In His Hands

by Adriana Anders

  “No snow,” he said with a farmer’s certainty. He knew. He’d feel it in his phantom knuckle if snow were truly coming in.

  “Well, I guess you’re right, since we’re getting ice. Not snow.” The cashier smirked, wagging one of those chubby, age-speckled fingers at him.

  In France, a woman this old would never have to work. Nor would a cashier help with anything, much less try to converse. The cashier would ignore everyone, sullen and irritable. Maybe throw down a few plastic bags if none were brought—and even those had to be paid for. He’d prefer angry silence to this constant, cheerful prattle. It was exhausting.

  “Snow’s one thing, but when the temps go down and every darn thing gets coated in the clear stuff, you won’t be able to leave your place for days. Bet you don’t see stuff like that where you’re from.”

  What if she was right? Would there be time to get his vines pruned before it hit? If it hit, which he still wasn’t convinced it would—at least not in the next twenty-four hours.

  “When is it supposed to start?” he asked.

  “Talking about tomorrow night, but you never know.”

  Back outside, the sky was clear, the air cold and crisp in his lungs. No precipitation tonight, at least. The band across Luc’s chest loosened as he headed back, ecstatic to finally be on his own.

  God, he was a misanthrope. His chickens more than satisfied his need for company. And yet…

  An impression of that woman’s thin, cold hand sandwiched between his own rose up with a warm blush. He’d rubbed her hand, hadn’t he? Trying to chafe some heat into her flesh, he’d thought, but maybe—just maybe—he’d been trying to leach something from her.

  Putain, what an idiot. Quel con.

  He really should see about getting an Internet connection so he could… What? Develop an online relationship? Connect with some other solitary soul? The idea didn’t interest him nearly as much as the memory of that woman’s pride. Begging for a job with her back as stiff as a rail. Her hand frail-looking, but the bones firm between his, the skin slightly roughened.

  He focused on his own misshapen hands. It was a wonder he’d felt the texture of her skin, given the state of his. He tightened and stretched the left hand—stared at that empty space he’d never quite gotten used to. His bones snipped off and discarded like last year’s useless vine. Polish bones, his mother always called them. Just another affectionate insult.

  And wasn’t that the crux of everything? Too big for a Frenchman, too thick and rough for smooth seduction. And certainly too ill at ease with the games involved. He shuddered at the memory of dates gone bad.

  Halfway up the mountain, Luc was so distracted that he didn’t notice the animal until his truck was nearly on top of it again. Putain, it wasn’t a coyote. It was a damned dog. Probably one of theirs. On the wrong side of the fence.

  Or the right side.

  From the warm interior of his truck, he waited for it to scuttle away again, but it stayed in the middle of his path. A face-off.

  “Casses-toi,” he said under his breath, wishing the dog gone. “Allez, vas-y.” When it didn’t move, he opened his door with a sigh, got out, and stomped toward it. He clicked his teeth in an effort to get it out of the way.

  The dog only stood taller, watching him closely. Its ears were plastered to its head, coat hidden beneath a layer of dust and filth.

  “Comment t’es sorti, toi? Hein?” he asked, wondering how the dog had gotten out from behind the fence.

  Its ears lifted, head cocked to the side. Listening.

  “T’as faim?”

  Nothing.

  “Don’t speak French, I guess.”

  It was apparently hungry enough to take another step closer, before cowering back. Did those nuts beat their animals? Weren’t these religious people supposed to be peaceful and kind, with their faith and old-fashioned demeanors? He couldn’t picture the woman from today—Abby—hitting a dog.

  “Allez, dégages. Go, go on.” He tried to shoo it one last time, with no luck at all. The dog was a mess. Could it even move?

  Its head tilted, ears lifting higher, looking hopeful. For a brief second, Luc recalled the expression on Abby Merkley’s face when she’d offered her hand to shake.

  “My God,” he whispered, and the dog, with that sixth sense these creatures had, moved toward him, its steps halting. On a clean wave of anger, Luc wondered if the creature needed to be put down.

