by Ren Benton
“Stay right there.”
He was probably just glad to get a reprieve from the poking and prodding, but she’d stay as long as he wanted her to.
Between Gin’s persuasive fingers, her soothing body heat, and her dauntless support, Lex’s agitated nerves eventually calmed enough that he could rise from the floor.
He’d packed a jacket heavy enough to keep him warm for a brief foray into the snow and was pleasantly surprised to find a pair of gloves jammed into one pocket. Gin had come prepared for chilly weather, not frozen, and had to rummage through the storage closet in the dungeon to find a parka for the expedition.
She made a detour on the way outside to turn off the main breaker in the hallway between the kitchen and what had been Simone’s bedroom, all the while monologuing dire consequences of generator power flowing down the line to the street and electrocuting the guys trying to restore service.
Watching her mind spin dramatic tales gave him a buzz. “For foreplay sometime, I’d like you to read me a safety manual.”
“That’s what you’re into now?”
“Gothic horror has always been my aesthetic.” He zipped her coat up to her chin before they braved the cold. Yankee ruggedness desensitized him in childhood, but the steel magnolia could use a few more layers. “Your Slytherin scarf would come in handy.”
She yanked one of the sliding doors to the deck, forcing it a few inches at a time along its snow-clogged track. “If I’d known it was possible to be this freaking cold in May, I would have packed it.”
His insides tumbled like the snow splatting on the floor without the door to hold it back. She’d kept a ridiculous gift he’d bought for her, something small, of little value or utility, that she wouldn’t have missed if she’d thrown it in the trash.
She stomped across the deck, lifting her feet high so she didn’t scoop snow into her ill-fitting borrowed boots. At the stairs, she turned back and lifted a brow at his tardiness.
He scraped up his sloppy feelings and joined her. When he got there, he used his lips to melt away an errant snowflake that clung to the ledge of her lashes.
Her fist, tucked deep in the sleeve of her jacket, thumped against his chest. “Now is not the time to get all mushy on me. I need you to focus.”
He was entirely focused, if not on her preferred target. There wasn’t a glove to be found for her, so although she was the more mechanically inclined of the two of them, he would be providing the manual labor component of generator maintenance. “My hands are yours. Tell me what to do.”
She led the way to the generator and examined it with a familiar all-seeing gaze. “Open the electrical panel.”
He crouched at the side of the generator and pried open the metal door. “Mystery solved. Breaker’s flipped.”
Before he could rectify the problem, she nudged him with her knee. “Wait. I don’t know if Bob shuts it off so it doesn’t run when the house is empty or if it flipped for a reason. Open up the top.”
The unit had a lid like a deep freeze. He unlocked it with the key she’d provided and lifted the lid to expose the engine. “What am I looking for?”
She peered around his arm. “Does anything look like it’s been leaking or on fire?”
“Nope. Looks factory fresh.”
Her brows pulled together, outlining plots for potential hazards. “Is that an oil dipstick?”
A plastic ring perched on top of a metal tube, much like in a car engine — that was about the extent of his automotive knowledge. He tugged the ring and revealed a metal strip coated in liquid as clear as fresh-pressed olive oil. “Full and clean.”
Her obvious attempt to foresee a disaster evidently yielded nothing preventable. “Then I guess there’s nothing to do but flip the breaker.”
He locked the lid to keep the snow out of the machine and crouched at the panel again. Gin hovered at his side, making him feel like he was defusing a bomb, adding an element of excitement otherwise lacking in the chore. “If you’re scared, you can wait over there.”
She remained staunchly at his side. “If it blows, I’m going to stop, drop, and roll you.”
“There’s the optimism I know and love.”
She glared at him. “If you want optimism, fuck a Hufflepuff and hope she can extinguish the fireball with the power of positive thinking.”
“I’d rather roll around in the snow with the girl most likely to get me into a situation where I’m set ablaze.”
“Just keep your wand in your pants, Gryffindor. Frostbite would be a bummer.” Chilly fingers brushed the back of his neck as she gripped his collar in preparation of flinging him out of harm’s way.
That was her kind of fear, not his. Her imagination ran toward disaster, which gave tension to her stories but made her risk averse in real life — but also made her well prepared to act when real disaster struck. If his reckless what-does-this-button-do approach did result in an explosion, there was no one he’d rather be rescued by.
He flipped the switch.
Nothing happened.
Talk about anticlimactic. “This movie sucks. I want my money back.”
Gin peered through the window on the generator’s lid. “The panel lit up. It probably does a system check before the engine starts.”
“Good. There’s still a chance for the explosion I was promised.” He kissed the scowl frozen to her forehead. “It’ll work or it won’t. There’s no point freezing while we wait for the verdict. Let’s go dry out by the fire and think about turkey legs and cheeseburgers.”
They trudged back to the deck along the path they’d forged through the snow. Gin opened the sliding door. Lex had just followed her across the threshold when the generator roared to life.
He grimaced at the jet-engine racket. “So much for peace and quiet.”
