"Did Brett ask you to do this?" he asked when we were both up on the porch. I was panting. My breath formed clouds in front of my face. I jammed my hands in my pockets.
"No. I just had a feeling you weren't going to listen to me, so I had to do something about it." He looked at the stuff on the ground.
"So, all this..."
"You should have gotten yesterday when I told you to get it," I said. I reached down for one of the bags, picking it up.
"Natalie, listen. I appreciate you coming here. I didn't know you'd be back."
"You didn't think I'd let you just die out here, did you? I told your dad I'd be there to help you out when you needed me. Leaving you out here through a storm with nothing wasn't going to work." I walked into the cabin, grateful for the warmth, and plopped the bag down on the floor in the kitchen. He followed me inside with one in each arm.
"To be fair, if I had thought I needed anything, I would have driven out myself and gotten it."
"Then why didn't you?" I asked, heading back outside for the last of the items.
"I know you're trying to help, but if I needed it, I would have asked, Natalie."
"No you wouldn't," I said, looking at him. "All you've done since the accident is retreat. You went as far as moving to a new house to the middle of nowhere. If you could get to the moon, you'd probably do it. By now, I would have hoped that you realized there are people who care about you, Cameron, who'd rather you didn't starve to death alone in the mountains."
"You're one of them?"
"I take it personally when people refuse my good advice."
"If you had taken mine, you wouldn't be stuck out here with me," he said matter-of-factly. I looked out at the snow, now covering my car along with everything else.
"If you had taken any, you would have stayed in Salt Lake City." He stared at me. I couldn't make out any emotion on his face, but knew he wasn't pleased with me. This had been a bad idea. I was sure of that now. I had made it up to the cabin, but clearly, Cameron had wanted a houseguest about as much as I wanted a pelvic exam. Oh well.
"Did you take long to get here?" he asked suddenly. I looked over my shoulder to where he was in the kitchen. He was rifling through the bags, looking at the different stuff I had gotten.
"Longer than the first time. The snow slowed me down." I stood and walked to the kitchen and started helping him, taking food out of the bags and setting it on the counter.
"I still don't know why you did it."
"A simple thank you would suffice," I said, looking at him.
He smirked, then laughed a little. "Alright. Thank you. I should have listened to you."
"You should have done a lot of things, but that's a good place to start." I paused, looking down at the counter. "I told your dad I would help you. I told Brett too. This wasn't the kind of help I expected to give you, but it was what you needed."
"Thanks," he said again. "I... it's been harder living out here than I expected." Finally, he admits it. The darkness losing his parents had given him was probably starting to lighten up a bit. If not, it had just taken a backseat to the more immediate issues he had living in the middle of nowhere, like not dying, for instance. I still didn’t think it had been a good move, but I couldn’t deny that he seemed somewhat better for it. I hadn’t known him well to begin with, so maybe that was giving him a lot, but he couldn’t have been prepared for the accident. I couldn’t say I would have reacted that much differently.
I maybe owed him some props for lasting the week that he did during winter. He was no mountain man yet, but a few more winters and he could be. He had always been clean shaven at the office, and the scruff he sported now wasn’t a bad look. He looked great in a suit, but anyone seeing him now for the first time wouldn’t imagine he belonged anywhere else.
"I thought that would be the case."
"You got a lot of stuff. I should pay you back for it."
"Don't. I'm stuck here too. I'll get as much use out of it as you do."
"No, I roped you into this," he insisted. I stopped arguing with him remembering how much the satellite phone had cost. We put away the rest of the food in companionable silence. He was connected to the electricity, so he'd be able to use the heater, and he hadn't eaten corned beef before but was willing to try something new.
"Are you hungry?" he asked when we were done. "I don't usually eat this early, but you must be hungry." I was. The last thing I had eaten had been breakfast with Kasey.
"Do you need help?" I asked.
"No. I'll take care of it. Just keep the fire going," he said. I went over to the fireplace, opened the stove carefully, and fed it another thick log. I loved the smell of wood burning fires, something I didn't get anymore but had defined a lot of my childhood. This situation was as similar to my childhood as it wasn't. The snow was the same. So was the fire and the isolation outside, but the beautiful man making dinner—that was new. Cameron and I had been forced into a hasty friendship over the past few weeks. The next few days would be...interesting.
Chapter Fifteen