Finding West (3 page)

3

KAT

“Hey Hugo, did you hear what I said?” I closed the fridge door and found the man staring at the computer screen, his face pale from shock. I walked over and set the bottles on the table. “What is it?”

He tried to shut the laptop, but I wedged my fingers in between. “It’s uh—”

“Don’t say it’s nothing because I will punch you in the throat,” I said, wrestling the computer away from him. He gave up without a fight.

I flip
ped open the computer screen, studied the picture, then laughed. “That’s not you.”

He blinked a few times, relief seeping into his taut features. “Are you sure?”

I set the computer back down and pointed at the screen. “Look, the bridge of your nose is thinner and you have a little less forehead than he does.”

He stared at the
pictures, still apparently unconvinced.

“I’ve been looking at your face all morning, I think I can spot the difference.”

“Please be certain.”

I rolled my e
yes before focusing on his face, starting with the bushy beard that covered a good portion of his face, to the straight nose, and ending with those luminous grey eyes, which were looking straight into my own, seemingly holding me in place. My chest felt tight, which was in itself a scary reaction to studying the face of a stranger.

I don’t know how long I stared at him—probably longer than was socially acceptable—but I
finally wrenched myself away from his gaze and straightened. “I’m…” I cleared my throat. “I’m sure.”

Then he smiled and any l
ingering doubts in my head melted away as his eyes wrinkled at the corners and his nearly perfect teeth shone against his dark beard. The kind of look that seemed genuine enough to make me feel warm inside. Uncomfortably so.

I grabbed my beer and made a big production of opening it in order to ease the tension. I didn’t know this guy; he had no business
making my stomach feel this way.

For the first time, I
questioned my decision to bring this man into my home. For the first time, I felt fear.

He spent a few more hours on the computer, looking up website after website, while I sat on the couch with Josie and watched the news. It should have felt strange having him in my home but he was quiet and unobtrusive and, honestly, it was nice to have someone to talk to again. Even Josie was starting to warm up to him, or at least no longer growled if he made any sudden movements.

At nearly
two in the afternoon, he slammed the laptop shut and let out a ragged sigh.

“Hey, watch it,” I
said. “Laptops aren’t cheap, fuck you very much.”

He stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he said
, his voice tight with irritation. “I just… I can’t just sit here, doing nothing. I need to go into town.”

“The snow is—”

“I know, but I need to try!”

The desperation in his face took me aback. He was so utterly lost that my heart
broke for him a little. “Okay,” I said. “Stay right there.” I went to my dad’s closet and pulled out his skiing clothes.

I went back to the living room and threw the waterproof snow pants, insulated socks, and heavy duty snow boots onto the couch. “You can borrow these.
Just leave them at the police station and I’ll pick them up later.”

His eyes studied me quietly for a long,
tense moment. Finally, he said, “These look new.”

“Yeah, well, my dad never had a chance to use them,” I said, sitting on the
arm of the couch.

“
Where did he go?”

“
He’s dead. I stabbed in his sleep for touching me inappropriately.” I don’t know what made me say such a thing, but I badly wanted to see his reaction.

T
he stranger just shot me a weary, unconvinced look. “I call bullshit.”

I bristled.
“Don’t act like you know me. I could be capable of cold blooded murder.”

“Says the person who couldn’t bear the thought of letting a complete stranger die on the side of the road.”

“Letting you die and killing you are two different things.” I don’t know why I felt the need to assert myself, but I pulled the gun out of my waistband and pointed it at his chest. The rational part of my brain was screaming that this wasn’t how normal people behaved in civilized society, but the bigger, wilder part of me just plain didn’t care. This man might be physiologically stronger than me, but under this roof, I was king.

He held his hands up, but just when I thought I had him, he took a slow step forward and pressed his chest onto the barrel of the gun.
His eyes bore into mine when he said, “So do it.”

A strang
e tingle went through my body, a reaction to the recklessness that mirrored my own. My heart stuttered when he came even closer, trying to force my hand. I held my arm steady, thrusting the gun deeper into his flesh.

“
Never point a gun at someone you don’t intend to kill,” he said.

I held fast. “Never stand in front of a gun unless you intend to die.”

“I can die right now. I have no identity, no sense of self. What have I got to lose?” His words sounded more like a confession than a dare.

“
Your life,” I said, growing irate. “That I worked hard to save.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but d
idn’t you just threaten to kill me?”

We stared at each other for a long, charged moment.

I blinked first. I could have allowed the farce to go on, but his nearness was making me nervous. “I wasn’t serious about that,” I said, taking a step back and lowering the gun.

He grinned and a hint of a
dimple showed on his cheek. “Neither was I.” He resumed dressing in the snow clothes, acting as if he hadn’t just asked me to end him.

I realized then, as I tucked my gun in my waistband, that I didn’t find him familiar because he was lost. No, it was a little
simpler than that.

It was because we were both
just a little bit fucked up.

The stranger was ready a few minutes later, all decked in winter gear that was a tad too tight across the shoulders but too large in the waist. At least the thermal hat and gloves fit. He turned around at the front door and opened his mouth to probably say thank you for the millionth time.

