by Nicole Snow
Mitch and I blink at each other.
I...have no earthly idea what’s going on here.
Barter?
What does that have to do with me?
Mitch seems just as confused, but he offers me a work-worn, friendly hand and a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same,” I answer faintly, shaking his hand, then glancing at Doc.
“Mitch,” Doc says, “is the town’s new mechanic. He owns the only garage in town, something we’ve sorely lacked since some trouble closed down the old one last year.”
Oh.
That’s when it sinks in.
Barter.
Barter, with my dead car sitting in the parking lot.
I pull my hand back, curling it in the collar of my lab coat. “Oh, wait. That’s not necessary, Doc, I don’t...I think...”
“It’s the most expedient thing for both of you. That’s what I think.” Doc sounds whiskey smooth and calm and logical, hard to argue with. “The type of veterinary care provided could run into the tens of thousands without pet insurance, and having recently bought the garage, I don’t think Mitch is in the position for that kind of outlay. Ember, you’ll need a vehicle. I can’t pick you up every day. Since I doubt, after moving here, you can afford thousands in repairs, either, we have a date with common sense.”
“A trade,” Mitch concludes, face brightening. “I could do that. What’s wrong with your car, ma’am?”
“I don’t know.” I wrinkle my nose. “It’s not that old, but it had a lot of wear on it when I bought it.”
“Used?” Mitch asks.
“Yeah. Police auction, and they said it used to belong to a Lyft driver, so it’s got a few hundred thousand miles on it.”
He whistles appreciatively. “Ridden hard and put away wet, damn. But I bet you got it for a song.”
I smile faintly. “Few hundred bucks. It got me out here, at least.”
“Well, I’ll make sure it gets you around a little longer. It’s the least I can do for your help with Momo.”
I clear my throat, looking away. I just feel strange right now.
My heart twists, flutters, thumps.
Is this happening? Doc really just gave up the cost of an expensive medical procedure, just to get my car fixed for free?
I’m floored.
Luckily, Mitch is just as nice, talking to me and putting me at ease, making me feel welcome as part of this little town.
“I didn’t really do much,” I answer quietly, rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m just the assistant. Doc did all the important work.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” Doc says. “She has good, steady hands and an ear to match. I couldn’t have saved Momo without her.”
I suck in a sharp breath.
Holy crap. It’s like he enjoys making me blush, my chest clenching and my face smoking hot.
Clearing my throat, I change the subject quickly and offer Mitch and his family a smile. “Would you like to come visit with Momo before we put him in a kennel? He’s sleeping comfortably, but if you’re careful you can still pet him.”
They brighten immediately with a chorus of agreement, and I take them in the back and show them where it’s safe to touch Momo.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but even sedated and unconscious?
The boxer seems to rest easier and happier with his family crowded around him.
It’s closing time when I finally gently usher them out, with a promise from Mitch to come back in the morning with a tow truck for my Audi. Together, Doc and I carefully move Momo onto a padded cart, then get him settled in one of the larger recovery kennels with rounded sides and padded walls and a hookup to a liquid IV that will keep him nourished until he’s feeling well enough to eat solid food again.
I linger over his unconscious form, gently sweeping my fingers over his soft ears and smoothing my hand over the top of his head. Doc stands at my shoulder, watching in that quietly attentive way he has.
But there’s something softer about it right now.
Something more gentle than the cold, forbidding stares I’ve seen over the past couple of days.
I feel like there’s this peace between us, and I can’t help but smile as I stroke my fingertip down the bridge of Momo’s nose and murmur, “Thank you. For helping out with my car.”
“It’s nothing,” he says.
But when I’m not looking at his face, at that withdrawn expression of his, I’m almost in the zone called Doctor Caldwell.
I can just let his velvety voice roll over me with something warmer than dismissive words.
Even when he says, “Let’s clean up, and I’ll drive you home.”
“Sure,” I answer with a smile, pulling myself away from Momo. “Thanks.”
This time he doesn’t contradict me as we settle in to finish cleaning up and closing out the clinic.
We don’t say anything, but the radio speaks for us. It’s on some oldies station, the music mellow and quiet, blending us together to its rhythm while we work around each other.
But my breath catches in my throat as the song rolls fluidly from an old Elvis tune to Nat King Cole.
“It’s Only A Paper Moon.”
Dad loved that song once upon a time, back in another life.
It was one of his favorites when he’d talk about music theory and generational hits in his classes, comparing and contrasting performances by Nat King Cole and his daughter, Natalie Cole.
My throat closes as I stop and listen, fingers curled against the handle of the broom.
A shudder zips up my spine. It kind of feels like Dad’s reaching out to me now, even though that sounds silly. But silly or not, it’s a comfort.
I can almost hear him, telling me everything will be fine, right here in little old Heart’s Edge.
4
Like Cats and Dogs (Doc)
I shouldn’t be here.
Parked outside the Charming Inn, watching Ember Delwen climb the steps of her rental cabin.
Too bad there’s something in me that says not to let her out of my sight.
Not until I’m sure she’s safe.
