by Norah Wilson
“You’re a pretty good soul yourself, Faye.”
Chapter 30
TITUS SHIFTED in his chair, then took another sip of strong, black coffee. A Thanksgiving dinner had never lasted so long. All he really wanted was to be in the quiet, dark confines of his truck cab with Ocean. He knew he shouldn’t want it, knew that it wasn’t fair to Ocean to drag this out, but he couldn’t help it.
The meal itself had been surprisingly good. It hadn’t hurt that Faye had made herself at home in the kitchen the moment she arrived, taking over gravy production. Ocean had put a tossed salad together, slipping the occasional piece of cheese to an adoring Axl. Even Scott had made himself useful by carving the turkey—a skill he said he’d picked up when a desperate diner owner in the Nunavut community of Iqaluit persuaded him to fill in for a sick short order cook for a few days. Arden dug out cranberry sauce, pickled beets, and Lady Ashburnham pickles, and filled the condiment dishes. Between the two Siliker women, they drained the potatoes and fiddleheads, mashed the squash and turnip, and put them all in serving dishes. The dressing was forgotten in the oven a little long, but Faye declared a crispy top was perfect. There’d been nothing for Titus to do but watch.
The meal, while pretty damned good, was bittersweet. Certainly because it was the last holiday meal that would ever be served in the Standish homestead. But also because Ember wasn’t there. His sister’s presence was missed.
Ocean had taken him aside when she and Faye had arrived, before entering the fray in the kitchen. “Any word from Ember?”
“A few text messages.” God, she was gorgeous. For a woman who’d worked like a demon in the orchard this afternoon, she looked amazingly fresh. “It’s very frustrating.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
“She’s not answering.” He was conscious of the way she searched his face as he answered. “She just texts me back to say she needs space and to stop bugging her. Scott’s tried too, and has been getting the same treatment.”
“Does she know about the sale of the farm yet?”
“Not from me, nor Scott either. We talked about it and felt she should hear it in person. Dad agreed. But time’s running out, and she won’t answer the damned phone.”
“Maybe she’s already heard it from Jace,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “Doubt it. If he’d let the cat out of the bag, she’d be here right now, tearing strips off of Dad for selling it, and me for pushing him to it. Hell, she’d probably ream Scott out too, for not telling her.”
Titus was also pretty sure the tenor of her texts would be a lot different. For the first while, all he could get out of her was Still with patient. She’d finally dropped that line when Titus had texted back that they all knew she was with Jace and to cut the crap. But even after that, her texts were still maddeningly short, leaving no room to read between the lines.
Or maybe too much room.
When the table was finally laden, they’d taken their seats. Faye had asked the blessing, much as his mother used to. His dad proposed a toast to Ember, and another to good friends and neighbors. No one mentioned that it would be the last holiday they’d ever celebrate together in that room—that house—but he knew they were all as conscious of it as he was.
When everyone was done, the dishes were cleared away and the coffee and tea were poured. Then the pie was brought forward. It was, in a word, awful. Well, the apple filling was fine, but the no-fail pie crust? A spectacular fail.
“It’s just as well, Arden,” Faye declared. “No one needs all those trans fats anyway,” Then she scraped the filling out of her pie and ate it with great gusto. Laughing, the rest of them had followed suit. Scott loaded a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of his.
Afterward, his dad and Faye tackled dish duty while Ocean and Titus cleared the table. Scott announced that he was going into town to visit the Duchess. The diner was closed for the holiday, and Scott was convinced she would be sitting down to a peanut butter sandwich and a Diet Coke. The least he could do was take her a decent Thanksgiving meal. Or so he said. Titus knew better. Scott and the old lady were thick as thieves. They’d toss back a couple of beers and talk half the night. Still, he and Ocean helped put a care package together for her as they squared away the leftovers. They did not include a piece of pie.
Less than five minutes after Scott left, Titus and Ocean were shooed out of the kitchen by their respective parents.
“Enjoy the research,” Faye called after them.
“Drive carefully,” Arden added.
Titus did drive carefully, keeping his speed well below the limit. Deer were always a hazard, but the real worry at night was moose, especially in this highly wooded, lake-dotted part of the province. The gangly beasts were so tall and dark and blended into the road so well, you could be on one before you spotted it. And then it would be on you. Even with the Super Heavy Duty, a collision with a moose could be catastrophic.
“Thank you for doing this, Titus. I know you must be tired.”
“I’m fine.” He held his extra-large Tim Hortons coffee aloft. “The caffeine is loading already.”
They’d stopped at the tiny Tim Hortons coffee shop on the highway to grab hot beverages. She’d wanted to buy Timbits, too, but he’d vetoed the order. One didn’t settle for commercial donuts when one had a supply of Mrs. Budaker’s gingersnaps.
“To not sleeping.” Ocean held up her own ginormous tea in a salute. “Possibly ever again.”
He laughed.
She probably didn’t need the caffeine. She’d been practically bouncing out of her seat from the moment they’d left the highway twelve minutes ago and turned down Polk Road. They’d traveled that road right out of Harkness, past the turnoff for the tiny neighboring village of Bitterman. The small, reflective sign marking the T intersection was the only flash of light they saw. No houses dotted the roadside. There was nothing but unbroken forest. This really was back country.
