Free Sleeping With the Wolf by Maddy Barone

you feeling?” she blurted.
    He looked down and passed a hand over his flat belly, probing cautiously at the wound there. “Still pretty sore. The sleep helped, but not enough so I can make love to you tonight.”
    “Oh, goo—I mean, we need to be careful.”
    He looked disappointed. “You know I won’t force you, right?”
    “Yes.” And she did. He wouldn’t need to anyway. This morning Pete had opened her eyes to what kind of mate she could have had. And Taye was trying to make her happy.
    Or at least comfortable. She could bear it. Maybe even enjoy it. Someday. “Do you mind if I pull my chair in front of the stove?”
    “I’ll do it.”
    “You’re hurt. I’ll do it.”
    “You’re awfully stubborn, mate,” he observed, pulling his own chair next to hers in front of the stove.
    She plopped down. “It came in handy while building a music career,” she huffed.
    “You sang and played music to earn money?” Taye guessed.
    “Yes, and I was getting pretty popular at it too. I was in Minneapolis for a show, and then I got on the plane to go to Denver to sing for a crowd of fifty thousand people.
    That’s where I was going when … I guess my career is over now.”
    *
    Career was like a foreign word to Taye. Men did what they could these days. Their wives and families helped them. Farmers grew the grain that Dane Overdahl’s mill ground into flour. Other farmers raised milk cows and made cheese and butter for trade.
    Ranchers raised cattle for meat and sheep for wool and horses for riding and pulling wagons. The mill west of town bought wool fleeces and spun the wool into thread to weave fabric for clothing and other needs. He and his pack hunted meat and tanned hides that they traded for what they needed. A couple of times a year the traveling traders came through Kearney to sell outrageously expensive goods that couldn’t be locally produced.
    Boats came up the Platte River to sell things too. They also passed along news, carried mail, and sometimes allowed other travelers to join them for protection. Some of the traders also told stories and performed music, and the listeners would thank them by buying meals and providing places for them to sleep. It was hard to imagine a woman going from place to place to sing, especially one who didn’t have a husband and family to protect her. How could she keep herself safe? The Times Before were as strange to him as the world of a science fiction novel would be to her.
    She looked very sad right now, almost tearful. He couldn’t bear that, so he reached and gripped her hand. “Sweetheart, you never answered me. Do you think I’m ugly?”
    She squirmed in her chair but didn’t jerk her hand away. “No. I said you are handsome.”
    “Did I frighten you when I kissed you?”
    “No.”
    “But you were sorry. You said so.”
    Her eyes flashed over to his face for a moment before dropping again. “I was sorry. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was an accident.”
    “Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
    Taye held his breath when she looked at him again. Her eyes gleamed with tears. She was so beautiful. He reached his free hand to touch her cheek where the tear would fall.
    He waited for it, but she tilted her head up and blinked, somehow managing to force the tears back. Awfully stubborn. He found he admired stubborn women.
    “When I grabbed your shoulder. When we were kissing. I grabbed you where you were injured by Pete. I hurt you. But I didn’t mean to.”
    “That?” Taye smothered a relieved laugh. “That barely hurt at all. It’s a good thing it happened, though.”
    Now she did jerk her hand away, and he let her.
    “Sweetheart, I was ready to forget that I promised to not force you. Another minute and I would have … I would have… ” He flicked his fingers at her blouse. “Those are the only clothes you have, right? Well, another minute of kissing you, and they would have been rags because I wouldn’t have been too careful