Rosalie Winters's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Rosalie did not answer the blond man at the bar. She walked past him and out into the cold, letter still in her pocket. She went home the long way and did not look back. By the time she reached her cottage, she had a plan the size of a coin. She needed a reason to stand in front of Dante that did not sound like a girl making one up. She sat at her kitchen table and wrote a list of every errand in town that might put her near him tomorrow. She crossed out all of them by dawn. In the morning, Brenda came by with bread and did not knock. She sat down across from Rosalie and looked at the crossed-out list. "You're trying to bump into him," Brenda said. "Don't. He'll feel it." Rosalie folded the paper. "Then what." "Give him something he asked for. Not something you invented." Brenda tore off a piece of bread and chewed. "Marcus said Dante lost a book at the tavern last week. Old one. He's been asking after it. Marcus put it behind the bar and forgot." She wiped her hands. "Go get it. Take it to him. That's a reason." Rosalie went to the tavern before it opened. Marcus was wiping glasses. She told him what she wanted. He reached under the bar without a word and set the book on the wood between them. It was small, brown, worn at the corners. "He's at the oak by the creek this hour," Marcus said. "He reads there. Don't make me regret this." He held the book a second longer than he needed to before he let go. "Six days," he said. "Clock's the clock." She found Dante where Marcus said. He sat against the trunk with his coat open and his hands empty. A gray wolf lay near his boots, pale marks glowing faint along its side. It lifted its head when she stepped into the grass and did not growl. Dante looked up. She held out the book. "Marcus had it," she said. "Behind the bar. He forgot." Dante took it. His thumb went to the spine the way it went to his coffee mug. "Thank you," he said. He looked at her longer than a thank-you needed. "Rosalie, right." "Yes." The wolf stood, walked between them once, and sat at her feet. Dante watched the wolf. Then he watched her. "Sit a minute," he said. "If you can." She sat. She did not touch the letter in her pocket. She had come with a book and left with a seat on the grass beside him, and the animal at her knee that Brenda had once said only came near people who meant it. The wolf leaned its warm side against her leg. Dante did not ask what that meant, but she saw him mark it.