Chapter 15
Owen
If the snow wasn’t up to my knees, I would have fallen to earth to kiss the ground the moment I made it out of the tram and down that ladder. I had never been so damn happy to be stuck in a snowstorm. Anything was better than another moment swaying in the wind. As it turned out, having Bee knock me down and then straddle me was just as welcome.
Everything else felt manageable now, including caring for Bee, which was my priority. Holding her in my arms steadied me. I imagined this was how monks felt in deep meditation. Only her. Only the task at hand. She went so quiet. This scared me more than anything. She tucked her face into me. Her shivers were nonstop.
With every step, her body shook in mine. Over and over, my mind repeated a mantra.
One more step. One more step.
I didn’t even feel the cold or the weight of her or her thirty pounds of sugary snacks. Just focused on getting her to the cabin.
Any second, the light would have come into view. I was headed in the right direction. I had to be. It was dark. The scariest sort of dark imaginable. It was hard to keep my bearings and sense of direction as the wind messed with my equilibrium. Every footstep, every huff of breath, was the same, seeming to go nowhere. The treadmill steps of a bad dream. Bee burrowed tight into my chest, me trudging forward slowly but surely, the wind screaming in our ears, the darkness all around except the beam of my headlamp and the streaks of white through it.
We would not die out here.
“Well, that’s g-g-good,” she stuttered through a shiver.
I was distantly aware of the cold wetness seeping into my boots, up to my knees. Every step was careful. A quarter mile at this rate could take an hour. Would she survive? Would I drop her? Or worse.
If I could just see the cabin. If I could just know this had been the right choice to make.
“There!” she screamed in my ear. I jerked my head but saw the light at the same time. Thank every god that ever existed.
I fought the urge to run and risk an avoidable injury, like a car accident close to home.
“Thank you, Owen. Oh God, thank you, thank you,” Bee repeated over and over.
I wanted to tell her to stop thanking me that this was just as much my fault as it was Benny’s. I had the choice to leave her up there, and I hadn’t taken it. Even though the money motivator was not for me, it seemed like such a small thing now.
We made it to the door, and I set her down and punched in the code Azi provided us when I radioed him to let him know we were going for it. My hands were almost frozen without gloves, and I fumbled the numbers.
“Let me do it,” Bee said, shoving the gloves at me. “You should have been wearing these,” she grumbled as she got the door open and dragged me inside the threshold.
We stumbled through the door, pushing back to slam it shut against the wind that fought us tooth and nail every step. It wasn’t warm by any means, but with the sturdy insulation, it was already light-years better.
We both sagged against the wall and sighed. My ears rang without the roaring of the storm.
I had never been so happy to see a crappy sex hut in all my life.
Inside was a single-room cabin with a door leading to the restroom in the back—a glorified attached port-o-potty, from what I’d been told. The main room had a small kitchen table with two chairs next to a kitchenette area, a wood-burning stove with stacks of wood, and, of course, a large bed stacked with thick comforters smack dab in the middle. Some cheeky previous occupants even left battery votives all around to really set the ambiance. Other than that, it was a basic undecorated mountain cabin space.
We both dropped the multiple layers of foil blankets wrapped around us in a pile by the door. Bee shucked off her hat— my hat—and tossed it near where the fire would be before shaking off all the snow from her like a dog fresh out of a lake.
I followed suit, peeling off my soaking boots and heavy wet coat. Bee kept her snowsuit on. Thankfully, it was still mostly dry from the blankets.
“It’s beautiful,” Bee said, stepping forward to fall face-first onto the bed. “Holy crap, we’re alive.” Her voice was mumbled from the bed. She lifted her head, arms still at her side like a sea lion, and looked down with a grimace. “I hope whoever was here last changed the sheets.”
“We’ll change them just in case,” I said.
We shared a brief look and quickly glanced away. No need to discuss sleeping arrangements yet. That may not even be necessary. The adrenaline was quickly crashing, and the exhaustion from this very long day was setting in as the image of bikini-clad Bee wrapped in my arms under all those blankets dominated my thoughts.
“Come here,” I said to Bee, even as my voice came out rougher than intended.
She hefted herself off the bed to come over without a single complaint. Her features were neutral and hard to read, if not slightly skeptical. I turned Bee in a slow circle to examine every inch of her. I held her face in my hands and peered over her. Her cheeks and nose were bright red. Bits of her hair stuck out in wild directions or were plastered to her face. There was a small cut on her chin, and the skin around it was already bruising slightly.
“What happened here?” I asked with a frown.
“The ladder jumped out at me.”
I huffed an unsmiling laugh.
“I’ll clean it after I get the room warmed up. Anything else hurting?” I asked. I soothed and petted her, unable to keep my hands off her. I rubbed up and down her arms, brushing away any excess moisture still clinging to her. Whatever this feeling was that had come over me, it wasn’t familiar. I just knew that I had to keep her safe. The urge to protect her, care for her wounds, and get her warm was deep and instinctual.
“Wait? Did I die? This would make sense,” she mumbled.
“Take off those bags, and let me look at your feet.”
