Only a dim light shone from behind the white farmhouse next door—probably a porch light. In the house, there was no sign of life. But that repetitive noise, so industrious for this late at night, kept Uma on the edge of her seat, filled with curiosity, almost ready to throw on some pants and run out to find its source.
She didn’t go anywhere. But she spent long minutes, maybe hours, listening and wondering and then imagining what it could be. What on earth was he up to over there? Chopping wood? Bodies? Strangely, after everything, that notion didn’t scare her one bit.
* * *
Ive opened up a fifth can of cat food and set it down on the stoop. It was a new flavor, and he wasn’t sure how the animals would react, but he liked to mix it up every once in a while. Keep ’em guessing.
It rarely worked, now that he thought about it. They didn’t like change any more than he did. But still, it couldn’t be good for them to eat exactly the same thing every single day.
There were the five cats he fed on a daily basis. The big one, Ornery, wouldn’t let anyone touch her. Even after seven years of Fancy Feast, Ive still couldn’t get close. The chickens, the rooster. Then there was the baby skunk, Pepe, who’d recently joined the evening feeding fray. The cats didn’t seem to mind the new species, and this one was especially fond of tuna-and-shrimp medley. Little guy fit right in, wanting the same old flavor day after day.
“Not like us, right, Squeak?” he said with a smile. Because Ive did eat the same thing every single day. Not because he didn’t like other foods, but why bother changing something if it worked? And okay, so he didn’t eat exactly the same stuff, but his selections were limited. It depended on what he’d hunted or grown, what the chickens had laid, or what some farmer had given him in trade.
He bent to grab Squeak’s bowl, filled it with dry food, and emptied half a can of wet food into it, then topped it off with water from the pump.
Once everyone was fed and had water, his charges going to town with gusto, he thought back to the woman he’d met earlier. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her.
Uma.
Ive mouthed the name, enjoying the shape of it on his lips and tongue. Strange name for a strange woman. An intriguing mix of “help me” and “fuck off.”
He patted Squeak on the back, enjoying the way the dog leaned into his caress.
Help me up, the woman had ordered, brassy as hell. Trouble. He could smell it a mile away. And not just the usual kind either, he thought, although he didn’t dwell on what he meant by that.
Trouble. Always trouble. Between the two of them, he and Squeak sure had a nose for it, didn’t they? They didn’t go looking for it exactly, but they certainly didn’t shy away from strays, as was proved by the menagerie chowing down on the doorstep.
Yep, Squeak had a gift. She’d sniffed out Uma, hadn’t she? Had known immediately that something was wrong and offered comfort the way only she knew how. Ive pictured how the woman had looked when he’d followed his dog around the side of the house—defeated, tired, scared. He recognized that look, had seen it a hundred times. Matter of fact, that was the exact expression Squeak had worn when he’d taken her from Old Man Huber’s place. Son of a bitch had beaten her so bad that Ive had had to carry her straight to Dr. Campbell’s clinic. And Squeak was just a puppy.
He closed the door and loped up the drive to his house, needing to release his built-up aggression. It happened every time he got himself a new, injured stray—this anger. Rage so strong, so painful, he had to take care of it the only way he knew how.
Better than doing what he’d done to Huber. Only a tiny bit of guilt marred Ive’s conscience over that one. He’d been so good. Hadn’t hit anyone outside a ring in more than eight years when he’d heard a puppy’s yelps over the fence. It had been bad, though. Fucking awful. Squeak and the cats and that other dog—the one Dr. Campbell hadn’t been able to save. Jesus. How could you not hit a guy like that?
But he hadn’t touched anyone in anger since. Steve—the sheriff, of all people—had taught him how to hold back. “You can be as pissed off as you want,” he’d told him. “Just gotta learn not to hurt anyone. It’ll only get you in trouble. Again.” He’d taught Ive to box, then gotten him hooked on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Ive was big, and he’d done some wrestling in high school before he dropped out, which came in handy in the ring.
Like pounding metal, fighting had saved his life.
