What he wasn’t comfortable with was theother thing. She’d stood up, head held high, chest out, nostrils flared in defiance, and he’d likedher. Her warm brown eyes were the kind that looked like they’d get melty in firelight. Even under her baggy clothes, he’d been able to tell she was the kind of round he got off on—more than a handful of tits and ass.
Don’t go there.
He pushed off the bag, grabbed his shirt, and mopped under his pits before heading down the steps and back up the drive to his forge. He was conscious, as he walked beside Ms. Lloyd’s house, of which window would likely be Uma’s. It was dark, which was a relief, because he couldn’t think about her up there, awake, maybe watching him. He didn’t want to imagine how she’d look in whatever she wore to bed. For some reason, he pictured one of those long, old-fashioned, cotton nightgowns. White, with little, pink flowers.When did I turn into such a fucking creep?
Only then did it occur to him that not for one moment, through all of this, had he worried about Ms. Lloyd. The old woman had accepted a new stranger into her home, and he’d taken it for granted thatUmawould be the victim here, not the other way around. Well, with the way Ms. Lloyd lorded over people, it was probably true. But it gave him a sense of…rightness, somehow, that he’d had a hand in bringing Uma to them. Binx had screwed things up royally with that ad, something he’d never forgive her for, but still, it had worked out.
The clock read midnight when he closed his door. Back in the day, he would have called Steve, challenged him to a late-night sparring session, but the man was getting older and tired more easily.
Oh well. He put on a clean shirt and his apron, stoked the fire, and decided to get to work. Much healthier than heading out into the night for a fight or a fuck.
It sucked, though, because there was something about pounding flesh rather than metal that satisfied Ive’s rage better than anything else in the world.
3
Uma awoke with a start to yelling and the sound of a cane knocking on wood.
For the first few moments, she was buried alive by panic, fear, and frantic breaths, arms and legs trapped by the weight of unfamiliar wool blankets. When sensation finally coalesced into thought, she managed to claw her way out of sleep and eventually out of bed.
“You open this door now, missy!” the voice yelled, sounding frantic. Ms. Floyd. No, Lloyd. Ms. Lloyd. Her boss.
She stumbled to the door and put her hand up to unlock it before her bleary mind realized what it was seeing—blue, black, and green words marring white arms, the sight still enough to make her sick.
I will not throw up. I will not throw up.
Last night came back in a flash. So hot with the windows painted shut. Claustrophobic. Itchy. In the dark, stripping down to her tank top and underwear, with plans to dress under the blankets in the morning.
Oh God. Breathe. Breathe.
She focused. First, on pushing sound through her tight throat. Miraculously, “Be right there” emerged. Or maybe “Sorry.” Whatever she said, it must have been English, because it got a response.
“I will not be kept out of rooms in my own home,” Ms. Lloyd screamed. “I won’t have it!”
“Coming!” Uma called, tripping her way back to her bed, then rummaging around on the floor for yesterday’s clothing.
“Open this door!”
Shirt inside out, jeans unbuttoned, but at least Uma was covered by the time she got the door unlocked.
Ms. Lloyd opened her mouth to speak, no doubt some scathing remark, but then closed it again as, from downstairs, the phone started ringing—a shrill, insistent sound. Ms. Lloyd ignored it.
Big eyes pulled her apart, sweeping top to bottom, seeing more than was comfortable. Uma forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze.
After what seemed like ages of birdlike scrutiny, her boss delivered her prognosis. “You look awful.”
Something about the insult—perhaps the way it was delivered, or maybe the fact that she’d noticed—was a teeny, tiny thawing on Ms. Lloyd’s part.
Predictably, she ruined the moment by saying, “Get properly dressed and help me with my bath.”
* * *
It took less than twenty-four hours to get into the swing of the new job—for better or worse. It was amazing how quickly you could adjust to a new life, especially one as sedentary as Ms. Lloyd’s, where everything that could possibly interrupt the flow of the day had been cut out. There was no room for variation. No excitement, no surprises. No air.
After their breakfast of oatmeal and a single cup of tasteless, gas-station-grade coffee came the morning television marathon. News shows, accompanied by Ms. Lloyd’s laments on the stupidity of today’s youth, of which Uma was apparently an excellent representative.
The woman was set in her ways and painfully frugal, whether by desire or necessity. Could she afford the few hundred she had agreed to pay Uma every month? Uma suspected it was a stretch to her already strained finances, but you never knew with old people. They’d live their whole lives like paupers and then, after they died, you’d find they’d squirreled away a fortune under the mattress.
A few times that first full day, Uma caught Ms. Lloyd eyeing her, but besides the morning’s kerfuffle, there was surprisingly little conflict, as if Uma had undergone her trial by fire and could now rest easy. She didn’t quite trust that notion.
