The Infinity Tattoo (6 page)

While Jack had his beer, Meg showered off the sweat and dirt from their day at the work site. Then Jack took his turn.

It was a pleasant evening and Meg decided to grill outside. So she popped a couple of potatoes in the oven, gathered up the things she would need for the grill, and headed out to the deck. Just as she turned the grill on, Jack joined her.

“What can I do to help?” Jack asked.

“Oh, are you handy with a grill? If you can take care of that, I can make a salad.”

“Of course,” he said and reaching for the long grilling fork, slapped the steaks on the fire. He stood close to her and she could feel the heat of his sun-burnished skin radiating from him. And she could smell the scent of soap from his shower overlaying a headier scent, male and spicy.

She raised her eyes from the hands that worked the grill to his face, also burnished from the sun. He caught her look and desire smoldered in his gray eyes for just a second before he turned his attention back to his task.

Quickly, she turned away and escaped to the kitchen. By the time she returned with the salad and a couple of baked potatoes, she had regained her composure. Soon the steaks were done and they ate voraciously. Then they settled back to enjoy another drink. But it wasn’t long before they were both ready to retire.

* * *

On their second day on the job, as Meg watched Jack work, she wrestled with her conscience. Jack was proving his worth ten times over as he labored under the hot sun with Julio and Manny at whatever task needed doing. Was it fair to expect him to sleep on the hard cement in the shed when she had extra bedrooms in the house?

She told herself that she was safer leaving him where he was. After all, she really didn’t know him, did she? But she had trusted him with everything else. He came inside to use the shower. He ate her food and had shared an evening with her out on the deck.

If she were brutally honest with herself, she would admit that the real danger was the magnetic attraction she felt for the man. She didn’t trust herself to having him sleeping in such close proximity. And yet it was hardly fair to expect him to work so hard and not have a soft place to land his head at the end of the day.

“Jack,” she said when they returned to the shed and unloaded equipment. “I think you should stay in the house.”

Jack looked at her. “But I’m fine in the shed.”

“No, you’re not. You need to get a good night’s sleep with the kind of hard labor you’re putting in.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “a soft bed would be nice.”

“It’s settled then. I’ll put some sheets on the bed in the spare room.”

* * *

It took some effort, but eventually Jack and Meg settled into a comfortable routine. They alternated cooking dinner, more often than not on the outdoor grill. They took turns doing the dishes as well.

Meg had mixed feelings about the arrangement. On the one hand it was nice to have someone to talk to at the end of the day. On the other, it impinged on her privacy. After she’d come home and her father had died, she’d wanted to hide herself away.

Even though she relished each day working the earth in Sedona, enjoying the deep blue of the skies, and soaking up the sun, she equally looked forward to the evenings. There was nothing she enjoyed more than returning from a day working on someone else’s yard to relax in the peacefulness of her own.

But it wasn’t just the intrusion into her routine that left her feeling unsettled. It was Jack. Jack made feel things she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, define. Physically, he was very attractive. His light brown hair, which hadn’t seen a haircut for some time, was picking up highlights as he worked under the desert sun. It framed a handsome face that was bronzing even with the sunscreen Meg insisted he use.

His six-foot-tall frame was well put together with broad shoulders, well-developed pecs, a slender waist, and the legs of an athlete. Far too often, Meg found herself fantasizing about rolling in the sheets with him, especially when she lay in bed, knowing he was right down the hall.

On an emotional level, Jack was one-hundred-percent gentleman. She could often see the spark of desire darken his gray eyes as they worked together, but he never tried to touch her, or kiss her. Sometimes she thought it would drive her mad with longing.

And that was a problem. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. Besides sex, of course. But somehow she couldn’t see him being satisfied with casual sex. He would want something deeper, more permanent. And that was something she wasn’t prepared to give.

* * *

Jack had never seen a woman work so hard. He had no doubt that she would get the business back to where it had obviously been at one time, judging by amount of the equipment stored in the shed. But that equipment needed some tender loving care, and maybe a can of oil or two.

So whenever Jack found a little spare time, he tinkered with one thing or another. Besides the power trencher, there was an older Dearborn tractor that hadn’t been running for years, a stump remover, power saws, etc. Each time he repaired a piece of equipment, Meg would chortle with pleasure, which was more than enough thanks for Jack. He loved seeing her sparkling eyes when she smiled.

Late one afternoon when Jack was sharpening a tree saw, a woman pulled into the driveway. She got out of her car, slammed the door, and walked over to him. Putting her hands on her hips, she glared at him. She was on the short side and chubby. Her chin-length hair was several different shades of blond and she had clear blue eyes.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Jack put the sharpener down on the table. “Um, my name is Jack,” he told her.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m repairing this saw. Just cleaning it up and tightening up some components, sharpening the teeth, that kind of thing. So . . . who are you?”

“Nicky. I’m a good friend of Meg. She’s never mentioned hiring someone to work on her equipment, though she tells me she’s in dire need of repairs.”

“Nicky,” came Meg’s voice from behind Nicky. “I see you’ve met Jack.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Nicky said, turning towards Meg.

“Jack is a friend of a friend. He blew into town a few days ago looking for work. And, I must say, he has worked miracles with all this equipment. You know how I told you I was desperate for help.”

“Of course I do,” said Nicky, giving Jack the once over. “But—”

Meg steered Nicky out of the shed. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house for a visit, leave Jack to his work.”

* * *

“Okay, Meg,” Nicky said, once they were seated at the kitchen table. “What’s really going on?”

