Snowbound

what they were doing off by themselves.

In the hall above, giggles came through the closed

door to one of the girls’ rooms, followed by the deeper

rumble of a boy’s voice. Dieter was still downstairs;

Hopper or Troy, then.

Fiona’s door was shut as well. John knocked lightly.

When there was no response, he opened it, then cleared

his throat.

The dark head on the pillow didn’t move.

Leaving the door slightly ajar, he crossed the room.

Still dressed, she’d stretched out on top of the down

comforter, then pulled half of it over her. She apparently

didn’t snore and wasn’t drooling, but neither did she stir

even when he cleared his throat again, more loudly.

“Fiona.”

She slept on, lips parted, her expression serene.

Clearly she wasn’t fighting bad dreams.

He reached out, wanting to push back the curls that

had fallen over her face. His fingers tingled from the

need to feel their springy texture and the plump satin

of her cheeks. But he didn’t want her to catch him in

the act, so reluctantly he shook her shoulder instead.

“Fiona.”

She mumbled something and buried her face in the

pillow.

Perhaps he should just go start dinner himself. He

wasn’t used to help and didn’t really need it. Spaghetti was one of his standbys. He had made it weekly for the past year.

Maybe she’d only fallen asleep a short while ago. A

trade paperback book lay open beside her, facedown. It

looked as if she’d gotten a fair way into it, so she must

have read for quite a while. Curious, he tilted his head

so he could see what she’d chosen to read.

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain

America, and the New Face of American War.

John stiffened at the sight of the faceless soldier

dressed in desert camouflage depicted on the cover. He

hadn’t known the book was on the shelf. He hadn’t read

it, didn’t want to.

Why had she spent her afternoon immersed in the

Iraq war? Was she trying to answer questions she hadn’t

felt she could ask him? Or did her curiosity have

nothing to do with him?

A kind of panic flooded him. What had she read in

the book? Did it talk about the price soldiers like him

had paid for killing? About the callousness that so easily

encased them? Had she read about the way terror made

your skin crawl and your bowels loosen, how you had

to quit thinking about home, about people you loved,

or you got even more scared that you were going to die?

He started to back up. He suddenly didn’t want her

eyes to open, for her to gaze searchingly at him and

see too much.

The foot he couldn’t help dragging caught on something and in trying to right himself he put too much weight on that leg. His hip spasmed and he grabbed for

the edge of the dresser. The mirror rattled against the

wall.

“John?” she said softly, sleepily. “Oh! Are you all

right?”

The agony retreated. He unclenched his jaw. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

He turned. “I’m fine!”

Half sitting up, she shrank back from his anger.

“I’m sorry.”

This was why he stayed away from people. One of

the reasons he stayed away.

“There’s no reason for you to be sorry.” He tested

some weight on the leg, which held. “I was a jackass.”

He hesitated. “I get spasms.”

Hair tousled, she eyed him warily. “I can tell it hurts.”

“It…happens less often than it used to. Regular

exercise helps.”

She was relaxing. “Like chopping wood and hauling it in?”

“Not what the physical therapist had in mind,

but…yeah.”

He allowed himself to relax, too. Despite the way

she’d flinched when he snapped at her, she wasn’t

looking at him as if she saw a monster.

“Did you come to wake me?”

He dipped his head. “I did knock.”

Fiona made a face. “I should have warned you. I

sleep like the dead.”

Not like the dead. He knew what dead people

looked like.

She saw his face, and her expression shifted subtly

as she remembered what she’d been reading. He could

tell; her gaze slid from him to the book beside her. “I’m