by Nora Roberts
Whatever needed to be done to protect and preserve what he had, he’d do.
It was Reece Gilmore who would have to go.
One way or the other.
HOME
I was well; I would be better; I am here.
—ANONYMOUS
21
SINCE SHE DIDN’T have to be at work until two, Reece considered just futzing around Brody’s cabin, doing some light housekeeping, maybe some laundry. She could easily keep out of his way while he wrote, and put together tomorrow’s soup of the day for Joanie.
She was already dressed and making the bed when he got out of the shower. “Anything special you want for breakfast? I don’t have to be in until this afternoon, so your wish can be my command. Gastronomically.”
“No. I’m just going to have some cereal.”
“Oh. All right.” She smoothed the spread and thought idly that a few throw pillows in primary colors would liven it up. “I’m going to put together some Italian wedding soup for Joanie. You can have some at lunch, see if it passes the test. I can make a casserole or something easy to heat up for your supper since I’m working the dinner shift. Oh, and I thought I might toss in some laundry while I’m at it. Is there anything you want washed?”
Weddingsoup? Was that some subliminal message? And now she was, what, going to wash his shorts? Christ.
“Let’s just back up.”
She gave him a puzzled smile. “Okay.”
“I don’t need you to start planning breakfast, lunch, dinner or a damn midnight snack every damn morning.”
The smile dropped into a blink of surprise. “Well…”
“And you’re not here to do laundry and make beds and casseroles.”
“No,” she said slowly, “but since I am here, I’d like to be useful.”
“I don’t want you fussing around the place.” There it was again, that same defensive tone he’d heard in his voice at the doc’s the day before. It irritated him. “I can handle my own chores. I’ve been handling them for years.”
“I’m sure you have, and exactly as you please. Obviously I’ve misunderstood something. I thought you wanted me to cook.”
“That’s different.”
“Different than, say, tossing our laundry in together. That being somehow symbolic of a level of relationship you don’t want. That’s completely stupid.”
Maybe. “I don’t need you to do the laundry or leave me a damn casserole or any of this stuff. You’re not my mother.”
“Absolutely not.” She stepped back to the bed, yanked the spread down, tugged out the sheets. “There, all better.”
“Now who’s stupid?”
“Oh, trust me, you still win the prize. Do you really think because I’m in love with you I’m trying to trap you into something by washing your damn dirty socks and making chicken and dumplings? You’re an idiot, Brody, and you think entirely too much of your own worth. I’ll just leave you to bask in the delusion of your own reflected glory.”
She strode toward the doorway. “Not your mother, my ass! She doesn’t evencook !”
He frowned at the bed, rubbed irritably at the tension lodged in the base of his neck. “Sure, that went well,” he muttered. And winced as the door downstairs slammed hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Reece grabbed only what was closest at hand, then shoved it into her car. She’d worry about the rest of her things—not that there was much—later.
She’d get the ingredients she needed for the soup from Joanie’s and from her own pantry. She’d get some change and haul her laundry—andonly her laundry—to the crappy machines in the hotel’s basement. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before.
Or maybe she’d just say screw it all and take a drive, see if the flats were blooming.
She aimed the car toward town, frowning at the way it handled. “What now, what now?” she muttered as the steering dragged. She gave the wheel one bad-tempered smack. Then, resigned, she detoured to Lynt’s.
The garage doors were up with an aging compact up on the lift. Lynt came out from under it, a rangy forty in a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose tough sinews. There was an oil-stained rag sticking out of his back pocket, a similarly stained gimme cap on his head and a chaw tucked into his cheek.
He pursed his lips, tipped back the bill of his cap as Reece stepped out of the car.
“Got yourself some trouble?”
“Seems like it.” When she realized her teeth were clenched, she deliberately relaxed them. “The steering’s funny, dragging.”
“Not surprised, seeing as you got your two back tires next to flat.”
“Flat?” She turned to look. “Damn it. They were fine yesterday.”
“Could be you drove over something.” He crouched down to take a look at the right rear tire. “Probably got a slow leak. See what I can do.”
“I have a spare in the trunk.” God, was she going to have to replace two tires?
“I’ll get to it as soon as I finish these brake pads. You need a lift somewhere?”
“No. No. I could use the walk.” She got her laptop out of the backseat, then took her house keys off the keychain and stuffed them in her pocket. “If I have to get new tires, how much do you think?”
“Let’s just worry about that when we have to worry about it.” He took her car key. “I’ll give you a call.”
“Thanks.” She hitched her purse on one shoulder, her laptop on the other.
It was a nice day for a walk, and she reminded herself of that in an attempt to chase depression away. She had a job and she had a roof over her head. And if she was in love with a jackass, she’d just have to start working on getting over it.
If she needed new tires, she’d walk until she could afford the damn rubber.
She didn’thave to have a car right this minute. She didn’thave to have a lover. She didn’t have to have anything but herself. That had been the whole point of leaving Boston, leaving everything. She’d proved she could function, she could heal, she could build a new life.
And if Brody thought she was trying to drag him into that life with her, he was not only a jackass, he was a conceited one.
