“I guess you wouldn’t know it to look at me these days, but I used to raise some hell myself.” Maylee curled one arm. “I didn’t get these just punchin’ dough.”
“You’re serious?”
“I swung a mean mace. Big, flanged thing. Mostly mercenary stuff and only for a few years, but yeah.”
Viv leaned further forward. “Who’d you run with? What happened?”
Maylee laughed, a more delicate sound than Viv expected to hear coming from her. The dwarf might have been short, but everything about her seemed like it should be big. “Oh, nobody you’da heard of. And I guess it just got so I wanted to spend more time fussin’ over my campfire biscuits than trompin’ around some damp cave. You ever cooked biscuits ona campfire? Pain in the ass. I got pretty good at it, though. And at some point…” She shrugged.
Viv was mystified. She immediately thought of the Ravens, and something like homesickness flared up in her chest. “And you’re… happy doing that? You don’t miss it?”
“Sleepin’ on roots? Nah.”
“Here you go, miss,” said the tavern kid, sliding a steaming plate and a copper mug in front of Maylee. An inch-thick slab of heavily peppered beef crowded a bunch of salted, diced potatoes. Viv had already half finished her own meal, but her stomach snarled at the smells of hickory, rosemary, and hot, crispy fat.
“Thanks, Ketch.” So, the tavern kid had a name. Viv noticed he didn’t rate a “hon.”
Maylee’s eyes sparkled as she arranged her plate before her, and her delighted expression made Viv smile. The woman was definitely enthusiastic about her food.
Viv dragged her own plate back in front of her and picked up the fork. “Eight hells, I can’t even imagine. I’d go crazy. I feel like I’ve got an itch I can’t scratch waiting around here, and it gets a little worse every day.”
The dwarf enthusiastically sawed off a bite and popped it into her mouth, closing her eyes as she chewed. “Oh, that’s the stuff.” She sighed contentedly. “Anyway, nah, not really. I keep myself busy, and there’s a lot less bleedin’.” She pointed her fork at Viv. “And a lot better food.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, only the clink of knife and fork on the tin plates marking the time. It was comfortable.
Eventually, Maylee put down her utensils and steepled her fingers over her plate. She was still smiling, but there wassomething serious about her gaze, too, and Viv had the sense of a curtain being swept aside.
“Look,” said Maylee, and her voice was softer, pitched just for Viv. “I like you.”
Viv cleared her throat as that comfortable feeling evaporated, replaced with a jumble of emotions she couldn’t sort out without time to claw through them. Time she suddenly didn’t have. “Uh, I guess I sort of figured that out,” she said, lamely. And then lower down, “Don’t know why, though.”
Maylee arched a speculative brow. “Well, Iwouldasaid it was when I first saw those arms, ’cause… eight hells! But really it was when I saw you waitin’ in line. Watchin’ the careful way you moved around the other folks.”
Viv’s cheeks went hot, and she couldn’t find any words. She suddenly didn’t have the breath for it.
“All real cute. And okay, then I talked to Fern, too.” At Viv’s widening eyes, Maylee laughed. “She didn’t spill any secrets, hon. But maybe I got a peek at you. Enough to know I’d like to know you better.”
Her smile slipped, and there was something distant and sad in her eyes. “You know, there’s a lot of people out there. Lot of noise. I love what I do, love it every day, but none of us sees more than a tiny piece of all the world, like we’re lookin’ out a little-bitty window. And I saw you through mine, and somethin’ inside me said, ‘That’s somebody you oughta know.’ Simple as that.
“I know you’re gonna be gone,” she said. “Maybe in a couple weeks. You know what, though? Doesn’t matter to me. I’m just gonna make it real simple for you. Do you think you oughta knowme?”
Maylee tried to say it casually, but Viv wasn’t so dull she didn’t feel the thread of tension running through those words.
Viv stared at her entirely too long as words turned to vapor in her mind, and all the while she felt that line of tension grow tighter. And when she couldn’t bear for it to break, she suddenly had to answer.
“I’d like that,” said Viv. And while that was true, part of her knew it was a truth with an edge to it. One that might cut them both later.
17
“You own aboat?” Viv looked bemusedly at the dinghy moored to the smallest of the four piers, which benefited from the sheltered, stiller waters off the cove. A long sandbar curled out in a narrowing arm, and the promontory with the unrecognizable structures overlooked it all.
Seawater slopped along the hull of the tiny boat as it seesawed gently back and forth. Viv eyed the size of the vessel with trepidation, having some difficulty mentally fitting herself into it. “I’ve gotta say, I figured it would be… bigger.”
Other watercraft, none terribly large, bobbed in a ragged line down the length of the jetty, which was mostly populated by gulls and terns toward its end.
“I just borrow it when I feel the need to. This old sailor who comes by every day for biscuits lets me use it as I please. Don’t know why he even keeps it, since he’s out on a trawler all day.” Hanging on to one of the pilings, Maylee stepped into the belly of the boat. “Hand that over, hon,” she said, gesturing at the wicker basket on the boards.
Viv obliged, passing along the basket with a soft clatter and clink.
