Chapter 19
Nineteen
There are only two things certain in this life. Death. And if you fall asleep in a tank top, one of your titties will be out when you wake up.
—Constance to Odin
Constance
My belly was a riot of nerves as I waited at The Mercantile for Odin to arrive.
I chose a table outside since I guessed he still had Peanut with him, and was shivering in the cold when a deep male voice said, “Can I offer you a jacket?”
I looked toward the man I’d heard and realized he wasn’t a man at all. Or, at least, not a grown man.
More of a baby man.
He was tall and lanky, had a soft face that clearly hadn’t defined yet like a man’s would, and cold eyes.
Really cold eyes.
I winced. “Oh, no thank you.”
Please go away.
“Are you sure?” He held it out.
I was absolutely sure.
I had enough layers on to keep me warm, or so I’d thought. But no matter how cold I was, there was no way that I’d be taking a jacket from a random guy off the street. Even if he was dressed pretty nice and had a “proper” air about him.
“It’s fine,” I lied.
Maybe a big, strong, warm doctor would warm me up.
But it certainly wasn’t going to be a random guy with cold looking eyes.
“I’ll go ask the manager to turn the heater on for us.”
The way he said “us” was like I was meeting him here.
Before I could reply, he left.
I stood up and walked toward the front of the building where I could wait for Odin without some random boy-man making me feel weird.
I spotted Odin and Peanut hustling down the road toward us, and I smiled and waved.
Odin lifted his chin.
Peanut barked in excitement, his floppy ears and loose skin doing a dance as he made his way toward me. The closer he got, the more all of that loose skin jiggled.
It was adorable, and I couldn’t stop myself from pulling my phone out and snapping a short video that I could share with Wendy when I picked her up later.
Odin tilted his head but didn’t oppose the video that I’d taken.
When he got to me, he came to a stop with less than a foot between us.
I took in his face in seconds. “What is it?”
He winced. “Just work stuff.”
I didn’t push.
It wasn’t like he could share with me what was going on with an active open investigation.
That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to know everything that was going on and then some.
If he could just have an open FaceTime call while he did his entire workday, I’d be more than interested to hear his every word.
Not only because he was the most interesting man I’d ever encountered, but because his work was incredibly interesting and he reminded me of Dr. House, only sexier and younger without the drug addict problem.
“You hungry?”
He looked at the doors to The Mercantile.
I could see the exhaustion around his eyes. The little wrinkles there that got heavier when he needed sleep.
“Starving, but the idea of going in there to talk…”
I patted his arm. “Go sit down. I’ll get us some food.” I had my hand on the door when I asked, “What do you want?”
He reached for his pocket and pulled out his wallet, extracting a twenty-dollar bill before holding it out to me.
I decided to take it, so as not to cause a fight that he didn’t look like he had the energy for.
Plus, that twenty wouldn’t cover all the food. Though, it was clear that Odin thought it would.
But with inflation the way it was, nothing was as cheap as it used to be.
I was sure he just didn’t realize how much it would cost to feed two people. He was used to only covering one.
“Anything,” he admitted. “As long as it doesn’t have tomatoes on it.”
“A man after my own heart,” I teased as I opened the door and headed inside.
He followed me inside but only long enough to hit a switch by the back patio entrance and go right back outside.
When I got to the counter, it was to have Bernice there watching with a sadness to her that surprised me.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Bernice’s eyes had been on the back door when I caught her attention. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”
My brows rose. “You look a little pale.”
She straightened, her shoulders going back, as she said, “It’s just been a long day. Which is awful seeing as I’ve only been here for a couple of hours.”
“Whoops.” I grimaced. “I hate those kinds of days.”
She shrugged. “What can I get you?”
I eyed the menu, finally deciding on, “Can I get a Reuben with mac n’ cheese, a fruit cup as an extra side. A classic turkey on your white ciabatta bread with only turkey, cheese, and mayo? Side for that one will be fruit only.”
She typed everything into her computer and told me the total.
“Oh, can you add a couple of drinks to that? As well as a couple of chocolate cookies?”
I usually tried to be fairly healthy. However, there were times that you had to indulge.
Being in a sucky mood was one of those times.
