. “She can’t be my girlfriend unless her hooters are bigger.”

  Gilly shook herself so the snow slipped out from under her clothes. “If they get any bigger she won’t be able to walk.”

  “She’s made out of snow,” Todd said. “She can’t walk anyway.”

  For a moment she wasn’t sure he knew she’d been joking, but the devilish twinkle in his eyes proved otherwise. “You’re a smart-ass.”

  He bowed, low, with a sweeping gesture of his hand. “Yeah. I know.”

  Gilly felt a burble of laughter welling up in her throat, but quenched it. “I’m cold. Let’s go back in.”

  The noise reached them both at the same time; she knew it by the way Todd stood suddenly, head cocked, face turned toward the woods. A low, buzzing rumble. It had been so long since Gilly had heard anything like it she couldn’t, at first, figure out what it was.

  Todd had no trouble. “Snowmobile.”

  Her guts clenched, the snow-packed earth beneath her feet tripping her so she stumbled. Todd grabbed her arm to hold her up. His fingers pinched hard even through the layers. He wasn’t looking at her, but Gilly had no doubt he was completely, totally aware of her.

  The buzzing came closer.

  “Get inside.” Todd yanked Gilly so hard she stumbled again, her feet tangling. He didn’t even give her the chance to get up before he was dragging her.

  Snow got up inside her shirt, cold and stinging, and Gilly swung at him. “Todd, stop it!”

  He waited, but only the barest moment before grabbing her with his other hand, too, and hoisting her over his shoulder. Dangling this way, her hair in her face and the blood rushing to her head, Gilly couldn’t even scream. She clutched the back of his sweatshirt as Todd stumbled. She closed her eyes and prayed they wouldn’t fall.

  He banged open the door to the lean-to and put her down. Gilly wobbled, the world spinning. Her flailing hands knocked a couple of cans from the decimated pantry shelves and a moment later, Todd had done the same but on purpose.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “Todd—”

  Without even looking at her, he pushed her back against the wall opposite the shelves hard enough to knock the breath from her. He reached a long arm into the shadows of the shelves behind the supplies and pulled. The shelf moved aside, exposing a narrow closet.

  “No!” Gilly cried.

  Todd looked at her. “Get in there.”

  “No, Todd!”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her close, gaze boring into hers. “It’s where Uncle Bill hung meat to cure. It’s been empty a long time. It won’t even smell bad. Get in there and be quiet