  He picked it up. Pure skin and bones. Just like the woman they’d sent over to him. What the hell was wrong with those people?

  He considered putting it into the truck bed, but something about the animal’s frail legs and mangy fur, the way it trembled in his arms, made him shove his bags into the footwell and lay it down carefully on the front seat.

  He stopped and cocked his head. What was that? A sound in the deathly quiet? A dip in temperature? A crackling in the cloud-muffled night? Luc sniffed, expecting the smell of smoke, not the stench of death that followed it on the air.

  This dog was theirs. The neighbors’. He was sure of it. First, they sent a woman to him—looking for work, no less—and now a dog, left out to starve in the middle of winter? Well, he’d had enough. Enough.

  Flying in the face of every one of Grandpère’s expressions about good neighbors, he turned the truck around and accelerated back down the drive toward the neighbors’ place, ignoring the itch of premonition that skimmed his nape like an icy finger.

  * * *

  Abby pushed opened the door to Hamish’s cabin.

  My cabin, she thought with a sudden, futile spasm of ownership.

  It was dark inside—the kind of pitch-black she imagined modern women never experienced, with their cell phones glued to their hands and purses probably equipped with flashlights. They were so practical, those women, with their bare heads, jeans, and easy cotton shirts.

  She scrabbled on a side table for matches, lit the first lantern, and turned to see a silhouette. She dropped the matchbox with a strangled sound. Hamish? The fear and shock quickly morphed into relief as the shape came into focus.

  Just Sammy.

  “Hi, Abby” came his voice, slow and a bit high.

  “Goodness, you almost killed me.”

  “I did?”

  “No. I mean, not really. You just scared me, standing here in the dark, is all.”

  “You said to come, Abby. I’m sorry.” He sounded crestfallen.

  She immediately went to him, put one arm around his narrow shoulders, and led him to one of the straight chairs in the kitchen area. “Don’t be, Sammy. Don’t be. I meant it. I was just… It was just a little fright, but I’m happy that you’re here. What’s a little fright compared to that, huh?”

  “Yeah?” His smile lit up those sweet features, the tiny nose and high forehead that made him different from everyone else and made her love him all the more.

  “No room at your parents’?” she asked.

  “No. Denny and Angie wanted to be alone. So I went to see Benji and Brigid, but he…he tole me to go, too.”

  Abby knew exactly why the Cruddups had kicked him out. Well, at least one of the reasons. They might be his birth parents, but his differences made him a failure in their eyes—in the eyes of the Church—and they needed to make up for it by coupling and giving the Almighty more babies, despite their advanced years. It was their responsibility as God-fearing members of the Church, and tonight, apparently, they were fulfilling their spousal duty. It sickened her, the idea that they’d rather do that than care for Sammy, already here and alive. A son who especially needed them.

  “Did you get dinner?”

  At his shake of the head, she grew angrier still. It didn’t matter that he looked different from everyone else or that he’d taken longer to learn to tie his shoes. Denying his needs was simply not Christian.

  The fam
iliar wave of frustration welled up, only this time it extended past the people of the Church and the fence line to include the man who’d refused to give her a job today.

  She had to consciously loosen her jaw before speaking. “Let’s get you something, pumpkin.” Knowing how little she’d find, she tried the larder—two jars of pickled beets from last summer; the loaf of bread she’d been rationed this week, already moldy; and the butter in the crock, probably turned sour. This was what happened during the limbo between marriages. She’d practically been a child when Hamish had taken her. Children were fed in the refectory, but adult women were left to their own devices. She cut the mold off the bread, sniffed at the butter, and opened another precious jar.

  I’m nothing, exactly like you, she thought, handing Sammy a cobbled-together meal you’d have to be starving to consider eating. And she’d been at her mama’s, eating chicken pot pie and beans.

  He dug in with relish, and Abby’s anger inched up a notch.

