by Holly Rayner
Just then footsteps sounded around the house. I ripped my phone out of my pocket, snapped a picture of the chest’s contents, and then slammed the lid shut just as the front door opened.
I scrambled back to the couch and then rose as Brock staggered in, his arms overflowing with logs.
“Went a little overboard,” he grumbled as he heaved the logs into the fireplace. “Though that should be it for tonight,” he said, answering my next question.
He collapsed on the couch beside me, closer than last time though not as close as the first time.
“Can I?” he asked, with a flick of his wrist at the cookie bag next to me.
“Sure,” I said, adding, “just a few” right as his hand came out of the bag with two cookies in it.
He shot me a guilty smile and then asked, “What, are you hungry? Do you want some real food?”
A glance in the bag revealed six more cookies.
“No. This is fine,” I said.
As I reached for another, my phone rang.
One glance at the caller and I immediately hung up.
What was Russell Snow doing calling me now?
A few seconds later, my phone rang again. Again, Russell Snow.
I declined again, this time turning off my phone completely.
“They must really want to get ahold of you,” Brock said.
He wasn’t looking at me, but he could’ve been before. Had he seen the caller ID? Did he know?
“It was my mom. She’s always calling me nonstop, checking up on me,” I said, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Brock said. “I can go outside or whatever.”
I shook my head.
“No. It’s fine. One night off will be nice.”
A slight smile slid over Brock’s lips.
“Yeah. My thoughts exactly.”
“Oh?”
“I’m changing professions. Only problem is, my profession is…well, it’s not the best profession to be in, and it’s a damn hard one to get out of.”
His tortured gaze was once again on the chest. Pity panged through me.
“So…this job...how bad is it?”
“Bad. That’s all I’ll say,” Brock said. “Can’t tell you any more than that.”
I nodded, and Brock shook his head.
“There is a bit more than that. I used to be a Navy SEAL, you know. I was good at it too, the fast pace, taking orders and giving them, helping my friends, serving my country. Even had a bit of time for painting every once in a while. And then I got booted. Dumb politics I hadn’t even wanted to get involved with in the first place. Me and a few friends, one day we were in, the next we were out. There wasn’t much left for us; I didn’t know how to do anything else. My friend—Garth, the funny one—he was the one who came up with the idea for the two of us, a just-for-now scheme that swelled until it was out of control.”
Brock shook his head.
“But it’s over now, and everything will be fine soon. I told him I was through a month ago, and I’m making a new life for myself here. This is just the beginning.”
After another minute, I still didn’t know what to say, but luckily Brock rose and strode off to the kitchen, saying, “Would you mind if I painted? Talking about the old days just gave me some inspiration, and sometimes I lose the thread if I let it go.”
“No. Not at all. Could I join?”
Already opening the cupboard, Brock paused.
Inwardly, I groaned, averting my gaze. Why on earth had I asked that?
“I don’t have to,” I said quickly. “I mean, I’m not like an artist or anything. It’ll just be a waste of paint.”
But when Brock returned, two canvas boards tucked under one arm and several tubes of paint in the other, he shook his head.
“No. I…just never thought of it. I want you to; it’ll be fun.”
“Okay,” I said, smiling at him.
Putting the canvas boards and paint tubes on the floor, he added, “And don’t worry about getting paint on the floor. God knows I have already.”
At his words, the paint flecks on the floor suddenly stood out to me, the little dashes of yellow, blue, and red seemingly everywhere. Funny, how some things you only saw once they were spoken of, how clear some things were in retrospect. What else in my life was like that?
“We can share these brushes,” Brock said, slapping an old tomato tin filled with paintbrushes on the floor between us.
“Any advice for a newbie?” I joked as we sat on the floor side by side.
“Yeah,” he said, shooting me a sidelong smirk. “Don’t take anyone’s advice. Art is art, not a science. It’s personal; it comes from the heart. You have to feel your way through. Just do what feels right.”
As I reached for a brush, he added, “That, and if you mix all the colors you’ll end up with brown.”
We laughed, he grabbed a brush of his own and got started.
At the beginning, I only circumspectly watched Brock out of the corner of my eye, his face focused yet calm, a strange light in his eyes as his brush flowed across the page.
Until he growled, “Get to work or your canvas is getting confiscated.”
Surprised, I glanced at his face to see a silly grin.
Next thing I knew, his brush was sweeping over to my canvas, flicking a navy line in the center.
“There, I gave you a starting point,” he said, returning to his own canvas.
I looked at the navy line dubiously. A blank white canvas and some random line were supposed to inspire me? What had I been thinking, wanting to paint anyway? I was no artist. I was a logical, curious private investigator who, even as a child, had hated coloring.
But as I stared at the line, it began to grow and swell with potential, swirling into a raindrop, into a bent-over back, an outstretched finger. Suddenly, I knew what I was going to paint.
