Off the Map (Winter Rescue #2)

by Tamara Morgan

  She was smart enough not to try for it again, but the icy way she looked at him felt like a wash of alcohol and stainless steel over his head all the same.

  “Very,” she said with a curl of her perfect bow lips. “I would’ve murdered your dog with my own two hands months ago, but sacrificial bloodstains are such a pain to get out.”

  Chapter Three

  “It doesn’t look enough like him. Here—let me.” Carrie grabbed the Ken doll from out of her friend Lexie’s hand. The brown marker they were using to color over the signature golden plastic locks hadn’t dried all the way yet, so some of it smudged on her fingers. “Shoot. Shouldn’t we be using permanent marker for this instead? And why are there sparkles all over his feet?”

  “I only had glitter glue,” Lexie apologized. “You should have warned me we’d need more than just basic art supplies. I only took that one scrapbooking class.”

  “Hmm.” Carrie finished touching up the hair and used a red marker to try and pull Ken’s glistening smile into a more suitable scowl. “I guess this is as close as we’re going to get. I just need to sketch in the tattoo on his arm. Are you almost done with his vest?”

  The conversation they were having on the living room floor of the house Lexie shared with her boyfriend wasn’t as strange as it seemed on the outside. Yes, they were adult women sitting cross-legged on shag carpeting with glitter in their hair. And yes, they were creating what amounted to a plastic voodoo doll. But desperate times called for desperate measures. It was either this or take a baseball bat to Scott’s headlights. Craft time had seemed the more ladylike choice.

  “Ta-da!” Lexie held up a miniature red vest with a flourish. They’d had to cut into a pair of Lexie’s tights to make it, but her friend assured her the hosiery loss was worth it. “It’s kind of adorable, if I do say so myself. Are you sure you want to ruin it by poking holes in it?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” It wasn’t going to be easy to stab the straight pins into the plastic of the doll’s back, but Carrie could always go for the flexible rubber on the legs. Scott had magnificent thighs, all hard-packed muscle and hairy skin. It would be a delight to cause them to seize up in agony. “Do you think we should give him different pants?”

  “I’m not sure my sewing skills run that high, and I only have the tux he came in.”

  Tuxedo pants and a handmade red vest weren’t exactly Scott’s normal winter attire, but she doubted they could find the tight Henleys and faded jeans he favored during the colder months. Ken’s style was a little too high-end for the scruffy, dog-loving man who’d broken her heart.

  “It’ll have to be good enough.” She wrangled the doll’s arms into the vest and added a few black swirls on his upper arm, satisfied with the overall result. “There. Meet Voodoo Scott.”

  Lexie extended her forefinger and shook the doll’s hand. “Hello, Voodoo Scott, you big ol’ meanie. I hope you’re prepared to pay for what you did. Nobody makes my friend feel like garbage and gets away with it.”

  “Damn straight.” Carrie spoke with vehemence, but she suspected Scott could treat her any way he wanted and walk away unscathed. He had all the leverage in their breakup, emotionally speaking. She might retain the power to make him angry, but he was the one who could still make her cry.

  She glared even harder at the doll, channeling as much of her emotion as possible at Ken’s smug plastic face. “Let this be a lesson in manners. I might not have put a curse on you before, but I sure as hell am going to now.”

  Lexie giggled and tucked a strand of her honeyed blonde hair behind her ear. “I know this is incredibly juvenile of us, but I can’t remember ever having this much fun getting back at an ex.”

  “That’s because you never had to do it with me before. I’m an expert at losing people with a flourish.” It wasn’t until the words left her mouth that she realized how pathetic she sounded.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Lexie’s expression turned to one of sympathy, and she reached over to give Carrie’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m so sorry. I know things are tough right now, but you’ll bounce back. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Carrie didn’t say what she was thinking—that Lexie couldn’t make sure of it, even if she wanted to. Like Ace and Max and Scott, Lexie was a part of the total SAR package. Her boyfriend Fletcher was a dedicated member of the team and not likely to shift loyalties anytime soon. They were a collective, like Musketeers. You crossed one, you crossed them all.

