The Kitchen Charmer

  I focused on Cathy the cow’s headdress. “I don’t consider myself a real artist, but . . . ”

  “I don’t consider myself a real actress, and if I read all the things people say online about my burn scars, I wouldn’t think I deserved to live, much less show my face to a camera. Your point is?”

  “I could hit you right now, and there wouldn’t be any witnesses.”

  She laughed. “And?”

  “Why does Cathy the Cow have vegetables and fruit in her hat? You’re selling milk-based products.”

  “The ad agency says those say ‘health.’”

  “To me they say ‘Go on a diet.’”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I love cows and sheep, but many women might see them as negative symbols. Follow like a sheep, be cowed, fat as a cow, et cetera.”

  Cathy sighed. “I never had to work at staying thin when I was in the spotlight. I had to lie about it all the time in interviews; say how much I starved myself, so women wouldn’t hate me.” She gestured toward her scarred face. “I admit I don’t understand what it’s like to be called fat. But I understand how it feels to hear some successful comedian joke about me looking like ‘a grilled hamburger with tits.’”

  I reached over my shoulder to touch her burn-scarred right hand. “When you moved to the Cove, did you feel hidden and safe?”

  “Yes. Tom felt the same way when he came here from New York. And Doug said it when Delta lured him here. He called the Crossroads Cove ‘Little Scotland.’” She donned a hooded coat and wrapped one of my scarves around her neck. “Speaking of sanctuaries, I have to get home to Wild Woman Ridge. The girls are here from school, and Tom is making a big dinner. The twins expect me to make my semi-famous sugar biscuits for dessert.”

  “Learning to make biscuits was a turning point for you, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Partly because I overcame my fear of anything hot, including ovens, but also because I finally understood the magic Delta was trying to teach me. The letting go and letting God in. Or as she puts it, the ‘Lard.’” Cathy smiled. “You’ll find your own way to make biscuits. Just give it time. Macy will be here in a few minutes to pick you up. Okay?”

  My stomach clenched, but I nodded. “I’m expanding my safe zones. Maybe next time I’ll walk up the street and buy an ice cream cone.”

  Cathy cut her eyes at my phone. “Gus is a good influence.” She winked as she left.

  I wandered to the front, smoothing my damp palms on my skirt. The shop was pretty and pastel; it smelled wonderful; the shelves and displays gave it the appeal of a maze or rabbit warren.

  If threatened, I could flee down the narrow aisle between the face soaps and the lip balms. Hide behind the rack of scented neck pillows.

  When Kern swung a big Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department SUV into a parking space outside the windows, my hands knotted in my skirt. The small pistol rested snuggly against my lower belly, the soft cloth holster rubbing me in ways that were sometimes disturbingly erotic.

  Not around Kern, however.

  You’ll come to my wife’s party at the lake.

  No. I don’t do parties. But thank you.

  You’ll come. I insist. Don’t be shy. I’ll protect you.

  Under his shirt were the pale ghosts of tattoos covering his arms and shoulders. He’d had them lasered after Howard began grooming him for big things. Eagles and skulls and guns. A snarling bear behind a Christian cross surrounded by lightning bolts—the emblem of the Guardians of Liberty militia.

  I had seen those fading tats the summer before—months before Gus and I met—when he came to the farm on one of his usual pretexts of official business. Alberta and Macy agreed he was stalking me. No, it was not a flirtation, not charming, not wanted. He was married to Amber. He had been constructing excuses to see me for a year or more, by then.

  And the problem was, he played the game so well that we couldn’t risk going to Pike for help. Or even to Delta. He was Cleo’s adopted son. Cleo was Delta’s sister-in-law and second in command at the café. What could we accuse him of?

  Well, he comes by a lot and hangs around. He’s charming and friendly and kind, and all the women adore him. Even though his father-in-law hates Rainbow Goddess Farms, Kern comes here to show his support. So . . . that’s a problem.

  It’s a delicate business, humoring the people in power who can do you harm.

