Snow Job (3 page)

With the exception of Karl, of course
, she amended to herself.

“It’s been ages!” Emily squealed, meeting Elyce halfway between the door and their table. “And you promised to come to lunch with us around Thanksgiving.”

There were hugs and air-kisses al around, many exclamations of surprise over the coincidence of it al —and a wal of tension that seemed to spring into being between Karl and Andrew as introductions were made and they shook hands.

Karl clearly assumed she and Andrew were there on a date, rather than on business, and Elyce found herself slightly defensive and resentful about the assumption. She couldn’t quite pin down why she should feel that way when, after al , she
was
separated from Karl and she was in fact there on a date. Elyce perversely moved closer to Andrew, laying a possessive hand on his arm and smiling sweetly at the assembled Nashes as she replied to Emily.

“I know, but I real y did get stuck in court that day you cal ed. Believe me, I’d have rather been doing lunch. We’re stil going to do something before the holidays, right?

Maybe a movie. Andrew never wants to go to movies and I haven’t been to one in forever.”

She thought she could hear Karl’s teeth grinding, the muscles in his jaw were flexing so firmly. Andrew’s smile seemed a little nervous, and for a moment Elyce felt a twinge of conscience for pul ing him into the middle of things. It only lasted until Andrew spoke.

“Wow. It’s an entire generation of the Nash dynasty in one place. Drop a bomb on this spot right now and the local environment would be about ten percent safer for future generations.”

To Elyce’s surprise and tremendous relief, neither Karl nor Wil took the bait. Karl raised his eyebrows and then looked graciously away, and Wil just smirked at Andrew.

“But the explosion would ruin the seafood,” Emily said jauntily. “Okay, kids, that’s enough meeting and greeting. I think our table is ready over there. Elyce, my dear, we wil see you in a week or two.”

A few minutes later, without needing to talk about it, Andrew paid the check and he and Elyce vacated the restaurant hurriedly. The damp night air off the bay seemed to seep into Elyce’s bones on the walk to the car, and she was shivering by the time Andrew started the engine and pul ed silently and a bit sul enly onto the road.

“Wel , that was awkward,” Elyce attempted after about five minutes of increasingly painful silence. Andrew murmured a careless assent. Risking a peek at him, Elyce saw a look of intense concentration marring his even features. He looked a bit less control ed than usual, though she couldn’t put a finger on why, exactly. Every trimmed, chocolate-brown hair on his head was as neatly groomed into place as at the start of the evening. His suit trousers and jacket sleeves were pressed into knife-sharp creases, as they always were. Even during fieldwork, in hiking gear, Andrew always looked exceedingly tidy. But at the moment Andrew always looked exceedingly tidy. But at the moment there was a wildness about him, and the muscle in his jaw was working in the same way Karl’s had earlier.

Elyce felt a flicker of excitement, of warmth, despite the chil . What was he thinking? And what would he do, she wondered, with this new emotion?

As it turned out, he did less than she might have hoped.

When she turned at her door, key already secured in the lock, Andrew gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her firmly, no polite buss on the cheek this time. But just when Elyce had started to relax into the embrace, enjoying the novel sensation of this new set of lips, this unfamiliar tongue exploring hers, he released her and stepped back.

“I’l see you Monday,” he said with a smug grin. And then he was back in his car and out of sight down the driveway, leaving Elyce alone on her doorstep, mildly frustrated and extremely cold under the new winter moon.

Elyce had planned to spend Saturday sleeping in, lounging around the house, reading a mystery novel over several cups of hot tea or possibly cocoa, and perhaps taking a steamy bath with bubbles after breakfast.

Instead she awoke just before dawn, heart pounding at the unexpected sound of a car pul ing up and stopping outside the little house. She usual y enjoyed the isolation of the tiny little place in the woods because it was so quiet at night, but a sudden fear gripped her at the thought that any cries for help would certainly go unheard. Her nearest neighbors were over half a mile away, and a hil y ridge rose between her house and theirs.

