Tasting Fear

by Shannon McKenna

  Edna shrank back, looking reproachful. Vivi rolled her pants up, looked at her cheerful, bright-green high-tops regretfully, and jumped out.

  Cold, sucking mud swallowed her feet. She slogged around the van. The tires were half buried. Chilly rain plastered her hair to her scalp and the green T-shirt to her body. She let loose with a stream of explicit profanity, the kind she’d learned in the Bronx as a child, and punctuated it by kicking a slimy tire. Pain shot up her leg.

  That’s right, she thought. Very impressive, Viv. Very mature.

  Farther back, she’d seen what looked like a collapsed shack. Maybe planks laid down in front of the tires would give them purchase to get out of the muck. Beyond the puddle, the road looked driveable.

  She’d exhaust every possibility before limping to Jack Kendrick’s house on foot like a cat left out in the rain. Fine first impression that would be, she fumed. She knew only what Duncan had told her. Kendrick was some sort of ex-spy commando who’d been on some top-secret intelligence gathering task force with Duncan years ago. Now, unaccountably, he grew flowers. Duncan had been somewhat vague about the details of that career change, his brain being deep-fried from being insanely in love with Nell.

  So this mysterious Kendrick lived in the woods, had an apartment in his barn, and was willing to let her huddle in his flowery bower and hide like a quivering, nose-twitching bunny until they all figured out what the hell to do about these art-hungry psychopaths. Nice of him.

  Seriously, though. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Duncan assured her that Kendrick knew the score, had agreed to the plan. It had sounded perfect, back in NYC. Too perfect, actually.

  Finally. There it was, a stack of gray, weathered planks, rusty nails sticking through them at crazy angles. She wrestled and yanked until she’d extricated a few boards, along with some ugly splinters. Negotiated the slippery boards through the fir thickets. Arrived at the van, soggy, scratched, and panting, issuing a stream of profanity. She hauled out her toolbox, hammered the nails flat, and got down to wrestle them into place. Mud oozed over the tops of the boards, and she was slimed from chest to feet, when she heard the deep voice from behind her.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

  She started violently, knocking her head on the bumper. “Who is that?” She scrambled to her feet. There was no one there that she could see.

  Vivi scanned the trees and reached for the tire iron stowed under the seat, groping until her fingers closed over cold, hard metal. “Where are you?” she called out. She was starting to shake.

  “Over here.”

  She spun, brandishing the tire iron. A tall man, stood there, half hidden in the trees. He was shrouded in a dull-green hooded rain poncho, dripping with rain. She would never have seen him if he had not spoken. Adrenaline zinged through her. She gave the tire iron an experimental heft.

  “What do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on me like that?”

  He took a step forward. She raised the tire iron. He stopped. Edna whined.

  “Stay, Edna,” she snapped. “Who are you?”

  “I’m not going to attack you,” he said, pushing back his hood.

  Light, silver-gray eyes, cool and unreadable. His face was brown, lean. High cheekbones, a hooked nose. A scar on one temple slashed down into one of his straight, dark eyebrows, leaving a white line. He had a short beard, or maybe long beard stubble. Dark hair, long and shaggy. He regarded her steadily. Drops of rain beaded his face. He did not look like the Fiend, as Nancy and Nell had described him. This guy was not loathsome, pig eyed, or malodorous.

  By no means. This guy was oh-my-God fine looking. She tried to breathe. Her terror was transmuting itself into utter embarrassment.

  “Put it down.” A small smile crinkled up the skin around his eyes.

  “What?” She realized that her mouth was hanging open.

  “The tire iron.” He glanced at her white-knuckled hand.

  “Oh.” She felt foolish, panicked. Acutely conscious of the mud on her clothes, the hair stuck to her face, of the way her wet, muddy shirt clung to her tits. Of how incredibly tall he was. Even if he wasn’t the Fiend, he was a complete stranger, and there was nobody around here for miles. Just her. And Edna, the world’s friendliest dog. She looked at the hand that clutched the tire iron. It was shaking.

  “The boards won’t work,” he said gently. “It was a good idea, but the mud is too wet and deep.” He took a step closer. She backed away.

