I don't know what happened to her, but I plan on making it my business.
I drive a nail through the baseboard harder than necessary.
Nora looks at me from the doorway of the Summit House kitchen. She's older with curly gray hair and kind hazel eyes that suggest she knows exactly what's happening in my head.
"You're putting holes in my wall, James."
"Baseboard's fixed."
"Uh-huh." She crosses her arms. "Jocelyn called me."
"Of course she did."
"Said you went to the library."
"I go to a lot of places."
"You go to three places. Here, Hank's porch, and your mother's house." She tilts her head. "The library is new."
I pack up my tools and don't answer, because anything I say is going to end up in the mouth of every person on Main Street by sundown. That's how Iron Peak works. Gossip moves through this town faster than the snowmelt in spring. Last thing I need is to see it whip down the canyon walls, through The Broken Antler tavern, across the café counter at The Ridge Diner, and into every living room before you've finished your first cup of coffee.
Normally that doesn't bother me. I don't do anything worth gossiping about. But today it bothers me.
4
james
I'm at the library at 4:55.
I park my truck across the street and wait because I'm not going to walk in there five minutes before closing like some kind of stalker. I have enough self-awareness to know that a six-foot-three, two-hundred-twenty-pound man showing up right before a woman locks up alone could go one of two ways, and I'm not risking the wrong one.
At 5:07, the green door opens.
She comes out pulling on a jacket that's too thin for the altitude. She's got a laughably large bag over her shoulder, and she stops when she sees me. It’s not a startled stop. It’s more like a pause.
I get out of the truck.
"James, hi. It looks like the coffee place is closed," she says, nodding at the dark café next door.
"It closes at four." I knew that. I didn't think it through. Smooth work, Holt. Twenty-one years of military strategy and I failed to account for small-town business hours. "There's the bar."
She glances down Main Street toward the neon-lit sign at the end of the block. The Broken Antler where the drinks are strong and the gossip is stronger. I watch her weigh it.
"Or I've got coffee in the truck," I offer. "Thermos."
She looks at me. Then at the truck. Then back at me.
"You just carry a thermos of coffee around?"
"Yes."
"At all times?" Her eyebrows pull together.
"Yes."
The corner of her mouth twitches, and for a second I think she's going to laugh. She doesn't, but it's close, and the almost-laugh does something to my chest that the actual laugh will probably kill me with.
"Okay, prepared. I like it," she says. She pauses for a moment and seems to consider it. But in the end, she blows out a breath and gives a soft shrug. “Yeah, okay then. Let’s grab a truck coffee.”
