by Gina Dartt
She fed Powder and left enough food to keep him for the day, then made an omelet for her own breakfast because she didn’t know how long it would be before she would have a chance to eat on this little excursion. After consuming it with little appetite, she finished in the bathroom and took a last despairing glance in the mirror before heading for the closet containing her outerwear. The day outside was beautiful, crisp but not brutally cold, the fresh dusting of powder a brilliant white and sparkling beneath a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at it.
Tramping through the snow that squeaked slightly beneath her boots, she took deep gulps of the clear air, giddy as she quickly made her way down the sidewalk. Behind the store, Kate was busy clearing the snow from her car that, minus the snow, proved to be a black sports utility vehicle highlighted in silver trim. She wore jeans, boots, and a blue jacket that looked more stylish than warm, but it was the SUV that really caught Nikki’s attention.
“A dyke-mobile,” she crowed with delight.
Kate looked at her, a startled expression on her face. “A what?”
“Uh, it’s just that a lot of lesbians tend to drive this type of vehicle. It’s almost…well, a stereotype.” She hesitated, then added daringly, “You’re not trying to tell me something, are you?”
Kate stared at her, the pink rising in her cheeks before she smiled, continued to brush the snow from the hood, and said lightly, “You never know.”
Nikki blinked in astonishment.
The interior of the SUV was gray and very plush, as well as extraordinarily clean. It looked as if it had just come off the showroom floor, and Nikki could faintly smell that unmistakable “new car” fragrance of upholstery and plastic. “Did you just buy this?” Nikki drew the seatbelt across her chest. She cringed as the snow fell from her boots. Fortunately, ridged rubber floor mats caught the moisture.
Kate appeared slightly embarrassed. “I bought it a year and a half ago, but I think I allowed the salesman to influence me too much. Frankly, it’s too large for me and hard on fuel compared to a car. At least I don’t need to drive it too often.” She grinned as she put it in gear. “And it’s great in snow.”
“In this part of the world, that’s a good thing.” Nikki glanced at her. “So, you don’t use it for camping?”
“No,” Kate said in a way that indicated that she hadn’t even considered it, and Nikki thought how much she would love to introduce Kate to camping. They turned left onto the street from the parking lot before stopping on Prince, waiting for a break in the traffic.
Nikki peered at the shell of the insurance office. “How long before they tear that down?”
“Not long. It’s an eyesore and isn’t doing the downtown core any good. As soon as the insurance company...” Kate glanced at Nikki with an odd expression on her face.
Nikki laughed. “Right. What happens when the insurance company’s been burned to the ground? I can’t see that Sam would insure it with anyone but his own company.”
“It may take longer to straighten out the legal wrangle than the town council thinks.”
Nikki leaned back against the comfortable seat and looked around as Kate made another turn on Walker and then motored back up the Esplanade. Prince was a one-way street, connected at several places to other one-way streets and as such required the town’s inhabitants to occasionally do some extra maneuvering to reach their destination. It was rare that she had the opportunity to ride in a vehicle this high off the ground, and it gave her a sense of power that amused her. She wondered if this feeling had contributed to Kate’s decision to buy the vehicle.
“Do you drive?” Kate asked suddenly. “I mean,” she added, looking sideways at her, “do you have your license?”
“Yes. But not a standard.”
“This is an automatic. Want to try?”
Nikki glanced at her and started to laugh, unable to help herself.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.” Nikki tried to get a handle on her mirth. She really was too giddy for her own good. “It’s just that I have a friend who’s really into cars. Audrey would sleep with someone before she’d actually let her drive her car. She says that sex is one thing, but letting them behind the wheel of her baby is just too damned intimate. We knew she was really in love when she lent Deb her car to take down to the city.”
“Oh,” Kate said, looking a bit flustered. “It wasn’t a...proposition.”
Nikki didn’t dare look at her, suddenly very somber. “I know,” she murmured. “It just made me think of Audrey.”
After a moment’s silence Kate asked, “Is there some kind of code? To being gay, I mean. Like letting someone drive your car to show you’re...interested?”
“No. I think we claim a few cherished behavioral patterns that differ from those of straights, but everyone’s pretty much the same regardless of who they love, Kate. Sure, stereotypes exist, because there’s been enough evidence over time to create them, but gays don’t have a set way to act, just as straights don’t.”
“But there are certain ways of acting within any society.”
“Cultural restrictions, dynamics between various levels of class society.” Nikki stared through the tinted front window, probably a costly option. The salesman really had gotten to Kate, she thought idly. “For example, even in the twenty-first century in this country, it’s still possible to ‘marry beneath one’s self.’”
“Or become involved with a romantic relationship that damages one’s standing within the community.”
“Yeah, you might say we gays wrote the book on that type of relationship.”
Kate seemed about to say something and then hesitated as if reconsidering. When she spoke as they stopped at another light, her comment was somewhat off the line that Nikki thought she had been headed. “It’s been said that Margaret Madison married beneath her. She came from a certain stratum in the community, and her father put up the seed money for Sam to start his business.”
“Is that where we’re going? To visit Mrs. Madison?”
