Read Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection for Free Online Page B

shot. He gave a low whistle as she put the safety
back on and handed the gun over.
    “So you can handle a gun.” He nodded,
squinting his eyes at the carnage of bottles and cans left in the
snow. It was pretty impressive. “But can you cook?”
    Jolee grinned. “Far better than I can shoot.
Where’s that elk?”
    * * * *
    Jolee woke up Christmas morning feeling as
she imagined most people felt on that day—excited, anticipatory and
utterly happy. She almost didn’t recognize the feeling. She heard
Silas feeding the woodstove and smiled, wondering if he felt it
too, rolling over in her little bed and glancing out the window.
The sun was just coming up over the horizon, bleeding orange light
into her room.
    “Are you awake?” Silas whispered from the
doorway and she turned to face him, grinning and kicking off the
covers.
    “I don’t think I slept at all.” It wasn’t
true, of course—she’d slept deeply, lulled by the sound of a hoot
owl outside her window all night. “Did Santa come?”
    She saw the flash of his teeth through the
mouth hole of his mask. “I think there are some things under the
tree.”
    She knew there were—she’d put a few of them
there herself. Silas had bought her yarn and knitting needles and
she’d found something else to do besides help him make their meals.
She’d been knitting like crazy when she was supposed to be
“napping.”
    Jolee bounded out into the kitchen, the
smell of cinnamon drawing her toward the stove.
    “Cinnamon rolls?” She dragged a finger along
the top of one and groaned as she sucked the icing off. “Oh Santa
has been very good us.”
    He put a roll on a plate and handed it to
her. She curled up in a chair near the fire in the living room with
her cinnamon roll and a big glass of fresh milk, drawing her
t-shirt over her knees and admiring their Christmas tree.
    Silas had dragged it home through the snow
and set it up in a stand he’d made himself. They’d popped popcorn
and strung dried berries and fruit—it was a truly an old-fashioned
tree, no lights or sparkles, but in the glow of the fire it shined
anyway, a magical thing.
    She clapped her hands when Silas began
handing out the brown packages wrapped in twine under the tree.
Hers for him were more elaborately decorated in white butcher
paper, stamped using nutshells and leaves and pinecones with a dark
brown ink she’d made from boiling walnuts and vinegar.
    There was an orange for her and a big bar of
chocolate and she overdosed on sweetness as she unwrapped more
yarn, thrilled at the bright colors he’d chosen. There was also a
new pair of boots for her and a winter jacket, waterproof and warm.
She blushed when she opened a package of delicate, lacy bras in a
myriad of colors.
    Silas shrugged one shoulder, reminding her,
“You asked for them…”
    “I did.” She smiled, rubbing the silky
material of one of the cups against her cheek. He watched her do
this, his eyes dark in the holes of his mask.
    “Open yours.” She handed him the first,
watching him unwrap the paper.
    “It’s beautiful,” he murmured, spreading the
wrapping out as he got it open, looking at the designs she’d made
on the butcher paper.
    “That’s not your present, silly!” She
unfolded the scarf, deep blues and greens. She wrapped it around
his neck.
    He fingered the edge of it, smiling. “Thank
you.”
    “There’s more.” She handed him another.
    “Someone hasn’t been napping,” he remarked
as he unwrapped three pairs of socks and a pair of gloves, smiling
over all of them. He stopped when he opened the last one, holding
up the knitted thing in his hands, frowning.
    “I thought, if you’re going to insist on
wearing a mask, maybe you’d like something a little more stylish.”
She showed him the way the eye holes were bigger, the mouth hole
too. “Besides I’m sick of looking at that camouflage thing.”
    He turned his back to her, pulling off his
hunting mask and putting the knit one on.
    She nodded