by Susanne Beck
The stranger looked at Ice over the top of my head, and whatever he saw there made him blanch several shades of white. Still, the maggot inside him wouldn’t let go completely. "And what would you know about anything, blondie? You probably don’t even know which part’s the engine."
Resisting the urge to backhand him myself, I settled for a conciliatory smile. "Maybe not, but I might know someone who does. And if you play nice, I just might be persuaded to ask for help."
His eyes narrowed. "Yeah? From who?"
I jerked my head to the left. "From her."
His eyes widened back up. "Her? That ... ."
"Now, now, now. Do you want your car fixed or do you want to spend the rest of your life as a stain on the road here." Releasing him, I stepped away, standing next to Ice and crossing my arms. "Your choice."
He looked at the three of us individually before settling his gaze back on me once again. "I ...um ...I ... ." His eyes examined the ground at his feet. "I guess I could use the help."
In the silence, I was sure I could hear the sound of the male ego deflating.
It was glorious.
When no one answered, he looked back up at us, his eyebrows raised. "What?"
"Aren’t you forgetting something?" I asked.
"What?!"
"Well, the polite thing to do would be to ask for help, don’t you think?"
His jaw dropped again. "But ...you said... ." He sighed. "Alright." He looked to Ice. "Can you fix my car?" He hesitated a moment, then looked at his watch. "Please?"
Ice looked at him, assessing, then turned to Mr. Willamette. "You have tools?"
"Mechanic left ‘em here when he got hurt. Welcome to use ‘em. The garage too."
She nodded, then turned back to gaze impassively at the stranger. "Alright."
The resulting smile transformed his face into something almost resembling handsome. If you squinted real hard and threw in a healthy dose of cosmetic surgery for good measure. "Great! I’ll just go use the telephone to let my clients know I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth."
As he started forward, he was stopped yet again, this time by a strong hand gripping the arm of his jacket. The smile disappeared. "What now?!?"
Ice narrowed her eyes at his tone. "Unless Volvo has made some drastic changes in the last five years, I don’t think that car of yours is just gonna drive itself into the garage, do you?"
"But my clients!"
"You either help me put this car in the garage where I can take a look at it, or you start walking. Maybe you’ll get lucky and some trucker who hasn’t seen his wife in six months will give you a lift." Her smile wasn’t a pleasant one, but by the stranger’s expression, it seemed to get the point across quite nicely.
Shoulders slumped in bitter-tasting defeat, the man walked back over to his car, opened the door and began to push it in the direction of the waiting garage.
* * *
A short time later, shorter than I expected, actually, the car was back out under the mid-spring sky, motor humming complacently. The stranger, one George Roger Grayson by name, was just putting his wallet back into his coat pocket after having considered, I could tell, pitching yet another fit over the cost Mr. Willamette had quoted him. In the end, though, he paid and we watched as he pulled away in a cloud of dust.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," the shop owner observed, pulling his ball-cap back onto his head. "This is yours, I believe." He handed the somewhat sizable stack of bills to Ice, who just looked at the offering, not accepting. "C’mon now. You did all the work. All I did was supply the place."
"And the tools."
Wetting his thumb, he peeled back a couple bills, stuffed them into his pocket, and again held out the money to Ice who, with reluctance, finally accepted it.
"There’s work for you if you want it. Not now, maybe, but come summer, I’ll be up to my eyeballs in broken down cars. Could use a pair of hands like yours around here. You’re some skilled."
The corner of Ice’s lip curled. "I’m not exactly the employee type."
"Never said you had to be. I get a car, I call you. If you’re around, you can come help. If not," he shrugged, "only costs a dime to get a tow. Good money in it. Cash on the barrelhead." His eyes glinted with the light of a man who enjoyed getting one over on the government. "Deal?"
After thinking on it a moment, Ice finally nodded. "Deal."
They shook to seal it.
"Name’s Willamette, by the way. But most folks call me Pop."
"Morgan. This is... ."
"The Moore girl. Tyler, right? I remember you when you were some smaller comin’ up here with your folks in summer. Place burned down a few years back. You thinkin’ to rebuild?"