“God, no,” Kate said, glancing at her in horror. “That would be completely inappropriate, even if we did have some kind of authority to be investigating this. She’s just lost her husband.”
Nikki grinned at what was a perfect example of cultural behavioral patterns, though she didn’t point that out. “Where are we going, then?”
“Paulo Realties. They’re the ones who have the Edwards House on the market. I’m stopping by to pick up the key.”
“They’ll just give it to you?” Nikki said, vastly impressed with Kate’s contacts, yet slightly appalled that a real estate office would hand out keys indiscriminately.
Kate shrugged minutely. “I know all the real estate agents. My ex-husband has his own office, and they all cooperate.”
Nikki looked out the window at the casual words, feeling the tremor inside again, that defensive wash of pain to remind her how she had felt before and how foolish it would be to go there again. Whatever else this woman might be, she had a distinctly heterosexual past woven directly into the fabric of the town. It wasn’t something Nikki should be involving herself in, regardless of how strongly she felt about Kate or what she wished could be between them.
“It only took a couple of calls to track down the key.” Kate didn’t miss a beat, obviously unaware of how her words had affected Nikki.
Nikki wondered if Kate’s ex-husband had been one of those calls. “Do you think we’ll find anything in the house?”
“Probably not, but it might give us a sense of who this Katherine Rushton is. James said that not all the furniture was auctioned off and won’t be removed unless the new owners indicate they don’t want the pieces. Rushton might have left something behind, forgot it in the confusion of all the packing or in the aggravation of finding her finances taking a downturn.” She turned into the parking lot of the real estate office. “Do you have a better idea?”
Nikki shook her head. “No.”
Kate parked and p
atted Nikki absently on the thigh. “Wait here. I won’t be a minute.”
Frozen by the sensation that flashed from her leg to impact with the top of her head, Nikki couldn’t manage a coherent response. She just made a strangled sound of assent as Kate, seemingly oblivious to the havoc she had just caused with her casual gesture, slipped out of the truck and walked into the real estate office.
Nikki had managed to bring her heart rate and respiration under control by the time Kate returned, tossed the key into the console between the seats, and shifted into reverse. When they were back on the street and heading for the countryside where Edwards House was located, Nikki had found her voice again, though it was a trifle unsteady. “Won’t there be a problem with us roaming around up there?”
“There won’t be any other potential buyers around. This is a bad time of year to sell houses, and this house is a particularly poor prospect no matter what the season. It’s too far out of town to turn into apartments, too large for most people to maintain properly, too unattractive property-wise to the business community, and has no real historic significance. Truthfully, they were remarkably lucky to sell it the first time to Rushton. I doubt they’ll be able to find another buyer, regardless of how far she agrees to lower the price.”
“If you say so.”
Kate flashed her a smile. “I do.”
Kate turned her eyes forward on the road, and Nikki caught her breath at the sight of the classic profile. That’s what makes me a lesbian. Not that I want to sleep with every woman I see, but because just looking at a woman like her makes me want to cry, the sound of her voice makes my heart sing…being able to love her and have her love me back would be the greatest joy I could ever imagine. She guessed that was how straight people probably felt about the opposite gender, that a lot of women felt that way about men.
She was falling fast for Kate Shannon, and she was falling hard. And the inevitable impact, when it came, might not be one she could survive.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh my God.”
Kate swallowed as she stared at the long driveway leading up to Edwards House. Perched on a hill, the mansion sat at the end of a lane that was nothing more than a snaking depression between high banks deposited from previous plowing. Obviously no blade had touched it for the past week, and at least a foot of snow had built up in the driveway itself, higher where the wind had drifted it.
Nikki appeared unsettled. “You mentioned that the property couldn’t be sold this time of year. Is that because no one can get to it?”
“No.” Kate sighed. “If a client indicated interest, the realtor would arrange for the lane to be plowed before they showed the house.”
“But not for a couple of inquisitive chicks who just want to nose around.”
“Exactly,” Kate said. Chicks? Has that already made a comeback? She took a breath. “So what do you want to do? Try it on foot?”
“Well, is this really an off-road vehicle,” Nikki asked, a hint of challenge in her tone, “or just one of those wannabe trucks that doesn’t have what it takes to really live up to its butch reputation?”
Kate hesitated, though she smiled at the words. “I don’t know. I never tried anything like this. If we get stuck...”
Nikki grinned. “I notice you have a shovel and sand in the back. Do you have a cell phone? We can always call for help in an absolute emergency.”
“I suppose we could. It was my suggestion to come up here, after all.”
Nikki shrugged lightly. “We don’t have to, if you really don’t want to. It’s your truck. I was just teasing.”
If she backed down now, what would that say about her, Kate wondered. That she had bought a truck designed for forging into the unknown simply because of a sales pitch? That she had spent a fortune on a status symbol, only to have it sit behind her store most of the time? That she would support her friend in her pursuit, but only so long as it didn’t really inconvenience her?
That she would go only so far when it came to doing something risky?