An hour later, Ive leaned into his heavy bag, stilling it with his full body. He was slick with sweat, and the minute he stopped moving, the chill crept in. He hardly noticed it. Muscles loose, rubbery from exhaustion, his temper still simmered too close to the surface.
He couldn’t blame the woman for his feelings. It wasn’t Uma’s fault what she did to him. She couldn’t help that the sight of her, looking so defeated, had ratcheted all his repressed rage up to a boil.
He hated how scared she’d been of him, hated making her shy away. But when she’d held her hand out to him, had lifted her head defiantly despite her obvious fear, something different had entered the mix: admiration. Man, how could you not respect the balls it took for that little, frightened woman to face a big, scary-looking monster like him?
So, yes, he admired her guts. But it was more than that.
That little Help me up? was repeating in his mind. And when he thought of her in that moment, it scared the shit out of him. He’d never encountered this particular combination of sensations. She needed help, and he wanted to help her. He already knew that. He’d known it the second he’d seen her crouched down by Ms. Lloyd’s house. It was like crack—that certain brand of trouble he’d never been able to resist: a victim of abuse.
What he wasn’t comfortable with was the other thing. She’d stood up, head held high, chest out, nostrils flared in defiance, and he’d liked her. Her warm brown eyes were the kind that looked like they’d get melty in firelight. Even under her baggy clothes, he’d been able to tell she was the kind of round he got off on—more than a handful of tits and ass.
Don’t go there.
He pushed off the bag, grabbed his shirt, and mopped under his pits before heading down the steps and back up the drive to his forge. He was conscious, as he walked beside Ms. Lloyd’s house, of which window would likely be Uma’s. It was dark, which was a relief, because he couldn’t think about her up there, awake, maybe watching him. He didn’t want to imagine how she’d look in whatever she wore to bed. For some reason, he pictured one of those long, old-fashioned, cotton nightgowns. White, with little, pink flowers. When did I turn into such a fucking creep?
Only then did it occur to him that not for one moment, through all of this, had he worried about Ms. Lloyd. The old woman had accepted a new stranger into her home, and he’d taken it for granted that Uma would be the victim here, not the other way around. Well, with the way Ms. Lloyd lorded over people, it was probably true. But it gave him a sense of…rightness, somehow, that he’d had a hand in bringing Uma to them. Binx had screwed things up royally with that ad, something he’d never forgive her for, but still, it had worked out.
The clock read midnight when he closed his door. Back in the day, he would have called Steve, challenged him to a late-night sparring session, but the man was getting older and tired more easily.
Oh well. He put on a clean shirt and his apron, stoked the fire, and decided to get to work. Much healthier than heading out into the night for a fight or a fuck.
It sucked, though, because there was something about pounding flesh rather than metal that satisfied Ive’s rage better than anything else in the world.
3
Uma awoke with a start to yelling and the sound of a cane knocking on wood.
For the first few moments, she was buried alive by panic, fear, and frantic breaths, arms and legs trapped by the weight of unfamiliar wool blankets. When sensation finally coalesced into thought, she managed to claw her
way out of sleep and eventually out of bed.
“You open this door now, missy!” the voice yelled, sounding frantic. Ms. Floyd. No, Lloyd. Ms. Lloyd. Her boss.
She stumbled to the door and put her hand up to unlock it before her bleary mind realized what it was seeing—blue, black, and green words marring white arms, the sight still enough to make her sick.
I will not throw up. I will not throw up.
Last night came back in a flash. So hot with the windows painted shut. Claustrophobic. Itchy. In the dark, stripping down to her tank top and underwear, with plans to dress under the blankets in the morning.
Oh God. Breathe. Breathe.
She focused. First, on pushing sound through her tight throat. Miraculously, “Be right there” emerged. Or maybe “Sorry.” Whatever she said, it must have been English, because it got a response.
“I will not be kept out of rooms in my own home,” Ms. Lloyd screamed. “I won’t have it!”
“Coming!” Uma called, tripping her way back to her bed, then rummaging around on the floor for yesterday’s clothing.
