Sweet Boundless by Kristen Heitzmann Page A

to the heat. “I had thought we’d move on.”
    “You can’t keep on as you’ve been without something nourishing.”
    He jerked his jaw toward the pot. “Meaning that?”
    She nodded. “But I can’t find utensils.”
    “I didn’t bring any. All that stuff is stowed in my tent.”
    And where is your tent? she wanted to ask. Where do you stay when you’re away from me?
    “I thought we’d do with olives and cheese. I didn’t know you meant to cook.” He looked sharply at the pot melting a puddle in the snow. “Is that the pot . . . ?”
    She smiled. “I could only carry it so far. Dom wouldn’t walk with iron pots and Dickens banging his sides.” She rolled the sausages with the stick to cool the undersides.
    Still in his squat, Quillan rested his forearms across his knees. “And it just happened to be waiting here.”
    “No. I buried it next to that tree.” She waved her arm to indicate the one she meant.
    “What a coincidence.”
    She raised her eyes from the pot. “Not coincidence.”
    “What, then?”
    “God.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. She saw that at once in the lowering of his brows, the tensing of his hands. Heard it in what he said next.
    “God. He just had that pot right near where we stopped so that you could dig it up and make this meal.”
    “Something like that.”
    Quillan stood. He rubbed his thighs with his fire-warmed gloves. “Are we going to eat or not?”
    She stabbed the stick into one of the sausages, releasing an oily red juice and spicy fragrant steam. But not so much steam that it would burn him. The sausages were cooling quickly in the cold air. She held up the stick.
    He took it. “What do you call this?”
    “Salsiccia in una sacchetta . Sausage on a stick.”
    He almost smiled. He wanted to. But he would lose face. He was not so different from un uomo Italiano . She could handle him if he just gave her the chance.
    Quillan bit into the sausage on the stick. Steam erupted into his nostrils as he pierced the skin and sank his teeth into the dense ground meat. It burst into his mouth, a strong, spicy flavor, mellowed with garlic and the onions that lay limp and browned in the pot. He closed his eyes and allowed the sensation to fill and overload his tongue. He chewed slowly, deliberately, eking every ounce of flavor before surrendering it to his throat.
    Then he opened his eyes and realized Carina had seen it all. She was more dangerous than a rattler in July, as Cain . . . It hit the pit of his stomach like a boot. As Cain used to say , he’d almost thought. Used to say. Cain. The pain came, fresh and piercing. He turned away, ate the sausage in a hurry, and stabbed the stick into the pot for another.
    She was right. The food would sustain him better for what lay ahead. It would be slow going and he was hungry. Carina had scrounged another stick from somewhere and ate deliberately. He’d hurt her. He’d given her nothing for all her work, not even his thanks.
    He yanked off his glove and dipped his hand into the pot. With bare fingers he scooped the onions and brought them to his mouth. Let her think him a fiend. The sooner she realized they had no place together, the sooner she’d leave him in peace.
    Not in peace. There could be no peace. Because of him, Cain was dead. And because of Carina. Because of what they’d done, coming together in a sham marriage. And if he wasn’t careful, she’d make him forget that. She’d lure him with her talents, her beauty, her vulnerable strength.
    He swallowed the onions and reached for more. Another sausage went down in four bites. Then he grabbed snow and washed his hands and face. He tugged on his gloves and turned. Carina had filled the pot with snow and was rubbing it clean as it turned to mush. Her fingers were raw.
    “Just stow it in the wagon, Carina. Let’s get moving.”
    She dumped it out and did as he said. Sam lapped at the greasy snow, having already devoured two of the sausages. Quillan whistled, and