  “You feeling all right?” she asked, ignoring the urge to reach out and stroke his hair. Physical affection was another no-no. She remembered wanting it from Mama, even from Hamish at first. With a hot blush, she recalled the summer she and Benji had discovered touch. Noticing the look on Sammy’s face, she shut it down. “No?”

  “Happened again.”

  She stilled. “Another one of your fits?”

  “Yeah.” He polished off the bread. Too fast. He needed more to eat and she was running low, and rations weren’t passed around for another two days.

  “Tell me.”

  “Out lookin’ for parts for Dinwiddy’s car. Din’t feel so good. Sat on the scraggly rock, you know, over by the old crash where I found that rusted-out bolt that time?” She nodded, knowing exactly where he meant. She and Benji’d done things on that rock. Things that had felt so good and been so wrong and, in the end, led to her marriage to Hamish, among other things. Sammy went there all the time, looking for parts in his constant quest to fix things. “Well, I got it again…that feeling like I was there and not. And then…” He stood abruptly, pushing back his chair so fast that it tilted before landing back on all four legs with a clatter. He came to squat in front of her, tilted his head to the side, and, grabbing her hand, put it to his head.

  Oh, heavens, it was matted with blood.

  “Sit down,” she ordered, rushing to grab the lamp and hold it closer. “You hurt yourself, honey.”

  “Yeah. Hurts.”

  “I know, Sammy.” She patted his shoulder. “All right. Let’s…” She looked around. Another few minutes wouldn’t change a thing, she supposed, but worrying him would serve no purpose. “Finish your dinner first. We’ll take a look at your cut after.”

  “’Kay.”

  It wasn’t until she’d gotten him cleaned up and snug in her bed, covered in her patchwork quilt, that Abby considered what would happen next. She folded herself into the chair beside the woodstove.

  So much energy and expectation had gone into that man—the one she’d barely let herself think of since she’d crawled back through the hole in the fence—and now…nothing had changed.

  Staring into the flames, she racked her brain for some other solution, another way out. But no matter how hard she tried, she came up with nothing.

  Nothing besides him, the grape farmer with the rolling accent and stern brow, the chilly eyes and hot, hot hands.

  That meant one thing, no matter that she didn’t like it or that he most certainly wouldn’t either: she’d go back to him tomorrow. And this time, she wouldn’t leave without a job.

  * * *

  Luc had driven this far up the county road only once, and that had been the day he’d made the offer on the vineyard. As part of his due diligence, he’d investigated the entire area, in search of hidden nuclear power plants the real estate agent might have forgotten to mention. Well, and to scope out the neighbors. As his grandfather had drilled into his brain as a boy, your crop is only as good as your neighbor’s.

  Turning into the sect’s drive, his first impression had been mixed: the sunny-yellow sign such a contrast to its words of imminent apocalypse, paint worn and fraying at the edges. Now, in the dark, his headlights found it. Just beyond was the gate, closed like so many others in the area—ostensibly to keep livestock in. He’d wondered about these people. Because who the hell needed a two-meter-high chain-link fence around a property this size? Even goats did fine with one meter of chicken wire.

  No, that fence was strange. But good neighbors didn’t pry. Another one of Grandpère’s rules. So after his initial meeting with the group’s leader—a strange man with a strange name—he’d established that they didn’t use harsh chemicals on their crops, and he’d taken off. Relieved to get away and, to be honest, relieved that they were so private. Both parties had made it clear during that single meeting that they weren’t interested in each other’s business. It had seemed perfect.

  Which was another reason he was so irritated with that woman. How dare she ignore their unspoken agreement and invade his privacy like that?

  Well, to hell with it. As he opened the truck door, the dog raised its head and made a noise not strong enough to be a whine. Luc hesitated, eye on the animal. Its paw shifted to nudge Luc’s leg. Although there was no strength behind it, there was something else.

  “You don’t want to go there?” he asked.

  The dog gave a low, rumbling response, which he could have sworn was assent—or a warning.