I started out with more navy, outlining the spread-fingered figure with her thin, ponytailed head looking up. Then it was some brown for the outside, for the bricks around the window. There was yellow for the inside, a whole coat of it for the window. Then black was for the figures joined at the arms, the ones bent over the table with the cocaine baggie between them. White was for the baggie’s contents, yellow to cover it all again, only halfway. The dark, sad figures were bathed in yellow light, the yellow reaching out, brushing against the spread-fingered girl outside. Above it all was more navy for the uncaring sky, a dab of yellow for the sliver of moon. And then I was done, finished and looking over Brock’s shoulder at his canvas, which contained army-green figures with their guns connected in the center, all of it light-haloed just like mine.
“Not bad. You have an artist’s eye,” Brock said with an approving look at my canvas.
My gaze slid from my canvas to his and then back to mine again, and I laughed.
“Don’t tease me.”
Brock squeezed my shoulder.
“I’m not teasing. I mean it. That’s a really compelling scene, and those colors you used to frame it, the point of view, it’s all great. What’s it of?”
My gaze slid back to the somber scene, and my voice caught in my throat.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel comfortable,” Brock said, squeezing my shoulder again.
“No. I…”
I thought back to the scene, to me crouched outside the window while I watched Charlie and some girl snort coke off our living room table. How ironic it had been, watching this low-bloused, short-skirted stranger with her ass parked between my boyfriend’s legs, leaning over and snorting drugs that had doubtlessly been bought with my money off my table—and there I had been feeling like I was the stranger.
“It was just an experience I had a few years ago. Someone who let me down.”
Brock’s face went serious. He nodded.
“Sorry.”
I shook my head.
“No. It’s fine. It’s the past now. It’s fine.”
Brock no
dded as his face got even more serious.
“Oh, Alexa…”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked as he neared my face, peering at it intently.
“Ah, nothing except”—he tapped his blue-tipped finger to my cheek—“this.”
Stumbling backward, I scolded him. “Brock! Now there’s blue on my face, isn’t there?”
He shrugged and then flicked the same finger across my other cheek.
“Maybe.”
I snatched the orange tube off the floor, opened it, and squirted some into my palm.
“Okay, now you’re totally getting it!”
Stepping back, Brock dove for the purple and squirted some into both palms.
“Oh really?” he asked, lifting his purple-palmed hands.
I backed up, shaking my head.
“Okay, maybe we should call a truce?”
But Brock was advancing nonetheless, his purple-coated palms extended.
“No. I think you just laid down a challenge.”
I backed away into the kitchen and then to the front door.
“No, Brock. Please—”
But that smile of his was merciless, and as I ripped open the door with my clean hand and fled into the still-falling snow outside, he raced after me.
The chase didn’t last long, just long enough for me to trip over a snowbank, fall to the snowy ground, and for Brock to cover my shivering form with purple handprints while I slapped back my own orange revenge.
Our hands were nearly paintless and our bodies were covered with orange and purple handprints by the time we stopped and collapsed back into the snow, utterly spent.
After a few seconds of this freezing freedom, I asked Brock, “But why?”
To which he rose and, offering me a hand, declared, “I’m not sorry.”
I accepted the hand and rose with a glare.
He held my gaze, his smile challenging my glare. We stood there for a minute while I tried not to be infected by those upturned lips and those merry eyes. But it was no use; soon my smile was as broad as Brock’s.
“Well I’m not going to bed like this,” I declared as we made our way back to the cabin.
“Oh, yeah, of course. There’s a shower and everything,” Brock said in that strange tone again.
As I walked beside him, it looked like his cheeks were rosy. It was probably from the cold, but I hadn’t noticed them before when we’d been paint fighting, or even when we’d lain out in the snow. Weird.
Once we got inside, Brock strode directly to the door under the loft.
“There’s the bathroom and shower,” he said in a robotic voice, avoiding my gaze.
“Okay…” I said, unsure what to say.
I had planned on taking a shower later, but this seemed like my cue to get it over with now for whatever reason.
So in I went, not saying anything or even looking at Brock again. Clearly, that was what he wanted.
Just as I had started getting comfortable with him, he had to go and act weird.
As I looked in the mirror, I caught my rosy, excited face returning to normal. Brock’s sudden coldness was good, actually. With all these activities, I had been getting off track from what I was here for: finding evidence of Brock’s criminal activities. And although I had done it, I still needed to get out of there and hand over what I’d found to Russell Snow. There was no point to getting all warm and fuzzy about my target, which was what Brock Anderson was—all that Brock Anderson was.
The shower, with its warm water, was a nice relief from the cold outside. Gratefully, I let the hot droplets roll down my skin, closing my eyes and savoring the feeling. Just as I was fully relaxed and leaning into the corner of the shower, letting the water envelop me, however, my phone rang.
Although it was in my coat in the cabin outside the bathroom, its loud, annoying ring was still audible.
“You want me to get that?” Brock called from what sounded like the loft.
“No. I—”
I raced out of the shower, hastily throwing my paint-covered sweater over myself as I ran out of the bathroom and grabbed my coat. Then I froze.
