The Best Next Thing

by Natasha Anders

  She shook herself and resumed her walk to the generator. As she reached for the switch, she heard a clatter from upstairs and froze again. Her breath snagged in her chest.

  Oh God…what was that? That hadn’t been one of her imagined threats, that had been real and—

  Crap! He must be awake. And walking into the furniture, if the noise was any indication. Feeling silly and a little guilty for dallying down there when the man was floundering his way around in the dark, she flipped the switch and the generator sputtered to life with a whir. It took a second before the light flickered on, accompanied by the beeps and buzzes of various appliances coming back to life.

  She hastened her way back to the stairs leading to the kitchen door, hoping her boss hadn’t damaged himself or the house too badly in the dark.

  When the room lit up again—so brightly it hurt his eyes—Miles thought it was lightning and braced himself for the thunder that would shortly follow…but the light stayed on, and Miles blinked a couple of times as he tried to figure out what was going on. A door opened to his left, and he swiveled toward it. His senses still heightened, and his reactions on a hair trigger. He belatedly recognized it as the door leading to the basement garage and the tall, familiar figure of Mrs. Cole stepped through it a moment later.

  Her head was bowed, her focus on the magnificent, heavy duty searchlight in her hands—no pussy phone flashlight for her—and she didn’t immediately notice him.

  “Where were you?” Okay, so maybe his question sounded more than a little accusatory, and her head snapped up in surprise.

  “Mr. Hollingsworth, are you alright?”

  “Of course, I’m alright,” he snapped, then felt like an arsehole. “Sorry, just on edge. I wasn’t sure where you were.”

  “I had to switch on the generator. It doesn’t automatically kick in when the power goes out.”

  Of course! The generator. Miles had forgotten about the expensive generator. He’d had it installed a couple of years ago because the series of regulated, rolling blackouts, implemented by the national power company, had become all too commonplace.

  “I’m sorry, I should have anticipated a power failure and left a flashlight in your room.”

  “I had my phone,” Miles said, then grimaced before admitting, “it died. What the bloody hell is that?”

  The question confused Charity, and she stared at him in puzzlement. He appeared uncharacteristically frazzled. His hair was standing up in tufts, he must have slept in his clothes because they were wrinkled and in disarray. His eyes looked wild and, if it didn’t seem so implausible, Charity would think he had been slightly freaked out by the dark.

  Now—after that sharp question—he was glaring at the back door almost resentfully and stalked toward it. She bent to right the upended bar stool that had probably been the source of the noise she had heard earlier, before following him cautiously, uncertain of his unpredictable mood.

  He stopped at the door and put his ear to the wood.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Charity tilted her head, trying to hear what he was hearing.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what—”

  “There!”

  She shut her mouth at his interruption and then frowned, listening more closely. She moved nearer to the door, now able to hear the strange moaning noises he was referring to.

  “That’s odd, right?” he asked, his penetrating gaze bore into her eyes.

  “It’s unusual,” she acknowledged, and crept even closer until she was standing almost right beside him. She was acutely aware of—and very uncomfortable with—his proximity and was about to take a side step to allow for more space between them, when the moaning started up again. Louder and more insistent this time.

  Miles—Mr. Hollingsworth—reached for the lock, and Charity’s breath snagged.

  “No, wait,” she whispered. “You don’t know what’s out there.”

  “Only one way to find out,” he stated, looking grim.

  “What if it’s a wild animal? Amos spotted a troop of baboons in the area not too long ago. Trust me, you don’t want to mess with baboons, we had a nasty encounter with one that broke into the kitchen last winter. It was aggressive and terrifying. Even animal control had trouble subduing him.”

  Her words made him pause and consider. “Would a baboon be dumb enough to be out in this weather?”

  “They could be seeking shelter.”

  A frown settled between his straight, dark brows, and he grunted and shook his head. He extended his hand toward the lock again.

  “Surely a baboon would be noisier and more insistent than this?” His words were followed by a gigantic, reverberating rumble that made them both jump.

  “Fuck me!” Mi—Mr. Hollingsworth; she wished he had never invited her to call him by his first name—swore vehemently. “Where the hell did that come from? There wasn’t any lightning was there?”

  “We were must have been too distracted to notice it.”

  “Stay behind me, Mrs. Cole,” he advised, once again diverting his grim focus to the door.

  Stay behind him? That was priceless since—given his current state—she could kick whatever was outside’s butt a lot more efficiently than he probably could. She was reassured by the knowledge that she was—temporarily at least—physically stronger than him.

  “I’m done being a cowering ninny.” Matching action to words, he grabbed the handle and turned the key in one motion. He threw back his shoulders, yanked the door open, and invited the full might of the storm into the kitchen with them.

  The frigid, gale force wind immediately swirled around them, dumping icy sleet at least five feet into the kitchen. Charity hissed and cringed away from the cold, but he muttered something foul beneath his breath and stepped forward, his head bowed as he focused on something out of her line of sight.

