by T. F. Walsh
“Wonderful, yes, I know.” Her fine, dark eyes were a little dull, the normally aggressive curls drooping slightly.
She must be tired. While he had napped, she had put her entire self into whipping up this miracle. “Why don’t you go to bed? I can clean up.”
She gave him an odd look. “There’s only one bedroom.”
“Yes.” He spooned up the rest of the cobbler and ate it in two bites.
“There’s only one bed.”
Some remnants of cobbler remained in the pan. He pulled the pan in front of him and scraped until he’d gotten it all, then licked the spoon clean. He sat back with a satisfied sigh. “So you take the bed. I’ll be fine on the chair.”
“That’s hardly equal, Kirk.”
At that, his attention finally left his plate to focus on her. He wondered when he’d sunk back from Everett into Kirk. “I don’t mind.”
“I do.” She rose to her feet. “I demand equality here.”
Damn, what was wrong now? She was as prickly as second day whiskers. “Fuck equality.” Everett tossed the spoon into the empty pan. It hit with a sharp clang. “You’re tired. Take the bed.”
“Don’t swear.” Her eyes grew wide and suspiciously bright, and her lip started quivering.
Everett was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, Edie. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Edie?”
Strange liquid filled her fine dark eyes. His fireball was collapsing.
He jumped to his feet to gather her into his arms. Surprisingly, she wasn’t the mountain he thought her, simply a woman, and a small one at that. He hugged her close. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”
“Oh, Everett, I’m sorry.” Dampness spread onto his chest, and her voice was a little thick. “I didn’t really think we’d be here all night. I didn’t think we could really be stranded. I guess I’m a little scared.”
“Shh. It’s okay.” He rocked her gently. Kissed her head. Her hair was soft and sweet-smelling. “Don’t cry.”
She snapped away, wiping angrily at her eyes. “I’m not crying.” Red rims belied her words. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, whatever the circumstances.”
“Of course you are.” His voice came out softer than he meant. Less like an executive or even a colleague. More like a friend . . . or a lover. Someone who deserved to care. His face heated.
She clutched her elbows, reddening too. “I’ll take the chair.”
Everett sighed. This was one of those times that, even if he won, he’d lose. “Just for tonight. And I’ll get some sheets for the couch. You’ll get stiff in the chair.”
Someday they’d compromise.
Compromise . . . like they’d both get the bed.
He didn’t sleep well that night.
Chapter Six
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Friendship
Thanks for volunteering your ear. You’re always there for me, and I want you to know I appreciate that. You said that sometimes it feels like you’ve known someone your whole life? I feel that way about you. As if I can tell you anything, and you’ll still like me. I guess I’m a pretty sad person that an email address on the Internet can be one of my best friends.
But I have to tell someone. So here goes.
I have an enemy at work. He’s trying to get rid of me. Or she. I don’t know who it is, so I can’t trust anyone here.
I can trust you though, right?
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. I feel better already. You’re a great friend, ED. The best.
—Prez
The cat growled at her. Edie pushed it away, her hand meeting empty air.
She came awake as her stomach growled again.
“Good morning.” Everett sat in the living room chair, futzing with some rope. The past day came back, the door, the car ride, the bath, Everett’s chest . . .
Kirk, not Everett. She needed the distance. Better yet, Mr. Kirk. Mr. President Kirk. “Morning.” Her stomach growled again, nearly rip-sawing her esophagus. Stupid stomach, stupid morning, stupid president. Stupid snow. Stupid stuck car . . . a rich smell burned her nostrils. “Coffee?”
“I poured you a cup. It’s beside you on the table.”
He’d made coffee. Dear Kirk. Edie located the life-giving cup by feel. Dear Everett. She brought it to her nose—and seared her lungs. “What’s in this?”
“Ground beans and a little water. The grinder was broken so I had to smash the beans with a hammer. No percolator either. I boiled it in a pan. It’s hot, though. It’ll wake you up.”
