Money Shot

by Susan Sey

  Which was not a woman who indulged her weaknesses. Not here, not now, not with this man. Not ever.

  She put a hand to the smooth sweep of her hair. The calm, orderly fall of it reassured her.

  “I’d rather speak with you in private,” she finally said.

  Guthrie jumped as if pinched, then stepped aside to reveal a tall woman in her midsixties. She favored vibrant jewel tones, a choice Goose approved given the dramatic silver of her hair. A startlingly sweet smile transformed the patrician sternness of her face as she stepped forward.

  “Agent di Guzman, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Goose said.

  “I’m Lila.”

  “As in Mother Lila’s Tea Shop?”

  “The very one.” Lila threaded her arm through Ranger Guthrie’s and beamed at Goose. “You’ll have to forgive my nephew here. His job keeps him from civilization most of the winter. He’s lost the habit of polite conversation.” She took Goose’s elbow in her other hand and turned them both toward a little wire-legged table in the bay window that framed a heartbreaking sweep of Lake Superior’s jagged beauty. “You just have a seat right here. Yarrow will bring you a nice hot cup of tea and Rush”—she nudged the silent ranger into the chair opposite her—“will remember his manners shortly, I’m sure.”

  Lila bustled toward the counter, snapping her ringed fingers at the teenage Goth queen Goose was startled to find sitting at the register. Good Lord, she thought. How many people had Guthrie been hiding behind those broad shoulders?

  “Yarrow!” Lila sang out. “Two cups of Lady Grey at table five, please!”

  Captain America stopped at the table’s edge on his way to the door. “See you around, Maria.”

  She sincerely hoped not, but sent him a smile anyway. “Nice meeting you.”

  He turned to his cousin. “I’m out of pocket for a few days starting tomorrow morning,” he said. “Some fat cats from Winnipeg are having a conference down on Mackinac and can’t be bothered to drive. Keep an eye on the girls, will you?”

  “Feed still in the kitchen?”

  “Yep.”

  “Will do.”

  Goose watched him saunter out the door, jacket unzipped, curls dancing in the bitter wind. “Your cousin, was it?”

  “Einar.”

  “Guy’s going to freeze to death going out like that.” She sent Guthrie an amused half smile. “Look pretty doing it, though.”

  He shot a dubious glance at her cranberry wool beret. “Guess you’d know.”

  Okay, so no common ground poking fun at the ridiculous cousin. She touched her hat—her adorable hat—and gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I would, actually. It if gets much colder than this, I might have to consider earflaps.” She shuddered dramatically.

  “It does.”

  She paused, backtracked. “Does what?”

  “Get colder.”

  “Oh.” She looked into those pale eyes, saw not a hint of humor. She tried again. “Surely that’s not possible. It’s already ridiculous out there. I think I freezer-burned my lungs just walking here from the ferry dock. How much colder could it get?”

  He gave her a long, steady look. “Much.”

  Irritation pressed in on her. What, was there some kind of word rationing in effect on Mishkwa she hadn’t been informed of? A law against small talk? Or had Guthrie simply ceded his lifetime supply of words to his chatty cousin? She swallowed a few acidic words of her own—sure to give her heartburn later—and summoned up her best look of laughing chagrin.

  “So. Earflaps? Really?”

  Pause. “Depends.”

  “On?” She smiled around gritted teeth.

  “You.”

  She sighed. “Not one for small talk, are you, Ranger Guthrie?”

  “I suck at it.”

  She shook her head solemnly. “Surely not.”

  A corner of his mouth flickered, like maybe he wanted to smile but didn’t quite remember how. “So how about we skip it and you just tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “Fair enough.” She swung her legs to the side—there wasn’t much room for them under the teeny table—and crossed them. She took a moment to admire the supple leather boots that encased her calves like a butter-soft second skin until they disappeared into the dark wool of her plaid wrap skirt. So, she noted with a sharp satisfaction, did Ranger Guthrie. Maybe he hated her hat but he didn’t mind her boots so much. Or the legs inside them.