  So he visited and lingered to hoe weeds and pinch suckers off tomato plants in the farm’s five-acre vegetable garden. Or he’d fix a tractor. Repair a window. Talk straight talk to the kids who needed a male authority figure straight out of the comic books to tell them not to do drugs and to stay in school.

  Amid the organic compost mounds and the rainwater cisterns, he always stripped off his deputy’s shirt, while pretending not to notice my reaction. A dozen women and teenage girls were working the garden around me. They all stared at his muscles and his faded tattoos. Then they stared at me. I was their weather vane.

  I failed them. I didn’t say, “We don’t get to strip down to our nipples, so please don’t show us yours.” I said nothing.

  Shame.

  No. Anger. Anger was weaving its way up through the Dorian Gray picture in my closet. Me, the minister’s daughter and good girl victim. No. Me. The woman endowed with second sight and a small pistol between her thighs.

  He hunched his big shoulders inside a heavy tan JCSD jacket as he strode to the doors and swung one open. A tall, handsome man, with a hard jaw and deep grey eyes. But the set of his face could go from charming to ice cold in a flash. And when he spoke, his voice was clipped, pruned of southern melodies, or any song, at all.

  He stopped several feet away and held up both hands, palms facing me. “Relax,” he ordered. “I just want to talk to you for a minute.”

  “The shop closes in ten. Macy’s on her way to pick me up.”

  “I’ll make it quick. Please, just listen.” He lowered his hands. “I know about your new friend. He’s trouble.”

  “That’s none of your business. This isn’t appropriate. Go home to Amber.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep secrets from me. I’ll do whatever you ask. Just understand that I’m always here for you, and always will be. From the day we met in the field at Rainbow Goddess I knew you deserved better than that life. I’ve got the money. I’ve got the power. I’ll make sure no one hurts you. Especially him.”

  “I’m not going to discuss my personal life with you.”

  “Let me tell you about Captain Gus MacBride. Regular army. Seventeen years in. Four combat tours. Record of being written up repeatedly for disobeying orders. Demoted three times. Wild card. Way too friendly with the natives. In Special Forces, we call his kind names I won’t repeat.

  “And now he’s got millions of dollars waiting for him when he comes home. Wakefield money. His sisters tell you it’s a debt the Wakefields owe them for stealing MacBride land and framing their grandpa to get mining rights at Free Wheeler. No. It’s Jay Wakefield paying a big dowry to get into their family and keep those mining rights. It’s greed, Lucy. It’s Gus trading his sister Gabby for money.”

  I backed away. “That’s a lie.”

  “Gus MacBride is a troublemaker and a traitor. You’ve got to cut him off. I knew him when we were kids. No one wanted the responsibility of handling him and his sisters. They were head cases. Jay Wakefield’s uncle was their only hope. He tried to take care of them. He put them in a private J-Fac—facility for troubled juveniles.

  “Gus was about to be sent to lock-up for almost killing a boy. He broke out and dragged his sisters with him. Delta and Pike took them in and coddled them. Family relationships. I wouldn’t know . . . I never had much family willing to lie for me. They were shipped off to friends in California before anyone could find them. That’s wh
y they waited twenty years to show up here again. Gabby is marrying Jay Wakefield. Money. Money is all they came back for.”

  “You’re wasting your breath.”

  “Gus is using you. He wants to get back in tight with Delta and Pike. He knows they care about you. You’re special. You’re a prize. And he wants that prize.” Kern’s lip curled. “I don’t doubt he knows I want you, too, and that’s all what matters to him.”

  I moved behind a counter, trying not to expose my fear, not to tremble. “All right, I’ve listened to you. Now leave.”

  He held out his hands. “You have such amazing powers but even you can’t—or won’t—see what’s coming. America can’t afford to be soft anymore. No more free rides for the lazy and the weak-minded. No more tolerance for complainers and troublemakers. Conformity. Obedience. Those are the new rules. But you . . . you’ll always be an outsider, a threat to the dimwitted and easily fooled. You can’t fit in—you’re special. There will come a time when you’ll suffer for it. You need me, Lucy. You need to have friends in strong positions. It isn’t just about money; it’s about command.”

