If I Can Feed You, Let Me Stay, The Pregnant Woman Said—The Rancher Looked at Her Before He Spoke

Chapter 2

When her fingers finally went numb, she carried the usable crates toward the kitchen entrance, stepping carefully through the dark, the weight pulling at her back. The door beside the kitchen stood open.

She stopped.

A narrow bed against the wall. A clean blanket folded flat on top of it. The old boxes that had been stacked there were gone. The dust had been swept from the floor, and someone had left a small window cracked so the cedar smell could breathe.

She stood in the doorway with the bag in her hand and felt something move behind her ribs that she had no name for. The room smelled faintly of dust and cedarwood and something else — a soap that had been stored for a long time. No one was there. The bed waited, empty, made for her.