Brock was not in the loft as I had thought. He was sitting on the couch, gaping at my hastily covered, half-naked body.
Our gazes met, and I raced back into the bathroom, my phone still blaring.
It was Russell Snow. Again. God, that guy had a knack for calling at the worst possible time.
I hung up and then sent him a message: Now is not a good time.
Once I got back in the shower, it wasn’t the same. I was still on edge and could no longer relax. I finished scrubbing off my paint-covered hands and then turned off the shower and came out.
It seemed silly to put my dirty, paint-covered clothes back on, but I didn’t have much choice. I was in the cabin of a man I barely knew in Nederland in the middle of nowhere; it was not exactly the Hilton Hotel.
When I came out, Brock was still sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. Seeing me, he rose.
“I just wanted to say sorry for before,” he stammered. “I wasn’t thinking, and…I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine,” I said, still standing in the bathroom door awkwardly, staring at the wall myself.
After a minute of this, Brock went over to the kitchen.
“I’m going to make some hot chocolate.”
At the stove, he paused, threw a glance at the snow-filled window, and then looked back at me.
“Looks like it’s going to continue overnight.”
“Yeah.”
“You can stay the night if you want.”
He turned away before my reaction could register on my face.
Though really, I didn’t know how my face looked at the moment. I already had my evidence. Would staying the night be a good idea?
A quick glance out the window confirmed that it wasn’t just a good idea; it was basically the only viable one. It was snowing even harder now. Navigating that bumpy road would be hard enough with a station wagon, let alone my little sedan.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
And maybe it was just me, but it sounded like Brock was smiling as he said it. It didn’t take long for the hot chocolate to be ready. Brock handed me a cup and then a bag of marshmallows.
“Have at it.”
I laughed.
“You’re going to regret saying that.”
“No, really, you’re a guest here.”
“Okay,” I said, before proceeding to pour in as many marshmallows as would fit into my cup.
Once the tiny white things were almost spilling over the sides, I handed the bag back to Brock.
He gave a soft chuckle.
“Wow, you really like your sugar, don’t you? Though I can’t say you didn’t warn me.”
I responded by giving him a cheeky grin. He raised his cup to mine. We toasted, and he said, “To delicious cookies and terrible storms.”
After we sipped our drinks, he smiled.
“I’m really glad you made the crazy drive up here after me. I...normally don’t get along with people this well.”
“I am too,” I said.
But my answer didn’t seem to please him.
“Really, I mean it though,” he said, “There’s something about you…the art, our sense of humor; we have so much in common. I’d like to see you again after this.”
Before I could respond, his face darkened and he shook his head.
“Though I’m not staying all that much longer. Can’t.”
We sat there for a few minutes, sipping our hot chocolates and not looking at each other. By then, Brock was right beside me, his leg pressed against mine, sending warm pangs of longing up and down my body. I didn’t move away, but I didn’t move closer either. Brock was the target, nothing more, and he had to stay that way if I was going to complete this job successfully.
Gradually, more and more of Brock’s body was pressing against mine—his kne
e, his torso.
Then I felt his breath on my ear as he said, “Alexa.”
I turned to face him, and he stood up and looked away.
“Want to go snowshoeing?”
I stared at him for a minute, searching his face for a trace of amusement, a twinkle in his eye, a half grin, anything. But his face kept its serious expression.
“Okay,” I found myself saying.
He grinned, went over to the chest, and paused.
“Weird…”
“What is it?”
He crouched down and then shook his head.
“Nothing. It’s just that I always latch the chest closed, but last time I must’ve forgotten.”
I made a noncommittal sound of agreement, hoping it was louder than the thumping of my terrified heart. Brock slid the chest over, revealing two pairs of snowshoes behind it.
“Don’t worry. Snowshoeing is just like walking but with big feet. You shouldn’t have any problem.”
“How do you know I’ve never snowshoed before?”
Brock’s amused glance scanned me.
“Just do.”
I sighed and then cast a worried look at the window, where impossibly huge-looking flakes of snow were falling.
“Okay, you got me, but are you sure this is a good idea?”
A smile playing on his face, Brock’s glance flicked to where mine was.
“Nope, but the best ideas often aren’t.”
My gaze flicked from his easy confidence to the window’s raging storm and then back again.
“Oh, fine then.”
Brock grinned and then strode to the door and opened it. I followed, throwing on my coat and then putting up my hood before looking over my shoulder one last time at the cabin. What was I getting myself into?
Chapter Seven
It was like having big feet, as it turned out. Brock hadn’t been kidding. After he helped me strap the big wooden things to my boots and strapped on his own, we began walking. It didn’t take long for me to see that snowshoeing was just that: having massive, giant-sized feet. Not to mention it was incredibly fun. Though the snow was already deep, our giant shoes crunched atop it easily, allowing us to leisurely tromp our way behind the cabin and deep into the snowy forest.
By now the air was alive with snow, the trees emitting a near-constant stream of flakes.