  “I can’t keep you if you belong to them,” he argued, one leg out of the truck.

  Slowly, painfully, the creature rose. Each step looked like torture as it made its way to his lap, where it collapsed heavily with a moan.

  Luc opened his mouth to protest again, but the dog cut him off with a sigh, more eloquent than a howl.

  It didn’t want to go back, and Luc wouldn’t force it. Christ, what was wrong with those people that they wouldn’t even take proper care of an animal? He pushed away the mental image of that woman again, settled both legs back in the vehicle, and reached out to slam the truck door shut.

  Okay. So they’d take a trip to the SPCA tomorrow. Or the vet. But first, he needed to give it something to eat. The dog, which weighed nothing, was more skeleton than muscle, its spine a series of fragile, pointed knobs under his hand.

  Sliding one hand into the animal’s matted fur, he put the truck into gear and reversed quickly, not letting himself think of the woman he’d turned away just a few hours before.

  3

  One thousand and fifty dollars. That was how much the dog had cost him. Which meant he’d have to repair the ancient tractor himself after all, since he wouldn’t be able to afford the new one.

  There’d been a moment as Luc had bathed the dog the night before—a connection from its brown eyes to his—when he’d felt the animal’s thank-you like a caress, heard it like words. “Don’t get attached,” he’d said. “I’m taking you into town tomorrow.” That had been when Luc realized he was talking out loud.

  After the bath, it had eaten half of Luc’s ham and, more notably, drunk about a liter of water. How could anyone withhold clean water from a dog? After vomiting up the ham, it had settled onto a bed of blankets Luc made in front of the fire and gone to sleep with a satisfied huff.

  Hours later, after listening to its noises, he’d gone down to tend to it and… My God. Every time he saw it, he was shocked anew. Even after the bath, its fur was patchy and thin, its skin flaked and mangy. One of its paws was a mess, no doubt infected—thus the limp.

  A torn-up paw, heartworm, fleas, malnutrition, dehydration. What wasn’t wrong with the creature? And when Luc had suggested taking it—no, him, not it, because the dog was a boy—to the SPCA, the vet had given him that look, the one that said that would be imminent death for a creature with so many issues.

  Vaccinations, parasite treatment, an
tibiotics… The words had swirled into a great big invoice and a couple of overnight stays for the animal, who needed IV fluids, among other things.

  Now, Luc was headed home alone after making the biggest mistake of all—naming the damned thing.

  The memory made him smile. Dog, he’d called it, which the vet tech hadn’t found funny at all.

  “Just Dog?” she’d asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I could call it Le Dog?”

  “Alrighty. Le Dog Stanek,” she’d said, shaking her head as she typed the name into the computer. She handed him the bill with one of those big, fake American smiles on her face.

  Back home, he made his way up to the barn to top off his barrels, irritated at the late start.

  That nurse could smile, though, couldn’t she, considering Le Goddamned Dog had cost him more than a month’s bills, groceries, and gas combined?

  Things were simpler alone.

  * * *

  Abby woke up, fed Sammy the last of her toast with butter and honey, and sent him over to the Cruddups’ place with the excuse that she needed to check the fence line.

  She mustered what little courage she had, along with a fresh bout of resolve, and trudged for half an hour through the dead grass back to the fence. Back to the hole. Back to big, stupid Grape Man. As she climbed through, she ignored the frigid rock face above and the few snowflakes floating from the sky, which looked thick, soupy, and ready to open up.

  She approached the man where he clipped away at a different section of vines. His face was tight in concentration, every move sharp and precise—until he looked up and saw her. When he did that, his features dropped into an irritated scowl.

  Goodness, how on earth had she thought he might be handsome? Nobody that stern could possibly be appealing. Not with those harsh features, that too-big nose, and that unfriendly gaze. She lifted her head.

  “Morning, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed, the only part of him to move as they followed her progress. Indifferent, she’d say, if it weren’t for that grim look of annoyance.