She realized Baz was looking at her with concern.
“I’m okay,” she said. “My blood sugar’s a little low, I guess. Maybe I should’ve had something to eat in town after all.”
“You can eat in the truck, I don’t mind.”
“It’s okay. I can wait ‘til we get there.”
As Baz signaled the turn at the red-painted boulder, she looked in the truck’s rear-view mirror. It seemed to her that a car had been following them for a while, but so far back that she couldn’t make it out clearly.
It had to be just because there was nowhere else to go on this road, she thought.
But once they turned off on the old road leading to Windrock City, the trees closed around them so quickly that she didn’t have a chance to see whether the car went on by at regular highway speeds, or slowed down when it passed their turn.
She told herself she was just being paranoid.
She almost believed it.
BAZ
Arden waspensive and quiet on the drive back from town, and when they got to Windrock, she collected her shopping bags and her share of the food and told Baz she was going to her cabin for a while. But she hesitated, looking up at him, and then swiftly stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
“Thank you very much for a lovely day,” she said, and then she fled to her cabin.
Baz was left standing stunned. He touched his cheek, where he felt the warm press of Arden’s lips like a brand.
Mine, mine, mine.
Lexie wandered up. “You look like a steer that’s been punched between the eyes,” she said. “Of course, you look like that most of the time, so nothing’s new.”
Baz shook himself out of a reverie involving Arden’s lips, and Arden’s round hips retreating down the street, and Arden’s everything else. He gave his cousin a friendly smack on the arm. “How’s that for a punch? Here, grab a burger and help me unload your construction stuff before it rains.”
He’d seen the clouds rolling in on their drive back, heavy and gray above the farmland, and now they were closing around the sun, turning the bright morning to a dull afternoon. They got thetruck’s load of lumber, screws, caulk, paint, and other supplies unloaded and covered with a tarp just as the first drops of rain struck the street.
“It’ll slow down the work, but we need it,” Baz said as he and Lexie both retreated inside the open door of the old country store. “Everything is pretty dry at this time of year, and this’ll make the plants lush and cut down on fire danger. With us making campfires and all this dry old wood around, we do need to be careful.”
Elvy had left with her goats while they were gone, but he was astonished at how thoroughly the goats had cropped down the long grass and brush around the buildings. No wonder everything was in such good shape and not too badly overgrown.
It still smelled faintly of goat inside the store. Baz glanced around, reminded that he had left a mess and now he had to deal with it.
“Lexie,” he began.
“Oh look at the time, gotta run. I told Fern I’d come over and help move some furniture that’s too heavy for her to manage on her own.”
Baz snorted. “Have fun.”
He watched Lexie dash across the street through the rain, holding her arms above her head, and vanish in the direction of Fern’s cottage. Leaving the door open to let in air and light, he decided to take advantage of the need to clean up after the goats and do a regular housecleaning. The store filled with the pleasant rain smell, a vast improvement over the goat smell.
Rain drummed on the roof as he scrubbed dirty windows, swept the floor, and restored his unpacked clothes and shaving items to where they belonged. He hadn’t unpacked much so far. Most of what he had brought with him was still stuffed carelessly into his suitcase and backpack. In this case, it had probably saved him from an even worse mess.
His thoughts kept returning to Arden. He wondered how she was doing. This was the first big rain since they’d come to the town. He was pleased that the roof of the old store held up so well; there were just a few leaks to be dealt with, mostly in the storeroom. He set out some tin cans to catch the drips and remind him where the leaks were to fix them later.
Was Arden staying dry enough? he wondered. Was she comfortable?
As the rain continued to pound on the roof, a few more leaks appeared. Baz wandered around setting out cans or rags to catch the worst drips and using chalk to mark the leaky spots. He couldn’t stop thinking about Arden in her little cabin. It had seemed snug enough, but it was also pretty dim even on a sunny day. And if the roof was leaking too badly, it might turn her cozy nest into a miserable, soggy disaster.
Yeah, he better go over and check on her.
One thing he hadn’t thought to bring was a rain coat, poncho, or similar. He made a mental note to put it on the list for the next trip back to their folks’ places. For the moment, he pulled his canvas work jacket over his head and hurried out in the rain.
