Chapter 151: Wisdom From Rolly

Hunter watched as the young man headed down the trail. He figured he should go help them, maybe spell Hoyt and give him a chance to get some more sleep. But he was drawn to the cabin.

Maybe it was a sense of wanting to punish himself, some masochistic urge to beat himself up over the way he’d treated Poppy, the way he’d just assumed that she’d played him. But whatever it was, he was helpless to stop himself from going up the front steps and entering the cabin.

Rolly’s pack was neatly stowed in the corner, but beyond that, there was precious little to differentiate the cabin from the way it had been that stormy night. As he stood in the doorway, in his mind’s eye he saw Poppy, her red hair soaked from the rain, dressed in that ratty old flannel shirt as she wrapped him in a dry blanket. He’d been cold that night, soaked to the skin, as close to hypothermia as he’d ever been. And she’d used her body to warm his.