  It was a truth Carrie had encountered far too many times in her life. There were only so many awkwardly ended poker nights before she stopped being invited, only a few more voodoo doll parties before Lexie turned her ringer off whenever she called. That was the worst part of all this. Everything Scott had said last night about her trying to encroach on his friendships was true. She tried too hard and pushed too much, scared people off by never knowing when to take a step back. Crazy was coming on a bit strong, but then, that was exactly what she did most of the time. Came on too strong.

  She always had. A forceful personality was all there was to rely on when you’d grown up as an only child and an Air Force brat—a double whammy in the impossible-to-make-friends category. Unless you wanted to spend the majority of your time sitting alone in a corner with snack cakes, you found a way in no matter what the cost.

  Carrie had developed excellent skills at finding ways in, but she wasn’t so good at staying there. This thing with Scott was clear proof. If it came down to it, the Search and Rescue team would choose him over her—and with good reason. He was a cornerstone, a lifer, an integral part of this strange little family they’d managed to create for themselves.

  But her?

  She was just a helicopter pilot with a reckless streak. Valuable for the time being, but disposable once she no longer had anything to offer. She could only imagine what would happen if the FAA ended up grounding her.

  No. She could imagine it. That was the problem. Thanks for all your help, Carrie, but we can take it from here. It’s better if you don’t try to contact us again. We’ll remember to give Scott your love.

  Except for that last part, it was the exact message she’d received from the medevac company that brought her to this city in the first place. Without her pilot’s license, she ceased to have anything to offer. She ceased to matter. She ceased to be.

  She forced a smile—another one of those life skills she’d learned was instrumental in making the world believe you weren’t as desperate for love and attention as you seemed—and hoped Lexie wouldn’t look too much deeper. She wasn’t ready to lose her closest friend in Spokane yet.

  “It seems kind of anticlimactic, doesn’t it?” Carrie said, her voice falsely bright. “Just making the doll and walking away? I feel like we should do something more to make the spell hold.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  Anything that would prolong this moment of bonding and help Carrie forget the underlying heartbreak. In other words, “Do you think we should perform a chant?”

  Lexie appeared pensive as she considered her response. That was one of the many things Carrie loved about her. No matter how ridiculous the question, she played into it as if it were as important as deciding whether or not to invade North Korea.

  “I don’t know any chants,” Lexie finally said, her head angled as she studied the doll. “But it seems like we have to do something more than dress him up.”

  Carrie agreed. “Hmm. Maybe a candle would work. Do you have some on hand? Like those ones that come in the jar with the saints painted on the outside?”

  “I have a cupcake-scented one I like to take in the bath with me,” she said doubtfully. “Would that work?”

  “I don’t see why not. I’ll get the lights. We need better atmosphere.”

  If she was being accurate, what they needed was a lot more than better atmosphere—probably something along the lines of hooded robes and communion with the dead—but there was something
about the floral-bedecked house Lexie and Fletcher shared that precluded the dark arts.

  She flipped off the light switches in the living room in hopes of blackening the mood, but since it was barely noon and the piles of snow outside dazzled white, the entire world appeared swathed in diamonds instead. Closing the curtains didn’t help either, what with the sun shifting through the gauzy material in an ethereal way that made it look like God was trying to force his way in.

  Dammit. What did a girl have to do around here to put a curse on an ex-boyfriend?

  To make matters worse, Lexie appeared in the doorway, her hand shielding the flame flickering at the top of an oversized canning jar.

  “Oh, wow,” Carrie couldn’t help saying. “That smells amazing. It’s like a birthday cake exploded in here.”

  “I know, right?” Lexie grinned and set the candle on the ground next to their discarded art supplies and Voodoo Scott, who looked slightly like the Joker with his half-frowny, half-leering face. “Whenever I light it, I’m tempted to eat the wax. I tried dipping my finger in and giving it a quick lick once, but I don’t recommend it. I have a tub of frosting in the fridge in case the urge gets too strong.”

