by Susan Sey
The air was close and surprisingly warm, thick with the distinct but not unpleasant odor of living things. Light filtered in through the sheeting, watery and gray, and Goose realized that rows of hay bales lined the interior walls of the coop as well as the exterior. Chickens of all sizes, shapes and colors roosted by the dozens on long poles suspended horizontally above each row of hay bales, facing each other across the narrow walkway that bisected the space. Not, Goose thought, that anybody could actually walk on the eight inches of wood shavings littering the floor.
The birds all swung blank chickeny eyes toward the source of the draft—toward her—and Goose tensed. In terms of decent ways to die, getting pecked to death by angry fowl wasn’t exactly taking a bullet for the president. But the chickens only whirred and chucked and snicked to each other, supremely unconcerned by her unannounced arrival.
Then they saw Rush.
Chapter 10
MORE ACCURATELY, Goose supposed, they saw the feed buckets dangling from his hands.
Chickens exploded off their roosts as if catapulted and screeched through the air toward her like fat, feathery hand grenades. Goose squealed—a shameful, girlie noise—and threw her hands over her head. She dropped into a crouch on the wood shavings and braced for impact.
It took two hard thuds of her heart to realize that she wasn’t dead yet, her eyes pecked out by savage poultry. She risked a peek through her arms in time to see that Rush—good, strong, wise Rush—had heaved the feed buckets over her head to the far end of the coop.
The chickens, in an unexpected feat of aerial dexterity, reversed direction en masse to land in a squawking, scrabbling pile in and around the buckets. Within seconds, the coop was once again filled with the soothing chirr of fluffed feathers and placid birds.
“What,” Goose managed, “was that?”
“Feeding time,” Rush said, climbing up to sit on a hay bale. He shrugged out of his backpack, unzipped it and offered Goose a bottle of water. “Better hydrate,” he said. “We’ve been hiking all day.”
Goose accepted the bottle and climbed up on the hay to sit beside him. Her knees were a little wobbly still. “Is it always like that?”
“You get used to it.”
They drank in silence for a minute or two while Goose turned a fascinated eye on her surroundings. Finally she said, “There must be four dozen chickens in here.”
“Easy. More like five or six.”
“So between the hay and the body heat, it stays pretty warm. I get that part. But how is it that this place doesn’t stink to the high heavens? I mean, I’m no farm girl, but even I know chicken shit stinks.”
“Einar’s a deep litter man.”
“Yeah. I got that.” Goose eyed the thick blanket of wood shavings on the floor. “But deep litter usually equals deep odor.”
“No, deep litter is a method of coop maintenance. It means you just throw down another few inches of pine shavings every time it starts to stink, sprinkle it with a chemical that dries the shit faster, and basically let the coop compost itself. Which, in one of those neat little synergistic things farmers are so good at, generates yet more heat.”
“Huh.” Goose was impressed despite herself. “Einar’s a good farmer?”
“Einar’s a lazy farmer.” He smiled without malice. “In this instance, it happens to work.”
They drank in companionable silence for a minute or two more.
“So,” Rush said eventually. “How’s the investigation going?”
She cast him a sidelong look. “You mean have I decided whether or not you’re a stone-cold assassin yet?”
He didn’t smile. “You’ve read my file, Goose,” he said quietly. “You know what I am.”
Something bleak and terrible moved through his eyes, a profound aloneness that tore at her heart. Warning bells sounded in her head—do not touch this man!—but she slipped her gloved hand into his anyway. Screw danger. When a man this strong hurt, decent women comforted.
“I do know what you are,” she said. “But more importantly, I know what you’re not.”
“What am I not?”
“You’re not an attention whore, and you’re not a coward. Men who make threats—particularly big, grandiose threats like stabbing people with flaming pitchforks—are inevitably both.”
He dropped his eyes to their linked fingers, then looked back at her. What she saw now in those silver eyes stopped the breath in her lungs. “So I’m in the clear?”