“It’ll peel the lining off my eyelids.” Dutifully, Edie braved a gulp. It shaved off a third of her tongue. “Yeow.”
“Good, hmm?” Everett dangled his work in front of him. It looked like a small noose.
“Good like a machete,” Edie croaked. “What’s that?”
“Animal snare. Not much food left so unless you’re into bark and grubs, we’ll have to catch something to eat.”
“You’re Tarzan now?”
“Sure.” He beat his chest and yodeled.
“Yikes. Never do that again.” Edie wrestled her way off the couch. She wondered if he really expected to catch anything with that wimpy snare. Hopefully not, because she really didn’t want to eat the Easter Bunny or Bambi. “If you cook like you make coffee, I’d better do breakfast.”
“Good luck. There isn’t much left.”
She paused. “I thought we’d be on our way home by now.” She hurried into the kitchen to yank out frying pan and mixing bowl.
“Yes, you mentioned that last night.” Everett’s voice was even, but carefully so, as if he were working to keep understanding and sympathy out of it. Which only made it worse.
The little bit of flour left made a thin pancake batter. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Edie, the last thing in the world I’d do is pity you.” He set his noose on the table. “Why don’t you harangue me about the company’s new coding standards?”
“I never harangue. But since you brought it up . . . ” She poured batter. “Those ‘standards’ are absurd. They’ll make the programmers unhappy. Happy employees produce more. Set the table, will you?”
He rose, lips twitching. He was, she realized, trying not to smile. Angry birds on a pogo stick, had he been baiting her?
“Edie, not everyone thinks like you do. If Bethany had to work under you for fifteen minutes she’d be miserable.”
Edie slapped another pan onto a burner with more noise than necessary, added sugar and water and stirred vigorously over a high flame. “I don’t see Ms. B. complaining when she has to work ‘under’ you.”
“Ha-ha.” He set out plates and forks. “All I’m saying is, not everything in life is black and white. Those cooked fast. Mine?” He smiled coaxingly.
Trolls take that hopeful little dimple. She slid the cakes onto his plate. She’d barely poured the next two when he raised the plate, empty again. “More?”
She wanted to keep up the wall of self-righteousness but he looked so cute. She not only flipped the next two cakes onto his plate, she splashed some hot, clear syrup from the other pan over them.
He cut a big square of double-decker pancake, blew on it, and put it into this mouth. His eyes closed as he chewed appreciatively.
At least this time he was chewing. Some deep part of her was strangely satisfied seeing him enjoy her cooking.
A deep, insane part. “It comes down to money, Everett. Workers are paid low wages and risk getting fired, while management walks away with their golden parachutes and inviolate bonuses.”
His eyes opened. “Do you have a specific example or are you just flinging random accusations?” He held out his empty plate.
The ultimate male, handsome, arrogant, and boyishly appealing. All men should be drug out into the street and shot. Not really but it was annoying. And irresistible. She slid the next pair of cakes onto his plate. “Remember the wage cuts l
ast year?” She scraped the last of the batter into the pan.
“Ten percent—but across the board. That’s fair.”
“Not really. What pared fat for the execs cut clerical to the bone. Then clerical wages were frozen so the people who needed it most never got it back.” She flipped the cakes.
Everett swallowed and cast a longing look at the cakes in the pan. “They were eventually unfrozen.”
“Stop with the puppy eyes.” Edie sighed and slipped one pancake onto his plate. “Problem was, you executives had a fifteen percent raise three months before the ten percent cut. Giving you an overall raise.”
He stiffened. “We can’t help when the review structure places our raises.”
Edie sat opposite Everett with her single pancake. “That sounds like Junior.”
“Don’t call him Junior. Is that all you’re eating?”
“He’s son of the chairman, isn’t he?” Edie dribbled the teaspoon of syrup left onto her pancake. “This is all that’s left. You ate the rest.”