She closed the door and softened the clamor. “Pretend it’s thousands of screaming fans. I’m going to get a towel to mop the mess off the floor.”
“Turn off lights and unplug anything nonessential along the way. No point draining the power for an alarm clock.”
Her sleeve-padded hand patted his butt. “This new thrifty side of you is sexy.”
He’d keep that in mind for future foreplay, but for now, they had floors to dry, plugs to pull, and a refrigerator to clear of potential food poisoning.
The temperature display on the fridge read well above forty. Gin dropped the leftovers, eggs, and chicken that had been thawing for last night’s missed dinner into a trash bag Lex held. “If I’d let you fix the generator last night, we could have saved all this food.”
He wasn’t thrifty enough to care about twenty dollars of wasted groceries. “The produce is still good and the freezer didn’t thaw.” He lightly pinched her upper arm through a soft layer of flannel. “If I ration carefully, there’s probably enough meat on you to last three or four days. I’ll be fine.”
“Ha ha.” As long as the shelves were empty, she lifted them from their support brackets and put them in the sink to scrub off any wayward salmonella that had struck off on its own. “You’d have slept better with the heat on and in a proper bed.”
He’d have slept better without a blackout and violent bear attack triggering PTSD symptoms in the woman he loved, but not even a perfect night of sleep would have prevented the back spasms. “The best mattress in the world can’t save me from the consequences of chugging alcohol since I was eight.”
“It might have put them off another day.”
Not necessarily. He’d felt perfectly fine right up until he dropped almost-dead. His health was a fickle bastard prone to quitting without notice, and there was no point what-iffing about it. “It would have been stupid to go out in the middle of a blizzard. I probably would have wandered into the lake. A couple of chicken thighs aren’t worth dying over.”
She rinsed the soap from the shelves and put them on the top rack of the dishwasher to drip dry. “Yeah, but your reason is rational.”
Ah. Embarrassment after an emot
ional overreaction was a state he probably knew much better than the queen of control did. As an experienced guide, he’d be happy to give her a tour, point out the landmarks, sell her a few souvenirs. “The day after not drowning in a freezing lake, it’s easy to come up with rational reasons. You don’t have to be rational to make the right decision, Gin.”
“I’m sure every hysterical person making a wrong decision would passionately agree.”
He stepped toward the sink. She stepped out of his way. He pursued, backing her against the refrigerator, and planted his hands on either side of her, forming a cage.
Her gaze took an interesting journey along one of his arms, down his torso, then up to his face.
He arched a brow at the conclusion of her scrutiny. “Do I have your attention?”
A wash of pink stained her cheeks. “Yes.”
He’d broken her loop of self-recrimination, proving his charming bully powers could be used for good. “Thank you for keeping me in the house and alive.”
The color bled from her face. He instantly knew he’d undone every bit of good, but not how.
He lowered his head to recapture her downcast eyes. “Hey. Talk to me.”
Her fingertips almost touched his chest but recoiled into her palm at the last instant. “Do you hear that?”
He didn’t hear a damn thing over the roaring generator. “No. Gin—”
“They must be delivering your space heater.”
Experience made him doubt any carrier would trundle out here in the snow to honor a delivery date, but her determination to avoid discussing how he’d upset her had her ducking under his arm and heading for the living room. He followed, curious what her next escape act would be when this illusion fell apart.
As she took the final steps toward the door, there was a businesslike knock upon it.
It occurred to Gin, after the locks were undone and the door was swinging open, that she’d been foolish not to peek at who stood on the other side, but hysteria and poor judgment went hand in hand.
Thank you for keeping me in the house and alive.
That brought her win-loss ratio up to 1-1. Lex would have to excuse her for not considering that record cause for celebration.
The visitor had neither a package nor a blinding camera flash for her. Chief Raymond settled for a simple nod. “Mornin’, folks. I took the liberty of plowing a path to your garage.”
“That was kind of you. Ethan will appreciate it when he brings the car back.” She stepped out of the way. “Please come in out of the cold.”
“Thank you, Ms. Greene.” He stepped inside and inclined his head toward Lex. “Perry. Where’s the rest of the gang?”
Gin closed the door and locked it out of habit. “I sent my mother home, and Ethan got stranded on the way back from the airport.”
“So it’s just the two of you here, with no transportation?”
Her scalp prickled with unease even as she entered the code to inform the security panel the door opening without prior authorization was harmless. She’d performed a thorough paranoid evaluation of their isolation, but hearing it spoken by someone else added a fresh veneer of menace. “Correct.”
“And you’re in a dead zone for cell reception out here, right?”
Lex leaned a shoulder against the wall. “This is starting to sound like one of those movies where the local law makes sure the tourists are never heard from again.”
Raymond stared at him for several charged seconds before returning his attention to Gin. “The lines are down in half a dozen places between here and Grayson. They’re not getting fixed all the way out today, and I have concerns about you being cut off.” He withdrew his phone from his coat pocket. “Do you recognize this man?”
She glanced at the photo on the screen. At the sight of a familiar face, she crossed her arms over her middle. “Garth Houle.”
“The photographer who was on the scene the night Fogle attacked you?”