“It’s so hot when you talk dirty to me.” She shucked off the bags, almost falling over in the process as her eyes moved over the small one-room cabin. “It ain’t much, but it sure is beautiful. Oh my God, the bathroom. Bye!” She ran off as soon as the bags and shoes were off, to the small door in the corner of the cabin. “Ah! The toilet seat is freezing,” she yelled. “I’m remembering the kid from Christmas Story and am terrified my butt cheeks will get stuck … nope, I’m good. Phew.”
“I’ll get the fire started,” I called back, chuckling as she overshared. Maybe with anybody else it would feel like TMI, but with Bee, every unfiltered thought was like a yummy bit of candy, snatched up and to be savored.
It was still very cold in the cabin, but it was small, and it wouldn’t be long until the space warmed up. I radioed to Azi and let him know we made it safe. He said he would tell Benny Jr., which was good because if I talked to my boss, I wasn’t sure what I’d say to him. Nothing suitable for keeping my job at this point.
A minute later, she sauntered out with a sigh. “It wasn’t what I expected, but I’m so glad we’re here. Since you’re taking care of the fire, I’ll put the food away.” She dumped out the contents of her bag on the small table in the corner. “Okay, done.”
I laughed, and the swelling emotion in my chest had doubled at her return. She sauntered around in those ridiculous clothes, peeking through drawers and the single closet.
“Listen, I’m not trying to scare you,” Bee started.
I stilled from where the jumping flames started to sting my frozen hands to look at her.
“But I’m ninety percent sure I saw a guinea pig from the little window in the bathroom.”
I sucked in a breath. “All the way up here?” I headed to the small kitchen area and rifled through the drawers to see what other supplies were there.
“Yeah, but it didn’t look like the ones in town. It had a harder edge. Like it’d seen things.” I turned to her as she stared into the distance, letting her eyes go unfocused. “They’ve already formed gangs. What if some have gone completely feral and off-grid?” she asked, horror widening her dark eyes.
“They’d be like the backwoods branch of the ones in town,” I riffed back.
“We find them sitting on their tiny porches, plucking at a banjo … collecting tourists.”
“Mm-hmm,” I did my best impression of Billy Bob in Sling Blade .
“AH!” she yelped and shuddered. “You’re too good at that.”
I laughed and slid open another drawer to find a sealed bottle of lube and a box of condoms. I slammed it shut and cleared my throat. “Do me a favor and pull up that chair in front of the fire,” I said as I kept searching.
“Sure. Are you looking for something?”
“Yep. And I just found it.” I grabbed a towel from a small pantry and walked to Bee.
“Sit down,” I instructed.
She looked up at me and held my gaze. I thought for sure she was going to argue. Instead, her cheeks went pink, and she obeyed. Why was she suddenly so good at listening when the first part of the evening had been nothing but trouble?
It was a powerful, heady feeling, this commanding her.
“I can’t stop thinking about this,” I said, standing behind her.
She squeaked. “What?” I laid the towel around her shoulders, and she flinched before relaxing. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t let you go back to town looking like this. It would make an impression, but not what you’re going for, I don’t think.” I scratched my nails up her scalp and tugged on all the various lengths of roughly cut hair, trying to see what I was working with.
She shivered but didn’t comment. Goose bumps prickled up the back of her exposed neck. “Is it that bad?”
“It’s not great. Unless you’re feeling the mullet look.”
She snorted. “I could rock it.”
“Can I give you a little trim?” I asked her. “Not that you haven’t done a great job.” I held up two pieces with very different lengths.
She snorted. “In my defense, I only meant to give myself bangs.”
My eyebrows raised.
“Things got out of hand quickly. We don’t need to talk about it.”
Without thinking, I bent and kissed the top of her head. “It’s not that bad. I’m just going to even things out.”
She nodded, mouth slightly parted, eyes wide as she watched me in the small mirror. I combed through her hair as best I could. The wind and hat had done a number on it. She leaned forward, pulled a brush out of her bag, and handed it to me. Carefully, I ran the brush through her hair. When she moaned and closed her eyes, I ground my molars. I began to section off her hair and twist it out of the way as best as I could.
“Where did you learn to do this?” she asked once it was quiet for too long.
“I cut Ivy’s hair sometimes.”
“And who is Ivy again?” She tilted her head in confusion, and I almost cut her ear.
“Be still.”
“Sorry. That’s like telling the wind not to blow.”
“Ivy is my friend at Golden Sunset,” I explained. “She used to be my teacher.”
“Oh, Mrs. Flores!” She turned to look at me.
“Bee,” I growled. “You’re two seconds from losing more than hair.”
“Sorry. I usually just cut my own ends at home. When your hair is that long, it’s less noticeable if you have no idea what you’re doing. And less risk of serious bodily harm.”
“This is a big change for you.” Bee had always had hair down to her lower back as long as I’d known her. “All this because of a statue?”
“Yep. That and the realization that nobody in this town knows I exist,” she said in that same joking manner that didn’t feel like a joke at all. Hurt was hidden in her self-effacing jokes all night. “Like sixty-forty. Do you often cut Mrs. Flores’s hair?”