“Hey, gimme some of those cookies.”
He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved exactly two of them and handed them over.
“Two? That’s all I’m getting? After foregoing Timbits?”
“For now,” he said. “They have to do me until next Monday, you know.”
She laughed. “That home delivery is really something. And on a holiday, too.”
Mrs. Budaker had arrived with those thank-you cookies late in the afternoon. Usually, she lingered to chat for an interminable ten or fifteen minutes. He always dutifully asked about how her dog was doing, and she inquired about the farm, about Arden, about any S&R activity that might have gone on, or whether he’d been fishing. But today when she’d rolled in with her little green and white Smart car, he’d been standing in the driveway with Ocean. They had just called it a day and were downing glasses of cold water before Ocean headed home to shower, change, and pick up her mother. But with just a curt “Here you go,” Mrs. B had thrust the cookies into his hand and made a quick exit.
“Mrs. B is sooo crushing on you.” Ocean punctuated that startling announcement with a dramatic, audible bite of gingersnap.
“What? She’s gotta have at least...I don’t know...thirty years on me.”
“Hey, the heart wants what it wants…Tight Ass.”
Titus mock-growled, drawing a laugh out of Ocean.
He cast her a sideways glance before returning his gaze to the road. She was always beautiful, but never more so than when she laughed. He couldn’t even truly begrudge her use of that damned nickname. Not when it transformed her face like this.
“I’m going to skin Scott alive for blabbing about that.”
“Oh, like I never heard it before he used it at dinner. What was it he said? Pass the mashed potatoes, please, Tight Ass.” She laughed. “At least he said please.”
“Funny. Real funny.” And it wasn’t like Titus could exactly rib him back with a “No problem, Scrote.” Not in front of the ladies. Definitely not with Arden shooting him that sharply
cautioning look.
“Would you prefer Titus the Titan?” Ocean asked. “That’s what the girls always called you.”
He grinned and flicked her a look. “Yeah?”
“Well, some of us more than others.”
Still smiling, he turned his full attention back to the road. Just in time to see a deer bound across it.
“Deer!” Ocean cried.
He was already braking. It was still some distance away, but he slowed the truck to a crawl. Where there was one deer, there were usually several.
“See anything in that ditch?” he asked.
She leaned forward, searching ahead. “There!”
He’d spotted them too. Three more deer standing in the brush in the deep ditch, trying to decide if they were going to cross or not. One clambered up onto the roadway and the others followed. They stood there for a moment, looking into his headlights, then bounded across the road to join the other one.
“See any more?”
“No.”
Neither did he, but he still proceeded cautiously until he was past the crossing point.
As he drove, he felt her gaze on his profile, but kept his eyes on the road.
“The Lovecraft sisters would have faced these same wildlife hazards, wouldn’t they?” she asked after a moment had passed.
“Yep. And with much less powerful headlights than we have today. Deer, moose, bear. Of course, the old truck probably didn’t go very fast.”
“I’m glad you suggested this. It’s so exciting.” Her voice practically vibrated. “The writer in me is soaking it all up.”
“You think this is exciting? Then hang on.” He braked and made a left onto the barely-there Bone Stretch, a path so overgrown, it couldn’t even be called a proper road.
“Oh!” She thudded her palm to her chest. “Is this The Stretch? I’d forgotten it even existed.”
“Yup.” He drove slowly, the truck rocking down into and out of the potholes and over rocks. It was called The Stretch because generations ago, it was a narrow, off-map road that led from Harkness through to Bitterman. The Canada/US border was much more protected and secure now, but back in the day, the moonshining sisters would travel this path through sleepy Bitterman to leave town, then cross over into Maine. “Nobody uses it much, obviously. But there’s some good fiddleheading out here. You can usually count on one or two people getting stuck in the mud in the spring and need winching out with a tractor.”
“I used to love picking fiddleheads,” Ocean said. “In New York, there was this one produce vendor who carried them in the spring. I used to spend a fortune on them.” She laughed. “My roommates thought I was crazy.”
“I’ll bet. Until they tried them.”
“Exactly. Do you still pick them? I noticed Arden served them tonight.”
“Yeah, I get out once or twice. We eat a bunch and Dad freezes the rest.”
They fell quiet for a while, which made the slap-scrape of thin alder branches that occasionally brushed the side of the truck all the more audible. It was a chilly night, but the low heat on in the truck made it feel like they were in their own little world. The sound, the sights, the moonlight above and the dark path below—it all combined to create an odd tunnel effect, like they were driving through something. It was almost mesmerizing.
“Wow.”
He couldn’t take his glance off the narrow road. “Wow what?”
“I was just thinking about the sisters driving through this wildness. It must have been a little hair-raising. I mean, I doubt they had suspension like this. Or four-wheel drive, or anything.”
“Not even close. They borrowed their father’s old rattletrap of a truck for these runs—unbeknownst to him, of course. The story goes they always waited till he was in bed and snoring before they’d head out. Somehow my great grandfather seemed to know, though, when to call it an early night.”