Everett dropped his fork with a clatter, his face going pale. “Edie, you should have said something. I’d never allow you to starve—”
“We’re a long way from starving, Everett.” She made short work of the cake. “And really, I’m having too much fun arguing with you.”
“Fun?” The color washed back into his face and the dimple made a brief appearance. “Me too. And between us, I agree with your views on Junior.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Sarcasm again?” Everett rose to take his dishes to the sink. “Where’d you pick up your views, Uncle Jake?” He stoppered the sink and poured hot water from the kettle in.
“My grandparents, mostly. But my management ideas?” She shrugged. “That’s Philip.”
Everett turned from squirting dish soap. “Is Philip your dad?”
“Like a father. Director of MIS at my first job. Big into office politics, workers’ rights.”
“Sounds like a great guy.” Everett’s tone was strangely sour as he ran cold water into the sink.
Edie shook her head, bringing her dishes to the sink. “He has his faults.”
“Oh?” Everett raised a brow, a nonverbal “tell me more.” Maybe he was actually trying to understand her. Like a friend.
A man as smart and powerful as Everett Kirk, caring enough to understand her? Wow. Like Philip. But this time she was without the misconception that it would last.
“Remember, you asked. A woman at my first job was fired for getting pregnant.”
Everett cranked off the water. “Just for getting pregnant?” His expression was dark with outrage.
“By one of the company execs. The father wanted it to remain secret and she had the bad manners to threaten him with telling.” Edie watched Everett’s face. Now his indignity would turn against the unfortunate Aurora.
“She had the guts to tell? Good for her.” He started washing. “They caught the guy?”
She stared at him. No alien burst from his chest. “Well, no. She was hustled out before she could say a word. No one heard from her again, so I suppose they did something to keep her from talking.”
“That’s illegal.” Everett scrubbed the plate so hard it nearly broke. “I’ve seen it happen though. No one does a thing.”
“I did.”
His silver-blue eyes glinted. “I just bet you did. Marched into your supervisor’s office, clue bat swinging?” He rinsed the plate and slid it into the strainer.
“Sort of, except it was the company president and I wasn’t nearly so subtle. I said I’d report him.”
“Good for you.”
“Bad for me.” She snatched up a drying towel, plucked up the plate and scoured it dry. “I didn’t have any real plans for who to report him to. And . . . I kind of called him names, which got me fired too. I didn’t do anyone any real good. It was . . . I was . . . ” She hugged the plate to her chest. “It was dumb.”
“Edie, you stood up for what you believed was right. That’s good in my book.” He gave her a quizzical look. “Someone told you that, didn’t they? That it was dumb.”
How did he know? “Well . . . Yes.”
“That Philip?”
The sheer anger in Everett’s voice startled her. Anger, on her behalf? “Philip would have played it smarter.” She set the plate on the table and started on a plastic tumbler. “He’d have worked behind the scenes and made a real difference.”
“That’s not necessarily smarter. This Philip sounds good in theory but squeamish doing the real work. At least you had the guts to act.”
She looked into Everett’s eyes. The anger had melted into something warm, something like . . . admiration? She nearly fell into their glowing depths. “Everett . . . ”
His eyes dropped to her lips, darkened.
She leaned toward him.
His head bent.
Her eyes closed and . . . The tumbler slipped from her hands, hitting the floor with a sharp crack. Her eyes flew open.
He jerked straight, cheeks ruddy. “Well. Those snares won’t lay themselves.” He tossed the washrag, swept on his coat and scarf, and left.
The cabin was quiet. Edie picked up the tumbler and finished drying the dishes.
He said she hadn’t been stupid. How amazing. He told her she had guts. Extraordinary.
When the kitchen was in order, she sat in the front room and picked up a magazine, but didn’t read it. The quiet became empty instead of peaceful. Ten o’clock passed, eleven. Noon. Reluctantly, Edie admitted she missed Everett.
