Tom’s pickup truck wouldn’t be moving until the plows came. With my radio, I put in a request to have the campground cleared of snow, which normally they wouldn’t bother to do in this season. Even so, it would be hours before they got here. Snow continued to blanket the area, and the plows would be busy staying ahead of the drifts on the highways and town streets.

I could have—should have—taken Tom to the sheriff’s office. Essentially, I was AWOL from my job. I’d left a dead body on the ice and done nothing about it, but that night, I couldn’t face Darrell, or Ajax, or Jerry. As it turned out, Tom didn’t want to go to the sheriff’s office either. He was AWOL from his own job. I knew his name sounded familiar, and he reminded me that he was the sheriff of Mittel County, our distant neighbors on the eastern side of the state. He didn’t want to deal with questions, shoptalk, or false sympathy from the others in our office. This night was about him and his mother, and I totally understood his desire for privacy.

So I took him home with me.

Something about this man made me feel both protective and protected. Being with him gave me a kind of glow, as if I were part-mother, part-wife. He settled naturally into my house, stoking a fire in my fireplace. His clothes were wet, and he was almost blue with cold, so I let him change in my bathroom and take a hot shower. I put his clothes in the washer. He was a much taller, more athletic man than Ricky, so none of my husband’s clothes would have fit him. Instead, Tom put on a terry robe that was a little short for him and then modestly wrapped a blanket around himself. He sat down by the fire, and I showered and changed, too.

We both should have been hungry, because neither one of us had eaten in hours, but we weren’t. We sat next to each other on the worn carpet, hypnotized by the flames. He looked absorbed by his own thoughts as he stared at the fire, but I snuck glances at him. His skin had a tanned glow, even in winter, that made a contrast with my stark paleness. His brown hair was still wet from the shower. He was lean, maybe a little too skinny for his height, but strong and muscular. I felt small next to him, but a good kind of small.

“Was your mother ill for a long time?” I asked softly when we’d been silent for several minutes.

“Yes. She had early-onset dementia. It’s been getting worse for a while now.”

“How old was she?”

“Not even sixty.”

“Oh, you must be devastated.”