When he drew back, I saw something new in his expression. A sunbeam in all that darkness.
I wondered if it was a picture I’d ever be adept enough to paint. Clouds, skies, muddied skin, and a man who might be, at that very instant, declining into love.
“Take her home for me, Gunner. Please.”
Gunner nodded without argument. His arm slipped beneath my knees.
“I can walk,” I said, though when I sat upright everything tilted, the world slipping sideways off a plate.
“It’s the gas,” Patrick said unnecessarily. “Gunner will carry you.”
“No, he won’t,” I protested.
“He will. And you’ll let him.”
I groaned. “You aren’t coming?”
“I need to stay,” he said. “There were others caught under the mud in the slide. Some unaccounted for.”
“They’ll be dead by now.”
“Aye,” Gunner answered. “But it