“I love it!”
Titus smiled. “The road, while still narrow, would have been in better condition than it is now, I imagine, but it would still have been a bone-jarring ride in an unreliable vehicle.”
“Did they ever break down?”
“I’m sure they did. But the eldest sister—that would be Shirley—knew a little some-some about vehicle repair.”
“Seriously?” Ocean said.
He nodded. “She took it upon herself to learn all she could about mechanics. I’m sure my great-grandfather must have thought that was pretty odd, but not having any sons, he likely welcomed having someone around who took an interest.”
“Fascinating. I’ll bet Shirley passed him tools and pestered him with questions while he worked. How smart of her—of them—to think defensively, proactively. What purposeful, clever, amazing women!”
Titus was pleased at her exuberance. “They had to be. It was a dangerous undertaking. Just riding through these woods at night would have been dangerous.”
“Under the moonlight.” She sighed. “But just think how exhilarating that must have been to not know if you’d make it or not. Not know what’s up ahead on the road. A moose? A fallen tree?”
“The prohibition opponents.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. There were a few around here that would have gladly proved their suspicions that the Lovecraft girls were running moonshine. And don’t forget the coppers.”
“Coppers? Now that’s a very gangster-sounding term.”
“Hardly gangsters. They were just three women trying to make a better life, relying on the wits and beauty, not guns and violence.”
When he looked over she was smiling widely.
“What’s so funny?”
“Okay, so they weren’t bad-assed gangsters. But I can’t help wondering if you’d have been so sympathetic if you were a lawman back in the day. You’d have cuffed them in no time. Your very own kin.”
He laughed. “That’s an impossible question to answer, and you know it, missy. So much has changed—social mores, laws, policing itself. Things that used to be crimes back then are no longer crimes. But on the other end of the spectrum, they probably let a lot of things slide back then that we’d never let go today. So I really can’t say what I might have done.”
“Titus, Titus, Titus. If you weren’t giving me this absolutely awesome gift, I just might call that answer a cop out.”
“Um, I think you just did.”
She laughed.
“But seriously, that’s not the reason I want to go into policing. I mean, yes, good to catch criminals and all—even bootlegging young ladies. But honestly, Ocean, I always just wanted to help people in their hour of need. Be the first on the scene, last one to leave. Serve and protect. Just…help.”
Now that he’d said it out loud, it sounded a little corny. Okay, very corny. But she wasn’t laughing.
“That’s actually pretty awesome. And it makes sense.”
It did? “Why do you say that?”
“’Cause that’s the kind of man you are.”
He risked a look at her. Her eyes were both serious and happy.
Titus turned his attention back to the road. After a few moments of slow progress, he braked, bringing the truck to a stop. He killed the engine, but left the lights on. “Look up ahead,” he said. “See that?”
She gasped. “A coyote!”
The animal stood there on the road, curious about the headlights, if not mesmerized.
The truck’s windows were rolled up tightly, and the vehicle was pretty soundproof. Still, when Ocean spoke, she whispered. “Do you think that’s the one we saw up on the mountain?”
“Could be. Looks to be alone.”
“Oh wait.” Her hand shot to his arm and she sat forward in her seat. “There are more of them.”
Titus watched as three young coyotes crept out into the sweep of his headlights. He killed the lights. It took a moment for their vision to adjust to the level of moonlight available, but eventually the animals’ silhouettes became clear. He and Ocean sat watching them in
silence.
“This is so cool,” she whispered. Her hand tightened on his arm until he could feel the arcs of her nails. “What a beautiful scene. Beautiful and lovely and lonely.”
“Lonely?”
“Oh, that’s just the writer coming out.” She removed her hand and laughed. “I look at the coyotes and think how lonely life must be for the solitaries, or the solitaries within a pack, who just…”
“What?”
“Just don’t know they’re part of it all.”
Minutes later, the three coyotes, as if taken by a single notion, melted back into the woods. The last coyote paused on the shoulder to give them one more look, then moved on after the others.
The silence between them was perfect. Even more perfect when Ocean reached across the wide console to take his hand, twining her fingers with his. Before he could check the thought, he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it.
Damned if it didn’t feel right. Totally, completely right. It was going to fucking shred him to leave her. But he had to leave. If he didn’t take this chance—take his chance—he’d never get out of Harkness. Never see the sun sink behind a different skyline. Never see the life he’d wanted for himself realized.
“What if those young women had broken down on this road?”
Her softly-voiced question was just the distraction he needed. “They did, at least a time or two. Or so I understand. Sometimes they were able to get the truck going again, thanks to Shirley’s auto mechanics study. Legend has it she once replaced a broken fan belt with a nylon stocking. I understand it did the trick, but didn’t hold up too long. Fortunately, there were three of them. They made it back with one stocking in reserve.”
“And scandalously bare legs?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, I love that story!”
“Ah, but there were times they couldn’t fix the problem and had to wait out the night on the road. Worried about the police coming along. We’re pretty close to the Maine border here.”
“Forget about the cops. What about wildlife? That old truck would have been pretty flimsy, wouldn’t it?”