  “How about you tell me why a guy with a gun in his pocket would want to stab the governor with a flaming pitchfork?”

  Chapter 3

  A SINGLE eyebrow crept up the barest fraction of an inch, the first sign she’d surprised him. “This is about that?”

  “If by that you mean the fact that you’re the founding member of a registered political party whose platform includes a stated intention to stab the sitting governor with a flaming pitchfork, then yes.” She gave him a friendly smile. “This is about that.”

  “Huh.”

  “You can’t be surprised that the Secret Service has a few questions.” Goose let a beat of silence pass, then felt compelled to point out the obvious. “Questions you haven’t actually answered yet.”

  More silence. She suppressed a sigh. “Ranger Guthrie? Why would a man with a gun in his pocket want to stab somebody with a flaming pitchfork?”

  “I don’t,” Guthrie said finally.

  Goose refrained from an eye roll, but it was a near thing. Two words? Really? That was the best he could do? “Don’t what? Have a gun in your pocket?” she asked. “Or want to stab the governor with a flaming pitchfork?”

  “The pitchfork thing.”

  “Then you won’t mind explaining to me how you came to be the founder and only member of a political party whose platform consists solely of a promise to do so.”

  Goth Girl—Yarrow, Goose reminded herself—appeared at the table in the speculative silence that followed. She was all pale skin, gorgeous bones and angry black eyeliner, with enough need-fueled revolt hanging overhead to make Goose wonder if Marilyn Manson and Winona Ryder had had a drunken fling one night and accidentally reproduced. She plunked two steaming teacups down in front of them with a much-maligned sigh.

  Goose smiled at her. “Thanks, Yarrow.”

  Yarrow blinked at being name-checked by a stranger. Maybe at being name-checked at all. An unexpected twinge of compassion for the kid rolled over her. She remembered only too well being old enough to recognize what a burden you were but too young to do anything about it. She herself had never gone in for piercings/tattoos/heavy makeup, but she understood why kids did. Making your outside ugly was a hell of a lot easier than making your inside pretty, and teenagers did like things to match.

  Yarrow opted for an eye roll over the more traditional “you’re welcome,” prompting Goose to wonder if she’d been taking lessons in verbal economy from Ranger Guthrie. The girl stomped off to her stool behind the register and Goose turned back to her erstwhile companion.

  “So. Ranger Guthrie. You were saying?”

  Another flicker of almost-smile. Damn, she was on a roll. “Rush.”

  “Rush.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Rush.” He paused, then clarified. “It’s my name.”

  “I know,” she said, at sea. “You want me to use it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that was nice.”

  She waited for an explanation. None arrived. She sighed. “What was nice?”

  “What you did for my cousin just now.”

  “Einar?”

  “Yarrow.”

  “She’s your cousin, too?” Goose blinked. “Goodness. Are you related to everybody on this island?”

  “No.”

  She touched the headache brewing at her nape. “Are you always this literal, Ranger Guthrie?”

  “Rush.”

  “Are you always this literal, Rush?”

  “Yes. I’m taciturn, irrita
ting and pessimistic, too.”

  She gave him wide, disbelieving eyes. “No.”

  His gaze warmed abruptly, and kindled a corresponding—and alarming—warmth in her stomach. “I don’t count kindness among my particular gifts, but I know it—and respect it—when I see it in others. Particularly in situations when there’s nothing to be gained by it.”

  She gaped at him with perfect sincerity this time.

  “Most people ignore kids who look like that,” he said, pointing his chin toward the girl behind the register. “Or worse, they don’t see them at all. But you? You called her by name.”

  “Well, sure,” Goose said stupidly. “What else was I supposed to call her?”

  “It was enough that you thought to call her anything.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “For me to decide you might be deeper than your lip gloss, Agent di Guzman.”

  “Goose.” She frowned at him, stung. “If we’re going to insult each other, we ought to be on a first-name basis.”

