Chapter 11
morgan
Morgan made himself keep working all day, even though there was nothing he’d have liked better than to curl up on the couch in the parlor upstairs and sleep away the afternoon. He was stiff from lack of movement, which he knew was not a good thing.
Nimble had brought him sandwiches for lunch. Morgan hunkered down and kept working while he ate, musing over the small, time-browned envelope that held a single thin brass key that looked like it might open a safe-deposit box. On the front of the envelope were written the words Box and Yellow.
With a sigh, he tucked the envelope into the desk’s middle drawer, making a mental note to take the key to the bank, then returned to his main task.
The sooner the paperwork was straightened out, accounts balanced, receipts scanned and organized, the sooner he could again approach a real estate agent and put the store on the market.
No matter what Mabel and Gus and anyone else said about the glories of small-town life, he was under no obligation to stay, let alone fall in love with the place.
There were no real estate agents in Hysham, so he’d have to go to Billings to find one.
Which he would do in spite of everybody’s protests.
He groaned inwardly as he went over to the window to raise the blinds to let in the whirling white. Maybe he saw a patch of sky where the clouds were thinning, the darkness of coming night pushing through, like it had punched a hole in the storm.
Maybe the snow was coming down more like fluffy flakes rather than blades of ice. But maybe he was imagining it. Just like he was imagining the smell of potatoes boiling.
What was Nimble up to up there? After Morgan had snapped at him for messing around in the store in only his socks, he’d clonked around in his half-unlaced boots and then, humming, gone upstairs to clonk there instead.
There was nothing worth stealing, so Morgan wasn’t very worried. Plus, he sympathized with Nimble’s efforts to keep busy while the storm raged outside.
What was more worrisome was the ease with which Morgan had not only allowed Nimble to stay for the duration of the blizzard but also somehow failed to track Nimble’s movements throughout the day.
Or if he had noticed where Nimble was, it had been with hardly any concern.
As if he’d known Nimble for years and was grateful for his help.
What would the townspeople say when they learned that pole-up-his-ass Morgan Malone had allowed a stranger to spend the night? Perhaps they might understand Morgan’s small charity because of the blizzard. Or maybe they’d be astonished and concerned.
Well, none of that mattered because Nimble would be gone before anyone found out about him. On his way the second the storm let up.
Lowering the blinds again, Morgan shuffled back to the desk, took note of where he’d left off, then turned off his laptop and the old, old, old PC. It grumbled as it cranked down, and he shook his head.
His aunt and uncle had been living in bygone days, imagining that their system of keeping accounts on paper and taking orders on carbon copy notepads, then sticking receipts on a nail pounded into the wall over the desk, was in any way sustainable.
Even as he shook his head at them, though, he knew someday he’d be wallowing in his own times-gone-by memories about when actual coins were used to buy things, when he didn’t walk around with a chip in his head that served as ID, credit card, and library card, all rolled into one. The times, they were always a-changing.
He walked slowly around the store, checking windows and blinds and doors, noting Nimble’s footprints in the dust and then the scuff of boot marks in the same dust, before making his way up the stairs to the landing, being as quiet as possible.
His knee twinged as he reached the top, then spread the pain a bit, just to be friendly with the rest of his body.
He was grimacing as he stepped into the cheery kitchen, which smelled amazing. Whatever was cooking on the stove was simmering low.
The smell of potatoes was stronger now, coming from one pot, and from the other came the scent of something else. Salt. Meat. Broth.
His stomach growled like a lone tiger in the jungle, waking Nimble, who’d been sitting at a chair pulled out from the farm table, arms across his chest and chin tucked low.
Nimble’s legs sprawled before him, drawing the denim, with those grease stains that would never come out, tight over his thighs. The jeans practically hugged him. Well, that was what happened when you put jeans in the dryer: They shrank.
Morgan dragged his eyes away and looked at the table, set for two with green bowls and green plates and shiny cutlery, a glass butter dish sparkling in the light. The oven was on, Morgan could see, set to low, as if something was warming inside.
“Hey.” Nimble sat up, scrubbing at his eyes. His hair was rumpled and fell in spikes along his forehead. “It’s almost ready. Do you want to eat?”
It was very distracting watching Nimble unfold himself, then curl upward to stand, a shiny line of energy that radiated at Morgan with unexpected warmth.