She bolted the few steps from her bed down the tiny hal to the living room, and headed straight for the row of hooks next to the door. Reaching for her purse, glad it was already almost daylight, Elyce grabbed her cel phone with relief and dialed her parents’ number. She knew they would certainly be home at that hour to pick up the phone if it rang.

Home, already wide awake and into the second cup of coffee, from the sound of it. Her mother’s voice, comfortingly safe, greeted Elyce just as a firm hand knocked on her door.

“Honey? What are you doing up this early on a Saturday, is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Elyce admitted in a hoarse whisper, looking out her front window but not recognizing the silver SUV she saw there. She regretful y recal ed her intention to have a peephole instal ed in the front door one day.

The knock sounded again, a bit more insistent, and she glimpsed a flash of white just at the edge of her line of sight where the doorstep began. “There’s somebody outside, but I wasn’t expecting anybody. If I get cut off or anything, could you just… I know it’s sil y. I’m sure it’s just a neighbor.”

“It’s not sil y, Elyce, it was the right thing to cal someone, but…” Her mother’s voice, tight with concern, trailed off as Elyce cal ed out to her visitor with a strength she didn’t feel.

“Who is it?”

“Karl. And Astro. Are you going to let us in? It’s cold out here.” His voice was muffled but unmistakable, and Elyce suddenly realized that the flash of white had been the dog’s tail, wagging with excitement. No doubt he could smel her, even from outside the door, and he knew the house wel enough now to recognize it as hers. She felt a huge surge of relief, fol owed hard by suspicion. Why was Karl here, and at this time?

“Mom, it’s just Karl. He brought Astro for a visit. I’l cal you later, okay?”

“Oh.” Elyce could hear al the things her mother was struggling not to say. “That’s good. I didn’t realize you two were stil getting together. Is there anything I should know?”

“No, Mom.” She was snapping the deadbolt open with trembling fingers, taking a final deep breath before reaching for the doorknob.

“Wel , tel him I said hel o, al right?”

“Okay, I wil .” And there he was on the doorstep, although her immediate attention was captured by Astro, who leapt at her in a flurry of fur, al licking tongue and wagging hindquarters. “Mom says hel o,” she mumbled obediently through clenched lips to Karl as she tried to avoid the dog’s adoring assault on her face. “‘Bye, Mom.

Love you,” she said, clicking the phone shut and slipping it into the pocket of the fluffy white bathrobe she’d thrown on over her pajamas when she’d anticipated doing battle with intruders. “Sit, Astro! Off! Sit!”

The shaggy mongrel sat for the briefest of instants, then hopped up again and dashed off around the house to reacquaint himself with al its smel s. Karl had closed the door but stil stood next to it, seeming reluctant to venture any farther, just taking in the room with his eyes.

Elyce found herself looking around as wel for a second, trying to see the space as if for the first time. She wondered what he saw, what he thought. There was no entry hal . The front door opened directly into a smal living room, ten by twelve at the most, with a smal wood-burning potbel ied stove in the corner. The stove was functional and, in the very coldest weather, a very welcome addition as the house had no central heating. A battered leather loveseat with a few paisley brocade pil ows, an unpainted pine bookcase that was already fil ed to capacity, with extra books slipped in on their sides to lie on top of the others.

Slightly out of keeping with the rustic theme was the flat-panel television mounted to the wal opposite the couch.

It had been Elyce’s one extravagance when she’d moved out, and her choice had been driven primarily by space concerns. The room was far too smal to al ow for an entertainment center or even a television stand. But the house had been a bargain, too smal and rundown even by California standards to command anything like the exorbitant rents that were the norm in the neighborhood.

She was more than wil ing to put up with the cramped and rough conditions in order to live surrounded by redwoods.

“So. What are you doing here?” Elyce final y thought to ask, turning back around to confront Karl.

“Astro wanted to visit,” he said with a shrug. On his broad shoulders, the gesture looked less than casual. “Nice robe.”

Elyce looked down, fol owing his gaze to where the nubbly terry fabric gaped open over the low-cut pajama top.

Tugging the robe closed over her chest, she gestured to the couch. “Since you’re here, have a seat. I haven’t had tea yet, and I’m not having whatever conversation this is without any caffeine in my system.”