  His expression became deadly. “I know how it feels to be used and abused. I will not let Gus MacBride hurt you. For God’s sake, Lucy, has he told you he’s got a woman? He’s been hooking up with a British war correspondent for years.”

  “I know. It doesn’t matter.”

  Bleak streamers of gray and rust surrounded him. I saw the red orb of his heart glowing in his chest. Waves of shock and anger rolled off his skin.

  “I will save you,” he said.

  He walked out, slamming the glass door so hard the Closed sign fell from its suction cup hook. I sat down on a plastic crate behind the cash register.

  The woman’s name was Dana. Or Lana. Shanna. Vanna. Anna. I couldn’t quite focus on her; her presence in his universe jarred my control. Do not invade his privacy. You promised. He doesn’t invade yours at that level. If he did, he’d deduce what happened to you.

  What Gus and I shared was a friendship beyond description. Yes, it brimmed with affection and desire, but there were no vows. If he did come home on leave in a couple of months, the reality of my condition would cool us down.

  I couldn’t begrudge him a girlfriend. A lover. I wouldn’t demand that he tell me about her. Oh, sure, I’d just casually pop her into one of our many long conversations. Maybe when he called at odd hours, and I snuggled on my cot describing the taste of my hot mint tea as the sky lightened in the small window above me.

  So, tell me about this woman you sleep with. Vanna, Shanna, Lana.

  No.

  We all view the world through tunnels we trust.

  Kern’s was no wider than the bore of a gun.

  Mine was as narrow as a strand of yarn.

  I HATED THE nightmares. In my experience, they always held a clue to the future.

  Luce was here. I heard her voice, felt the aura of her reaching toward me. We wanted each other without touching, without taking it into the obvious sex talk, without any need for explaining. I wanted to fuck her into heaven. And she wanted to fuck me the same way. A Given. But all those scary parts were hidden in the space between a knit and a purl.

  All I had to do was get to her before the psychic warden noticed I’d escaped. Before the hellhound tracked me down with its blood and its voice that mimicked her, screaming.

  Get up, soldier. Move your ass.

  I’m up. I’m walking. No cast on the left leg. Interesting. It was mechanical from the knee down, but nothing fancy; made of simple steel shafts, nuts and bolts, a few big rivets, and wires that connected the joints. Parts began falling off—one at a time, while I walked as fast I could toward Luce. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was my destination.

  My toes went first; bolts popping like metal champagne corks. No problem. I don’t need toes. Then the foot rattled, the screws loosening, washers jiggling, making a loud coins-in-a-glass-jar noise. The components made cartoon pings and plunks as they fell out.

  My balance was failing. Just walk faster. I stumbled.

  A wire snapped. Then a second one. I nearly fell down. The foot was useless, now. I stopped and shook it. What was left finally popped off the rotating metal collar of a shiny ball bearing.

  My ankle.

  I set that stump down carefully. I can walk on this. Get going.

  The ground, or grass, or whatever I’d been walking on before, suddenly turned steel-gray and as smooth as still water. The steel ball shot forward with a high-pitched whine. Skating on concrete.

  I went down hard on my back. My leg hit the pavement and shattered into metallic confetti, twinkling above me in absolute darkness. I didn’t have to look to know that all I had left was a human leg that ended in a gory steel nub at the knee.

  Blood. The smell and taste washed over me. The screaming began.

  You hurt women. You’re being punished. She’ll be punished, too.

  KERN STALKED ME through some kind of cave or tunnel. I woke up, clammy and gasping. I always slept with my desk light turned on. I blinked painfully in the glow. A pinging sound jumped through my senses.

  Gus calling.

  I scrambled to my laptop, hugging a blanket around me.

  His handsome face filled the screen. Not the best streaming video quality, but there he was.

  He had deep shadows under his eyes.

  “Bad dreams,” Gus said, looking directly at me from my laptop screen. “You, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. “Do you? About yours?”

  “No.” He leaned in, searching my brow. “Is that a turban or a ’do rag?”