Fuck. I shouldn’t care this much.
She’s an employee I hired sight unseen, and this is only her second day on the job.
All I’m worried about, I tell myself, is doing a favor for one of my employees.
I can’t afford to lose her help. I know that. I’ve told myself the same thing from the moment that timid, tiny thing walked in the front door of my clinic and introduced herself as Ember, with a soft-fingered handshake and eyes that never quite met my own.
But today proved it even more, when she demonstrated steady hands and a calm demeanor during a surgical crisis.
That shy, soft, innocent fluttering disappeared, leaving behind a quiet calm, measured and thoughtful and entirely capable. No flinching at the sight of blood. No emotional interference in critical, life-saving decisions.
Momo the boxer is alive in large part thanks to her.
She always knew what to do in every moment, in every circumstance, and I never needed to ask for a single instrument or tell her what to do during surgery.
She was just there, complementing my every move in perfect tandem, the womanly distraction I don’t want but the shadow I need.
Still, I can’t be here, watching as she stops on her doorstep and looks back at me with a wistful, thoughtful smile, this damnable wash of pink in her cheeks, before she ducks her head and slips inside.
Rather, slips on the goddamn threshold. Over nothing.
There’s not even a doorjamb or a bit of weathered stripping there. It’s just smooth plank floorboards, almost seamless from the deck to the interior flooring.
Just how?
First instinct has me reaching for the door of my truck as Ember windmills forward – but she catches herself on the doorframe, snapping her hands out to grasp on hard, stopping herself from falling face first at the last second. Eyes wide, she slowly straightens, craning
her head over her shoulder to peek at me, wondering if I saw.
I definitely did.
Sighing, I resist the urge to shake my head, both at her and myself, rubbing my temples as she ducks into the cabin and shuts the door. Her slim figure lingers through the glass door and broad front windows before moving merrily through the living room.
Shit, I don’t have time for this.
Not tonight, and not ever.
Ember’s far too young for me. Her resume pinpointed her age at twenty-four or twenty-five, while I’m closer to forty.
There can’t be anything between us.
There couldn’t be even if our ages weren’t so far apart.
I can’t forget why I came to Heart’s Edge, or why I stayed.
Definitely not to engage in fucking dalliances with shy, soft women who look at me from under a fringe of lashes the color of honey and sunlight on wheat. I can have that anytime on a daily basis in the office, if I wanted. But those desperate women are easy to resist.
Ember? She’s a damn distraction, a firefly of light and heat in my mind.
I know why I’m here, and why I stay. It’s to keep this town safe.
To protect it from the monster I unleashed so many years ago.
I can’t do that unless I manage to hunt down Fuchsia Delaney and find out just which ill wind blew her my way.
Frankly, I don’t have time for that, either. But some inconveniences don’t wait when it could mean lives.
I put my truck into gear and do a tight U-turn on the little dirt path, then send it rolling toward the main highway again – only to stop as a familiar vehicle jerks to a stop in front of me.
Warren gets out of his own truck in front of the main house, lifting his hand in a wave.
I have to stop. I don’t want to, but I have to. Because after the questions I asked him last night, if I act like I’m hiding something, it’ll just make a bloodhound like Warren curious.
He’s already made a few too many educated guesses when I’d asked about any new arrivals, and if they might be staying at the Charming Inn. I never should’ve said anything to him years ago. Not a damn word about the Paradise Hotel, and how I came to this place.
No one new at the inn, he’d reported.
No one but that little bit of glowing embers in the dark.
That sweet firefly-girl, glimmering ephemeral and bright.
Now, as I stop and roll the window of my truck down, Warren leans his forearms on the door and offers me an easy smile. “Hey, Doc. Been asking around for you.”
“About?” I ask neutrally.
One thing I’ve learned over the years, perhaps instilled by the Army: never assume the direction of a question or comment.
Not when you can easily give away too much in your response.
“The new arrivals you asked me about,” he answers casually. “Grandma’s still practically the group telephone of the town, and people tell her everything.” He smirks. “Especially the news about some Black Widow lady in a fur-lined coat, parading around the grocery store like she owns it and looking down her nose at everybody when she can’t find herself an aged Camembert.”
Fuck it all to hell.
That’s Fuchsia, all right. I swallow a groan.
The fact that she’s not being particularly covert, announcing her presence in town? It can only mean a number of things.
One, an operation is underway – and Heart’s Edge is about to get steamrolled under it. Everything else is secondary to accomplishing the mission in the circles she runs in.
Two, she’s here on her own, without the resources she needs to be more stealthy.
Or three. She’s trying to bait me and knows the only way to get under my skin is to do things that make people ask questions about her...and me.
Snarling, I grind my teeth. Warren watches me, his thick brow furrowing. “Hey. Man. You know her? Who is she? Talk to me.”
I shake my head. “No one.”
“Bull. I don’t believe that for a red second. You don’t get this worked up over no one, Doc. Hell, I think I almost saw a facial expression there.”
I glance up, giving him a flat, disgusted look. “You’re not funny.”
