5

When she’d woken up, he’d already packed his things and gone. A look out the windows showed the transport and escort vehicles lined up.

She didn’t speed her pace. It was early still. She made herself breakfast and drank some tea before heading down to the mercantile and opening up. She handled all the last-minute packages and other mail and with Tobin, organized people into orderly lines to hand over their things to the transport drivers.

She caught sight of Loyal down the way at the garrison offices with the other members of his team. He looked up the hill and saw her, nodding his head. She waved, but kept at her work. The night before had simply been step one. He’d awakened something in her she hadn’t even really known she possessed.

A sort of carnal awakening, a sense of her own power as a woman. She’d made him short of breath. She’d brought him so much need his fingers had dug into her upper arms hard enough to leave two fingerprint bruises. Not that she’d mention it. She got the feeling he would feel guilty and she didn’t want that.

It had filled her with . . . a sort of satisfaction to see them. To see the effect of the loss of his control. His need had washed over her skin like a narcotic of sorts.

Loyal Alsbaugh wanted her. With so much ferocity it had set her aflame just being in contact with his body. She wanted more. Knew when it happened—and it would—it would change her. And hopefully him as well.

She could wait. For the time being in any case.

The townspeople used to the process of the leaving of the transport had been orderly and ready as their turn had come. Verity handed over the mail sacks and signed them in for delivery.

They’d all congregate shortly down at the bottom of the hill at the gates. But she moved to the lead vehicle where Loyal had just locked his rifle into the slot on the dash.

“You stay safe. And return soon. You didn’t finish your card lessons.”

He shook his head, a half smile on his mouth. A mouth that had been on her own, on her neck. A shiver went though her at the memory.

“Stay in the garrison like I said, aye? Please?”

She knew what that please must have cost him, so she nodded. “As much as I can, I will. Come back soon.”

“Safe travels.” He got in the vehicle.

“And to you.” She stepped back to the walk and watched him close the door and click the side shield into place over the window.

“I don’t know how they do it. How they face the dangers of that Highway each and every time the way they do.” Tobin said it with some greed as he watched the procession head down the hill.

Perhaps she wasn’t the only one in the family with a curiosity about the world outside.

“They do it because it needs doing.” She waved at the transport and then the vehicles at the rear of the procession.

There were shouts and horns sounding at the gate as the sentries called out the all clear and the wheels began to turn as the gate slid to the side. Each vehicle drove through until they were all out. She knew they’d cross the bridge singly and then head down the fortified road to the Highway and drive north.

Her old life clicked back into place as the gate did.

“Come along then, Tobin. We’ve got some inventory to do.”

• • •

She’d spent her time immersed in all the daily work she needed to do to get ready for the coming seasons. Out behind the mercantile she spent her late afternoons after she’d closed down tilling the soil and getting her planting rows in order.

She planted her seeds for the melons and root-based vegetables. Those she kept in the cellar below the store. The cool earth would keep them through the snow times. She’d be able to use them in soups and stews, baked in casseroles all through the coldest months. She trimmed back all her berry bushes near the low walls that separated her land from her neighbor’s. Those would burst into life in a few moons and keep her in pies and preserves for the rest of the annum and also give her plenty to trade.

She opened all the parcels that had come with the delivery. Read the letters from her far-flung friends at garrisons up and down the Highway. She always saved them until he’d gone. For those first, hardest weeks when she felt his absence the deepest. There were little bottles of perfumed water, pots of healing salves for burns and rashes, muslin bags of dried herbs. Jars of preserves, of sauces, of flavored spreads to put on game and fish. Most she’d keep for herself, as they were little trades in return for her jars and bags of things she’d created. Others she’d use as payment for goods and services in the garrison throughout the annum. When her machinery needed fixing, or when she needed extra labor in the mercantile.

Over the weeks she’d received several blips from the central governance. Reports of increased brigand attacks on Highway traffic. And two incursions on garrisons.

Jackson Haldeman, the head of the garrison defense, showed up at the mercantile just as she was closing up. “Good day, Verity.” He tipped his head and she smiled.

“Hello, Jackson. Do you have need of something from inside? I know the proprietor so I can open up for you.”

He laughed, his smile spreading over his features, making him very handsome indeed.

“Appreciate that. But no. Not today. I came to let you know that, if you’d like, we’re going to be doing some instruction. With the rifles. I know you have some first aid education and if you’d be of a mind to teach others, I’d see it as a kindness. With the increase in brigand attacks, I want to stay at the ready.”

“Of course. To both. I know how to shoot. But I could use more instruction. I just put by some healing herbs and salves. I can make extras for the garrison barracks as well. They keep if you leave them in a cool, dry place. A root cellar or the like.”

He nodded. “Thank you. On the morrow then, an hour before the sun sets we’ll be starting with target practice.”

“I’ll be there. I can do some lessons on dressing wounds and the like on the off days. With harvest season ahead, it’s a good knowledge. Always end up with injuries that time of year in any case.”

He nodded. Pausing. His gaze sliding over her face with pleasure.

If it weren’t for Loyal, would she wish he’d invite her for a walk? Should she go if he invited her? He would be a good catch, as her sister would say. Jackson with his broad shoulders and his easy smile. A provider. She’d never heard tales of him hitting the bottle or anyone else.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He stepped down. “And perhaps . . . perhaps I will be seeing you at the fest this coming week’s end?”

The fish were running. Every year the big, fat silver fish would come in high numbers to the river to lay their eggs and have lots of tiny baby silver fish. The town would net them and set them to smoke, to dry them, to jar them in oils and herbs and preserve them for the annum ahead. It was a unified effort. There was music in the evenings and a big dance out under the stars.

“Aye.” She smiled, not really knowing exactly what she was agreeing to other than the target practice.