Karl smirked. “I thought about bringing you a latté, but the last coffee place I saw was pretty far away. I thought it would be cold by the time I got here. Are you going to give me the grand tour?”

“You’re right, it would have been cold. I’l be back in a minute,” Elyce cal ed over her shoulder as she left the room, deliberately ignoring his question. One doorway down the narrow hal with its peeling wal paper and curiously slanting floor was the miniscule kitchen, where she lit the gas burner beneath the kettle. She took a minute to measure the tea into a hinged infuser, adding a level teaspoon of sugar to her favorite mug with much more care than was real y necessary.

“Anything I can do to help?”

With a squeak, she jumped and whirled around to see Karl standing in the narrow doorway, fil ing the frame. “No thank you. I’ve got it.” And then, because she felt a little desperate, trapped there in her utterly inadequate kitchen,

“Please just go sit down. I’l be back out in a minute.” Astro chose that moment to dash by, carrying the squeaky bone that he had left under her bed on his last visit, and Elyce was relieved when Karl fol owed the boisterous dog back down the hal .

After the short reprieve, with her teacup firmly in hand, she squared her shoulders and prepared to face her nearly ex-husband again. She had planned to march in boldly but paused at the entrance to the living room, where Karl was now engaged in a mortal battle with Astro over the squeaky bone. Wresting it away from the dog at last with a cry of triumph, he flung it toward the hal way, looking up only too late to realize Elyce was in the line of fire.

She caught the toy deftly, holding her tea safely in the clear with the other hand as she sidestepped Astro’s lunge and flipped the squeaky down the hal way. The dog chased it in delight, tucking his tail and running low to the ground in the manner of his evident Border Col ie ancestors, and Elyce turned back to see Karl smiling. It unsettled her to see a smiling and happy Karl here, in the house where she’d moved when she left him.

“Why are you here, Karl?”

He met her stare frankly, the smile fading from his lips to be replaced with something grimmer. Standing up, brushing the dog hair from his jeans, he sat back down on the couch, looking suddenly like a grownup again, like the high-powered business executive he was. And in a businesslike way, he stated his reason for being there.

“I’m here because I have a proposition for you.

Something that might be to our mutual advantage.”

Elyce put her cup and saucer down on the coffee table and sat on the couch at the farthest possible distance from Karl. It wasn’t far. It was a smal couch. “A proposition? Is this about us or about the development thing?”

“Both,” he admitted. “About my family, anyway, and the development thing.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “I guess if it’s important enough to bring you here this early on a Saturday, I can hear you out. Although why you couldn’t have just phoned me…”

“It wasn’t the sort of thing I thought would go over wel on a phone cal . And I didn’t know you were sleeping in, although I guess I should have assumed you would be. You always do when you get the chance.”

Elyce wished she’d remained standing. From her current location she could smel Karl’s aftershave, lightly applied though it was. And the clean smel of his hair, which despite his long drive that morning was stil a tiny bit damp over his ears and at the back. He always kept it short, but the thick curls took a long time to dry, she recal ed, especial y in the cold weather.

“What made you assume I’d be alone?” she asked suddenly, remembering that when he’d seen her last she’d been on a date. Or at least, on what he clearly assumed was a date. Not that she had done anything to suggest otherwise. She had to remind herself now that it actual y
had
been a date.

Karl shrugged again. “I didn’t. But when I got here I only saw one car, and it was your car. So I figured I was pretty safe.”

Astro leapt to the couch between them and turned around happily with his captured toy, tramping in a circle before settling down to gnaw at the squeaky. His goal, as always, was to disembowel the toy and remove the squeaker itself, thereby silencing it forever. On the dark brown leather of the loveseat, loose white hairs from his rough coat were already visible. Elyce knew from experience that contrasting dark hairs from Astro’s few scattered black spots would have already been shed onto the light tan duvet that covered her bed. Within minutes of his arrival, it seemed, the house was always covered in dog hair that she never seemed ful y able to clean up before his next visit.