Under the Northern Lights(18)

“Yeah,” I mumbled, nibbling on my lip. “Guess I was a little tired.”

“Understandable—you went through a lot yesterday.” His gaze drifted to the floor, and he almost looked guilty. “I’m sorry you were out there so long on your own. I really didn’t think . . . I took an oath once to do no harm, yet I didn’t come running the second I heard that plane go down. I assumed no one survived, and in doing so, I almost made my assumption a reality.”

Knowing he was being too hard on himself, I started to stand so I could walk over to him. He instantly pointed at the couch, and I stayed put. I pursed my lips in protest for a second, but then I said what I’d been going to say. “You’re not search and rescue. You weren’t obligated to come check out the wreck. I’m just grateful you showed up at all.”

His face instantly filled with remorse. “I only went because I needed a part for my plane. I wasn’t . . .” He sighed as his voice trailed off.

I tried to think what I would do in his situation—isolated, out in the middle of nowhere. Would I have taken the time and energy to check out a lost cause? Yes. But I hadn’t been through . . . whatever it was that Michael had been through. “It’s okay if you’re hesitant to help people. But when the chips were down, and it really mattered, you came through. You could have let the wolves kill me, but you saved my life.”

He stared at me a moment, clearly in thought, and then he pointed at my necklace. “You think that distinction matters to the big guy? Think he’s fine with me not wanting to help people?”

I shrugged. “I can’t exactly answer for him. But . . . I know he’d forgive you. And if he can forgive you, maybe you should forgive you.”

His eyes remained locked on mine for a moment longer; then he rolled them. “This is going to be a long winter,” he mumbled. Then he turned back to breakfast.

When the meat was done sizzling, he pulled out a couple of plastic plates and loaded us up with what turned out to be little sausage patties. Then he made pancakes. God, I could get used to this. We were silent as we ate—him at the table, me on my bed—and I took the opportunity to look around. There were books on the bookshelf and animal trophies on the walls, but not much else in the way of decoration. No photos, no obvious mementos, nothing to clear up the mystery of who Michael had been before he’d decided to hide away in the woods. Maybe he was a wanted man, and that was why he lived so far from people. I didn’t feel like I was in danger with him—he had saved my life, after all—but maybe there was darkness inside him that I hadn’t seen yet. And considering the fact that I was trapped with him for the next several months, that was a chilling thought.

“So . . . where are you from?” I asked, trying to dislodge the image of the ax-wielding murderer that had just popped into my head.

Michael indicated the cabin with his fork. “Here. I thought that was obvious.”

Now it was me who rolled my eyes. “I meant before here. Where did you live five years ago?”

He studied his plate as he pushed around a piece of pancake. “New York City.”

His answer couldn’t have surprised me more. New York was the exact opposite of where we were now—a concrete wilderness instead of a forested one. I’d kind of assumed he’d come from a place similar to this one, like maybe he’d chosen to live out here because this was what he was used to. “Oh . . . what made you come out here?”

He gave me a dismissive shrug. “I like the quiet.” He looked up at me then like he was warning me to drop it.

With a swallow, I went back to my meal. “This is good . . . thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he murmured, relief clear in his voice.

I really wanted to ask him more about his previous life, but since he didn’t seem to want to talk about it, I figured he probably wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Most likely, I’d upset him if I pressed. And since there was a microscopic chance that he might be a serial killer, upsetting him seemed like a bad idea. Taking his not-so-subtle hint, I quietly finished my meal.

Michael cleaned up afterward, doing the dishes in a metal basin on the floor. I felt completely useless doing nothing but lying there while he worked, but I stayed where he’d asked me to stay. When he was done, he wiped his hands on his pants, then turned to face me. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do—collect water, wood, and most importantly, hunt. I hadn’t planned on having two mouths to feed this winter, so I need to get some more meat put away. There’s an outhouse on the side of the property, but if you can’t make it, there’s a bucket under the couch.”

I lifted an eyebrow at that. I was not about to pee in a bucket that he would later dump for me. I wasn’t a ninety-year-old woman in a nursing home. “I’ll make it.”

Not very successfully, he tried to hide a smile. Seeing it warmed something inside me, and I instantly knew that my swift, irrational fear of him being a murderer was completely off base. He wasn’t an evil man, wasn’t a criminal hiding from the law. He was just someone who’d come out here to be alone . . . for some reason.

After Michael left, I quickly grew bored. Lying still with nothing to do except stare at the log seams was enough to drive a person crazy. After a too-long trip to the outhouse, I rummaged through his books to help pass the time. He mostly had westerns. Not my favorite, but I was desperate for entertainment. Lying back down, I propped my leg up on a pile of blankets and got to reading.