I smiled. "We’re hoping to, yes."
He nodded sagely. "Be good to have the place back up again." He turned to look at Ice again. "I heard what you done for the Halloran boy. The whole town’s been buzzin’ about it for weeks. Like a bunch of hornets, they are. Bet no one’s thought to thank you yet, so let me be the first. Most strangers wouldn’t have thought to do what you did, puttin themselves in danger and all. So thanks."
Ice looked a little taken aback by what passed for effusive praise from the normally reticent man and brushed off his praise with a shrug. "Did what I had to do."
"More ‘n most people would have. It’ll be good havin you here. You too, Tyler." He tipped his cap in a courtly gesture. "Best be getting back to work now, such as it is. Be seein you."
As he walked back to his shop, I shook my head and laughed. Ice turned to look at me. "What?"
"Only you, Ice."
A raised eyebrow asked me to continue.
"Only you could break up a fight and wind up with a job."
If she were the blushing type, I probably would have gotten one out of her for that, but since she wasn’t, all I received was a scowl and a half muttered comment that was probably better unheard. I laughed again. "Can I treat you to a cup of coffee, Ms. Mechanic? Maybe we’ll get better service this time out."
Without bothering to reply, Ice started off toward the café, leaving me to trail behind, a growing smile covering my face.
PART 3
THE NEXT SEVERAL weeks saw our lives settle into a comfortable routine, which was very welcome, given the adventures we’d had since we met. Ice had been called into the shop several times by Pop and, true to his word, been paid quite handsomely for her work. Her reputation as an excellent mechanic was beginning to spread, and I could imagine, given the look she sometimes wore, that she wondered why this gift hadn’t befallen her several years back, when she had tried to make a go of the very same career, only to be rebuffed at every turn. Which, of course, led her straight into the arms of the Mob and the events which led to our meeting in the Bog.
Jealously, I was glad that events turned out the way they had, if only because if she hadn’t come into prison when she did, we would never have met. That’s a horrible way to feel, to actually be glad of someone’s murdering past, but I’ve never been anything but honest with myself, and those feelings were there, even if I’d rather have had my toenails pulled out than to mention them to her, even in passing.
Over Ruby’s staunch objections, Ice began to use some of her earnings to buy food and sundries for our hostess, brushing each complaint off as if she hadn’t heard the woman practically screaming in her ear. She showed remarkable patience with Ruby who could, I’ll freely admit, be a bit trying at times. I don’t know what happened to cause them to come to a sort of mutual understanding, but whatever it was, I was grateful for it.
We’d spend many evenings in front of the fire, where yet another of Ice’s multitude of talents was revealed: drawing. She would tell me to close my eyes and describe the house I’d known and, with a pencil and sketchpad that she’d bought at the general store, she put brought to life the visions that were inside my head. The detail was so exact that I couldn’t help but be astounded, as well as a little non-plused. Perhaps the
woman could read minds, after all.
The only real drawback to this idyllic time was the fact that we still slept in separate rooms. Not by Ruby’s doing, either. No, she had even gone so far as to offer us the use of her own room, the only one large enough to fit more than a single bed into. Rather, it was my stubbornness—pure cussedness my mother called it when I was getting on her last nerve—that kept us apart. We hadn’t made love since that time in the hunter’s shack, and my hormones were complaining daily, to the point where I seriously considered booking a weekend at The Silver Pine just to have her in my arms again. But still, I refused.
That my actions were paralleling Ice’s in refusing an offered gift crossed my mind not at all. At least not then.
And so when the evening was over and we went to our single beds, closing the doors behind us, I was, in a sense, returning to my prison cell all over again. Only this time, it was a prison of my own making.
And then the nightmares started.
During the light of day, Ice’s fugitive status, and therefore my own, stayed deep down inside of me, aided, no doubt, by my continuing bliss in my freedom. But in the silence of the night, when the past comes out of its gloomy shadows, my dreams made me see what I refused to awake.