  “It’s a crocheted headband. It’s cold in here. My little electric heater doesn’t help much in the winter. My ears are chilly.”

  “Show me an ear. I need to check for frostbite.” The slight crook in his lips dared me to demure. I lifted a gloved hand, pulled a scarf down my neck just a little, and nudged the head band up.

  He squinted. “Would you push your hair back? I think I see some frost. Need a better look.”

  I curled the pale blond shank behind my ear.

  “Hmmm. Can’t tell for sure. I need to compare it to the other ear.”

  I pulled my headband back into place. Discomfort slithered around me.

  He quickly sat back. “Tell me about that desk. I’m getting ‘Dirty Pony.’ It’s a seven ounce short beer, hoppy, forty percent alcohol per volume. Like a shot of whisky. Small but heady.”

  I smothered a smile behind one hand.

  “I see that,” he teased, his voice graveled with gentleness but also fatigue.

  Still smiling, I lowered my fingers to my phone, bent sideways, and snapped a photo of the desk’s stubby legs. I held up the phone so Gus could see. “It’s an antique buffet table. Delta gave it to me. She said, ‘Cousin Elam Partaine from Nashville cut the legs down to suit her no-good four-foot-tall boyfriend. My mama said our family forgave Mr. Sexy Little for seducing Elam, but not for ruining the buffet table.’”

  He laughed. “Show me more.”

  I bent to the other side, aiming the camera at the desk again.

  He laughed harder. “Not the desk. Other pictures on your phone.”

  Pictures of me. My chest tightened. Breathe in slowly. Breath out slowly. Relax your diaphragm. I fumbled with the phone. “Here’s . . . this is Shirley. Your scarf’s wool donor. And this is the interior of the barn. There’s Brim lurking in one corner, trying to bite the king of the llamas. And here’s King Llama trying to bite her back. And here’s the newest resident in the barn loft. She’s a refugee in my No Fry Zone. I call her Fran. She escaped from a poultry truck headed for the processing plant at Monzell . . . ”

  “Stop,” he said ge
ntly. “I’m not trying to upset you.”

  I laid the phone down and took a moment to inhale and exhale several times. Other women sent their soldiers triple-X selfies. I’d progressed to showing Gus that I sometimes wore only a sweater and long skirt. Very sexy—no shawls. “I’m not comfortable with photos of myself. It’s one of my quirks. I’m so sorry. I hate being this way.”

  “Hold up. I wasn’t asking for pictures of you. I want more sheep photos. I like to look at sheep. Nothing creepy. Just as friends.”

  I tried to laugh but it came out with an unhappy sound gurgle. I bet Vanna, Shanna, Dana sends him pictures of herself. Naked.

  I fumbled with my neatly organized desk files, knocking over notes and invoices related to the woolies and their management, also notes for the Knights and their work on Free Wheeler’s old bike paths. I slumped in the office chair and gazed at an electronic photo frame beside my computer.

  I pictured him lying on his narrow bed. He’d sent so many photos that I had put together a panoramic view for my laptop’s screensaver. A desk and computer, photos of his sisters and their parents, rest in peace, pictures of Gabby with Jay, and Tal with Doug, and with Eve, and photos of the Asheville police officers who had served with his dad, now balding men with paunches.

  And photos of me, shawled and long-skirted, peeking from beside Brim, from among sheep and llamas and alpacas with wintry mountain skies behind me. Oh, and the one very intimate selfie of my feet in the gorgeous socks he’d knitted for me. He’d put that photo in a frame on the file cabinet that served as his nightstand.

  Think that thought. Look at that picture of the photo on the nightstand. Feel the slow pull of deep muscles and the thick tingle around them. Shift your legs. Head back. Eyes half shut. Gus inside you. Safe sex.

  He was so handsome; the big, broad-shouldered man in desert camo with reddish hair bleached almost as pale as mine. I loved his smile and the lines creasing the corners of his eyes; I loved the enameled-green gaze that looked straight out at me and sizzled farther down inside me than I could ever let any physical touch travel.