Page 33 of Wind Valley

Yeah, he realized. There was no point in trying to meet a woman who wasn’t Maura. It wouldn’t be fair to her. He’d just have to wait until this attraction faded away. Then he’d start the “meet someone interesting” project again.

18

The day after the surprise winter storm, Maura skied into town and waited at Granny Apple’s Boarding House to see if any students had managed to dig their way out yet. No one appeared except for Steve Birdie, the caretaker.

So she taped a sign to the door—Class canceled until further notice.

“No school?” Birdie, who’d been shoveling a path to the wood shed, looked delighted by that news. He always hid in his quarters when the kids were around. He was a tiny man, having shrunk during the course of his eight decades, but tough as beef jerky. His weathered skin was as brown as a shriveled raisin, either from the time he’d spent in the elements or possibly because he was Native Alaskan. It was hard to tell, and Maura had never asked.

“We’ll be back,” she assured him with a smile. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

“We oughta go back to the brothel days,” he grumbled. “Dump the kids, bring back the hookers.”

“Come on now, what do you have against my students?”

“They’re messy. They laugh too much. They’re always playing.” He spat into a brass umbrella stand that from now on, Maura would consider to be a spittoon.

“So you’re just a basic grouch, is that it?”

“Ain’t changing now. This whole school thing will blow over soon and I’ll get my house back.” He waved at the building behind him, which was a rambling two stories and far too big for one person.

She wanted to object to the idea that she was going to abandon her students soon, but realistically, he was probably correct. What was she going to do, stay in Firelight Ridge past this winter? This was a hiding place for her, a short-term solution to the long-term problem of her life.

“A man came by right before the storm,” Birdie told her, as he dug around in his pocket. “Gave me something to give to you, but I didn’t want to. Had to wrestle with my conscience.”

A chill swept through her. A man. What man? Why was he looking for her? What strange man would be looking for her other than SS?

Birdie pulled out a damp wad of paper and put it in the palm of her hand.

She squinted at it. Whatever it used to say, it was an illegible blur of ink now. “Little help here, Birdie. What is this?”

“It’s a number to call in case you want to get internet for the school.” He spoke the word “internet” as if it was Satan. “I told him you don’t have the funds, but he said it’s free. That’s the devil talking if you ask me.”

She couldn’t resist. “Don’t you live here for free?”

“It ain’t free if I’m working my ass off, now is it? I gave this place the best years of my life. Now you’re talking about internet.” Grumbling, he plunged the aluminum shovel into a wall of snow.

“You need to get laid,” she called after him, just low enough so he couldn’t hear her.

“You volunteering?”

Oops. He heard better than she realized. Maybe all those times he’d cupped his ear and pretended that he hadn’t caught something were fake.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. What was the man like?” She indicated the wad of paper. “The one who came by.”

“Like? He was a man. Like any other. He came on a snow machine, a fancy one, a Thundercat ZR nine thousand. Those things retail at over twenty thousand dollars. I guess handing out free cell service pays well.”

A snowmobile—that was common enough, obviously. But such an expensive one? That was unusual. Mostly they were beat-up, patched-up, we-can-get-one-more-winter-out-of-it specimens. “Did he limp, by any chance?”

It was worth a shot. Anyone who’d gotten a wolf bite would be limping, and it still puzzled her that the victim had so thoroughly disappeared.

“Limp? I don’t know. He never got off the thing. He might have thought I’d steal it, which I might have done. Sweet piece of equipment.”

At least she knew Birdie’s soft spot now, even if she didn’t know anything about this mystery cell service salesman.

A few days later, Maura had read every single book on Pinky’s shelves, reorganized his kitchen, and learned the basics of crocheting. In that time, she hadn’t seen a single human being other than Pinky.

She couldn’t help thinking that being snowed-in would have been a lot more fun if Lachlan had just happened to be here when the storm hit.

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