“It’s no big mystery, really,” Meg replied. “Like I told you, Jack is a friend of a friend. He needed work and a place to stay, and I needed someone to fix my equipment.”

Nicky gave her a skeptical look.

“It’s a long story,” Meg said. “If I tell you, you have to keep it to yourself.”

“Of course,” said Nicky.

So Meg related an edited version of the story, how she’d found him in the shed and discovered the tattoo, how it was the same tattoo as Alex, and the bond he shared with his “brothers”, how she helped him get back on his feet.

“It’s the tattoo,” she told her friend. “I know that Alex would want me to help him out. I wasn’t able to do anything for Alex. So, I feel strongly that this is a way of making it up to him.”

“But, Meg, it’s not your fault what happened to Alex.”

“Maybe not.” Meg gazed at the nicks and scratches on the kitchen table. “But I still need to do this.”

“You’re taking an awful risk.”

“You could be right,” Meg said. “If it weren’t for the tattoo, I wouldn’t have given him the time of day.”

“I don’t know, Meg. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry. I think I’m a pretty good judge of character. And I can see that Jack is a good person. Besides, I’m getting my equipment repaired. That’s something.”

* * *

While Meg and Nicky chatted, Freddy and Cesar had a beer in a small, ratty bar just off the interstate. A few other patrons, dusty and deeply tanned, sat at the bar, but for the most part the dive was deserted. It was unusual for Freddy and Cesar to stray so far north, and Freddy was already missing the fast-paced action of the city.

They had begun their search in Phoenix, putting the word out to their network of scouts and mules around the state, asking them to keep their ears to the ground concerning a soldier on the run. Freddy told them to ask friends, relatives, anyone they could think of who might have seen this guy.

Within the first few days, he had got a couple of reports of a gringo with a military haircut hitching rides on pickups heading north. The gringo had last been seen near Camp Verde, a small town on the main interstate an hour or so south of Flagstaff. That was a couple of weeks ago. Since then, Freddy had heard nothing, nada. He was frustrated. A guy didn’t just disappear into thin air, so where was he?

Finally, Freddy and Cesar decided to go to Camp Verde and scout things out for themselves. It was a little hole-in-the-wall town that sprawled across a highway and meandered down into an oasis along the Verde River. Like everywhere, it had its share of drug users, which meant there were also suppliers. Freddy contacted a distant relative he knew in the area, who contacted another relative who put him in touch with a local member of the syndicate. He asked him to spread the word that he was looking for a man believed to be hiding out somewhere in the area.

He just hoped they found him soon because Freddy was a city boy through and through. He had never seen a duller place on earth than the Verde Valley.

* * *

Meg had a nineties-vintage Land Cruiser that she used to run errands around town. One day when she returned from town and pulled it into the shed, Jack decided he couldn’t stand listening to it running so rough. So he took a look under the hood. He told her it needed everything: new spark plugs, a new fan belt, a new air filter, new shock absorbers, the works.

Meg insisted that he go with her to pick up the parts. He hesitated, not wanting to be seen around town in case someone recognized him, but she assured him that would not be a problem. With his baseball cap and sunglasses, half his head was covered. What wasn’t, was concealed by his facial hair.

They returned with the needed parts and Jack worked on the Land Cruiser for the rest of the day. Finally, late in the afternoon, he went in search of Meg. He found her puttering in her garden. Young vegetables were sprouting in tidy rows that would grow happily under the Arizona sun with careful irrigation. She was attacking weeds that insisted on competing with her tender plants.

“Meg,” Jack said. “Come and check it out.”

“Have you finished?”

“Yeah. Why don’t we go for a ride?”

Meg stood and brushed off the dirt from her knees. “Absolutely,” she said with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

They followed the Red Rock Loop road at a leisurely pace until they got to the highway. Then Meg stepped on the gas pedal, enjoying the rapid acceleration. The old four-by-four was raring to go. They headed towards Cottonwood for a while. Then Meg decided to take a detour. They followed a forest road, which eventually ran out of pavement and hit the dirt.

Finally they stopped and turned around to go back. The sun was lowering and the red rocks had fired to life, changing color from sun-washed reddish-tan to deep terracotta against a blue, blue sky. They pulled over to the side and got out to drink their fill of towering red rocks and the vast azure sky. Below the towering great red rocks, the petrified sand dunes swirled in streaks of pale gold and blood red resulting from thousands of years of eroding sandstone. Pine trees, creosote bushes, and agave plants dotted the landscape among the rocks.

Slowly, the sun sank like a golden globe between two great monoliths, showering the cliffs with its dazzling rays. The colors were so bright, they hurt the eyes. Jack stood in awe, feeling small and insignificant before this primordial display of beauty.

“Thank you so much, Jack, for fixing up this old beast,” Meg said. “It belonged to my father, you know.” She looked up at him with large dark eyes. Her short hair was wind-tossed and her cheeks were flushed with pleasure.

“It was my pleasure,” he said, and thought for a moment he would drown in those eyes. He leaned towards her thinking to kiss those luscious lips. Then he brought himself up short. There was no way he was going to take advantage of the situation. He was there by her good graces. Besides, there was Alex. When it came to women and his brothers, there was a code of conduct.

* * *

That evening after dinner, like on many others, they sat on the deck and enjoyed the fresh night air. Meg’s property had limited fencing—just enough to have a few small flower beds in front of the house and her vegetable garden. Fencing, Jack learned, was essential if she wanted to keep her plants from being eaten by the wild animals.

And there were plenty of those. Being blessed with a property next to Oak Creek, an abundance of animals visited throughout the night, outside of the fenced area.