  “Mrs. Cole, grab a towel. Quickly,” he called, and Charity—alarmed by the urgency in his voice—leaped into action and seized the closest thing at hand, a tea towel, and braved the cold wind and sleet again to hand it to him. He had something clutched protectively to his chest. He tugged the towel from her without a word of thanks and covered the tiny, wet thing he held cradled in the crook of one arm.

  Charity carefully navigated the slippery, wet floor to shut the door behind him. He was saying quiet, soothing things to the wrapped bundle in his arms, and she turned to see what he was holding.

  “I think it needs a warm bath, Mrs. Cole.”

  “What is it?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t a baby baboon. The last thing they needed was Mommy and Daddy Baboon looking for their offspring. One thing Charity had learned after the incident last winter was that if a baboon wanted in, it would damned well find a way in.

  “A puppy,” Mi—Mr. Hollings—he said. “Poor thing looks like it’s on its last legs, we need to get it warmed up fast. A bath and a blow-dryer, if you have one.”

  “I try not to use too many appliances during a blackout. We only have so much fuel for the generator. And we don’t know how long this blackout will last. It could be days and if we’re cut off we can’t—”

  “A few minutes won’t do any harm, Mrs. Cole,” he interrupted her, the uncompromising grimness in his voice brooked no argument.

  Charity clamped her lips together and folded her hands in front of her. “Very well, sir.” She turned away to get the dryer from her room

  “Not sir.” The reminder sounded like an afterthought, and she didn’t bother to acknowledge it as she left the kitchen.

  He went back to talking to the puppy, his voice gentle. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him speak so quietly before. It did strange things to her chest. If anyone had asked her to describe her employer before now, she would have used words like brusque, frigid, unemotional…terrifying. Never kind or sweet or tender. And yet he was being all of those things right now; to a wet, probably tick and flea riddled, helpless little pup.

  Granted, two to three weeks a year over a p
eriod of three years, was hardly conducive to truly getting to know someone. Especially when Charity herself had done her utmost to remain unobtrusive and had rarely spoken to him at all. She had drawn her own—probably erroneous—conclusions about the man. But his coldness had been such a contrast to the friendly warmth of his younger brother and sister, it had been hard not to judge him accordingly. Her inherent mistrust of powerful alpha males didn’t exactly help.

  And while him showing kindness to one puppy didn’t make her change her opinion of the man entirely—it shook her previously rock-solid preconceptions somewhat.

  She was returning to the kitchen with the blow-dryer when his voice, coming from the guest powder room, stopped her in mid-stride.

  “In here, Mrs. Cole.”

  She pushed the ajar door open all the way and found him hunched over the sink. The puppy—much smaller than she’d anticipated—stood shivering in the deep basin, immersed in filthy, soapy water up to its neck. It resembled a skinny, brown drowned rat and stared at Charity with big, pleading eyes.

  “She’s absolutely filthy,” Miles said, his focus on the pathetic little pup.

  Mr. Hollingsworth! She corrected herself sternly. But she had been finding it difficult to think of him as such since he had invited—commanded?—her to call him by his first name that afternoon. It was like a niggling ear worm that she couldn’t rid herself of.

  Miles. Miles Henry. Miles H.

  Miles smiles for miles.

  Ugh. So frustrating.

  “She has fleas and I’ve already removed a couple ticks the size of apple seeds from her ears. I fear there may be more.”

  “No doubt, there will be more. But once you hand her over to the SPCA, I’m sure they’ll take care of the problem.”

  “There’ll be no talk of handing her over to the you-know-what right now, Mrs. Cole,” he said, with a pointed look at the top of the dog’s head. His unspoken implication that the scruffy, shivering, miserable looking bag of bones could understand them, was both ridiculous and oddly sweet.

  His flash of whimsy confused her, and she wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Besides,” he continued, sounding self-conscious in the face of her silence. “We probably won’t be able to get her out to a vet for a couple of days yet.”

  “More like a week.”

  “A week?”

  “That’s usually how long it takes to get the road into town operational again. We won’t be very high on the priority list after a massive storm like this. I’ve been following the news, there are already reports of widespread flooding in the informal settlements and wind damage in town. Emergency and municipal services will be stretched thin. Nothing we can do but wait. Especially if we’re not in any immediate danger.”

  “This is untenable. How the hell can you stand to winter here alone?”

  “I don’t mind it.”

  “You should. At the very least you should have asked for a raise. Or danger pay or something. I had no idea it was this bad out here in winter. Floods and fucking wild animals. Jesus.”

  “It’s not always like this. We’ve had a couple of dry winters recently.”

  “And fires. You were here for that fire a few years ago.” He sounded shaken, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him before now.

  “Yes.” Her reply was matter-of-fact, and he looked as if he was about to say something. Likely ask her for details. He hadn’t asked when it had happened, he had probably—rightly—assumed that because she hadn’t mentioned it at the time, it hadn’t directly affected them. But her anxiety and stress had been very real, and she could see the dawning realization in his eyes as he stared at her in absolute horror.

  “That must have been terrifying.”

  “We were unaffected.”

  “The bushveld around this place is a tinderbox during a drought…it could have gone up in seconds.”