Missing the corporate president. Now that was really stupid.
So she went outside to chop wood.
Chapter Seven
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Friendship
Dear Prez,
I’m honored that you feel that way about me. I care about the people I work with, but can’t really bare my soul either, so I understand how it feels not to be able to talk over important things.
How terrible, to be forced out of your job! Worse if you don’t know who’s doing it. Is there anyone you suspect?
—ED
Late that afternoon Everett returned. His ponytail was crusted with ice and his cheeks were burnt red. He never looked so handsome to Edie.
“Where have you been all this time? Where did you go? How long does it take to lay out a few pieces of rope?” She fought to keep her voice level. Whack her with a laptop if he guessed that she’d missed him.
She also kept her throbbing leg carefully out of his sight.
“It takes,” he pulled his stiff coat cuff back with difficulty to look at his watch, “about six hours.”
Forgetting herself, she limped forward. “Why so long?”
Luckily he was turned, shedding his frozen outer garments, and didn’t see. “I couldn’t lay them too near the cabin. And I wanted to make sure there’d be game to trap. Mostly I was hunting spoor.”
“You were looking for animal tracks? Did you find any?”
“After tramping for three hours, yes.” He shot her a quick grin. “Seemed like I crossed the whole state. Really only a few miles but the snow slowed me.”
“At least it’s stopped.” That grin blew her circuits. She forgot she was hiding her leg and limped to a kitchen chair.
In two strides, Everett was at her side. “What the hell did you do to yourself?”
She fell into the chair, surprised at his vehemence, and then crossed her leg to cover the rusty stain on her thigh. “Please don’t swear.”
“What. Did. You. Do.”
Was that concern blazing in his eyes? “Nothing. Hardly anything. Really, Everett.”
“‘Nothing’ does not make you limp. Take off your pants.” He spun from her to stride to the sink.
“Take off my . . . ? You may be my boss, Everett, but that doesn’t allow you every liberty.”
He jerked on the water and briskly washed his hand
s. “Edith Ellen Rowan, if you can tell me with a straight face that red lake on your jeans is not blood, then fine. If, however, for any reason I am not convinced—” He glared at her. “I will personally cut you out of them. Do I make myself clear?”
“Really, Everett, there’s no need to become alarmed—”
“Take off the damned pants!”
Red-faced, Edie slipped out of her jeans. Nearly had a seizure when she saw what Freudian imp had dressed her this morning. Bend her over and whack her repeatedly with that laptop—red silk bikini panties?
Everett turned off the tap with his wrist. He was red-faced too, but the color on his high cheekbones might still be from the cold outside. Or the cold inside. The fire had burned out and the room’s temperature had dropped.
He turned from the sink. Saw her. His eyes blazed with sudden ferocious heat.
She might have whimpered. He might have throttled a gut-deep groan.
He shook his head. Closing his eyes, he inhaled a bushel of air. Released it slowly.
When he opened his eyes, the heat was banked. With a rueful smile he came to kneel next to her and his big body radiated all the fierce heat on her naked skin that he’d throttled from his eyes. She squirmed on the chair.
His fingers were cool and gentle examining her, tenderly removing the half-dozen small sticky bandages she’d thrown on in an attempt at self-ministration. She forced herself to relax, not to react to his silky smooth touch on her thigh, his breath warming her flesh . . . Her red panties dampened. She clamped her thighs tight.
“How did you get this?” he asked softly.
The panties? No, he meant the wound. “We ran out of firewood. So I found an old ax around back—”
“I think I see where this is leading. No wonder the gash is so big. I’m surprised it didn’t bleed more.”
She’d have to hide the towel.
“Let’s get you clean.” He scooped her up.
Her stomach swooped as suddenly, easily, she was six feet off the ground. Her arms wrapped tight around his neck. “I can walk, you know.” His silky hair feathered under her arm. Cool air brushed her panties. If he could smell her arousal like she could . . . She wanted to hide.