“My wife thinks I am. And my boy thinks I’m a damn riot.”
“I’ll let you know when an infant’s tastes are the gold standard for wit.”
He snorts a laugh, but his smile turns concerned. Troubled, maybe. “Seriously, man. Are you in some shit? I can help. I owe you one for that crap last year, saving my ass at the cliff–”
“I’m fine, War. There’s nothing worth worrying about. She’s just...an old friend from way back when I was still enlisted.” I nearly bite my tongue until I taste iron.
The word friend bites like the bitterest lie. I can’t fucking stand it, referring to that hell witch as anything like a friend.
But it’s the best I can do, right now, to keep Warren from getting involved.
“I think she’s in some trouble with an ex,” I add.
That’s one way to put it. But if I say any more, it’ll be an obvious lie, and I don’t want to do that to a real friend like Warren.
It’s curious how people volunteer more information when they’re constructing a lie than when they’re telling the truth, a desperate effort to convince the listener.
Warren looks like he doesn’t believe me anyway, but he lets it go with a final word. “So that’s why you’re so worried about where she’s staying?”
I take the easy out. “Yeah. That’s it.”
“Well, Heart’s Edge is a one-trick town. Only one hotel now, and you’re at it. If she’s not with us, then she’s got to be staying with someone else she knows.”
It’s a bit of a prod, but one I let slide.
Especially when I feel sick thinking of that one line.
Only one hotel. Now.
Warren must know quite well that Fuchsia’s not staying with me – though I’m fairly certain she’s not with anyone else in the town proper, either.
Which leaves me with...what, exactly? The old, burnt-down hotel down in the valley. The silver mine?
She wouldn’t be out there, would she?
The place is a ruin. What could possibly be left at the Paradise Hotel that’d attract the interest of Fuchsia, or the people who pull her strings?
“Hey, hey. Earth to Dr. Caldwell.” Warren waves a hand in front of my face. “You with me?”
“My apologies. I’m just dog-tired.” I offer a thin-lipped smile, the best I can muster. “I should head home. Thanks, Warren. You’ve been more help than you know.”
I leave him there, like that.
Before he can ask any damning questions I don’t know how to answer.
I should head home, but not yet. One, if anyone’s watching me, I don’t want to lead them straight to my house.
Two, I’ve got a few things to do at the only place that feels like a sanctum.
The Menagerie is my safe haven. It’s where I spend most of my life, the focus of most of my thoughts.
It’s also where I keep the remnants of my past, tucked away somewhere I can keep a close eye on them at all times. But it becomes all too painfully clear that someone else kept a close eye on me as I pull into the parking lot next to Ember’s broken-down Audi.
A slip of bright pink paper – fucking fuchsia in color, no less – is tucked into the door, wedged between the frame.
I don’t have to look to know who it’s from.
A feeling of numb foreboding and rage sinks inside me as I step out of my truck and approach the door.
The note looks neatly folded into quarters and flips open on a simple message.
Meet me tomorrow. Same old time, same old place.
I crumple the paper in my hand, the edges biting my palm, the corners catching on the rough abrasions of my scars. What bullshit.
Heat flares out my nostrils. The clinic’s glass door throws my reflection back at me, shadowed and haunted against the darkness.
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I don’t even recognize the man in the glass.
The man in the smooth reflection is a dead thing, shaped and twisted by fury, by nerves, deep lines carved in his face and his bright eyes sunken into black, bottomless pits.
This is what Fuchsia Delaney does to me.
Turns me into the man in the glass – a demon. A nightmare. A beast.
Every last thing I swore I left behind, long before my troubles could return to threaten Heart’s Edge. But with her back, here at my doorstep, that dream’s dashed.
I push my way into the clinic and lock the door firmly behind me. The lights are down low, turning the place strange and dark and echoing. It reminds me too much of the old days.
The labs, sterile and cold, frigid white cones of light turning everything inside stark, hollow, lifeless. Sometimes light can’t paper over real darkness.
Not in those labs I can’t forget, or inside me.
I feel like a different person as I make my way through the empty clinic to my office in the back. To the false wall, which slides away like a standing screen to reveal a small chamber with several laptops, a monitor tracking motion sensors set far out in the valley, firearms, clips of ammo.
For a second, my eyes catch the glint of the pressured, hermetically sealed medical freezer. The thing only opens with my biometrics and pin. It’s programmed to internally torch its contents if anyone ever tries to unlock it using the wrong fingerprint. It’s the only way I dare to keep a monster here, a demon in the freezer.
But that hell inside just might save lives one day if – God forbid – I ever need to dredge it up.
I push past toward the only other thing in here, a single shoebox, empty except for the compact folding phone rattling around inside.
It’s a burner phone with the branding logo scraped off. It appeared on my doorstep several years ago, only a single number programmed into it.
One number and a note.
I know who’s on the other end of that line.
Who would answer, if I call. It’s the only way to reach him.
Staring down at the number on the screen, my thumb hovers over the button, before I hiss to myself and snap the phone shut.
