Danger Becomes You

She smiled at him. “I hope you don’t mind that I made breakfast.”

“Mind?” he said slowly. He absently pulled her chair out for her before he sat. Ah, so he’d been taught manners at some time in his life—sometime before becoming a hermit. “Thank you,” he said.

Neither one said anything during the meal. She replenished his oatmeal, finishing up what she’d made. When she set it in front of him, he looked up at her. “Where did you get the idea of putting stuff in the oatmeal?”

Since he’d wolfed down the first bowl, she didn’t think he was criticizing her. She ate one of the biscuits while he finished off the rest of them. After sipping her coffee, Leslie replied, “That was one of my mother’s ideas. I used to hate oatmeal so she started experimenting with different ingredients to coax me into eating it.”

“Hmm. Where does your mother live?”

What had happened to the curmudgeon of the day before? The lines on his face were still there, especially around his mouth, but at least he was civilly attempting to make conversation.

“She lived in Alabama until she died last spring.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. I bet you were raised in Alabama, weren’t you?”

She frowned. “Yes. Why?”

He nodded. “Because your speech patterns sound like Alabama.”

She tilted her head slightly. “And you know that because…?”

“One of the men in my squad was—” He stopped, shook his head and drank some coffee. The scowl on his face from yesterday returned.

She waited, but he said no more.

His squad. Military. Something bad had obviously happened that he didn’t want to discuss. She could understand. She certainly had no intention of telling him why she’d left Tennessee in such a hurry.

She searched for another topic of conversation. Finally she said, “Are your parents still alive?”

He nodded and stood. He cleared the dishes from his side and carried them to the kitchen. She shrugged and finished clearing the table. When she went around the corner she saw that he was filling the sink with soapy water.

“I can do that,” she said, adding the dishes she’d carried to the stack beside the sink.

“That’s okay,” he said without looking up. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way.”

A clear dismissal.

She turned away with an inaudible sigh and went over to the stove, which was really radiating heat now. After holding her hands out to the warmth for a few minutes, she walked over to the window and looked out.

It was still snowing. Surprise, surprise. Maybe Jason hadn’t been kidding about having snow until March. Surely the wind would let up soon. She watched the blowing snow for a while before turning away.

Now what?

She thought with longing about her belongings in the car. She’d bought several paperbacks and magazines on her way north, thinking she would need them once she reached Larry’s place.

She needed them now.

With her decision made, Leslie grabbed her gloves and put on her coat, pulling the hood forward as far as it would go. Just as she reached for the door, Jason spoke.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The crabby curmudgeon had returned. Without turning around, she said, “To my car.”

“Why?” he asked baldly.

She counted to ten. Slowly. Still facing the door she said, “Because I need some things out of it.”

She heard his disgusted sigh. “You really love to court danger, don’t you?”

Leslie shook her head. “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” She unlocked the door, opened it, quickly stepped through and slammed it behind her.

She looked around the area in front of her. She had no idea how to get back to the car the same way she came, but the clearing between the trees for his driveway was easy enough to see. She would walk that way until she came to the road, then follow the road until she reached her car.

With her plan complete, Leslie stepped off the porch into snow up to her knees. Great. Just what she needed. However, she had no intention of returning to the cabin without something to read, since it was obvious that her reluctant host didn’t consider conversation with her necessary. She’d keep going if it killed her.

And it might.

Leslie lost track of time as she struggled to move through the snow. She had quickly learned to shuffle her way forward. Her legs were wet and clammy-cold. She clenched her teeth. She refused to go back and admit to Jason that he’d been right. So she continued forward, feeling like an inchworm.

By the time she reached the road, she was panting and she’d actually worked up a sweat, which was weird. The snow on the road wasn’t as thick as the stuff on his driveway, probably because some of it had melted before the road cooled off.

She turned and looked back. The cabin was no longer in sight, but she saw the smoke rising, which encouraged her to believe she’d find her way back as she had yesterday.

The car was covered in snow when she found it still nestled in the ditch. Her winter gloves had been no match for the storm. The wool was soaked. She jerked them off and fumbled for the car keys she’d stuck in her coat pocket.

Leslie went to the trunk and pushed snow away until she found the lock.

It was frozen.

She didn’t know whether to cry or to curse. She would not go back to the cabin without her belongings. With new determination she knelt until her mouth was close to the lock and began to blow on it. Every minute or so she’d jiggle the key before continuing to blow. She finally had to stop because she was getting light-headed and the back of her jaws ached from her efforts.

This time when she jiggled the key, there was a faint crunching sound and the key turned. She put all her muscle into prying open the trunk, feeling like a conqueror when it groaned open.

Not wasting any time, Leslie opened her suitcase, stuffed the various books and magazines scattered in the trunk into the bag, and pulled it out of the car.

She closed the trunk, grabbed her keys and looked around. She could either struggle back up the lane to Jason’s house or she could cut through the trees, where the snow wasn’t nearly as deep. There was no question which way she’d choose.

The way through the trees seemed much longer today than it had the day before, but then, she hadn’t been dragging a suitcase the size of a pup tent at the time. Her mother had always told her she was too stubborn for her own good.

“You got that right, Mom,” she said out loud. Maybe her mother had been there to help get the trunk open, knowing that Leslie wouldn’t give up until it was open or she’d succumbed to the cold. She grinned at the thought.

She and her mom had always been close. Her mother had been pregnant with her when her dad had been killed during a police action in the military twenty-six years ago.

Her mother had never been interested in another man and Leslie had grown up convinced that for every woman there was one particular male who was the right one for her. At the ripe old age of twenty-five, she wasn’t as certain of that as she’d been at ten, though.

Her mother had made her feel very special, telling Leslie that she was so thankful she’d had her. She’d kept her husband’s photos around the house so that Leslie would know who he was. What her mother probably hadn’t considered was how much Leslie grew up despising all things military. She’d been deprived of a father; her mother deprived of a husband. And for what? Some military situation that was so minor in the general scheme of things as to have been long forgotten.

She paused and looked around her. It was darker beneath the trees but there was little underbrush to get in her way. She got a better grip on the handle of her suitcase and continued on, her thoughts going back to her childhood to a time when she wasn’t alone, wasn’t scared and wasn’t half frozen.