  One pale brow headed for the ridge of stubble that served as a hairline. “I thought your name was Maria.”

  “People call me Goose.” She shrugged. “From di Guzman. Or maybe from the fact that I was an incredibly tall, awkward teenager.” She gave him a smile that invited him to share the joke, but he didn’t return it.

  “I’m not insulting you, you know.”

  “You just called me shallow.”

  “I said I suspected you were shallow.” His eyes drifted north, to her perfectly acceptable—if, okay, impractical—beret.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I also said I was wrong.”

  She gave up trying to work up an appropriate hauteur. The guy did brutal honesty better than most. She suspected it wasn’t a choice so much as a case of his simply being wired that way. “So, Rush.” She took a moment to appreciate the irony of calling this fiercely deliberate man Rush. “Tell me about the Radical Agrarian Party.”

  “Not much to tell.”

  She treated him to a stern dose of his own silence, which he acknowledged with a smile so faint she felt more than saw it. She couldn’t have enjoyed a victory more if she’d battled a chess master to checkmate.

  “My aunt—” He tipped his head toward the counter and lifted a brow.

  “Lila?”

  “Yeah. She thinks I spend too much time alone.”

  Goose put on an expression of polite disbelief. “You?”

  His lips twitched. “She likes to arrange outings for me.”

  She indulged in an expectant silence until he cleared his throat and said, “Volunteer opportunities, mostly.”

  She maintained her silence with an almost vindictive glee.

  “With kids,” he said. He shifted. Cleared his throat again. “She thinks they’re a good warm-up.”

  She took pity on him. She was, as he’d noted, a basically kind person. “For?”

  “I think she’s working me up to something more age appropriate. Interaction with my peers, maybe.”

  He said it with a heartfelt resignation that had a reluctant smile curving her lips. “Poor baby.”

  “Thank you.”

  They shared a moment of companionable silence. Then she said, “So how does this tie you to the Radical Agrarians?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She let her smile grow. “I’ve got all day, Rush.”

  GOOSE. HOW could a woman who looked like this let people call her Goose? And she wanted to know about the Radical Agrarians. Crap.

  “I’m a party of one, which you already know,” Rush said as she settled in across from him with every appearance of comfort. She crossed those long, slender legs again, one booted foot tick-tocking casually in the air as if her chair weren’t as miserably uncomfortable as his. Why the hell Lila had chosen to furnish her shop with furniture two-thirds normal size, Rush would never know. The woman was nearly as tall as he was. “None of the others are old enough to vote.”

  “I see.” She tapped glossy lips with pretty pink nails. “And the point of launching a party with supporters who can’t actually go to the polls is what now?”

  He tore his eyes from those pursed, candy-colored lips. Jesus, Rush, focus. He wasn’t what you’d call articulate on a good day. How was he going to explain exactly why he’d signed his name to those stupid papers if he was wondering what her lip gloss tasted like?

  “Don’t you remember being sixteen?” he asked, a little desperately.

  Something flared in her eyes, and recognition caught in his chest like a clenched fist. Rush had seen it before, that sharp intensity of sorrow and grief. Over and over, he’d watched battle-hardened soldiers collapse under the weight of it like a house of cards. But this woman—this shiny woman with her silly hat and her dark sad eyes—she just smiled around it.

  “Well enough to know that there’s a pretty good reason we don’t let teenagers vote,” she said.

  “Point taken. And yet you can’t deny that a sixteen-year-old is fully capable of adult thoughts and ideas and emotions.”

  “I wouldn’t deny it. But I would argue that he’s entirely without an adult’s capacity for patience, reason or delayed gratification.”

  “But should we keep him locked into the child box just because he isn’t quite ready for the adult box?”

  She studied him. “You think not.”

  “I don’t think anything.” He spread his hands, at a loss to explain himself much further. “I just—for one afternoon—challenged some kids to go beyond complaining and into problem solving. They’re going to inherit a complicated world in a few years. Better for us all if they hit the ground running.”