Kate shifted the vehicle into a lower gear and firmed her jaw. “Hang on.” She clutched the steering wheel, hoping no ditches lurked beneath the obscuring white, and tried to figure out just where to aim so she wouldn’t crash into the banks that were so high she couldn’t see over them. It was like driving through a tunnel, seeing open sky above and occasional glimpses of the house during the harrowing journey. Sliding, skidding, engine growling in protest at the first real test she had ever given it, the SUV clawed its way around two hairpin curves to reach the courtyard in front of the mansion. Kate parked there with a sigh of relief, finally prying her gloved fingers from the wheel, straightening them with difficulty.
“Wow.” Nikki had been silent for the whole hair-raising journey, except for an occasional whimper at each shift of the vehicle. “I guess this is a real four-by-four after all.”
“Sure is,” Kate said, proud that her voice didn’t shake, and tried not to think about the return trip down the hill. Opening her door, she climbed out of the truck, taking a small leap from the running board to clear the top of a drift. But she discovered that the courtyard was sloped, and what she thought was level ground was actually even deeper snow. Off balance because the ground wasn’t exactly where she expected it to be, Kate plunged into the soft, frozen moisture, falling sideways up to her waist, her hips and legs trapped as she struggled helplessly.
She must have made a slight sound because Nikki, who had left the vehicle without incident on the other side, immediately worked her way around the front of the truck, sinking knee-deep in a lot of places. “Kate? Are you all right?”
Kate tried to wiggle free and couldn’t manage any leverage. “I’m stuck.”
“What?” Nikki, bracing herself with one hand on the hood, stared at her. “What do you mean you’re stuck?”
Kate exhaled slowly in exasperation. “I’m sorry. Which part of ‘I’m stuck’ are you not understanding?”
Nikki opened her mouth, shut it, and then turned away, leaning weakly on the truck as she laughed until she could barely stand up.
Immobilized, Kate was initially outraged before the humor of the situation began to work on her, and she started to laugh as well.
“And you were worried about your car?” Nikki gasped between her giggles. “Should we call for a tow truck now?”
Kate immediately gathered up a snowball and pegged Nikki on the shoulder. Wide-eyed, Nikki promptly gathered her own snow, pausing only when Kate held up her hand imperiously. “No. I can’t move.”
“Fair enough,” she said, letting the snowball fall back to the ground. “I owe you one.”
“Understood. Now get me the hell out of here.”
Nikki laughed again, but she plunged through the drift toward Kate, and with both of them digging the snow, they were able to loosen it enough to free Kate, pulling her back onto flatter ground.
Her jeans soaked, still a little embarrassed by her fall, Kate promptly began to forge her way to the front door through a narrow path just to prove she could, as Nikki followed close behind. More than once, they had to help each other and support themselves on the snow banks running alongside as they struggled through the drifts.
They leaned against the wall and caught their breath on the doorstep. Nikki coughed. “Next time we do something like this, let’s bring snowshoes.”
“Good idea.” Kate plunged her hand into her coat pocket. “Let’s hope I didn’t lose the key when I fell down.”
“Bite your tongue.”
Both women exhaled frosty clouds of relief when Kate pulled out the key and fit it into the lock. The door was a bit reluctant, but with both pushing, they managed to force it open and almost fell into the cold interior.
“Holy cow.” Nikki looked around, her mouth falling open.
“It is rather ostentatious.”
Regardless of how much money Katherine Rushton had at the moment, it was clear that at one time she must have been rolling in it.
The interior of the home looked more like a resort than a place where someone had once lived. Kate’s tastes tended to the luxurious, but this was far too much. It was almost like a shrine to the almighty dollar, a place where worshipers could come and pay homage to the gods of currency. In an area where bed-and-breakfasts were the typical tourist retreat, this was as out of place as if someone had built a mall on a dirt road.
“I’m afraid to move. I may break something.” Nikki’s voice sounded tiny in the large space. “I’d be in debt for the rest of my life.”
“What a waste. Look at the natural woodwork. The gilding on the ceiling has overwhelmed it.”
“I think it’s all overwhelming.”
Kate glanced at her. “Let’s look around.”
“What about our boots?” Nikki had barely moved inside the door, and already a small puddle of water was forming around her feet. Obviously, though it felt cold inside, the owner maintained enough heat to melt snow and keep the pipes from freezing.
Kate frowned, then opened a nearby closet door. Sure enough, several boxes of inexpensive slippers stood inside, put there by the real estate office for just this sort of thing. “What size are you?”
“Nine,” Nikki said, with only the faintest hesitation.
“I’m an eight.” Kate drew out the appropriate boxes and handed Nikki one box of slippers before pulling on her own, amused to find the company’s logo embroidered on the top. She had actually suggested providing slippers back when her husband had worked with Paulo Realties, prior to starting his own office. “Souvenir. They’re freebies for the clients and work as advertising as well.”
Nikki removed hers from the box and put them on, wiggling her toes a bit as she looked down. “Not bad.”
“They only last about two months before the soles start to wear out, but for tramping all over a house when deciding whether to buy it, they’re fine. Let’s start upstairs and work our way down.”
