When You Walked In

Before locking up the car, he grabbed his knife roll. The heavy leather bundle, which was tied tightly with a strap, felt good in his hand. Inside were six pristine chef’s knives made of carbon and stainless steel, and taking them with him was second nature. A chef’s knives were never to be left unattended, even locked in a car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

The rest of his crap he couldn’t care less about, not that there was a lot of it. He had some clothes, all of them old, most of them repaired in one manner or another. Had two pairs of boots, also old and repaired. And he had Lucille. Who was old, and repaired but now not so usable.

His knives, however, were not only new, they were state of the art. And they were worth more than Lucille.

Which probably wasn’t saying much anymore.

Kissing his palm, he laid it on Lucille’s still warm hood and started out.

His boots made a heavy noise as they hit the asphalt and he settled the backpack comfortably on one shoulder. While walking along, he looked up at the sky. The stars were incredibly bright, particularly one dead center above him. The thing was flickering like a broken light and he started to think of it as a companion.

Mailboxes soon sprouted at the side of the road. Mailboxes and imposing stone gates. He figured he was getting close to one of the old-fashioned resort areas where the Victorian wealthy had once escaped the heat of New York and Philadelphia in the days before air-conditioning. The rich still came to the Adirondacks, of course, but now it was strictly for the area’s rugged beauty rather than from a lack of Freon in their life.

He titled his head back to the sky.

Man, that star was alive. Maybe it wasn’t even a star. Maybe it was a satellite, although then it would be moving—

Nate felt his boot tip and the next thing he knew he was ass over elbow, falling into a ditch. On his way to the ground, he made himself go limp as he prepared for a rough landing. Fortunately, the earth was soft, but a shooting pain in his lower leg told him he wasn’t going to walk away from the fall without a limp.

He lay on his side for a minute. He couldn’t see his star anymore from the new vantage point, although he had a good shot at the ravine he’d almost rolled into. He sat up, brushed some leaves off his jacket and felt okay. When he got to his feet and tried to put weight on his left leg, however, his ankle let out a howl of protest.

Great. Out in the middle of nowhere. Car dead at the side of the road. And a mission-critical body part that was not passive aggressive in its opinions.

Nate grit his teeth and started walking. He knew he wasn’t going to make it farther than a quarter mile on the ankle. And that was if he had crutches.

The next mailbox, the next driveway, the next car was going to be it for him. He needed a phone and maybe a place to spend the night. By morning, he figured his ankle would feel better and he’d be able to get Lucille going somehow.

Hobbling along, pain shooting up his calf and down into his foot, Nate thought this was not exactly where he’d planned for his drive to take him.

Frankie caught the burning smell first and raced for the oven. She’d been so distracted trying to clean pears for poaching that she’d forgotten all about the chicken she’d put in to cook.

When she opened the oven door, smoke poured out and she grabbed two folded side towels for the evacuation. Holding the roasting pan away from her body, as if the thing was radioactive, she threw it down on the counter.

The sound of a pot on the stove boiling over drowned out most of her curses.

“That don’t look right,” George said.

Frankie let her head fall forward, trying to keep from cursing again. The temptation was nearly irresistible, especially when he followed up with, “Maybe you should try that one more time.”

Joy rushed into the kitchen from the dining room in mid-sentence. “The Littles, that couple whose bureau wouldn’t open when they went to unpack, they want their dinner now. They’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes and—oh.”

Frankie took a deep breath. Even if the Littles hadn’t been rude as hell about the bureau, the lumpy pillows on the bed, the cleanliness of the windows and the fact there were wire hangers in the closet, she didn’t see how she could serve them the desecrated carcass.

But now what? If White Caps was closer to civilization, she would have called for take-out from some other restaurant in the first place rather than take a chance on her cooking skills. Deep in the Adirondacks, though, the closest food emporium with anything ready to eat was the Bait Shoppe.

Although feeding the Littles night crawlers disguised as gourmet cuisine had some appeal.

“What are we going to do?” Joy asked.

Frankie reached over to turn off the oven and saw that she’d put the thing on broil, not bake. Of all the stupid mistakes…

“Frankie?”

She could feel Joy and George staring at her and to avoid their eyes, she looked down at the chicken. Her mind went blank. She was aware of a humming in her ears and that was about it. Except for her feet. She could feel them pounding inside the ancient running shoes she had on, as if someone had a vise to her toes.

How old were those shoes, she wondered idly. Five years?

“Frankie?”

She looked up at her sister whose face was wide open. Joy was ready for direction. Ready to be saved.

God, what she wouldn’t give to be able to look at someone with that kind of expectant hope.

“Yeah, okay,” she murmured. “Let me think.”

Like a tired lawnmower, her brain started to churn again. Options, they needed options. What else was in the meat locker? Only big cuts. And the freezer—no, there was no time to defrost anything. Leftovers. What could she bash together out of—

The sound of someone pounding on the back door brought her head around.

Joy looked to the noise and then back at her.

“Answer it,” Frankie said, heading for the walk-in refrigerator. “George, take the Littles more bread.”

She was searching the shelves and seeing nothing that offered a solution when her sister let out a startled hello.

Frankie looked over her shoulder and lost her train of thought.

A man the size of a barn had walked into the White Caps kitchen.

God, he was as big as George, although not built the same. Definitely not built like George. This guy was hefty where you wanted a man to be: in the shoulders, in the arms. Not in the stomach.

And he was almost too handsome to look at. Wearing a black leather jacket and carrying a beat-up backpack on one shoulder, he looked like a drifter but carried himself as if he knew exactly where he was. He had thick dark hair that was on the long side and his face was stunning, though it seemed as if it belonged on someone else. His features were a little too patrician to be attached to a man dressed the way he was.

But his eyes—his eyes were what really stood out. They were extraordinary—dark as the night, deep set, with thick lashes.

And they were totally focused on her sister.

Given how slight she was, Joy looked like a child standing in front of him with her head tilted up. And Frankie knew exactly the kind of resplendent astonishment that would be showing on her sister’s face, so it was no wonder the man looked poleaxed. Any guy worth his testosterone would be snared by that expression alone, much less the fact that it was shining out of such a garden of female delights.

Great. Just what she needed, some tourist lost and looking for directions. Or worse, a wanderer looking for work. She could barely keep Joy and George on the straight and narrow. The last thing she needed was another big lug kicking around.

“Hey there, Angel,” the man said. A bemused expression was tinting his handsome features as if he’d never seen anything like the girl standing in front of him.

“My name is Joy, actually.” Even though Frankie couldn’t see it, she heard the smile on her sister’s face.

Flattening her lips, Frankie decided it was time to get involved. Before the stranger melted onto the damn floor.

“Can we help you?” she said sharply.