  Of course she did. Lexie was sweet and bubbly. Lexie had glitter glue and emergency frosting and God curtains. That was why her boyfriend quietly worshipped her instead of accusing her of caninicide.

  “Okay.” Carrie took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore the scent of baked goods and focus on her inner villain. Think Maleficent. Think Ursula. Think Kathy Bates from Misery. “In the name of unjustly accused ex-girlfriends everywhere, I invoke a curse on Scott Richardson of Spokane County, rescue dog trainer and superstitious bastard, a jerkface of the highest degree.”

  “Ooh, that’s good,” Lexie said. “Unjustly accused ex-girlfriends everywhere will like that.”

  Carrie waved her off. “Don’t smile at me. I’m trying to build up my righteous anger over here.”

  “Oops. Sorry. Should I remind you what he did?”

  “There’s no need.” It was permanently seared onto her soul. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget how much he hurt me.”

  Lexie looked as if she wanted to squeeze Carrie’s hand again, but she gave a nod instead. “Good. Then may every action inflicted on this doll be echoed ten times in his own body.”

  Carrie liked that one. “May he regret treating me like my sole purpose in life is to ruin his.”

  “May he never look this good in tuxedo pants.”

  “And may he be somewhere safe and comforting today.” Carrie closed her eyes and lingered on that last one, hoping the cupcake candle deities would heed it above all the others.

  Maybe it was foolish of her, but despite everything that had happened between them last night, she understood where the accusation had come from. Letting Mara go had been hard on him—much harder than it had been for him to let Carrie go—and as his fiery explosions attested, he didn’t always handle excessive emotions well. She sometimes thought that selling his dogs was a kind of punishment he liked to inflict on himself, a test to ensure his feelings didn’t get any funny ideas about taking over, but what did she know? Her feelings had funny ideas about everything.

  “Um…” She opened one eye. “I have no idea how to end this. Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub?”

  “Yay, God!” Lexie blew out the candle. The smoky tinge that resulted only added to the cupcake scent wafting in the air, like burnt marshmallows or the crusty top of crème brûlée.

  Carrie’s stomach growled its approval—and a reminder that the bottle of Merlot she’d consumed all on her own last night was the only thing it had digested in over twelve hours. “You say there’s always frosting in your fridge?”

  “Always.”

  “Do we have to go through the pretense of putting it on top of something, or can I just grab a spoon?”

  “A spoon? Are you kidding?” Lexie got to her feet with an energetic leap, pulling Carrie up after her. “In troubled times like these, I can barely be bothered to use my fingers.”

  # # #

  “Sorry I took so long. I stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way. I’ve had the strangest craving for doughnuts all afternoon.”

  Scott balanced a large white box in one hand as he breezed through the familiar front door to Newman’s house. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone through the ritual of using the doorbell or knocking, so long had he considered this place an extension of home.

  Strange that anyone could feel such warm, comforting feelings about a single-wide that had reached its peak sometime back in the eighties, but Scott had always felt safest here. It didn’t matter that he had a comfortable house of his own closer to town, or that Newman himself spent three-fourths of the year living in an enormous log cabin out on Loon Lake. This was Newman’s winter residence, the place he moved as soon as the first snow fell so he could be close at hand for rescues.

  It was also right next door to another trailer Scott could technically call home, though he hadn’t lived there since he was sixteen.

  “That’s strange. You’ve never had much of a sweet tooth.”

  “I know.” Scott tossed the box on the kitchen counter and grabbed a glazed doughnut. “It’s probably the guilt driving me to it. Isn’t this what people normally do? Eat their feelings?”

  Newman also took a doughnut, though he was choosier, poking through until he found one topped with sprinkles. “No. Most people drink them.”

  Scott studied Newman carefully, searching for a hidden meaning, but the man had always been impossible to read. Although he was only in his fifties, he’d spent most of his life in the great outdoors and had the weathered, well-worn appearance to prove it. His signature handlebar mustache further camouflaged his expression, which meant the only option was to take him at his word.