  “So the Radical Agrarian Party was an experiment,” she said slowly. “A forum for teenagers to act and think on an adult level. A way for them to participate in the democratic process, to float their ideas about how to make our nation a better place and get actual, real-time feedback?”

  “Exactly.” He took a moment to envy the verbal dexterity that allowed her to sum up another person’s jumbled thoughts into a few perfect sentences. “All it took was a couple hours and signing my name to a few pieces of paper.”

  “Whose idea was it to put offing the governor with a flaming pitchfork into the bylaws?”

  “I believe that one was unanimous.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Guy’s kind of an ass.”

  Her lips twitched with what he suspected was the first genuine amusement she’d shown all day. “And how will the kids feel about their little experiment putting you under investigation by the Secret Service?”

  “Sobered, I hope.” He dropped his hands to his lap. “Only the young and foolish bait the government on purpose.”

  “And you?” she asked. “How do you feel about it?”

  “Being under investigation?” He met those dizzying, grief-drenched eyes. “I’m starting to see the upside.”

  “ARE YOU?” Goose’s stomach clenched with an uneasy mix of nerves and heat, but she sent him her standard look of speculative assessment. The one she generally followed up with regretful dismissal. “That’s . . . flattering, really, but—”

  “Why do you do that?” he asked.

  She frowned. “Do what?”

  “Flirt when you aren’t interested. Smile when nothing’s funny.” He watched her with eyes the color and texture of flint.

  “I—”

  “I’m not coming on to you, Goose.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. “Then what was all that about seeing the upside of being the target of a federal investigation?”

  “Just being honest. You’re attractive, sharp and clearly good at what you do. You’re messed up as all hell, but I seem to like that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re excused.” He leaned in, put his palms flat on the table. The crazy urge to lean in to meet him seized her, and suddenly she wanted. Wanted to touch the hard plane of that cheek, the unforgiving slice of that mouth. Wanted
to put her lips on the long line of his throat and pull the scent and the vital warmth of him into her lungs. Absorb the sharp sting of his honesty and the hot slap of his interest.

  She reared back from it, from the punishing heat of her own want. Oh God. Not this. Not now.

  “The sad fact is,” Rush went on relentlessly, “I like you. You want to investigate me, fine. I’ve got nothing better to do. Lila’ll be thrilled to see me interacting with somebody my own age. Go ahead. Follow me around, ask me questions, interview my neighbors. My life’s an open book. Start reading. But don’t expect me to pretend I don’t see what you are.”

  She stared at him, the air driven from her lungs. Her blood beat madly in her temples, pooled hot and dangerous between clenched thighs. She barely recognized her own voice when she said, “And what I am?”

  His hand opened on the table between them, his fingers long and tanned. Every cell of her body yearned toward him like a flower leaned into the sun. “You’re a lot of things,” he said softly. “Complicated. Beautiful. Harsh.” He closed his fingers into a fist—a somehow regretful gesture—and disappointment came down on her, crushing and shameful. “But mostly? Mostly you’re just sad.”

  “Sad?” She summoned up a light laugh. “How positively gothic of me.”

  “There you go again,” he said. “Laughing when nothing’s funny. That can’t be good for you.”

  Her chuckle died on the vine. He rose and glanced at a silver watch Goose suspected could launch the space shuttle if necessary. “Last ferry’s at four,” he said. “Nice meeting you.”

  She jumped to her feet on a breathless spurt of panic. She could wonder later why this curt dismissal hurt her. For now, she simply had to stop it. “Rush.”

  He turned back, nothing but polite interest in his stony face. She hesitated, took her time arranging the camel-colored wool of her coat over her arm. He waited.

  Finally she said, “I’ve got a job to do here. I’ll get it done faster with your cooperation.”

  “You’ve heard my conditions.”

  She swallowed even as her body burned with a treacherous heat. “Honesty. Nothing less.”

  He studied her while her stupid heart galloped around in her chest, then nodded once. “Best get started, then.”