She didn’t pull her hand away. “Looks like.”
“On the pitchfork thing, anyway. What about the other?”
She did pull her hand back this time, and stared. “The other?”
“You don’t expect me to believe the Secret Service wastes personnel like you on flaming pitchforks, do you? I know you’re looking at me for something else.”
“Am I?”
He lifted his hand, traced a finger down the line of her cheek. He came up with a piece of straw from the ends of her hair and flicked it away. Goose didn’t breathe the entire time.
“A girl doesn’t kiss a stranger like you kissed me unless she’s looking for something.”
“Ah. And what was I looking for?”
“Hell if I know.” He cocked a brow, leaned in. “You want to have another go at kissing it out of me?”
Because yes churned in her gut, she forced a smile. “Ah, no,” she said. “Thanks, though.”
He shrugged, lifted his water bottle to his lips. “Your call. But if you’re not going to interrogate me the fun way, maybe you should just ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Whatever it is you want to know.”
But she didn’t need to ask. Not really. Rush was no counterfeiter, and he was no smuggler. She knew that. He was too real, too good. Too absolutely, brutally honest. He said he was a killer, but he wasn’t. He was a soldier. Goose knew the difference even if he didn’t. Laws, rules, order—they meant something to Rush. Meant everything.
“You in a hurry, Rush?”
His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Yes.”
Heat bloomed, rich and sultry, inside her. She breathed through the first, overpowering wave of it, then forced it into the deepest corner of her consciousness.
“Easy, slugger. We’re just going to talk.”
“Talk, then,” he said with a focused intensity that had Goose pausing to gather herself. Sheesh. This guy went to her head like hard liquor. She had to think. Tread carefully. Everybody on this island had some connection to Rush, and if there was one thing Goose knew without question, it was that Rush honored his connections. One way or another every single one of these people—his neighbors, his employers, his family—fell under the considerable umbrella of his responsibility and authority.
Most of them returned the regard. Or seemed to. But appearances, as Goose knew only too well, were malleable. The exterior had no responsibility to reflect the interior, and somebody on Mishkwa had perfected the art of smiling betrayal. Because that would be how Rush saw it. It wouldn’t be about the money to him, but about the deception. About dirtying his home with greed. About breaking the law when it was Rush’s responsibility to uphold it.
She cast around for a neutral topic to start with. “This is your ancestral home, huh? Handed down from your grandfather?”
“Yeah. It’s the only privately held property within the park borders.”
“Were you born here? On Mishkwa?”
“Yep.”
“What kind of name is Rush, anyway? The predominant ethnicity up here seems to be Swedish and Norwegian. Shouldn’t you be a Sven or an Ole or a Soren or something? How’d you end up named after an eighties hair band?”
“Your mom delivers you in a fishing boat six weeks early, you get named Rush.”
“Whoa.” Goose blinked. “Your mom sounds like some woman.”
“She was.”
“Where are your folks now?”
“Dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Still.”
He accepted the sympathy of a genuine smile, squeezed her fingers in reply. Warmth crawled into her chest, knelt down alongside the dangerous throb of banked desire. She cleared her throat.
“Were they commercial fishers, your folks?”
“Yeah. It was a family business. My grandfather held one of the original fishing claims on Mishkwa. My mom was his middle daughter; she and her husband—my dad—fished with Grandpa every summer. His oldest daughter—that would be Lila—ran the house. His youngest daughter—Gerte—ran wild. I don’t know much about her, other than that she came back to the island only once after she left. Pregnant, alone. She delivered Einar here. He’s two months younger than I am, in case you were wondering.”
“And the father?”
“She never said anything about him. To hear Lila tell it, one day she was here, the next she was gone.”
“She abandoned her baby?”
“She left him with her family. My folks took him in and raised him like he was my brother. Is that abandonment?”