She needed some time by herself anyway to catch up on her journal. To get serious about writing that cookbook. Not that she was going to pass that through Brody now. Insulting son of a bitch. But she wanted to organize the recipes, take a more focused stab at writing an introduction to them.
Something like…You don’t have to be an expert chef to cook gourmet meals. Not when you have an expert guiding you.
“And that sounds pompous and patronizing.”Tired of trying to come up with a new answer to “What’s for dinner?” Desperate to find something exciting and fresh for that Sunday brunch? Panicked that the chair of that fund-raiser assigned you to make the canapés?
“A little lame,” Reece said aloud, “but you have to start somewhere.”
“Hey! Hey!”
Reece jerked to a stop and saw Linda-gail kneeling in her tiny front yard with marigolds and pansies tucked into a black plastic flat beside her.
“Too busy talking to yourself to talk to me?”
“Was I? I was going over something in my head. Too often it runs out of my mouth. They’re so pretty. Your flowers.”
“Should’ve put the pansies in before.” She tipped the straw cowboy hat back on her head. “They don’t mind the cold. But with one thing and another. What are you doing over this way?”
“Flat tire, or tires. I had to take the car to Lynt.”
“Bummer. You’re out early. I figured you’d be hanging at Brody’s today.”
“Clearly, he didn’t. All I did was make the bed and offer to toss some of his laundry in with mine. You’d think I pulled a shotgun out of one pocket and a minister out of the other.”
“Men suck. I booted Lo out the other night. He got surly when I wouldn’t let him into my pants.”
“Men suck.”
“So, the hell with
them. Want to plant some pansies and curse Y chromosomes?”
“I really would, but I have things I need to do this morning.”
“Then we’ll go to Clancy’s after work tonight, drink a few beers and karaoke all the down-with-men songs on the menu.”
Who needed a jackass when you had a girlfriend? “I can get behind that. I’ll see you at work.”
There, Reece thought as she walked toward home, she could add something else to her list of haves. She had Linda-gail Case.
Then there was the lake, she thought as her direction angled toward it. So blue and beautiful with the greening willows dipping down like dancers, the tender buds of cottonwood leaves unfurling.
On impulse she crossed to the water instead of continuing home. She set her bags down, pulled off her shoes and socks. She rolled up her pant legs. Sitting on the bank, she dangled her feet in the water.
Freezing! But she didn’t give a damn. She was sitting with her feet in the blue waters of Angel Lake and her eyes on the towering rise of the Tetons. In a little while she’d be making soup, writing a cookbook, sorting laundry. And what could be more normal? She’d have to scramble around to get everything done so she wouldn’t be late for work. And that was normal, too.
So for now, she’d just soak it all up.
She lay back so her eyes were on the sky now, blue as the lake with harmless white clouds drifting. The sun beamed down, but instead of digging her sunglasses out of her purse, she flung her arm over her eyes. And just listened.
To the lap of the water, the happy splash of it as she kicked her feet. Birdsong sounded so cheerful, so carefree. She heard a dog bark, the rumble of a car passing. Everything in her relaxed.
The sudden boom had her choking back most of a scream, jerking up so fast she nearly slid into the water. She managed to catch herself, crawl free, but only after she’d soaked one pant leg to the knee.
“Carl’s truck. It’s Carl’s truck,” she reminded herself as she huddled on the grass. She could see it, rumbling and rattling its way toward the mercantile. Pushing to her hands and knees, she stayed where she was, catching her breath.
And flushed when she saw Debbie Mardson standing outside On the Trail, watching her. “Yeah, it’s the crazy woman,” Reece said between her teeth as she forced herself to smile and wave. “Just taking a dip in a freezing lake with all her clothes on. No big deal.”
Now that the moment was spoiled, she grabbed her bags, her shoes, and walked, wet and barefoot, home.
Didn’t matter what the damn near-perfect-in-every-way Debbie Mardson thought, Reece assured herself. Or what anyone thought. She was entitled to sit and dangle her feet in the lake. She was entitled to jump like a rabbit at that damn shotgun blast of Carl’s truck.
She stripped off her wet pants, put on dry ones. Just like she was entitled to do her laundry. She gathered it up, along with her detergent and some of the thin supply of singles she had left.
Start the wash, she thought, come back and start the soup. Go back and switch the wash to the dryer. Come back and work on the cookbook. She carried her little laundry basket out, started the walk to the hotel.
Because she had to pass On the Trail, she kept her eyes trained forward and prayed, just this once, Debbie wouldn’t spot her. She didn’t run past the window, but she did significantly increase her pace, slowing only when she reached the hotel.
“Hi, Brenda. Wash day. Can I get some change?”
“Sure, no problem.” Brenda smiled widely and lifted her eyebrows. “Need some shoes while you’re at it?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re not wearing your shoes, Reece.”
“Oh. OhGod. ” Reece looked down at her bare feet. She flushed, but when she looked back up at Brenda there was just enough of a smirk on the desk clerk’s face to turn embarrassment to temper. “I guess they slipped my mind. You know how slippery my mind is. Quarters, please.” She slapped the bills on the counter.
Brenda counted them out. “Watch where you step now.”