“Just when she asks.” I wasn’t thrilled the focus was back on me.
“You’ve kept in touch since school?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to make me drag this out of you, aren’t you?” When I didn’t answer, she sighed and went on. “Tell me about how you got to cutting Mrs. Flores’s hair. Seems like a big change from student-teacher.”
The scissors from the cabin weren’t meant for cutting hair, but they were much better than the pair she’d been using when I found her. I focused on cutting as I shared without giving too much away.
“She was my favorite teacher. She was there for me a lot in school, and we kept in contact. I like being around her. She sees me.” I cleared my throat. Bee was so open it was hard to guard against that. “I like being around there too. Older people have great stories and advice to share. When they’re behaving themselves, at least. Ned Fled is awfully surly.”
“At that age, can you blame him?” she asked.
“I guess not.”
“Does her family think it’s weird that you two hang out?”
I snorted. Not one to mince words, that Bee. “She doesn’t have much family. Her son isn’t in the picture unless he needs something.” I refrained from sharing that he’d already taken every penny from her, so he wouldn’t be back to visit any time soon.
“That’s nice you still visit with her. I had her too. She was great. I should visit her too.” She drummed her hand on her knee and then added, “Do you like working for Benny Jr.?”
“Does anybody like their job? Besides you,” I added when I felt her getting ready to counter.
“Probably some people. I just mean, is this the job you envisioned for yourself?”
“I’m not really good at anything else.”
“Other than what?”
“Being big and intimidating,” I said, staying focused on the task.
“That’s incredible that you’ve tried everything else in the world, to know that is the only thing you’re good at.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“Don’t be snarky to the person holding the scissors.”
“I’m serious. You don’t know what you’re good at yet,” she said.
“I don’t have a degree or anything. After I lost my football scholarship, college wasn’t an option.”
She waited a beat, and I thought she would ask about football again. Instead, she said, “You can go back to school. Or get certifications.”
“It’s not that easy.” My voice came out too sharp. This conversation made me uncomfortable. I focused instead on the hair.
My back began to twinge at the bend I needed to reach her head. Dropping to my knees, I knelt in front of her, grabbing the pieces framing her face and bringing them forward.
Her mouth was pursed in a soft O shape as her wide eyes flicked between mine. Her cheeks still rosy from the rapid changes in temperature.
“It wouldn’t be easy. But neither is doing a job that you hate that goes against your own personal code of ethics,” she said softly.
I frowned, wondering how I’d given so much away. Maybe because Bee seemed to go so unnoticed by the rest of town, she was able to observe others easily.
“I never said?—”
“I can just tell you hate it.” She lifted a hand to my cheek, causing my heart to hammer hard. I was exposed and anxious under her stare. She bit her lip as she brushed her thumb over my cheek. “You’re so thoughtful and gentle, Owen. You got me here safe. Thank you.”
I swallowed and gave a nod of acknowledgment. It didn’t feel like I had done it all alone. Despite our start, it had felt like we were quickly becoming a team. I balanced on my knees in front of her and felt myself coming undone. In such a short time, all my lines were becoming blurred.
“Maybe that’s your calling,” she said after the silence went too long for her liking.
“Uh, I’d wait until I finished your hair before you said that.” I tried her joking tactic.
“I meant working at the retirement village. You’d be great there,” she said, not being distracted.
I was ready to argue against and get defensive like I always did when I felt insecure, but I couldn’t help myself. The way she held my face in her small hands made my defenses wobble.
“Why do you think that?” I asked.
“You already know you enjoy being around older folks. And clearly, they like you, or they wouldn’t keep letting you hang out there. Sure, you’re also big and strong, which would come in handy. But you’re also ridiculously patient.” She huffed a laugh. “Look at how you’ve put up with me all night.” A frown flashed over her features before she quickly brushed it away. It hadn’t felt like I was putting up with her, it had felt like I was falling into her. A blush burned up the back of my neck at her praise.
“All of that could make you really great at working there,” she went on. “You could get a nursing degree or a certification or maybe even a master’s eventually in physical therapy if you really wanted. I could totally see it.”
“People cross the street to avoid me,” I said, too close to admitting how that fact hurt me.
I leaned back on my heels, and she dropped her hands back into her lap.
“If you let people see this side of you, I bet they would quickly change their opinion.” Her hands drifted to the ends of the hair I’d finished cutting.
“I’ve never been accused of helping people feel safe.”
“Yeah, this town isn’t really known for being observant. At least not in my case.” There was that laugh again she made when she was trying to downplay her own hurt. “Everyone’s got you all wrong, haven’t they? You’re just a big old teddy bear.” Her mouth quirked in a smile that made me want to kiss her.
I made a sound of acknowledgment but couldn’t look directly at her anymore. My heart and soul were longing for things they couldn’t have. I pictured a life where I went to work at a job that made me feel fulfilled and came home to a spunky brunette who kept me on my toes …
I collected the towel and went to shake it in the trash. Bee didn’t know the truth about my violent past. If she did, she would understand why none of her ideas were possible.