  “It didn’t.”

  “Did you and Amos stay in town during the worst of it? In case of evacuation?”

  “We were ready for that possibility.”

  “But you remained here?”

  “You should probably finish bathing that dog. Her shivering is getting worse.”

  Her words diverted his attention to the pup. He made an apologetic sound to the mutt and swooped her up in a hand towel. Not any old towel, mind…but one of the premium 600 thread count white Egyptian cotton towels Charity put out only when the Hollingsworth family and their guests were in residence. Charity tried hard not to wince.

  She attempted to school her features into impassivity, but knew some of what she was feeling must have crept into her expression. Fortunately, he was wholly focused on the dog, and it allowed her some time to beat back the cringing horror she felt as she watched the beautiful, soft and fluffy towel go black with grime.

  “I’m sorry.”

  His apology took her by surprise, and she lifted her gaze from the towel to meet his eyes, which were now unflinchingly trained on her. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t hidden her dismay quite as effectively as she had hoped.

  “That’s fine, I’m sure it’ll wash out after a good soaking in some bleach and detergent.”

  The mystified expression that crossed his face, told her that she must have misunderstood the reason for the apology. The man usually kept his every thought and feeling on lockdown, so Charity was unsettled to suddenly find herself able to read his expressions so clearly.

  “What?”

  “The towel?”

  “What?” he repeated, the impatience layered into the question was a lot more in keeping with the man she thought she knew.

  “What was your apology for?”

  “For not contacting you after the fires to find out if you and Amos were okay. I assumed, because I didn’t hear from you, that things were fine.”

  “They were fine.”

  “I should still have enquired. And I’m sorry for not knowing how dire things can get here during winter. Nobody should work in these conditions. Perhaps I should consider shutting the house down during winter. You could come in once a week or something to keep things ticking over, but staying here during the worst of it is ridiculous.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that…no wait, she did know what to say to that, but chose to keep her own counsel for now. Instead, she met the puppy’s gaze. The little dog was snuggled against his chest, wrapped in the ruined towel, and only the three black dots of her eyes and wet nose were visible. She was no longer shivering and looked quite smug in her contentment.

  “We can discuss this after you’ve taken care of the dog. I have to finish dinner.”

  She turned away before he could say anything more and returned to the kitchen. His words kept bouncing around in her head. They felt ominous, threatening…more oppressive than the storm raging away outside. Where would she stay if he decided to close the house for winter? If he meant for her to check on it once a week, he must intend for her to remain close by. The closest populated area was Riversend. Charity didn’t want to live in Riversend. She didn’t want to live close to anyone. She liked it here. This was her home. She felt safe here.

  And what about Amos? He had plans to retire back to the Eastern Cape eventually, but for now he was happy and content to live and work here. Closing up the house for winter would force Amos to retire earlier than he wanted to.

  She was chopping onions for a ragout, and her vision was so blurred—from the onions, of course—that she could barely see what she was doing. She stopped, afraid of cutting her fingers, and took a moment to compose herself.

  This wasn’t her home. George and Amos weren’t her family. This was his house. And they all worked for him. She had fooled herself, for three years…fooled herself into thinking of this place as a safe haven. But she should never have stayed this long. She had never meant to stay for years. She had come here at the lowest point in her life…and she had developed this persona. This Mrs. Cole: ageless, sexless, efficient, invisible. Mrs. Cole had made her feel
safe. And Charity had stayed. And had refused to listen to the gnawing voice in the back of her head. The one that told her that she should move on, move out…heal.

  But she had stagnated here and had become invisible, and unrecognizable, even to herself.

  And now—faced with the very real, very alarming prospect of having to leave—she found herself feeling terrified. Alone.

  Hunted.

  She placed her palms flat on the marble surface of the kitchen counter and lowered her head as she fought to regulate her breathing.

  Snap out of it, Charity!

  One deep cleansing inhalation of breath, a slow count to ten, and a gradual release of the air in her lungs, and she felt better.

  Centered.

  Nothing was decided. It had been mentioned in passing. Almost impulsively. Everything was going to be fine.

  “Something smells good.”

  The dark, masculine voice, coming so unexpectedly from behind her, nearly an hour later, disconcerted Charity. But she managed to curb her immediate fight or flight instinct in response to being startled. She braced her shoulders, forced all expression from her features, and turned to face him.

  He had stepped into the kitchen, puppy tucked into the crook of his arms. The sight of the dog brought a quick, involuntary smile to her lips.

  “Oh, that’s clever,” Charity said. He had used some of his legendary ingenuity to fashion a sweater for the dog out of one of his tube socks. He had cut a hole into the toe of the sock and two others below that for her head and front legs. The sock was very roomy on the tiny pup.

  “Perhaps one of my socks would be a better fit,” Charity suggested, and his gaze dipped to her sensibly shod feet.

  “If you wouldn’t mind donating a pair to the cause, that would be much appreciated.” He lifted the snoozing puppy slightly. “She cleans up rather nicely, wouldn’t you say?”

  No. Charity wouldn’t say. Not at all.