“I’ll do that.” Because the elevator wasn’t an option for her, Reece took the stairs down. She hated the damn hotel basement. Hated it. If Brody hadn’t been such a dick, she could’ve used his machines, could’ve avoided all this stupidity and bother.
“Seven times one is seven,” she began as she wound her way past the maintenance area. “Seven times two is fourteen.”
She made it through the sevens, into the eights, then rushed out of the laundry area as the machine hummed.
She slowed to a normal pace as she stepped back into the lobby, sent Brenda an easy wave. She wasn’t quite as lucky on her way back by the outfitter store.
“Reece.” Debbie slipped out the door. “You okay?”
“Sure, fine. How are you?”
“It’s a little cool yet for bare feet.”
“You think? I’m just toughening mine up. I hope to be the first woman to walk barefoot along the Continental Divide. Lifelong dream of mine. See you.”
Go ahead, spread that one around, Reece thought as she hiked back home.
She put it all out of her mind by starting her stock, making meat-balls for the soup. She actually debated leaving her shoes off, to give the gossips more to talk about, but decided it was too silly and self-defeating. She zipped back to the hotel, braved Brenda and the basement again to transfer her clothes from washer to dryer.
Only one more trip, she reminded herself, dashing back home again. And plenty of time to draft the introduction to the cookbook while her clothes tumbled dry.
After setting up her laptop, she warmed up her writing muscles with an update to her journal.
Pissed at Brody. Make up a bed and he thinks I’m shopping for wedding rings. Is that the way the male mind really works? If so, they need serious therapy as a species.
I suppose, when it comes down to it, I’ve just worn out my welcome there. He’s done more than anyone could expect where I’m concerned. So I’ll try to be grateful as well as pissed, and stay out of his way.
The dick.
Meanwhile, I’ve cemented my status as the town loony by having a perfectly justified absentminded moment and going shoeless to the hotel to do laundry. I’m trying not to care about it. I’m making soup, and I only checked the locks on the door once.
Damn it, twice.
I may have to buy two new tires. God, that’s so depressing. What would once have been a minor irritation is a huge problem under my current circumstances. I don’t have the money. It’s as simple as that. I guess I’ll be walking for the next few weeks.
Maybe a miracle will happen and I’ll actually write and sell this cookbook. I could use an infusion of cash, just as a buffer against whatever wolf might show up at the door.
Linda-gail’s planting pansies. We’re going to Clancy’s after work tonight to trash men. I think it’s just what I need.
Satisfied, Reece opened a fresh document and began to toy with different styles and approaches for an introduction.
When her kitchen timer went off, signaling her clothes were finished, she backed up, shut down and headed out one more time.
She’d just dump everything in the basket and get the hell out of that spooky basement, she decided. Fold them at home. She could leave the soup on low simmer while she worked at Joanie’s, and run up on her breaks to check on it.
She hoped they were busy tonight. Busy was just what she needed.
She zipped through the lobby, spared any conversation since Brenda wasn’t at the front desk. Reece could just hear the murmur of her voice from the back.
Small favors, she thought. Something else to be grateful for.
Reece tried the twelve times tables this time—a tough one—as she hurried downstairs and through to the laundry area.
She pulled open the dryer door and found nothing.
“Well, that’s…” She opened the other dryer, thinking she’d mixed up which one she used. But it was empty.
“That’s ridiculous. No o
ne would come down here and steal my clothes.”
And why was her basket on top of the washer instead of on the little folding table where she knew, sheknew she’d left it? Gingerly, she picked it up, then slowly opened the washer’s lid.
Her clothes were there, wet and spun.
“I put them in the dryer.” She dug an unsteady hand in her pocket, found only the single coin she had left after plugging change into the machines. “I put them in the dryer. This is my third trip. My third. I didn’t leave them in the washer.”
She tugged them out, furiously pulling wet clothes free to heave them into the basket. A Magic Marker fell with a rattle to the floor.
A red marker. Her red marker. Shaking now, Reece tossed it in the basket, with the clothes she now saw were spotted and stained with the red.
Someone had done this to her, someone who wanted her to think she was losing it.
Someone who could be down there, watching her.
Her breath wheezed out as her head swiveled right and left. She bit off a moan, grabbed the basket and ran. The sudden clang of a pipe had her jumping, choking out a half scream. The slap and echo of her own shoes on the cement floor sent her heart shoving up to the base of her throat.
This time she didn’t stop running when she reached the lobby but sprinted to the desk. Back at her post, a surprised Brenda gaped at her.
“Somebody’s down there. Somebody went down there.”
“What? Who? Are you okay?”
“My clothes. They put my clothes in the washing machine.”
“But…Reece, you put them in the machine.” Brenda spoke slowly, as to a slow-witted child. “Remember? You went down to wash clothes.”
“After! I put them in the dryer, but they were back in the washer. You saw me come back to put them in the dryer.”
“Well…sure, I saw you come back, go down. Maybe you forgot to put them in. You know, like you forgot your shoes before. I’m always doing things like that,” Brenda added, without the smirk now. “Just, you know, getting distracted and forgetting—”