A fine and bitter snow (28 page)

Margaret closed the door in their faces.

"Why are you smiling?" Johnny said.

"Was I?" Kate said, and started to laugh. She stood on the porch, shoulders shaking, trying not to laugh too hard, hand pressed to her side, which she was still afraid was going to fall off if she moved the wrong way. "Sorry," she said, the last chuckle draining away. She put her hands on Johnny's shoulders and looked down into his face. Not so far down, and not for long. "I owe you an apology, Johnny."

"What? What for?"

"I should have let you stay at the homestead from the beginning, instead of farming you out to Ethan. I'm your home now."

"Oh." He was confused but willing. "Okay. I guess." He was further confused when she pulled him in for a bear hug, and the hell with the damage to her side. He trailed her bemusedly to the snow machine. "So . . . does this mean that you're not going to . . . uh . . . you and Ethan aren't ..."

"No. We're not."

"Good."

"Yeah?" She pulled his hat down over his eyes.

"Yeah." He shoved it back up. "I like Ethan and all, but he's kind of, well, static, you know? Sort of running in the same gear all the time. That could get old."

"It could," Kate admitted.

He loaded the duffel on the trailer. Gal meowed imperiously from his parka and he petted her absently. "Dad liked Chopper Jim."

Kate paused in the act of starting the snow machine. "What?" Where had that come from?

"Yeah. He said"—Johnny scratched beneath his cap— "he said he was the best trooper he knew and a good man, even if he was a colossal pain in the ass."

Kate relaxed. "Yeah, that sounds like he liked him a whole hell of a lot."

Johnny grinned. "He said the same thing about you."

It surprised a laugh out of her. "Mount up, mouthie."

"What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to build an extension to my cabin," Kate said, grinning at him. "A room for you. How are you with tools?"

He looked at her, uncertain. "What about my mom? She knows where you live. She could find me."

"She could," Kate agreed.

"She could make me go with her."

"Could she?"

She watched him think it over, and she was still watching when his face split in a sudden grin. "No. No, I don't think she could."

The grin made him so like his father that her breath caught in her throat. "I don't, either." She started the snow machine. "Get on."

It was crowded on the seat between Kate, Johnny, Gal, and Mutt, but they were all going home together.