* * *

The trail through the woods accommodated only one person on snowshoes, compelling them to move in single file, for which Elizabeth was grateful. With Nathaniel in front of her, she could watch him as closely as she liked, without being observed or required to talk to him.

He moved purposefully, with a grace that made her own progress seem very awkward by comparison. The long line of his back was so straight that the rifle slung there barely swayed, although in the hush of the woods Elizabeth could just make out, above the sound of her own breathing, the soft sound of the gun's stock rubbing on his buckskin mantle. Nathaniel had not tied his hair back, and it fluttered behind him.

The branches bent low under their burden of snow, creating a roof over the narrow path like white arms of young girls crossed and crossed again. Elizabeth's pace flagged a bit so that Nathaniel pulled quite far ahead of her, walking through a tunnel of snow shot with sunlight. Then he stopped at a rise in the path where the forest fell away, and waited for her to catch up.

Elizabeth walked toward Nathaniel, drawn forward by his gaze, the force of his attention a magnet she could not resist. She joined him on the little rise and saw the valley and the village spread out below them. From here Half Moon Lake was an irregular bowl of the deepest frozen blue, and the world around it every shade of white. In front of them was an elongated clearing, framed by forest.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, how beautiful. You can't see this place from below, can you? What is it called?"

"The folks in the village call it the strawberry field. It's covered in fruit, in season. Children come up and eat themselves sick. Bears, too."

Nathaniel took Elizabeth's elbow and turned her to him. Her mouth hung open in a little circle of surprise, her lower lip full and bloodred, and he knew that his good intentions were worth nothing. He had tried for a month to stay away from her, but he remembered the promise of her mouth, as if no time had passed at all. This urgency in him was something he had forgotten about, something he thought gone forever; he had gone so long without it. It was a surprise, and not an altogether welcome one, that there was something in the world, someone in the world, who could move him like this; it was shocking to want again. Here, in front of him now, her dark hair curling around her face, her skin so pale that he could trace the veins in her throat.  So different from Sarah, but with the same core of flint, able to light the same fire in him. And he could see, in the brightness of Elizabeth's eyes, in the way she drew breath in at his touch, that she felt the same urgency, although she didn't have a name to put to it. Nathaniel stripped off his mitts and let his hands move up to push her hood back onto her shoulders.

"You look as if you've been eating strawberries," he said. "Your mouth is so red."

Elizabeth stared at him, her breath coming fast. Her blood rushed like a tide, and suddenly Nathaniel came into new focus: his eyes, which she had thought to be hazel but were shades of green and gold and brown, like sunlight in a summer forest; the high brow, furrowed, and the way his hair waved back from a widow's peak; the small cut healing high on his left cheek; the tiny white indentation on the bridge of his nose; the shadow of his beard.

"Tell me you don't want to kiss me," he said, his thumb stroking the curve of her cheekbone.

And his mouth, the clean lines of his lips, the blood pulsing there.

"I can't," Elizabeth said hoarsely. "I can't tell you that."

"Then do it," Nathaniel whispered. "Kiss me."

Startled, Elizabeth pulled away a little. Nathaniel was looking at her with an intensity that frightened her, and she saw that he meant it, that he was waiting for her to do this. His fingers threaded through her hair. He waited; she knew he would wait forever. She could do this, and take what she wanted, or walk away, and live without it. She felt flooded with heat; there was a tightness in her chest. Elizabeth leaned toward him and, reaching up, kissed Nathaniel.

His lips were surprisingly soft; Elizabeth hadn't imagined that a man's lips could be soft and firm all at once. Especially not this man, who seemed to be carved of wood. But his lips were very soft and gentle and moreover they were cold, while his mouth was not. This contrast was unexpected. His cheek was rough with beard stubble; his hair swept forward to touch her own cold cheek. His smells were strong, unidentifiable, overwhelming.

A little sigh escaped her as the angle of his mouth deepened and he tilted her head to meet him, kissing her lightly, a brushing; every nerve in her lips set to humming. They stood leaning toward each other across the awkward expanse of their snowshoes, joined like a wishbone by the soft suckling of mouths. Nathaniel slid an arm around Elizabeth's waist, and they crumpled into the deep snow together.

"Oh," she said, and he took her mouth, her warm mouth, and coaxed it open. Her whole consciousness was centered here where their mouths joined: the soft persistence, the way his head dipped as he changed the direction of the kiss. They sat in the snow, Elizabeth sprawled against Nathaniel's lap with her arms slung around his neck and snowshoes sticking up around them at odd angles. The cold was forgotten, all the snowy world around them was forgotten in the world of his callused hands, his rough, cold cheeks, his warm mouth on hers.

Finally she pulled away and stared at Nathaniel with her whole body trembling.

"Better comfort than apples, isn't it?" Nathaniel murmured, his thumb at the corner of her mouth.

"Oh, no," muttered Elizabeth. "Oh, no." She struggled to right herself, managing to situate herself on her snowshoes. She looked around wildly, brushing at her snow—dotted cape. Nathaniel got up to help her and she pushed him away. Then she grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them hard, looking at him with eyes gone suddenly severe.