  He sighed, silently, and picked up a stick, walking away from her around the back of the van, prodding the mud.

  Released from the spell of his eyes, she finally managed to exhale. Get a grip. He was not going to leap on her like a mad dog. He didn’t look like a killer. Try to be civil. Her face felt so hot, raindrops should be skittering on it like water on a griddle. Insane. She never blushed. “I asked what you were doing here,” she said, trying to sound authoritative.

  “This is my land,” he said.

  “Oh.” She dropped her gaze, before his bright eyes could catch it and nail it down again. “Do you always walk around in thunderstorms?”

  “I like the rain,” he said. “I like the way it smells. And I wish you’d put that thing down.”

  “I’ll put it down when I’m ready to put it down,” she said shakily.

  He tossed down his stick. “Whatever. Just don’t hit me with it.”

  “Not without provocation,” she said.

  His mouth twitched. “Would you just chill the fuck out?”

  She felt ridiculous, and threw the tire iron back into the van in disgust.

  “You travel alone?” he asked.

  “No. I travel with my dog,” Vivi replied.

  Edna bounded out when her existence was mentioned, landing in the mud with a wet plop. She shook herself, trotted over to the stranger, and gave his large brown hand a sniff. She yelped her approval and leaped up on him.

  “Down, Edna,” Vivi ordered, startled. Edna had never cozied up to strangers. It made her feel vaguely betrayed. “Get back in here!”

  The dog trotted back, panting into Vivi’s face. “Sorry about that,” she told him.

  “No problem.” A brief smile lit his face. “Nice dog.”

  “Too nice,” Vivi muttered. She started to push back the tangled hair that clung to her face, but stopped. Mud on her hands.

  He gazed at her, with that supernatural calm. Maybe hanging out in nature for too long did that to a guy. Look at him, walking through the pouring rain because he liked the way it smelled. Give her a break.

  It made her feel frantic, citified, stressed out. A shallow little squeaking hamster racing on the wheel. And the hungry fanged kitties lurking, licking their chops. Waiting for their lunch.

  Oh, Christ, she needed a vacation. A night’s sleep. Something.

  “You’re stuck,” he remarked.

  She suppressed a sarcastic comment about stating the glaringly obvious, and concentrated on wiping her hands on her drenched T-shirt. Good grief. He could see everything through that shirt. She hadn’t worn a bra. She wasn’t wearing a jacket. She was blushing. Again.

  “I noticed that actually,” she said. “Can you tell me how might I get a tow around here?”

  He prodded the mud with his stick once again, looked up at the lowering clouds. “No,” he said. “See how steep that hill is? No one can pull you out until this dries up.” He stroked Edna’s head. “So why did you bring this piece of junk out onto the worst road in the county in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

  “This van is not junk,” Vivi flared. “It’s been my home for years, and it’s perfectly fine. It’s the road that’s the problem, not my van!”

  He looked incredulous. “You live in this thing?”

  “I’m a craftswoman,” she informed him. “I work the craft fair circuit, so I live on the road. Up till now, that is.”

  “Interesting, but it doesn’t explain what you’re doing on my land.”

&
nbsp; Why, that arrogant putz. “None of your business,” she snapped.

  “It is now,” he said. “This thing is blocking my road.”

  Vivi lifted her chin. “Didn’t you just say that nobody’s going to be driving on it until it’s dry?”

  His eyes caught hers, held them fast. “True enough,” he said. “But it’s still my land.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. Not ogling her, but her body still shivered, as if he were checking her out inch by inch.

  She suppressed an urge to cross her arms across her breasts. She would remain nonchalant, or die in the attempt. “Besides, I’m not trespassing. I’m going to my new place. How far is it to Kendrick’s?”

  The man’s face went blank for a second. Then his brow furrowed. He stared at her, then at the mud-splattered, fantastical painting on the side of her van. “Don’t tell me you’re Vivien D’Onofrio.”

  Tension started to tighten, in her belly, her neck. “And just why shouldn’t I tell you that?”

  “You’re not what I expected,” he said. “I have to talk to Duncan.”

  “Oh, my God. You mean, you’re Jack Kendrick?” She stared at him, speechless. She’d been expecting a stolid jarhead type, older, thicker, with graying hair buzzed off.

