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enthusiastically. “Minestrone it is.”
    Seth had been right about a warm kitchen. She kept all the doors closed, and put a large pot of water on the back of the stove before she began chopping vegetables and opening cans. She had it easy—at least she had fresh vegetables, not to mention store-bought cans of beans and tomatoes. A century or two ago, people would have eaten what they raised—period. Probably December wouldn’t have been too skimpy, but she could imagine that February might be grim, after the fall harvest crops had run out. The apples would have survived that long—dried, maybe, and she thought she’d seen some mention of putting them in barrels, well packed in straw, and submerging them in a pond over the winter. It sounded a bit extreme, but what did she know? She had modern refrigeration.
    The soup started to smell good. It was hard to go wrong with the basics: onions, carrots, beans. The nice thing about minestrone was that you could toss in whatever you had on hand, and no one could argue with you about messing with the recipe. And it was kind of cozy to be working in the warm kitchen while the snow swirled around the house. The windows were steaming up. Lolly slept on, and even Max was quiet at the moment, which was a blessing. Should she make something to go with the soup? Corn bread? Did she have cornmeal? She couldn’t remember. Actually, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d really cooked. She’d been so busy with the harvest, and so exhausted at the end of each day, that she and Bree had relied mostly on takeout and microwave foods, even though she shuddered at the salt and sugar content. Rachel had taken care of Thanksgiving. So this was really the first chance she’d had to indulge in cooking for pleasure. She could make the corn bread, and then leave the oven on and try for an apple pie. At least she knew she still had apples.
    After an hour and a half Meg began to wonder if she should worry about Seth. Sure, he knew his way around, but she’d read stories of Arctic explorers who got disoriented in the snow and lost all sense of direction—and sometimes their frozen corpses weren’t found for decades. That was not a comforting thought. Still, up until now, if Seth said he was going to do something, he did it, with a minimum of muss and fuss. And usually three other things at the same time. Besides, she had no idea what she would do if he didn’t reappear soon. Call the police? Then there would be multiple people wandering around in a blizzard, which only increased the chances of someone getting lost, with possibly fatal consequences.
    Stop it, Meg! Why was she getting so morbid? A minute ago she had been cheerfully chopping vegetables; now she was envisioning frozen corpses in the snow. Seth knew what he was doing—didn’t he? She trusted his judgment. If he said he could walk home and back in a howling blizzard, she was going to believe him. Until when? Two hours? Three?
    Her increasingly frantic thoughts were interrupted by a stamping at the back door. Seth looked like an abominable snowman, his winter jacket and hood covered with an inch or so of the white stuff. The image was exaggerated by the large pack he was wearing on his back. How much dog food had he brought? Was he preparing for a long siege?
    She pulled open the door as he was brushing the last of the snow off his legs. He took off the snowshoes and left them leaning against the house outside the door before stepping in. “Something smells good.”
    “You took long enough.”
    Something in her tone made Seth look at her more closely. “Sorry. Were you worried? I was making sure my place was closed up tight, and I checked Mom’s, too. Oh, and when I was coming back I noticed one of your cellar windows had come loose. I didn’t notice that when I looked at the furnace earlier. But it was probably held in by one of those old hook-and-eye rigs, and since the wood is old, a good gust of wind could have knocked