“Open this door!”
Shirt inside out, jeans unbuttoned, but at least Uma was covered by the time she got the door unlocked.
Ms. Lloyd opened her mouth to speak, no doubt some scathing remark, but then closed it again as, from downstairs, the phone started ringing—a shrill, insistent sound. Ms. Lloyd ignored it.
Big eyes pulled her apart, sweeping top to bottom, seeing more than was comfortable. Uma forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze.
After what seemed like ages of birdlike scrutiny, her boss delivered her prognosis. “You look awful.”
Something about the insult—perhaps the way it was delivered, or maybe the fact that she’d noticed—was a teeny, tiny thawing on Ms. Lloyd’s part.
Predictably, she ruined the moment by saying, “Get properly dressed and help me with my bath.”
* * *
It took less than twenty-four hours to get into the swing of the new job—for better or worse. It was amazing how quickly you could adjust to a new life, especially one as sedentary as Ms. Lloyd’s, where everything that could possibly interrupt the flow of the day had been cut out. There was no room for variation. No excitement, no surprises. No air.
After their breakfast of oatmeal and a single cup of tasteless, gas-station-grade coffee came the morning television marathon. News shows, accompanied by Ms. Lloyd’s laments on the stupidity of today’s youth, of which Uma was apparently an excellent representative.
The woman was set in her ways and painfully frugal, whether by desire or necessity. Could she afford the few hundred she had agreed to pay Uma every month? Uma suspected it was a stretch to her already strained finances, but you never knew with old people. They’d live their whole lives like paupers and then, after they died, you’d find they’d squirreled away a fortune under the mattress.
A few times that first full day, Uma caught Ms. Lloyd eyeing her, but besides the morning’s kerfuffle, there was surprisingly little conflict, as if Uma had undergone her trial by fire and could now rest easy. She didn’t quite trust that notion.
She busied herself at work. It was laundry day, thankfully, since the clothes on Uma’s back had been worn and worn again. But how to wash her single pair of jeans while still covering herself provided a brief conundrum. She eventually opted for a big towel around her waist—which would have worked out fine if they hadn’t gotten a visitor.
When she first walked down the rickety wooden stairs to the basement, arms filled with the overflowing laundry basket and head full of overly specific directions on what not to wash with what, Uma had two thoughts: How on earth did Ms. Lloyd manage these stairs in her condition? And more importantly, how did the stairs survive the woman’s considerable weight?
The basement was weird, paneled in dark wood with a bar at the far end of the room. It smelled of old, moldy carpeting and stale smoke. Buck heads, probably hunting trophies, adorned the far wall. She hardly dared look at the glassy eyes staring at her in blank, creepy vigilance. It was dirty and dank, with an underlying nastiness that had Uma running back up as soon as she’d gotten the load in, towel clutched around her hips, back itching with the sensation that someone or something followed close behind.
At the top of the stairs, Uma hesitated at the door. There were voices on the other side.
“It’s fine. She’ll do,” Ms. Lloyd hissed, and Uma leaned on the basement door, straining her ears.
“You sure? You know you don’t have to do this. If you need me to, I can—”
What? Do what, exactly? She pushed her ear hard against the door, and it swung out with a crash, interrupting the conversation and sending blood rushing to Uma’s cheeks.
“Oh, well, look at that! Here she is!” Ms. Lloyd chirped.
Uma’s heart hitched up to warp speed when she saw the enormous silhouette standing in the front door. Oh no. This is it. He’s here. Joey, here to drag—
The figure shifted, and perception caught up to reality. It wasn’t him…not even close. Joey’d never been so tall or wide or calmly imposing. Self-consciously charming and perpetually wired about summed up Joey, not like this…this…monolith. Calm. Steady. A rock.
Her mental camera snapped a reluctant picture, wanting to memorialize this man’s tranquility and bottle it, an antidote to her own messed-up life.
As she focused on the shift in reality, Ms. Lloyd and Ivan focused on her: curious, waiting for something—apparently a response to some question.