She conceded the point with an inclination of her head and he went on. “My folks had built a cabin on a claim down the shore from Grandpa’s when they married. Earliest thing I can remember is untangling fishing nets in the boat shed. By the time we were eight, Einar and I were fishing alongside Grandpa and Dad every summer.”
“And in the winter?”
“Grandpa and Lila stayed here on the island. We—my folks and Einar and I—wintered over in Hornby Harbor on the mainland. Went to school.”
Goose smiled at the way he said “school.” Like somebody else might say “prison” or “hell.” “Must’ve been tough on a kid like you to spend six, seven hours a day cooped up in the classroom.”
He twitched a shoulder. “I survived. Well enough to graduate.”
“And then you came back here?”
“No. By that time the fishing had gone to crap and the Park Service had taken over the island. Decided to lure in the tourists by returning it to a pristine wilderness condition.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Anybody who squatted on the island, didn’t own their property, was booted off outright, their cabins burned to the ground.”
“Hurrying up nature’s triumphant return?”
“Exactly.”
“But your parents owned their land?”
“No.”
Goose closed her eyes. “They burned your house down?”
“Yep.”
“God. I’m sorry.”
“Einar and I watched from Grandpa’s dock.”
“He owned his land?”
“Yeah. Landowners got a slightly better deal. They were allowed to keep their property and their fishing rights, but only if somebody kept their primary residence on the island year-round and fished commercially at least three months a year.”
“Which would be, what, approximately nobody?”
“Nobody but Einar. Grandpa died that summer, and Einar moved into this cabin. Summers, he fishes just enough to satisfy the letter of the law. Keeps the restaurant down in South Harbor in lake trout a couple times a month.”
“Why Einar and not you?”
Rush shrugged. “I didn’t want to fish. Not when I was eighteen and ready to take on the world.”
“And Einar did?”
“Want to fish? No.”
“Then why wouldn’t he just sell the land to the Park Service?”
He rolled a single shoulder. “It’s his home.”
“It’s your home, too. You left.”
“Eighteen’s not quite old enough to be sentimental about the ancestral home, I guess.”
“And yet Einar was?”
He locked his eyes on hers, and she felt it all the way to her toes. “What are you asking, Goose?”
“Not asking anything,” she said. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“About what happens to a child when his mother abandons him. Seems like a kid’s self-esteem might take a hit. Might have some trouble belonging.”
“He was taken in by family.”
“But by necessity, not by choice. And in a tiny community where everybody knew it, too.” She shook her head. “Tough on a kid’s self-worth, I’ll bet.”
Rush regarded her steadily over their joined hands, and she stepped carefully because she knew this was dangerous ground.
“And if that wasn’t enough to shake a kid’s foundation,” she continued, “then the government comes along and tosses his family”—she purposely emphasized the word—“off its land and burns down what little claim to a home he has. Call me crazy but I think it’s enough to turn a normal person into an antigovernment gun nut with revenge fantasies.”
“Nice analysis.” Rush lifted his water bottle, took a long pull. “Psych degree, I assume?”
She stiffened. “Criminal psychology, yeah. Minor in family counseling.”
“It shows. Only one little fly in the ointment.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Einar doesn’t want to stab anybody with a flaming pitchfork, either. He’s too lazy.”
“I’m not talking about pitchforks anymore, Rush.”
“I know. You’re talking about something else. Something you haven’t trusted me with yet but are comfortable accusing my cousin of.”
“I’m not accusing anybody of anything. I’m just . . . it’s complicated, okay? I’m thinking out loud.”
“So let me help.” He took her other hand, turned her to face him, to face those brutal, honest eyes. “Tell me what we’re fighting here, and I’ll put my back against yours and we’ll figure it out. Or tell me to back off and get lost if you don’t want me or my help. I’m a big boy; I can take no for an answer. But I’m interested, Goose. In you. All of you. The yes or no is up to you, but do me a favor and make an honest decision. Don’t leave this hanging between us like an excuse.”