After getting our drinks, I stopped by for a child’s cup and filled that up with water as well.
As I was heading outside, the same creepy boy-man from earlier smiled at me and said, “Can I take one of those for you?”
I smiled tightly. “I’m good.”
I’d drop them before I asked for help, especially from some random kid who didn’t seem to get the hint.
At least Odin is here now.
He held open the door outside for me, and I reluctantly walked through it.
I glanced around, the guy at my back, to find Odin.
He was in the very back corner where I’d originally been planning to sit.
I walked toward him, feeling the man at my back keeping close.
I widened my eyes at Odin, who had already clocked the man at my back before I’d even spotted where he was sitting.
Odin got up and walked to me, taking two of the glasses from my hands.
“Thanks.” I smiled in relief at him. “Those were getting precarious.”
He gestured for me to go first, then followed at my back, keeping distance between me and the weirdo using his own body.
I took a seat that Odin gestured for me to take, and I realized why a moment later when I looked up to see the heater on directly above my head.
“Thanks.” I grinned. “This is nice. I didn’t realize how cold it was going to get so fast.”
“Last year was my first year here,” he murmured quietly, his eyes flicking to the man that sat two tables away. He literally had the entire damn space, and he chose this close? What the fuck? “Seat over there has a heater, too. Come on.”
He stood up, grabbed all the glasses, and said, “Grab Peanut.”
I did, and we moved all the way across the outdoor patio to the opposite corner that you could see inside the building from.
He put me in almost the same position as I’d been in before, and I blew out a relieved breath as the heat beat down.
Once we were seated again, he continued his earlier line of thought.
“Last year when I moved here, I had no clue what to expect. I’d never lived in a cold environment in my life.
At least, not cold like this. I was shocked at first because I went from being able to stay warm with a jacket to not being able to stay warm with anything.
I literally froze my ass off for the first six months.
Then spring hits, and it’s finally like the ‘winter’ where I’m originally from. ”
“Where was that?” I asked curiously.
He looked hesitant to answer at first, but then his shoulders loosened, and he said, “Mississippi. Lived in a small town on the coast my entire life.”
“Sounds dreamy,” I sighed as I shivered slightly. “I’m not sure how this winter’s going to go for me. When it used to snow in Alabama, those were the worst days for me. I don’t hate snow, as long as I don’t have to go outside in it.”
Odin chuckled. “You’re sadly in for a rude awakening. Literally your entire life is going to revolve around snow here.”
I sighed dramatically, just like Wendy did when she wasn’t getting her way.
“If only I had a man that would keep me. I’d stay at home with the kids, inside where it’s warm.
And he could take the kids to school and go to work and bring home groceries, so I never had to leave when there was snow on the ground. ”
Odin’s grin flashed, his eyes lighting with laughter. “So you’d just hibernate for the winter months?”
“Yes, exactly,” I confirmed. “It’s like you know me well already. Do you have a position open?”
I batted my eyes at him in a way that was suggestive and playful.
His eyes danced.
“Reuben and turkey sandwich?”
I started to raise my hand, but the man across the way raised his hand. “That’s mine!”
I frowned, looking at the food, then looking at the man.
How did he order the exact same thing as me?
“Is it turkey and mayo only on the turkey sandwich?”
The woman looked at the ticket. “It is. Did you order fruit for your side?”
I opened my mouth to say yes when the woman who checked me out earlier, Bernice, came out with more food. Though, this one had more of it as well as the two chocolate chip cookies that I’d also ordered.
“Oh, never mind.” I smiled, slightly uncomfortable. “This one is ours.”
The woman with the earlier order left, taking the food in her hands to the man across the back patio.
“It was weird to make two identical sandwiches. That doesn’t happen often!” Bernice chirped as she tried too hard to sound chipper. “Can I get you anything else, Odin?”
I looked at Odin to see him looking at me. “Anything else?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I’m good.”
He looked at Bernice before saying, “That’s all. Thank you, Bernice.”
Bernice smiled tightly and left, along with the other woman delivering the other order.
I glanced at the plate in front of the man to see him eating the Reuben and the other sandwich sitting across from him as if waiting for someone else to sit down to eat.