“Ive came to see you, dear. Aren’t you going to say hello?” What? To see her? And where the hell had that dear come from?
“Um. Hello, Ivan.”
“You can call me Ive.” God, she’d forgotten how intimidating he was. Not just his size, but his presence.
“Sorry. Ive.”
“’S okay. Just came by to see how you’d settled in.”
Uma had also forgotten how slow and deep his voice sounded.
She responded, oddly mesmerized. “Great. Yeah, good. Everything’s just perfect.” She snuck a look at his face to catch his eyes riveted to the worn floral terry knotted at her waist.
“New trend?” he asked.
“Laundry day.”
“Ah.”
Ms. Lloyd wore a little pursed-lipped expression that managed to look both satisfied at Uma’s predicament and irritated that she’d taken to wearing her bath towels.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Ive, honey. Come inside.” Ms. Lloyd pulled him in and locked the door, four and then five times. Always five. “Did you bring the Gazette?”
“Oh, darn it,” Ivan responded, sounding wooden. His gaze slid to Uma, then back. “They were all out again.”
“Hmph. I might have to call old Shady Grady myself and ask him to hold back a copy for me next time. Couldn’t possibly be selling out, since the darn thing’s a rag, anyway. Not a real journalist in the bunch. And they never did seem to get my ad right.”
“Yep. Always somethin’, isn’t it?” Ivan looked decidedly shifty. “So, you settled in all right, Uma?”
“Yes. Great. Thanks for checking in.” The towel around Uma’s waist made a bid for freedom. She barely managed to snag it before her shamefully threadbare granny panties became fodder for Ms. Lloyd’s ridicule.
“Pleasure.” Ivan’s eyes rose to the TV bolted to the living room wall, only touching on Uma’s struggle briefly before skittering away again. “How’s the TV workin’ out?”
“Oh, Ive, honey, it’s changed my life! I can’t begin to thank you enough.” Ms. Lloyd was effusive, as lively as Uma had ever seen her.
“Just sittin’ there in the house, goin’ to waste. No use for it.” He shrugged and glanced at Uma again, his cheeks slightly pink. “Least someone’s enjoyin’ it now.”
“I wish you would let me pay
you something for it!”
“No, ma’am.” He shook his head stubbornly, his eyes returning to Uma’s and staying there a beat, then another. The silence lengthened, until Uma’s face started to heat, no doubt matching his.
A glance at her boss showed the woman’s dark eyes darting between them, full of questions and a barely suppressed glee. Oh, lovely. They were the entertainment: reality TV right there in the entryway.
“Come on in, honey. Have a seat. Irma here can whip us up a fresh pitcher of tea.” Uma didn’t bother correcting her—her boss knew exactly what her name was. “Unless you want coffee? She can make a fresh pot.”
“That’s all right. I’m sure Uma’s got better things to do.” His eyes flicked to Uma then away again. “I gotta take off. Just wanted to…” His voice fizzled to leave a silence that he filled with an open-handed gesture, a hundred times more eloquent than his words. Clearly he was a man comfortable in his body, not his speech.
“Thanks again for checking in,” Uma said as brightly as she could. Her voice sounded fake and uncomfortable…a professional voice. The way she used to talk to brides—before. In the kitchen, the phone rang, and with relief, Uma turned to get it.
“Don’t touch it!” the older woman snapped.
“Not answerin’, Ms. Lloyd?”
“Prank callers again.”
Uma opened her mouth. “I could—”
“Leave it be,” Ms. Lloyd said over the last steady, sonorous dring. “Not calling the police out for this, and no way I’m letting some prank caller bully me into changing a number I’ve had for thirty years.”
“Let me—”
“No thank you, Ive. You’ve done enough.”
“Okay then.” Brows raised, he put a hand on the door and tried pulling it open before he remembered it was locked. “I’m right next door if you need anything.” He turned to Uma. “If the boss lady here ever gives you time off, come on by for a visit.”
Under Her Skin Page 3