He missed her shudder while returning his phone to its pocket, but she felt the weight of Lex’s stare. “Yes.”
Lex asked, “You took that picture in town?”
“Yeah. He rolled in today, asking after both of you. Folks were too preoccupied with cleanup to gossip with him, but that won’t last past tomorrow.” Raymond swept the room with a look, paying special attention to the windows. “Do you have enough food and gas for the generator to last the night?”
Those were the only two issues she wasn’t worried about. “We’re good.”
“I doubt he’ll explore his way out here today with the condition of the roads, but I’d advise staying inside and covering the windows. I wish I had a sat phone to leave you in case of emergency, but that’s not in the department’s budget.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t sure at all, but what else could she say? Giving voice to her sick fear wouldn’t make a working phone magically materialize, and it was silly anyway. Houle was a grotesque excuse for a human being, but he wasn’t the one who stabbed her and murdered Ryan. Being spied on was gross but not dangerous, not worth the tightness in her chest and acid in her throat.
If she didn’t get a grip, she’d have another babbling breakdown, and fat chance Raymond would take her seriously in the event of a real emergency.
Then again, given their previous conversations, he might take her outward calm as an indication Houle had come at her invitation. The keenness with which he watched her fell somewhere short of friendly. “I’ll give the telecom company a public safety prod about the lines and check on you in the morning.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
She let him out and reset the alarm.
Lex shoved away from the wall. “What’s the Ghoule doing here?”
“Hoping if he hangs around long enough, we’ll give him another fifteen minutes of fame and the fortune that comes with it.”
He drew her into the shelter of his arms and copied Chief Raymond’s perusal of the floor-to-ceiling expanse of glass spanning two sides of the house. “How the hell are we supposed to cover those?”
The storage closet in the basement yielded a plastic bin full of wrapping paper for every occasion. There was enough to make a festive shade from the floor to just over Lex’s head on the front windows. Houle could risk his neck climbing a tree to get a shot over the top... or stroll around to the back of the house because the lake side remained exposed.
Lex sprawled on the couch after their window-papering party, willing his back muscles to behave following the stretching and bending. The bar twinkled invitingly.
It was still there, the little voice telling him he’d endured more stress than any man could be expected to withstand and deserved a drink to loosen up.
He now knew that voice was trying to kill him and wouldn’t be satisfied until he died alone. He gave it the mic from time to time to test his resistance. He’d walked out of rehab sober and flush with confidence. He quickly learned abstinence was easy only in the absence of temptation. The real challenge began after returning to a lifestyle full of people and places that made alcohol readily available. It wasn’t illegal, after all. He couldn’t expect friends, business associates, and venues to go dry along with him. He couldn’t even go to the grocery store without being confronted by a whole aisle of beer and another whole aisle of wine, considered benign enough to be sold right alongside baby formula and almond milk.
His sobriety hadn’t been ready for those daily confrontations then, but it had hardened with time and exposure, forming a protective callus. Today, the internal voice was like any other spouting bullshit he didn’t want to hear: irritating but unpersuasive.
It wasn’t even loud enough to distract him from the problem at hand. “What about sheets?”
Gin gathered the empty cardboard rolls and tape dispensers while he lounged like a useless lump. “They’d have to be hung from the ceiling. The struts between the panes are metal.”
“There must be a ladder in the garage or th
e boathouse.”
“Unless there’s also a sewing machine, a sheet would cover to about here.” She held a hand slightly above the top of her head to approximate the length of the fabric in relation to the lowest possible mounting point.
Shit. “No wonder Bob wants to unload this house.”
“I doubt he makes decisions about multi-million-dollar real estate investments based on the inadequacies of bed linens as window coverings, but I’ll sure never again look at property without calculating the ratio of glass to privacy.” She left his sight and came back empty-handed. “My next house is going to be a stone tower with nothing but slits for my archers to fire arrows from.”
Lex would cosign the hell out of that mortgage. “The dungeon office works well. Living area on the first floor, bedrooms on the second, kitchen on the top?”
“The better to pour boiling oil on the enemies the archers miss.”
His heart glowed like a forge-heated murder cauldron. “We are so much better than those couples on House Hunters who can’t agree on anything. How do you feel about a moat?”
“Only if there’s a working drawbridge. Otherwise, we’d be medieval posers.” She sat on the coffee table between him and the bar. The shift of his eyes toward her prompted her to look over her shoulder at the view she’d obstructed. “I’ll get rid of it if it bothers you.”
“What bothers me is that you think you have to hide booze from the drunk.”
She faced him once more. The telltale pause while she debated saying something weighty made him ache to lean forward and suck the words from her mouth to free them.
She eventually rewarded his restraint. “I can’t flip past a golf tournament on TV without having flashbacks to a flap of scalp wrapped around the head of a nine iron like in the crime scene photos. It doesn’t give me an urge to beat another man to death, but it’s ugly and I don’t want to look at that part of my mind.”
He swung his feet to the floor and sat knee to knee with her, brain clanging with the heavy blows those words delivered.