“What did you do up here?” Morgan asked, not willing to admit how much he wanted to simply sit and eat. Or how nice it was to have someone there, someone who cooked for him and, it seemed, cleaned the kitchen of its long-term dust and grime. “Did you actually mop the floor?”
“Swept and mopped,” Nimble said. “Wiped stuff down. Was restless.” He smiled, a half curve of his mouth as he dipped his chin, disarmingly cute, even as Morgan took in the frayed edges of the now washed yet still stained T-shirt.
As if oblivious to Morgan’s stare, Nimble walked to the stove and lifted a lid, and yes, there were potatoes boiling and tossing in the hot water. Yukon Golds, by the look of them.
“What are you making?” Morgan asked, taking a step closer to the amazing smells.
“Beef stew from a can,” Nimble said, turning back to the stove.
“I doctored it with a little red wine that maybe you didn’t know you had.
” He laughed as he stirred the stew and put the lid back on, off-kilter so the steam could escape, and turned down the burner.
“Found the potatoes before I found the noodles. You boil them, then pour the stew over them so it fills you up.” Nimble glanced at Morgan as if to make sure he knew the wisdom of this.
“Forgot how nice it was to be inside with a storm outside.”
“What do you usually do?” Morgan asked, again moved, in spite of himself, at how hard a life hopping trains must be.
And glad for the opportunity to focus on something other than everything about Nimble that pulled at him and made his life feel just a little bit better than it had before Nimble had arrived.
“If you’re lucky enough to be in a boxcar, tuck yourself in a corner, blow on your fingers, and hope for the best.” Nimble looked at the long window over the sink, where he’d raised the blinds to watch the storm. “Blue and Star kept me warm, just like I kept them warm.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Nimble shook himself. “It’s all ready, if you want to sit.”
Morgan didn’t make Nimble ask him twice. He sat in the chair kitty-corner from the one Nimble had been dozing in and, with a sigh, let himself be waited on.
Just this once, right? It couldn’t hurt to let someone help him, and Nimble was humming under his breath again, happily domestic in spite of his grease-stained clothes and way of moving that seemed to fill the room with energy.
“I didn’t cook like this growing up,” Nimble said as he took the bowls to the stove, fished out the potatoes to smash them in each bowl, then ladled the stew over the potatoes. “But it’s nice to have a stove that doesn’t move, and I can at least manage simple things.”
Morgan could see that the meal was not only going to fill his belly, it was going to put him in a happy coma.
But Nimble didn’t sit down yet, and Morgan, spoon at the ready, stopped, watching as Nimble opened the oven and used a kitchen towel to pull out a small baking tray with four rolls on it. These he plopped into another bowl, which he placed on the table, close to Morgan.
“You want some wine?” Nimble asked, pointing with his thumb at the dark bottle on the counter.
“Not with the meds.” Morgan shook his head, at which point Nimble grabbed the amber bottles, placing them next to Morgan’s bowl along with a glass of water.
“Milk it is, then,” Nimble said, bringing out the carton from the fridge and setting two more glasses on the table. He sat down with a grin, as though the substitution of milk for wine had made his day.
Morgan took his pills, then spread butter on a roll and bit into it, quirking his eyebrows at Nimble. “What kind of bread is this?” he asked, savoring the taste, the pleasure of butter on hot bread.
“Some kind of German bread,” Nimble said. “Was in the freezer with heat-to-serve instructions. It was a little frost-burned, but it still tastes good.”
“My aunt must have ordered it,” Morgan said, doing his best to ignore the way Nimble dug into his simple meal, hair shaggy around his face, pleasure rolling off him as he ate, lips shiny from butter.
In the before time, with Bradley, Morgan would have teased that at least someone is enjoying their meal and gotten a laugh from his boyfriend.
He couldn’t do that now. Teasing created intimacy, and the meal was intimate enough, with Nimble inhaling his food, making it look like a feast, gulping his milk and swiping at his milk mustache with the back of his hand, eyes glinting.
Nimble had poured Morgan a glass of milk, and Morgan drank it, even though he generally thought milk was for kids.
But there was Nimble, working his way through a second glass, as if he couldn’t get enough.
All in all, Nimble had two bowls of stew and extra potatoes and gobbled down three of the rolls.