  Not a silver-eyed sex god who loved to walk in the rain.

  “You’re early,” he said, an accusing note in his voice. “Duncan sent me an e-mail last night saying you were still in Idaho yesterday. I expected you this evening, or tomorrow. What, did you drive all night?”

  “Uh, yes.” He didn’t need to know what a cowering scaredy-cat she was, so she skipped the explanations, while running their entire conversation through her mind, trying to assess how rude she’d been.

  Hmmph. Pretty bad. No ruder than he deserved, but still. She had to make an effort. He was doing her a big, fat favor, after all. “Um. Seems like we got off to a bad start,” she said, trying to sound conciliatory.

  “Yeah, it does.” He no longer looked Zen mellow. He looked pissed.

  Vivi asked carefully. “What do you mean, not what you expected? she asked. “What were you expecting?”

  “Duncan told me you were a professional designer with a stalker problem who needed to drop out of sight for a while. He did not tell me that you were a tattooed, itinerant teenager sexpot neo-hippie.”

  Vivi’s jaw dropped. Teenager? Neo-hippie? Sexpot, for God’s sake? All thoughts of conciliation vanished. “You rude son of a bitch!” she hissed. “I am a professional! You owe me an apology!”

  “We’ll see.” Jack’s face was blatantly unapologetic.

  Sexpot? Her brain stuck on that like a hook. God knew, it was not how she’d describe her muddy, strung-out, sleep-deprived, what-the-cat-dragged-in self, but holy cow! Who did the guy think he was?

  So he was that insufferable type of man who made snap judgments based on a nose ring and a tie-dye T-shirt. Truth to tell, she’d been meaning to take the nose ring out before meeting him, just to suss him out first. She’d meant to stop at a place with a bathroom, put on some decent clothes, brush her hair, maybe even put on some makeup.

  So much for that brilliant plan. Add another mistake to the list.

  She held up her arm, displaying the tattoo of coiled barbed wire that circled her narrow wrist. “You’ve got a problem with me, Kendrick?”

  “Yes,” Jack said flatly.

  Vivi was blushing again. Smarting, from being judged by him. She bit back a babbling flood of explanations that were none of his business. Explanations that she owed to nobody. In truth, that tattoo wasn’t one she’d chosen. Her mom’s boyfriend had taken her to his buddy’s skeevy tattoo parlor when she was ten, to spite Vivi’s mom. As an attention-getting technique, it had bombed, big-time. Vivi’s mom had been too focused organizing her next heroin fix to notice. Vivi figured she was probably lucky the guy hadn’t put the tattoo on her face. Talk about an alternative look.

  But she didn’t enjoy playing the victim, so she’d flaunted the tattoo. And nobody had forced her to get the mandala tattoo over the crack of her ass, or the crescent moon and star on the top of her foot, or the smiling gothic sun face that adorned her shoulder blade, or the flower over her left breast. And Kendrick couldn’t even see those.

  She’d never felt embarrassed about her funky, alternative look before. Usually, she enjoyed getting in the face of uptight people. It was good for their health, to have their assumptions challenged. But for some reason, the self-appointed task of challenging assumptions was no fun for her today. She didn’t have the juice for it. Not with this guy.

  “Would you mind answering my original question?” she asked, her voice tight. “How far is it to your place?”

  “By this road, two and a half miles. Cross-country, a little over a mile and a half. Why didn’t you take the other road?”

  “What other road?”

  “I just put in another road, from the other side of the property. It’s much shorter, and better kept. I e-mailed the directions to Duncan. He should have passed them on to you.”

  Vivi shoved back her hair and wondered uncomfortably if she’d left mud across her cheek. “These were the directions he gave me last week, before I took off. He must have forgotten. I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s been distracted lately. Love, and all.”

  “I see,” he said.

  “But just for the record, I’m not a teenager. I’m almost twenty-eight. Nor am I a neo-hippie. Nor am I flaky, in any way.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and glared at him. She couldn’t deny the itinerant or tattooed parts. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to deny the sexpot part. That was a matter of context, mood. Inclination.