I’d often wake in a cold sweat, clutching a damp sheet to my chest and breathing as if I’d run a marathon. Every creak in the old house became an ominous sign. I’d lay awake, my heart rabbiting in my chest, waiting for the sound of sirens, or the pounding on the door announcing the arrival of the police. I tried to force the thoughts away, but they wouldn’t go. They’d stay and taunt me with their vividness, their plausibility, their ultimate truth.
But many times, on nights that were the worst, when the scream I so badly needed to utter stayed locked behind my lips in a prison of its own, I’d hear my door softly open and then she’d be there, coming to me and taking me into her arms, stroking my hair and soothing my demons. It was only on those nights when I could slip away into a dreamless sleep, comforted by the solid, living reality of her in my arms.
We never spoke about those nights, and haven’t to this day. Somehow she knew, and continues to know, exactly when I need to be comforted the most, and offers herself completely and without reservation.
I suspect she knows exactly what demons haunt my sweat-drenched nights. I suspect they haunt hers, too. And perhaps, if we confront them, unspoken but together, they will remain specters in the night and never leave their cave to stand in the daylight.
Perhaps.
* * *
On a particular Saturday morning in late spring, I awoke with a knot of happy anticipation curling in my stomach. After several intense discussions, a heated argument or two, and a final pooling of our less than vast monetary resources, this would be the day we would finally break ground on the cabin.
After a thorough inspection of the foundation already laid, Ice declared it unfit for a new home, the snow and water damage having crumbled and weakened it in some parts. She had spent the past several days, when not working, using a pickaxe to break up the pieces of concrete and move them out of the way so that the ground would be fresh for the new foundation to be laid on the ashes of the old.
A smile on my lips, I jumped from my bed and quickly showered and completed my morning routine, throwing on an old pair of shorts I’d somehow managed to save and my grungiest T-shirt. As I stepped from the bathroom, I wasn’t all that surprised to see Ice standing in the hallway, a slight smile curving her lips.
She looked fantastic in a pair of cut-off shorts and a tight black tank top that displayed her body to its best advantage. Many days of hard labor had further defined her already chiseled body and my eyes devoured what they were seeing like a starving man might when presented with the banquet of his delirious dreams.
Closing the distance between us, she took me into her arms and lowered her head, capturing my lips effortlessly in a kiss of slowly burning passion. I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer, my entire being reacting to the feelings she was sparking within.
God, it felt so good to have her love me.
After several moments, she pulled away, holding me at arms’ length and smiling down on me, her eyes gone silver in the dim lighting of the hallway. "Ready?"
My head spun. "Oh yeah."
Grabbing her hand, I tried to tug her into my own bedroom, not caring at that moment if the Pope himself was sleeping in the next room, such was my need for her. My forward progress was quickly halted by a swift tug on my hand, and I spun back to face her, my disappointment, I was sure, showing clearly on my face.
Her silvered eyes glinted in fond amusement. "I was referring to the cabin."
"Oh. That." I sighed, then stepped closer, noticing a thick vein which trailed over her bicep; a vein which practically begged me to run my tongue over it just so I could feel her pulse bounding. "Right now?"
"Right now," she confirmed, ducking her head down to kiss me senseless once more.
"But—"
"The faster we get this cabin built, the faster we get to finish what we’ve started here, my Angel."
Sexual bribery provided me the impetus to set a new record in the ‘down the hall, through the house and out the door’ dash.
A record which, I believe, stands to this day.
* * *
My fingers drummed a riff on the hood of the bastardized truck Ice had brought with her from work one day. "It followed me home," she said, that half cocky grin lighting her eyes.
A mongrel it was, too, and an ugly one at that, with parts scavenged from half a dozen other cars and trucks which sat on the grounds around Pop’s station collecting rust. He’d let her tinker with the engine, and when it was up and running, she bartered it for a couple day’s free labor. No fool, Pop, he snatched that offer before it had time to fully leave her lungs.
At least that’s how Ice tells it. I never quite got up the nerve to ask the deal maker himself.
"C’mon, Ice. Christmas’ll be here before you know it." I didn’t have to raise my voice. I knew she’d hear me easily.