  So Scott did.

  “Just because it’s the popular option doesn’t mean it’s the best one.”

  “No,” Newman agreed calmly. “It’s the worst one.”

  “Especially if you’re a single parent,” Scott said, equally calm. At least, he was calm on the outside. Inside, he felt the churning of helplessness he’d only just managed to subdue a few hours ago. It never stayed away for long.

  “Very true. Kids always suffer the most in those situations.”

  “It’s hard to imagine forgiving someone for that kind of thing.”

  Newman’s piercing blue eyes held his. “Everyone deals with their shit differently, Scott. Don’t judge your dad for being human and fallible. He took care of you the best he could.”

  Scott snorted. “How? By drinking himself into oblivion?”

  “No. By giving you to me when things got too hard.”

  Scott reached for another doughnut. It was easy for Newman to be magnanimous and forgiving. He wasn’t the one who’d spent his adolescence with only half a parent.

  “Your guilt must be pretty bad,” Newman said, indicating the second doughnut. “Is it about Mara, or is it about what you said last night?”

  Both. Everything. All of it.

  “I feel like a complete shit,” he confessed, and plopped onto one of the chairs at the tiny kitchen table. He deserved to feel like a complete shit. What kind of a man accused his ex-girlfriend of killing innocent animals? He’d known before the words escaped his mouth that he’d live to regret them, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  There he’d been, his emotions already sparking wildly, and she was like a soft, curvaceous brick of fuel on the fire. He’d gone up in flames before he even knew what was happening.

  “Don’t worry,” he added. “I’m working up the resolve to call and apologize. Unless you think I should do it in person?”

  “What your dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Newman said. “You were upset. I know you don’t really rank Mara higher than your own family.”

  Scott stared at him, the words taking a few seconds too long to register. He’d been so obsessed with Carrie and Mara that
he’d forgotten what he said to Newman on the phone about the idea of Mara’s death being worse than his father’s. Nor did he feel a level of regret commensurate with his callous remark. Mara had been an innocent bystander, a victim. His dad was just…weak.

  “Actually, I was feeling guilty about something I said to Carrie after I hung up with you,” Scott said. “I don’t know what it is about her, but I can’t seem to control myself whenever she’s around.”

  “I’ve noticed that.”

  Big surprise. A blind man living in a cave would have noticed that.

  “I acted like a jerk.”

  “It happens to the best of us.”

  “I accused her of being responsible for Mara’s death.”

  Newman paused. “Well, shit. That’ll do it.”

  This time, Scott really did laugh out loud, though it turned slightly maniacal at the end. He dropped his head to his hands. “I handled things all wrong. She hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you. She’s angry with you. It’s not the same thing.”

  “It might as well be.”

  “Anger passes in time. Hatred leaves a mark. There’s a difference.” Newman nudged him with his elbow. “You know, you two remind me a lot of your mom and dad.”

  Instinct reared as a sharp recoil in Scott’s gut, and he almost clapped his hands over his ears to drown out the sound of Newman’s voice. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to have this conversation. There was no use in confirming what he already knew.

  “Barry was the same way.” Apparently, Newman wasn’t picking up on the subtext. “God, he loved your mom. More than anything in the world, like she was oxygen, like she was everything.”

  Scott grunted. Newman ignored him.

  “And she loved him back just as much, that was the thing. They couldn’t keep it inside. Happiness, anger, resentment, excitement—all of it was right there, so close everyone in the room could almost taste it.”

  “I know.” Scott spoke coldly, hoping to shut him down. “I was there.”

  “I was always so jealous of them. Everyone was. Their wedding had to be the worst party I’ve ever been to—warm beer, potato salad that poisoned half the guests, rain all over everything—but no one would have changed a thing. Especially the two of them. The world could have been ending around them, but they were so wrapped up in one another, I doubt they would have noticed.”