His words thudded into the vulnerable center of her, drove themselves into her like splinters or maybe roots. Anchored themselves there and made her want to rock or howl or rage or sing. They made her want, period. She closed her eyes for a long moment, struggled to get what was in her under control.
“Rush,” she said on a shaky exhale. “You’re so honest and you’re so brave, it shames me. I’m not good like that. Like you. But I’m doing my best here.”
“It’s enough,” he said, twining his fingers into hers, dragging her closer. “Whatever you are, it’s enough for me.”
She let him hold her for a moment then gently pulled free. “It’s not,” she said. “I’m not. Trust me on that. But what I will be is honest. As honest as I can be.”
“Then tell me you feel this, too,” he said. He didn’t try to touch her again, but pinned her with his eyes. “Tell me you feel what I feel. In your gut. In your bones.”
She loosed a hoarse chuckle. “That doesn’t begin to cover where I feel you, Rush.”
He nodded once, hard. “Okay. Okay, then. That much’ll do. For now. Because I will push for the rest.” The smile that grew on his mouth was sleek, predatory, beautiful. “Fair warning.”
She pressed a hand to her stomach, where she could, indeed, feel him. “Great. Thanks.”
“Now,” he said. He handed her a water bottle. “Tell me the rest.”
Chapter 11
BY MIDMORNING the next day, the weather had done one of those capricious early-winter one-eighties. The sun hung low and golden in a lazy blue sky, snow melted from the fir branches with wet, cheerful plops and Goose, snowshoeing behind Rush in winter wear rated to sixty below, was sweating like a fat guy at a disco.
“Hey, hold up a minute, will you?” she called to Rush. He stopped reluctantly on the soggy trail ahead of her. Goose stripped off her outer shell and looped it through the straps of her backpack. The cool breeze cut through her fleece underjacket and felt like heaven.
“Ha,” she said. “So much better.�
�� She jogged forward until she was level with Rush’s stiff shoulders and poked his elbow through his shell. “Dude. Aren’t you hot?” She squinted into the unexpectedly strong sun. “It’s got to be in the forties.”
“Fifties.”
“Nice,” she said. “Does it warm up like this a lot in December? Some weird lake-effect thing?”
“Not usually.” He jerked his chin at her jacket. “You ready?”
She sighed and fell in behind him, trotting in the prints of his snowshoes. “You’re angry.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“With me?”
“With the situation.”
She sighed again. She’d known he would take this hard and had hoped forcing him to take a night to think on the situation would cool him off. And it had. Boy, had it. The heat of his anger had cooled all the way down to the icy, purposeful drive now propelling him along the trail toward South Harbor at a near sprint.
“Rush, I know this is your home and you feel betrayed, but it’s nothing personal. To this person—whoever it is—I guarantee you, it’s just about the money.”
“It’s more than that.”
“No, Rush, it isn’t. It’s—”
“I’m going to show you something,” he said. “Something most mainlanders don’t know about. Something that’ll make you understand. This is about way more than money.”
“What?” She jogged to catch up, grabbed his sleeve. “What are you going to show me?”
He gave her a flat, silver glance. “You’ll see.”
Ten minutes later, they were pushing through the shiny red door of Mother Lila’s Tea Shop.
“The sign said closed,” Goose pointed out as sleigh bells announced their arrival. “Shouldn’t we at least knock?”
“Doesn’t smell closed,” Rush said, and Goose had to admit he was right. Gingerbread and cinnamon hung in the moist, warm air as usual and bold sunshine spilled across the wooden floors.
“Upstairs!” Lila’s voice drifted through the door behind the counter leading to the private spaces of the house.
Goose followed Rush through the door and into the kitchen. It had obviously been retrofitted to meet commercial standards—stainless-steel countertops gleamed, a tiny industrial-strength dishwasher squatted in one corner and refrigerators and freezers with temperature gauges built into the doors sidled side by side like a pair of musclebound bouncers near the door.