  He raised an eyebrow. She willed herself not to drop her gaze. A raindrop rolled down the sculpted contours of his jaw. She watched it, breathless.

  “You don’t look twenty-eight,” he observed.

  She shook herself loose of the hypnosis, and steeled herself to do the grown-up, dignified thing. “Well, I am. If you’ve drawn your conclusions about my intrinsic value as a person after two minutes of conversation, there’s nothing left to be said. I’ll just hike back to town and find a motel and someone who can help me pull my van out.”

  He frowned. “Don’t be silly. We’ll talk about it later. Get what you need out of your van for the time being. You can’t walk back to town.”

  She drew herself up to her full height, which was about five three, unfortunately. “I can do what I goddamn well please. I don’t need your help, and I don’t need your attitude. I’ll just pack my bags, if you don’t mind, and Edna and I will be on our way.”

  “You can’t—” He cut himself off, looking irritated. “This rain isn’t stopping. It’s six miles back to town. You aren’t going to find anybody to help you with that van today. Get your stuff.” He stared at her stiff, stony face, sighed, and said, “Okay. I apologize, already. Let me rephrase. Please, get your stuff.”

  Vivi was cautiously mollified. She climbed into the van and shoved clothes into her duffel, too nervous to be methodical. She tossed cans of dog food into her backpack, attached her sleeping bag, and jumped out with both bags. He was examining the lurid fantasy mural on the van while he waited. “What’s this, a dragon?”

  “No, it’s a serpent,” she informed him, ridiculously defensive.

  He harrumphed. “Is that your work?”

  She snorted. As fucking if. “No,” she said crisply. “That’s not my style. Actually, I don’t paint. I’m a sculptor. An old friend of mine named Rafael painted that. I bought the van from him years ago.”

  “Hmmm. Whatever. Let’s go, if you’re ready.” He grabbed the heavy duffel from her shoulder, flung it onto his back, and headed straight into the thickest-looking part of the forest.

  She struggled after him with her backpack as he wove and ducked through evergreens, brambles, and clinging foliage and festoons of lichen with supernatural grace and ease. She felt clumsy and heavy with every step, dragging her mud-covered high-tops out of the ground with a w
et, squelching sound. Fir boughs slapped her face, snagged her hair.

  Kendrick glanced back to make sure she was following and started up a steep incline. The soft mud was very slippery. She climbed the hill, half-crawling, grabbing trunks of little sapling firs for balance. She started sliding downhill, and tried to steady herself by reaching for a clump of innocent-looking broad-leafed plants. Their tough, leathery stems proved to be covered with thorns. She lost her footing, and fell into the sloppy mud. Painfully.

  “Need a hand?”

  Jack Kendrick was looming over her, though to be fair, it wasn’t his fault. He was standing above her on the slope, after all, and the guy was ridiculously tall to start with. His silvery eyes examined her narrowed thoughtfully. “Are you hurt?”

  She pointed at the plant, and struggled to rise, cradling the stinging hand. He helped her to her feet, his hand under her elbow.

  “Let me see.” He turned her hand over, examined it, and began pulling out the tiny thorns embedded in her palm.

  Vivi’s breath stopped. Her senses were swamped with close-up sensory details. His head bent over hers, rain dripping from the ends of his shaggy, dark hair. Every detail of him etched itself into her brain. The way the hair grew back from his forehead, the white streak on his temple where the scar disappeared into his hairline. His sensual mouth. Very sensual, when it was relaxed. His lower lip, so cushiony and pink. It looked like it would be hot, soft. Kissable.

  She was close enough to smell him. Soap, pine trees, wood smoke. Coffee. She wanted to touch his face, smooth the rain-drenched strands of hair that clung to his forehead.

  She recoiled, alarmed at her own impulses. “Let’s go on.”

  “Give me this,” he said, pulling her backpack off her shoulders.

  She was irritated at the implication that she couldn’t handle it. She was small, yes, but no weakling. “I’m fine!” She tugged it back.

  He plucked it from her hand with an impatient jerk and slung it over his shoulder, along with her duffel. He started back up the hill, and she scrambled after, knees wobbling. “A little farther, and the hard part’s over,” he said over his shoulder.