by Brent, Cora
I smiled. “She does have a lot of chickens.”
“You want me to drive you over there?” Gemma asked.
“Oh no. I can walk over. It’s not far.”
Syler decided to offer his unsolicited opinion. “It’s got to be over two miles. That’s far for you.”
“I can walk two miles.”
“You could barely walk down the stairs.”
“Luckily there are no more stairs between here and Annika’s house.”
Syler made a big deal out of sighing and getting to his feet. “I can give you a ride, Katrina.”
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I’ll walk. I could actually use the exercise.”
“Mommy’s weather app says it’s fourteen degrees outside,” Chloe informed me. “You could fall into a snow drift. You could die.”
“Please don’t die, Aunt Katty,” begged Gretel.
“I won’t die,” I promised her.
“Hypothermia takes very little time to set in,” Chloe added.
“I won’t get hypothermia either.”
“You won’t know you’re getting it until you’re almost dead and then it’s too late.”
“Tell you what,” Syler said, smacking his hands together. “I will insist on driving Aunt Katty so she will be safe.”
Cheering erupted.
“Yay, Uncle Syler!”
“Uncle Syler is awesome!”
“I swear I’ll be safe if I walk,” I insisted, flailing my arms in the air for emphasis. It didn’t matter. No one was listening to me anymore.
“Thanks for driving her, Sy,” Gemma said, warmly smiling at the new family hero, the man who saved Katrina from certain snowy death.
It wasn’t a good moment to stamp my feet and whine that I didn’t need Syler McKnight to do me any favors. I could recognize defeat.
Syler was already pulling a jacket over his ever-present flannel. “Let’s go,” he said. “Grab a coat. The heat doesn’t work in my car.”
I was unlikely to freeze in the five minutes it would take to travel by car from Point A to Point B and almost refused to bundle up, just to be stubborn. But then Gemma darted over to the entryway closet and withdrew her own green jacket.
“It’s made of duck down,” she said, draping it over my shoulders with care. “It’ll keep you warm.”
“Thanks,” I said, and then waddled to the door, adrift in voluminous duck down.
A moment later I was silently grateful to the inventor of duck down jackets because the polar vortex that greeted me outside Gemma’s warm house was downright frightful. The temperature must have dropped overnight, compacting the snow into patches of treacherous ice. The soles of my boots were not well suited to this terrain and I slid twice before a firm hand seized my elbow.
“Easy,” rumbled a deep voice, followed by a thick chuckle. It wasn’t fair that smug dickheads were allowed to keep powerfully macho voices on top of devastating good looks. They had too much of an advantage.
“I got it,” I said, intending to wrench away from Syler’s grip but afraid that the momentum would send me flying across the circular driveway. A rather sorry looking excuse for mechanized transportation was hunched beneath a pile of snow nearby. “Is that your car?”
“My Jag’s in the shop,” he said. “Afraid someone’s going to see you?”
“The thought didn’t even occur to me.”
“On the other hand, it would be a perfect foil against the paparazzi.”
“There’s no paparazzi, Syler. At least none who intend to follow me.”
“Their loss,” he said but like ninety percent of the words that emerged from his mouth, the comment was laced with mockery.
He courteously opened the passenger door for me and waited until I was tucked inside before closing it. An unwanted flutter stirred in my belly as I watched him circle around to the driver’s side. He hadn’t shaved in at least a couple of days and a stupid idea was running through my head. His rough, unshaven jaw. My tender thighs. What would it feel like if the two happened to meet?
“Damn good,” I muttered and quivered beneath layers of duck down.
Syler closed the driver’s door and gave me an odd look. “What did you say?”
“Uh, drive good.”
Syler grunted and started the ignition.
I searched for a topic that had nothing to do with sexual intercourse or any of its diverse cousins.
“Are you staying until Christmas?” I asked as he piloted the car out of the driveway.
“Looks like it,” he said and gave me a sidelong glance. “How about you?”
I shrugged. “That’s what I was thinking. I’d like to stick around for Gem and the kids. And anyway, my work plans were somewhat derailed.”
“Nobody’s waiting on your return to the city?” he asked in a way that left me wondering if he was just curious or if he was making fun of me and my solitary life.
“No. Is anyone waiting for you down in, where are you living again?”
“Philly for now. And my extensive social circle is just going to have to endure my absence until New Year’s.”
I tried to picture Syler at the center of a vibrant social circle. I couldn’t. Syler was one of those people who didn’t really need other people except as objects with entertainment value. In high school he was content to judge everyone from a distance while trading clever observations with one or two like-minded jerks.
“How come you’re not staying with your mother?” he asked, pausing at a stop sign. I didn’t bother to ask him if he knew where the house was. Everyone in town knew where Annika lived.
“It’s complicated. Why, do you want your room back after all?”
“I already told you it’s not my room. I’ll stay on the first floor. You know, Ryland’s old room.”
My face began to hurt from trying to maintain a neutral expression. “That was Ryland’s room? I’d forgotten.”
“It sure was. I have to admit that I’m surprised you don’t remember that, Katrina.”
