“On a raid, you can trip, lose your way, lose your horses, run into somebody you didn’t want to run into.  It’s asking for trouble.”

“And who wants that.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re already drenched anyway, you know.”  It was true.  He was still wet from the creek and now the rain slanted against him with the overhang of the barn roof offering no protection.

“I’m used to it.  I’ll wait you out.”

“Your loss,” she said and turned her face back to the sky.  She found herself grateful just to be there, in the downpour, with the ghost family and the barn and the horses and someone who hadn’t taken the money, had nothing to do with the Family, was willing to let their journey take almost forever.

She turned toward him again.  It didn’t take many wet barefoot steps to reach him.

“I’m going to put my hands on you,” she said.  “Don’t jump when I do.”  She pressed her palms against him and bent her face into his wet shirt.

“Just for a minute.”  But it was longer than that.  When she lifted her head and stepped back, their damp clothing pulled slowly apart.

“Thank you,” she said.

He said nothing.

In the barn, Charlotte wiped her face and shook out her hair, water spraying off in every direction.

“I had visions of sleeping in the loft,” she said.

“There’ll be rats,” he said, recovering his voice.

“But the stalls smell like cow and that’s not inviting either.”

Chace tested the packed dirt floor of the barn.  “Put down enough straw here at the back and nobody could ask for more.”

Charlotte’s clothes hung on her like wet rags.  “I think there’s probably somebody somewhere used to sleeping in a canopy bed on a feather mattress with satin sheets and fourteen layers of down quilts who might ask for more, but not me.  If this very fine straw is what you’re offering, guess what, I’m taking it.”

He spread straw in a thick layer and she shook several blankets out over it.  He set the saddles down and held out her velvet coat.

“You remembered.  We’ve been together too long.”

“Seems like years.”

“That’s terrible.  Should I go and put out the lamp?  It’ll be pitch black.”

“Pitch black’s better than burned down.”

“Good thought.”  Carefully she blew out the lamp by the door and then couldn’t see anything.  “Keep talking so I can find you.”

“I’ll tell you a Creation story,” he said.

“You will?”

“No.  It takes two days.  You said to just keep talking.”

She was feeling along the floor with her bare feet.  “Say one more unhelpful thing and that’ll get me there.”

“I don’t know anything that’s unhelpful.”