She found her voice, as rusty as the gate had been. âItâsâ¦quaint.â
His brow furrowed. âYou making fun of me?â
She expected anger. More knife waving. Perhaps even threats. Anger she could handle. Fight. She could be angry in response. Instead she felt hollow shame. Heâd spoken in the resigned fashion of a man used to people mocking him, and she had been making fun.
âWas it a hunting cabin?â
âYeah.â He looked around. âBut he lived here, too. Fixed it up a little at a time. I used to come here with him, sometimes. Uncle Bill died a couple months ago.â
Condolences rose automatically to her lips and she pressed them closed. It would be ridiculous to express sorrow over a strangerâs death, especially to this man. Her fingers curled against the table. Surreal, all of this.
Youâre not dreaming this, Gilly. You know that, right? This is real. Itâs happening.
She knew it better than anything and yet still couldnât manage to process it. She stared across the table. âHe left you this cabin?â
âYeah. Itâs all mine now.â He nodded and gave her a grin shocking in its rough beauty, its normality. They mightâve been chatting over coffee. This was more terrifying than his anger had been.
She looked around the room, like maybe it might look better with another glance. It didnât. âItâs cold in here.â
He shrugged, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt down overhis fingertips and hugging his arms around himself. âYeah. I could light a fire. Thatâll help.â
âItâs late,â Gilly pointed out. Sheâd been about to say she needed to go to bed, but she didnât want him to get the wrong idea. Fear flared again as she watched him run his tongue along the curve of his smile. He was bigger than she was and certainly stronger. She wouldnât be able to stop him from forcing her.
âYeahâ was all he said, though, and made no move to leap across the table to ravish her. He blinked, cocking his head in a puppyish fashion that might have been endearing under other circumstances. âLetâs go to bed.â
Stricken, Gilly didnât move even when he pushed away from the table and gestured to her. Her throat dried. Lie back and enjoy it, she thought irrationally, remembering what a friend of hers had said a blind date gone horribly wrong had told her to do. Gillyâs friend had kicked the would-be rapist in the nuts and run away, but Gilly had given up the chance for running back at the gas station. Even if she ran, now, where would she go?
He went to the propane lamps and lowered the flames to a dim glow, then jerked his head toward the steep, narrow stairs. âBeds are upstairs. Câmon.â
On wobbly legs she followed him. Sheâd been right about the stairs. Dark, steep, narrow and splintery. Festooned with cobwebs and lit only by the lantern he carried.
The stairs entered directly into one large room that made up the entire upstairs. More propane sconces, wreathed in spiderwebs furry with dust, lined the walls beneath the peaked roof. The windows on each end were grimy with dirt and more cobwebs. A waist-high partition with a space to walkthrough divided the room in half widthwise. A low, slatted wall protected unwary people from falling down the stairs.
âBeds.â He pointed. âYou can have the one back there.â
He meant beyond the partition. Gilly realized he didnât intend to follow her when he handed her the lantern. She passed the double row of twin beds, three on each side of the room, then went through the open space in the middle of the partition. On the other side were a sagging full-size bed, a dresser, an armoire and an ancient rocking chair. A faded rag rug covered the wooden plank floor.
âCozy,â she muttered and set the lantern on the dresser.
The man had already crawled into one of the beds on the