“If you say thank you again, I will stab you, Kenny,” I said with a snort.

“Kenny?”

“You look like Kenny from South—oh, never
mind.” I waved him away. “Go before the sun starts to set. Just go south until you hit the town. You won’t miss the police station.”

He held out a gloved hand. “It was nice meeting you, Kat.”

“You too, Bart.”

“I owe you my life.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

His grey eyes held mine, making my
stomach do an odd little lurch that I dismissed as indigestion. “Goodbye, Kat,” he said, and with one last gentlemanly nod, waded out into the deep snow. He was a shock of dark against the white landscape, an outsider in my little town.

“Bye, Stranger,” I said, watching from the front door.
He was halfway down the driveway when an idea struck me. I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. “Wait!”

His head whipped around.

“Hold on.” I ran inside
, took a pair of snowshoes—the old school kind made of rope and wood— off the wall in my bedroom and came back out.

His face lit up
as he made his way back through the trench he’d made.

“They might be a little small on you
but they should still fit.” I’d bought the shoes on a whim a few years ago during a craft fair in Cormack but had never really used them, had only used hung them up as decoration.

He
came back inside momentarily as he figured out how to tie the harness around his boots. Then he stepped out onto the snow and, when he didn’t sink, turned to me and said, “Thank you. You’re amazing."

The compliment, thrown so carelessly my way, struck me straight in the chest.
I couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had given me praise. “Just get going.”

The
snowshoes worked like a charm, allowing him to travel on top of the snow so that he moved faster and gained more ground. He twisted around and threw one more meaningful look my way before heading back down the driveway.

When he was out of sight,
I closed the door and turned to find Josie licking melted snow off the linoleum floor. “Guess it’s just you and me again.” I walked to the living room and it was as if the entire house seemed suddenly larger, emptier. It was an unsettling feeling that I didn’t want to think about, so I changed into some workout clothes, grabbed the package from the post office that contained my new weightlifting gloves, and went out to the shed to sweat my worries away.

Despite the lack of good insulation in the shed, I was overheating by the time I’d completed my self-designed Workout of the Day: fifty reps of lunges, double unders, kettlebell swings, pistol squats, push-ups, and box jumps.

Even though I was
out of breath, with my heart ready to burst out of my chest, I still felt restless. I just pretended I didn’t know the reason why.

I jumped up and took hold of my horizontal hanging bar and performed as
many pull-ups as I could manage, getting to nineteen before my arms gave out.

“Impressive.”

I spun around and found the stranger standing at the doorway, looking no worse for wear. My skin broke out in goosebumps, but I’d like to think that was because of the cold air that got in when the door opened and
not
because of the man who had just breezed back into my life.

He was so tall, so immense, that he
blocked nearly the entire doorway. He held up one snowshoe; its crossbar was broken in half. “I’m sorry about this. I guess I was a little too heavy for it.”

“No big deal,” I said, turning around and slipping my
sweatshirt back on, hoping he hadn’t seen too much of my bare torso. “How did it go? Did you find Sheriff Drew?”

“The town was empty.”

“As in completely?”

“As in its engulfed in snow and there are no tire tracks to be seen anywhere,” he said. “
So what now?”

“I don’t
know.” I shivered as my damp body cooled down. “Let’s regroup inside the house.”

We went in and he took off the snow gear, hanging
each piece on the back of the dining chairs to dry out. I noticed the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat, so I retrieved another shirt from my dad’s dresser and threw it at him.

“Thank you,” he said and turned around as he reached behind his head and pulled off his shirt. The socially acceptable behavior was to avert my eyes, but
I couldn’t help but openly gawk, allowing my gaze to caress the muscles on his wide back. A black tattoo traveling down the length of his spine caught my attention, and I took a step closer to read the inscription.

He looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
“What are you doing?”

“
You have a tattoo,” I said, tracing the simple serif lettering with my finger, surprised to find his skin so warm. “
Veni, Vidi, Vici
.”

He twisted around, trying to see the tattoo with no success. “Hang on,” he said and ran to the bathroom, giving me an unsettling view of je
ans hanging low on his hips, showing the top of his ass.

The view during his return was
even better. To say he had a nice body was an understatement. He had wide, flat pecs with dime-sized nipples, abdominals that contracted with each step, and deep indentations at his hips. And then there was the dark hair that covered his chest and traveled lightly down his stomach until it grew darker below the bellybutton, carpeting the way to whatever it was he packing under there. And damn it if I didn’t want to find out.

The
throbbing between my legs jolted me back to reality and I looked away with warm cheeks. He was a stranger and he wasn’t staying; why the hell was I checking him out this way?

“So you like
the view?” he asked with a half-smile.

I
shrugged, wanting nothing more than to wipe that cocksure smile off his face. “I’ve seen better.”

He tilted his head forward and gave a meaningful,
ominous smile. “My guess is that you haven’t,” he said. “Seen very many, that is.”

“That’
s fucking presumptuous of you,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

There it was again, that overconfident
smile that I wanted to wipe off his bearded face. “I could be the town harlot for all you know.”