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once more slowed so they stepped side by side. Did he still care? Why had he’d decided to walk away? It had to be because he didn’t care anymore. He’d hardly noticed her touch. He hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to hold her or kiss or even apologize for being so cruel. She supposed she could try to get him back— only she wouldn’t, because if he didn’t return the feelings, she wouldn’t grovel in hopes of him simply giving in. No, she wanted a man who loved her— as she’d thought Pete did.
    Instead of leaving a land of eternal summer, but where her heart felt dead and cold, she’d traveled to a frozen land, and now her heart was burning with the heat of emotion. This had not been the plan; she was supposed to have a break, time to heal. Yet her heart felt close to ripping in two all over again.
    Pete resumed talking, for which Anna was grateful. “One thing I learned the first night I was here was when some of the men were cleaning their guns. Turns out that equipment freezing is one of the Russians’ big problems right now— they’re still using regular oils, which freeze, so their guns freeze solid too, and they’re left with nothing to fight with, no matter how many men and how much ammunition they have. Well, not all the Russians’ guns have frozen yet, obviously. There are always new guns being sent, and not all have been cleaned. And they have plenty of artillery and tanks. But freezing guns has been a problem.”
    “I don’t understand how they’d invade so ignorantly,” Anna said, deliberately keeping her attention on the war effort. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I thought the Soviet army was one of the most advanced in the world. How did Stalin send his men so ill prepared? It’s not as if he invaded in the middle of summer. He had to know winter was coming.”
    Pete’s arm brushed hers as they walked; Anna swore she could feel his touch through both of their coats.
    “That’s the golden question,” he said. “I think it comes down to him being a pretty awful excuse for a human. A week-long skirmish meant that his armies wouldn’t need anything special— not even winter uniforms, although this is already one of the coldest winters in decades, which he couldn’t have predicted. I wouldn’t be the least surprised to find out that Stalin is capable of cold-blooded murder. That’s basically what he’s done to his men over the past two weeks— when thousands fall, he sends thousands of replacements. No regard for human life— his men’s or the Finns’. Who cares about strategy to spare his own men, when he has so many?”
    “How awful.”
    In the distance, the sound of engines starting came through the darkness. Anna’s chin came up, and she cocked her head, listening. “A nighttime patrol?”
    Pete shrugged. “Possibly. But they’re probably just keeping the engines warm. You’ll hear every vehicle run for a bit every fifteen minutes, around the clock. If that doesn’t happen, the engines turn into frozen blocks of steel until spring. That’s another thing the Russians are finally figuring out; they’ve lost several vehicles already because the engines weren’t running often enough to keep from freezing.”
    “You’ve learned a lot more in two days than you give yourself credit for.” Anna stared off into the woods in the direction of the sound. “So many things in this war I never thought of. And it sounds like a lot of these same things never occurred to the Soviets.”
    The scent of sausage soup grew stronger now; they had to be close to the field kitchen and mess tent. In their relatively short walk, Anna had grown colder than she’d ever been in her life. She wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed her hands up and down her arms through her coat. “Let’s get some food.”
    “This way,” Pete said, nodding forward.
    They each took only one more step before shouts and running and other chaotic noises sounded from the rear of the camp.