“Must be because I never had a memorable experience in there.”
He snorted over the lie. “You suck at playing it cool.”
“Oh yeah? Well you suck at…” My voice trailed off into nothing and I looked out the window.
He waited for a few seconds. “Go on,” he prodded. “Enlighten me some more about all the exciting ways I know how to suck.”
“Stop it, Syler. We’re adults.”
“Of course we are. By the way, do you talk to Ryland often?”
My face may actually crack if I had to keep this up. Syler was correct. I sucked at playing it cool. “No. I haven’t spoken to Ryland in years.”
There was a time when I suffered from a mildly obsessive infatuation with Ryland McKnight. It’s not exactly a rare condition to covet the older brother of one’s best friend. I was pretty sure there was an entire romance novel subgenre devoted to such things. I could probably write a book entitled My Best Friend’s Older Brother and it would be grabbed by the legions. It sure as hell sounded hot to me.
Plus, Ryland McKnight was superior to most guys. He was particularly superior to the kind of mouth-breathing knuckleheads that populated Maple Springs High. He was drop dead gorgeous and strong as a bear and the top of my head hardly reached his shoulder. And he was smart. Holy cow, was he smart. He’d inherited the science whiz genes from his folks and breezed through college by age eighteen. I hadn’t thought about Ryland in a romantic way for years but leave it to Syler to dwell on the fact that I used to make an ass out of myself swooning over his brother.
“I wonder if he’ll decide to drop in for Christmas too,” Syler mused and now he was really messing with me because Ryland was busy saving the world or whatever high profile scientists did. He rarely found the time to visit upstate New York. “Think of it, Katrina. All of us hanging out together, reminiscing about old times.”
“Can I kiss you?”
I coughed. It was a fake cough, a tool to chase
away the rising tension inside the confines of Syler’s car. There’d been plenty of other occasions when we had happened to be visiting Maple Springs at the same time. Usually he was easier to avoid.
We were both here for the same reason. To help Gemma and cheer up the kids. We wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors by clashing at every turn. Syler was a grown man, not the same contemptuous little punk who celebrated turmoil. He could be reasoned with. Presumably.
Syler braked to a stop in front of the grey stone house that looked like a big box with windows. My mother’s house predated most buildings in town and was kind of awkwardly positioned on its own cul de sac that branched off the northern end of Union Avenue. An iron fence circled the four acre property and I couldn’t see much beyond the house besides a large lump that was likely the snow-covered chicken coop.
“Do you need me to push you out?” Syler asked.
“No, I don’t need you to push me out. Why would you say that?”
“Because right now you look as eager to walk up to your mother’s front door as you were to share you coffee with me this morning.”
“I said I was sorry about the stupid coffee.”
“Actually, you didn’t. The words, ‘I’m sorry for trying to assault you with my hot coffee’ did not leave your lips. I was paying real close attention.”
“To what, my lips?”
“Sure.”
“Syler.” It was a chore to unclench my jaw. “We’re unavoidably going to be seeing each other a lot.”
He was interested. “And you want to see a lot of each other while we’re seeing each other a lot?”
“Huh? No!”
“Because it’s not really a good time to take my shirt off for you again. Your mother might be watching. She might draw indecent conclusions.”
I resisted the urge to clamp both my hands over his mouth to get him to stop talking.
“Syler.” I tried again, adding a smile. “There’s no good reason why we have to be at odds, is there?”
“No good reason at all,” he agreed.
And then he leaned in.
I wondered if he intended to try and kiss me.
I wondered if I would object if he did.
But Syler didn’t touch me after all.
After flashing a twisted grin he flicked the door handle and shoved the door open. The only physical contact between us ended up being the way his jacket sleeve grazed my duck down.
“What time should I pick you up?” he asked when he’d returned to his own bucket seat behind the wheel.
“I appreciate the ride but you really don’t have to come back to pick me up.”
“It’s supposed to snow again later.”
“If that’s the case I’ll get someone to drive me.”
“Who? Your mother doesn’t drive from what I remember.”
“I’ll manage. I’ll walk. It’s not your problem.”
“It will be if I allow Aunt Katty to get eaten by a snow drift. Wouldn’t exactly make me uncle of the year.”
“Then I’ll call you when I’m ready,” I said. “I swear.”
Never mind that I didn’t have his number. This phase of our conversation was over. I dove out of the open car door, hurriedly shut it behind me and began slip sliding over the flagstone walkway.
Years ago there were wrought iron entrance gates that closed the property off but Annika said they made her feel imprisoned. And while she hated reporters and photographers she had no problem with the casual spectators who drove by hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the most famed supermodels of all time.
Nerves overcame me when I reached the red double doors. What kind of girl got nervous about seeing her own mother? I loved Annika. I just wished we had more to say to one another.
Maybe I should have asked Syler to stick around. He always had something to say. Sarcastic, irritating somethings, but those were slightly better than awkward silence.
I looked over my shoulder to find that he’d already driven quietly away.
I wished Syler and I could figure out how to be civil to each other, at least in the presence of others.