A moment later and she sauntered out of the house, twirling the keys on her finger and sporting a definite cat-ate-the-canary grin. At any other time, I might have called her on it, but I was much too anxious to get this particular show on the road. I’d waited too long and too hard for this day to let the smugness of my partner ruin it for me.
Much, anyway.
I settled for throwing her my best scowl as she purposely brushed against me while reaching around to open the passenger’s side door. As I was about to sound off with a particularly, I believed, witty retort, she froze in place, head cocked. I could almost see her ears twitch to hone in on whatever sound she’d caught.
I knew that look, having seen it more times than I’d care to count. "What?"
She brushed by me again, only this time walking toward the small hill that separated Ruby’s property from our own. More than a little curious, I followed behind.
I almost ran into her back as she stopped at the crest of the small rise and, looking around her long body, I stopped too, my jaw dropping open. "I ...think I’m seeing things." I rubbed my eyes, hard, then blinked.
The scene before me didn’t change. Not one iota.
"If you are, then so am I," Ice replied, her voice flat.
The sound of our voices attracted some attention, and a man turned around, a broad grin on his face. It was Pop, dressed in a pair of heavy duty overalls and a thick sweatshirt. "Mornin’, eh? ‘Bout time you two got up. Thought we was gonna have to start without ya."
As I groped dumbly around for something to say, his grin broadened. "Cat got your tongue?"
"What’s ...going on here?"
"Never seen a barn raising before?" he asked.
More silence.
"Is he speaking English?" I asked Ice out of the corner of my mouth.
"No."
I started a bit at that, then realized she wasn’t replying to me.
/> Shaking his head, Pop pulled off his ball-cap and trotted up the small hill, coming to a stop before the both of us. "Sorry about springing it on you like this. I tried to tell ‘em to wait and ask you first, but ... ." He shrugged. "That’s not the way things work around here, mostly. They get a bee in their bonnet and it’s full speed ahead, damn the consequences, if you’ll pardon my French."
I pinched myself. It hurt. Dreaming was out, then. Alien abduction, however, was still in the running.
I looked from Pop to Ice the way a neophyte might who is trying to divine the truth of the meaning of life from an important yogi. When nothing was forthcoming, I cleared my throat and watched as two pairs of eyes lit upon mine. "Would either of you mind terribly filling me in here?"
After a moment, Pop nodded and flung out his hand, gesturing to the mob who stood below us, all trying to pretend they weren’t doing their level best to eavesdrop, and failing miserably. I looked from the group back to Pop, eyebrows raised. "Folks around here ain’t much on thank-yous," he explained. "Not with words, anyway. So, this is their way of sayin’ it without really sayin’ it. Understand?"
Unfortunately, the answer to that one was still a resounding ‘no’. My expression told him as much.
He sighed, then tried again. "They wanna help break ground on your cabin. As a way to pay ya back for savin’ the boy’s life."
Success!
"We don’t need any thanks," Ice said, her tone still expressionless. She looked angry, and for once, I could understand why, even if the townspeople hadn’t meant to hurt us with their gesture, which I’m sure they didn’t. I knew how much she’d been looking forward to building that cabin, pitting herself against wood and steel and bending them to her will, forming something out of nothing with her own hands.
To tell the truth, I had been looking forward to it, too.
"I tried to tell ‘em that. Tried to tell ‘em it’d be best if they asked first." He shook his head. "They’re good people, though, if stubborner than a pack of mules sometimes." He gestured to the crowd again. "That Clayton Dodd, he’s a right fair carpenter; been buildin’ here for years, him and his dad both. And Mary Lynch is the best electrician in these parts, bar none. The Drew boys own their own plumbing company and service most of the towns around here." He looked back at Ice, his gaze beseeching. "They won’t take nothin’ away from ya. Follow your orders to the letter, they will. Work like dogs when you want ‘em to, stop when ya don’t. Just got to give the word, either way, and we’ll follow it." He put his cap back on, straightening the brim with a brief tug. "I understand what it’s like ta want ta build something with your own sweat. Did my own house that way. But ...sometimes a little help is a good thing too. And it ain’t charity, so don’t go thinkin’ it is. It’s just a thank-you said in the only way these folks know how, that’s all."