The Wild Ways (16 page)

BOOK: The Wild Ways

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Charlie’d intended to follow Mark’s song back to Port Hudson but ended up following a line of fiddle music that wound in and around the Wood. It wasn’t music she could remember ever having heard before, but it had a Pied Piper thing going for it and when she emerged into the world, the last few notes whipped by on the wind followed by a roar of appreciation. She could hear laughter and smell the smoke of the beach fire as she stepped out between the trees, but the corner of damp sand beyond the pier was empty. No women and only one set of footprints heading up to the pier. Not really surprising they’d left—she squinted at her watch—she’d been gone for nearly ninety minutes.

One set of footprints heading up to the pier . . .

Charlie stared out into the harbor for a moment.

She lost the footprints on the hard-packed dirt of the access road, thought about using a charm to keep following, but lured by the distant sound of “Back in Black” played on a fiddle headed for the party instead. Between following a hunch and joining a gang of musicians with beer, well, she’d had enough of being responsible for one night.

On the way through the parking lot to drop off her bag, she passed two guys trying to pretend they weren’t breaking into a car, tossed the first three bars of “Sail Away Ladies” at them, and didn’t bother waiting around for the splash.

Given that he’d recently been forced to recognize there were significantly more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of in his philosophy, Paul figured his reaction when he turned on the light was completely justified. By the time he realized the creature sprawled on his desk was another pelt, his extra-large black coffee was already dripping past the empty eyeholes and onto the floor. The smell of the new paint—first coat applied the moment Ms. Carlson had left for the evening, a light taupe for the outer office and a darker shade for the inner sanctum—had covered the smell of fish. The building had been locked and while the second-floor windows were open, they were securely screened in and the screens were still in place.

Granted, his office was on the twelfth floor in Halifax and that hadn’t stopped Catherine Gale’s first delivery.

The painters would arrive at five thirty to put on the second coat. He had fifteen minutes to get rid of the evidence or risk damaging rumors about Amelia Carlson and fur. Seal fur. By noon, people would speculate about how she wanted the seal hunt reopened. By tomorrow morning, rumor would have her out on the ice clubbing baby seals herself.

Stuff it under the table in the boardroom?

Or in Ms. Carlson’s private bathroom?

No. He’d be driving out to the mine the moment the painters left, and he’d have no chance to smuggle it out while they were in the building. His morning was tightly planned: he’d shove the pelts away in the dark while the paint dried, be back in time for the delivery of the new desk and chair. Be ready for work when Ms. Carlson showed up at ten after her breakfast meeting with the local representatives of the Seafarers International Union, North Atlantic District. Unions had been trying to organize on the deepwater rigs for years, and Carlson Oil was dangling the carrot of a shallow water well. Get the unions on board and the Ministry of the Environment would think twice about blocking the permits regardless of what power Two Seventy-five N wielded locally.

Power . . .

If they had someone like Catherine Gale working for them, would they use her power to influence the government? He paused, one hand extended toward the pelt, and considered it. It would have been tidier to use Catherine Gale to directly influence the government—as they were hip deep in the messier option, clearly Ms. Carlson hadn’t been able to convince her to do it.Yesterday in the storage locker, she’d warned him the new player would go after the pelts, but that was all she’d warned him about. Two Seventy-five N were the good guys. They’d use this new player to get their property back, but they wouldn’t use her against the government
because
they were the good guys.

Which was why they were going to lose. Business didn’t recognize the generalizations of good and evil although he’d heard a rumor they were adding ethics classes to most MBA programs.

He glanced down at his watch. Currently he wore a eight hundred dollar copy of an Omega Seamaster, but by next summer he’d have the real thing and . . . shit. The painters would be here in ten minutes!

The pelt was as heavy and awkward as the other three, but at least the outer hair had treated the coffee like the North Atlantic and repelled nearly all of it. Fortunately, he’d covered his cleared desk for the painters, so most of the coffee had spread out over the drop cloth. He wasted a moment jerking the damp canvas back into place, then another jerking it back down over the framed maps leaning against the side of his desk.

Coffee soaked into his shoulder while carrying the pelt down the stairs, but he was dressed in a golf shirt and khakis for the mine and he’d change before returning to the office, so he could ignore it.

He’d left his car parked directly in front of the building, willing to risk a bylaw officer wandering by at five thirty in the morning. By the time the first pickup truck of painters rolled past on their way to the parking lot, he had the pelt safely tucked away in his trunk.

