Credence

Jake turns, regarding me for a minute. “What the hell is going on? He’s never acted like that.”

I kind of feel a pang of pride at hearing that.

But I just shrug my shoulders and stand up, my long sweatshirt covering my underwear as I reach for the paper towels to clean myself up. “Just playing.”

Poor Noah got stuck cleaning up the kitchen, because Jake went out looking for his son only to find that Kaleb had taken the snowmobile out hunting. Good. I hope he is gone all day.

Hell, hunting can take multiple days. And since we just bagged a buck yesterday, we don’t need the meat, which means he wants to be gone as much as I want him gone.

I don’t understand him. I wanted to, but he’s like an animal. He eats. He mates. He fights. That’s it.

He can’t be jealous. He didn’t seem angry when Noah was on top of me the other night.

Noah. I drop my eyes.

And Jake.

My cheeks warm, and the guilt I’ve been pushing away creeps in again.

I’ll never not understand why it happened with Jake. Or why it could’ve happened with Noah. Something about this house—these people—lend credence every day to what I always knew I needed. Not sex. Not a guy.

Just a place. Somewhere or someone to feel like home.

And yesterday, Jake Van der Berg needed that just as much as me. I guess I feel guilty, because others won’t understand it. They’ll have opinions, but the great thing is they’ll probably never find out. Mirai’s not here. Strangers with smartphones aren’t here. TMZ’s not here.

We’re free.

I spend the rest of the morning catching up on school work and finally getting it submitted online when I can catch a signal, and then I bundle up in my coat, boots, gloves, and hat and step outside. A sprinkle of snow falls, little wet flakes hitting my face as I close the door, and I stop, tipping my face up to the cloudy sky.

I love this. The air seeps into my pores and caresses my face, making the loose hairs peeking out of my hat float and flit in the breeze. For a moment, everything is quiet, except for the sound of the snowflakes hitting the twelve inches of beautiful, untouched blanket on the deck.

Snowfall isn’t like rainfall. Rain is passion. It’s a scream. It’s my hair sticking to my face as I wrap my arms around him. It’s spontaneous, and it’s loud.

Snowfall is like a secret. It’s whispers and firelight and searching for his warmth between the sheets at two a.m. when the rest of the house is asleep.

It’s holding him tightly and loving him slowly.

I open my eyes, breathing out a puff of steam into the air and watching it dissipate.

The cordless screwdriver whirs in the shop, and I take a step, the snow packing under my feet as I head down the stairs. Noah and Jake work away behind the closed doors, and I walk past the shop, kind of wishing they’d let me go for a hike by myself.

But I get it. The wilderness is dangerous enough, and I’m a rookie in the snow.

Stepping into the stable, I walk for Shawnee, such a beautiful bay mare with a red-brown body and black legs, eyes, and a mane. Even the tips of her ear ears are black. She looks like a fox, and I can tell she’s plotting her next escape.

“Hey.” I grin and reach into my pocket, pulling out the plastic tube filled with her favorite treat. Tearing it open with my teeth, I push the frozen fruit juice up and out of the wrapping and break it off, feeding it to her with my hand. Her muzzle digs into my palm, grabbing hold of the flavored ice, and I come in closer as her head hangs over the door to her stall. I break off another piece and then another, feeding her the rest. As she chews and chews, I take off my glove and rub my hand up and down her snout and then up to her forehead.

“You keeping warm?” I ask, rubbing her all over the head and nuzzling my own into her. It’s amazing how warm she actually is. Jake blankets the older horses at night, but he doesn’t want to baby Shawnee. She gets more than enough hay, and he assures me she’s acclimated to the frigid winter temps as long as she doesn’t get her winter coat wet. And so far, so good. I guess it’s all relative. A forty-degree day feels better than a nineteen-degree day, but a nineteen-degree day feels a hell of a lot warmer than ten below, too.

I give her a half-smile. “Reality is fickle, isn’t it?” I ask. “We can get used to almost anything.”

We all acclimate. We learn, we resolve, we come around—it’s not that anything really gets easier or harder. We just get better at rolling with it. I’m not sure these men will be different because of me, but I’ll be different because of them. I like that.

And I don’t.

I pull out another juice pop, and Shawnee immediately stomps her hooves and bobs her head. I smile, tearing open the tube. There’s so much I love about my days now.

I finish feeding and tending to everyone, making sure the three horses have plenty of hay and water, and then I put my glove back on and roam into the barn from the stable. Noah left the buckets I need in here.