I wished to be untroubled by further images of his bare chest and scruffy jaw.
I wished my mind would quit veering in weird sex directions that always led straight to a guy I couldn’t stand.
Gathering my courage, I rapped on the door using the knocker on the right. I heard nothing for a few seconds and wondered if I should have considered the fact that Annika might not be home. She didn’t travel, not anymore. She didn’t drive. And she hated leaving her animals for more than two hours at a time. It seemed only natural that she should be home on a snowy morning.
Then I heard the squawk of a bird and saw the doorknob twist. Two seconds later I was looking at a naked man. Not quite naked. He wore a pair of black bikini underwear from which his pubic hair haphazardly escaped.
What the hell was going on here in Maple Springs?
I managed to get through most days in New York City without nearly naked men greeting me at every turn. But I come up here and they’re just all over the place. Although this new specimen couldn’t hold a candle to Syler. This one looked like he slept in a coffin and wasn’t strong enough to open a pickle jar.
He tilted his head and observed me with vacant hazel eyes. “I know you,” he said. “I look at your picture when I’m falling asleep.”
For a moment I had nothing to say. The concept was disconcerting.
“Um, I’m looking for my mother,” I finally managed to communicate. “Is Annika here?”
“Katrina? Is that really you?”
Her voice never changed. No matter how many years passed it remained the embodiment of breathless youth.
A chicken wandered into my view and inspected me. A goat followed.
And finally, there stood Annika.
“Hi, Mom.” I smiled and motioned for the underwear doorman to stand aside so I could hug my mother.
6
When Vultures Call
Syler
I backed all the way down the driveway once Katrina was out of the car but I stuck around just out of sight until I was sure the door was being answered. It was as cold as a snowman’s nut sac out here and the wind blew drifting snow in every direction. Katrina would have been crazy to go wandering around in this on foot.
On the short drive back to Gemma’s house I was feeling all kinds of smug. It was still there, this electric attraction between us. Katrina was having a tough time denying reality. I laughed out loud when I remembered the shade of crimson that colored her cheeks when I mentioned Ryland’s old room. She could barely manage to choke out a response.
She remembered everything. She probably thought about it, daydreamed about it, used the memory to get herself off while tossing and turning at night.
Somehow I was going to provoke her into admitting the truth.
When I reached the old house I found Drew outside trying his best to chop up some wood for the fireplace. My first instinct was to send him back into the warmth and take care of the chore myself but then I thought better of it. He was at that uncertain age when he was still a kid but trying to be a man. Russell’s abandonment probably only amplified those feelings.
“You mind if I help out?” I asked, rubbing my hands together to keep the circulation going. “There’s no gym around and my old ass needs the exercise.”
The kid nodded and handed over the ax. We took turns splicing the oak logs for easier burning in the fireplace. My bare hands were on the verge of going numb when I persuaded Drew to call it quits and warm up indoors for a little while.
“Heads up,” Drew said before we opened the back door. “Mrs. Coleman’s here to see Mom.”
Deanna Coleman used to be Deanna Barnes and she’d occupied a space on Gemma’s frenemy list since high school. I was not proud of the fact that I’d messed around with her once. It was after a football game when everyone was jacked up and looking for an available outlet. I was horny. S
he was eager. Not my finest hour. It was just that one time because she had a boyfriend and because her personality sucked.
That was the unfortunate thing about small town life. There was always a high likelihood of running into someone you’d once screwed in a gas station bathroom.
“Then we probably ought to rescue her,” I grumbled to my nephew, wishing I could hide instead. Odds were stacked that Deanna had only come around today to gloat over Gemma’s misfortune.
He laughed and tapped the snow off his boots.
Drew was the biological son of Russell’s cousin, orphaned when a wrong way driver wiped out his parents’ minivan while they were on an anniversary trip in the Catskills. No one else in his mother’s family felt up to the task of raising him and what little family Drew’s father had lived all the way down in Ecuador. At the time, Gemma was about to give birth to Chloe but she didn’t hesitate to open her arms and her heart. Drew was as much her child as Chloe and Evan and Gretel.
We found Gemma seated at the dining room table with nothing but a cup of coffee to defend her while Deanna Barnes Coleman ranted about subjects that were none of her business. Drew hastily made himself scarce but I sidled over to the old fashioned wood burning fireplace and started warming my hands.
“People just can’t stop talking about it,” Deanna said. “I went to the post office this morning to mail a package to my sister in Buffalo and Kim Caputo practically jumped on me to find out what I knew. Her brother’s on the school board, you know, and this is a really inconvenient time to lose a high school principal.”
“It’s kind of an inconvenient time to lose a husband too,” Gemma said with a straight face but Deanna was one of those people with zero self awareness so she didn’t even blink. But she did notice my arrival.
“Oh hey, Syler,” she said as she shifted her body and offered a pretty smile while fluffing her blonde hair. “I was just saying that it’s so amazing of you to come home and help out your big sister. And this time I’m not letting you leave town until we find the time to catch up. I want to hear everything about what you’re up to these days. How about lunch one day next week? You pick the time and place.”