The newspaper truck pulled up while he was having a “friendly chat” with the head painter. After talking about the weather, the price of gas, the price of coffee, and other things Paul could care less about—some days he really missed Toronto’s surly, no-nonsense contractors—Paul managed to establish when and how he wanted the job finished, sent the yawning man upstairs to his crew, and took a moment to grab a
Post
from the newly filled box.

The headline above the fold read:
Hay Island Environmental Group Withdraws Objection to Carlson Drilling

Good news, but it only meant they’d spoken to a local reporter. He’d reserve judgment until after he spoke to the minister’s office although, with any luck, this would be the last disgusting piece of fish-soaked fur he had to deal with. Seriously, this was the twenty-first century; what was wrong with microfibers?

The headline under the fold read:
Fisherman Catches Not-A-Squid off Scatarie Island.

Not a squid? Shaking his head, Paul delayed leaving for the mine long enough to drop the paper in the recycling bin by the elevator. Lots of things in the ocean weren’t squid; he didn’t have to be the son of a fisherman to know that. The slightly out-of-focus photograph suggested
Fisherman Catches Tentacled Mutant
might be more accurate. And this was the fishing ground environmentalists were afraid Carlson Oil might ruin; an oil spill could only improve things.

Charlie woke up thinking the world was ending. Heart pounding, she jerked up into a sitting position, fighting her way free of her sleeping bag and ready to . . .

. . . deal with Tim snoring.

Mark, head on Tim’s shoulder, drooling into a dark triangle of chest hair and a half-inked tattoo of a sea serpent, had apparently gotten used to it. Tucked up on their other side, Bo had earbuds in, cords disappearing under his Ryerson hoodie. Shelly’d hooked up with someone—or someones. Charlie was a little fuzzy on the details. She vaguely remembered being asked to join in, couldn’t think why she’d refused, and hoped it wasn’t because the people involved who weren’t Shelly were from one of the other bands. Even without Charlie accidentally charming them, that never ended well during festival season.

Technically, they were camping. Realistically, no one had been sober enough to drive, so they’d just bunked down on the flattened grass between the van and Shelly’s car. Given the number of vehicles in the makeshift parking lot, and at least one set of sinuses giving Tim a run for his money, they weren’t alone.

Moving quietly so as not to wake anyone, and carefully so her head wouldn’t fall from its precarious perch on her neck, Charlie skimmed the sleeping bag down her body until she could kick free.

The sun was barely up and when she got to the beach, a little early morning fog still clung to the surface of the ocean—silver-gray mist above slate-gray water. Stripping down, leaving yesterday’s clothes just above the dark line in the sand, she gritted her teeth and walked out until she could dive through a swell.

Northumberland Strait never got warm, but the shallow water between the mainland and Port Hood Island was closer to refreshing than profanity. By the time she surfaced, her hangover had eased and, provided she got something to eat in the next little while, Charlie felt she just might . . .

The seal looked as startled by their sudden meeting as she felt.

Gasping in surprise while treading salt water—not smart.

By the time she finished coughing, the seal was gone, with not so much as a ripple across the swells to mark its passing. Charlie peered out into the fog a moment longer, remembered why she’d replaced Aston in the band, curled her fingers into fists, and turned for shore.

The elderly man standing by her clothes was clearly a local. “You’re not one of
them
, are you?” he asked as she rose to her feet in the shallows, water sluicing off her skin. “You’re not one of the water women?”

Gales were connected to the land and, wild though she might be, Charlie was still a Gale. “No, I’m not.”

“They’re not happy, them.” He jerked his head out toward the island. “I heard them at night. Wailing.”

“Wailing?”

“Aye, wailing.”

“What about?”

After a noise like a cat coming to grips with a hairball, he hawked a lou-gie into the sand. “How the bloody fuck should I know?” he demanded. “You can’t go wandering around naked, then.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m not blind, girl!”

Charlie scooped up her clothes. “I’m not wandering.”

“You think I’m so old it doesn’t matter, eh? Is that it? You can just go wild?”

He’d been a strong man once, broad shoulders, large hands, skin browned by the wind and the sun and sea. No ring, so no prior claim.

Underwear dangling from one finger, Charlie dug her toes into the sand, noted the clear flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, and grinned. If he wanted wild . . . “How’s your heart?”

“How’s my . . .” Silver brows rose as he realized what she was actually asking and, after a moment of stunned silence, he laughed, loud and deep, his eyes crinkling at the corners, the change of expression taking years off his age.

Charlie traced a charm on the inside of his forearm anyway, just in case.