“Macaroni,” Odin groaned. “This sounds good. Thank you. I haven’t had a Reuben in years.”
He picked his sandwich up and took the largest bite I’d ever seen a man take.
My eyes were dancing with humor as I replied, “You’re going to finish that in four bites if you’re not careful.”
He scoffed. “Child’s play.”
I giggled. Like a child.
What was happening to me? And the feelings that were running rampant through me. It felt like I was sixteen again, with a crush on the high school prom king.
To distract myself, I took the cup of water and placed it down on the ground for Peanut, who greedily gulped it down.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Odin said, eyes soft. “He’s fed three square meals a day and has constant clean water because he drools like a rabid bear.”
“He’s definitely telling me different stories about you,” I said as I picked up my sandwich and took a bite.
Yum.
We ate and talked about a bunch of nothing for the next fifteen minutes.
At one point, I laughed so hard that I nearly choked on the bite of sandwich that I’d been in the process of chewing.
“You did not!” I laughed, my heart happy.
“I did,” he confirmed, leaning into the table toward me.
“I ate it right there in the middle of the post office. Everyone saw me. Reyelle from the coffee shop. The postmaster and the postman that delivers my mail. Hux saw from the damn meat market. Not to mention, if you didn’t see it, you heard it.
I hit the ground so damn hard that the ice underneath me cracked. It sounded like a gunshot.”
“Oh, that’s awful,” I mused. “Did they fix the leak?”
“Sure did. And offered to fix my broken phone that cracked when I went straight onto my back.”
I reached forward and caught his hand. “You weren’t hurt?”
A chair abruptly scraped back and the man out on the patio with us stormed out.
Odin watched him go before muttering, “Pendelton’s kid is such a creep.”
My brows rose. “That’s Dr. Pendelton’s kid?”
“Yep,” he said. “Kid’s never in school. He had to drop out because he ‘wasn’t learning.’ At least that’s the reason Dr. Pendelton’s wife gave. Pendelton said it’s because his mother is soft on him and gives him anything he asks for. More than likely, he wasn’t trying.”
Something niggled at the back of my mind, a little “hey remember, this is important” but it was gone just as quickly when I heard the squeal of tires in the parking lot signaling an abrupt exit.
But the thought was so fleeting that it was there one second and gone the next.
There was no force on Earth that could steal my attention away from the man in front of me.
He was a gravitational pull that I never saw coming.
“I’m sure the nurses that’d been complaining about the alleyway leading to the parking lot finally felt vindicated,” I guessed.
He’d been telling me about a certain drain that leaked onto the back alley of the hospital he’d used to work. How it always caused issues in the winter because it’d freeze and become slippery. But since it was just the nurses using it, the issue was never fixed.
Then Odin had exited that way one day because his badge hadn’t worked to get him into the doctor’s parking lot. And he’d nearly died—figuratively—in his haste to get home.
“The nurses threw a fit, which was obviously deserved. The hospital apologized to me, but hadn’t felt bad about the dozens of other nurses that had reported their issue.”
“So what happened then?” I asked.
“They went on strike,” he answered. “They…”
My phone rang, interrupting his explanation.
“Hold on, it’s Wendy’s school,” I said as I took the call on speaker. “Hello?”
“Constance, this is Judith at the school,” Judith, the principal, said. “There was an incident on the school playground a few moments ago. A man tried to take a few children.”
I gasped and stood up. “What?”
“The kids weren’t taken, but they were hurt. Wendy suffered a gash to the forehead and side. She’s bleeding pretty good, so we sent her to the hospital via ambulance.”
I was already moving, unaware of how I’d gotten to my car.
Odin shoved me into the passenger seat, ordered Peanut in, and slammed the door.
Peanut crawled over me to the back as Odin rounded the hood.
“What hospital?” he barked.
Judith didn’t argue with him as she answered, “The one closest to the school.”
Odin put the SUV into drive and was zooming down the main drag in Sawtooth moments later.
The last thing I saw as we raced away from The Mercantile was the uneaten turkey sandwich that was on the plate in the corner of the patio where we’d once been sitting. Not at the table with the half-eaten Reuben.