Dana Stabenow - A Fine and Bitter Snow

“Which was?”

Kate shrugged. “Nothing major. Dina thought the cabins ought to be put to some use is all.”

“So they rented them out to drifters? What the hell were two lone women, one of them getting close to feeble, doing inviting weirdos to move in up the goddamn hill from them?”

“They were careful,” Kate said. “Yeah, okay, obviously not careful enough this year. But they’d been doing it for years without incident.”

“They have somebody up there every winter?”

“Almost. One or two every year. They booted them out come breakup and the first paying customer.”

“They stay booted?”

“Pretty much. Dina told me one time that she was giving them breathing space, a chance to find their feet. See if they liked the Park enough to stay. She said ninety percent of them didn’t, and they never saw them again.” She smiled.

“What?”

“They let Mac Devlin stay up there the winter his cabin burned.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

Jim smiled, too.

“Well, I better get back to it,” Kate said.

Jim looked around. “You’ve done a lot. Looks almost back to normal.” He noticed a little pile on the small table next to Dina’s chair. “What’s this?”

Kate looked. “Oh, that. I’m getting some pictures together for Dina’s potlatch. They don’t have much in the way of people pictures.”

“When is it?”

“Saturday. At the school gym.”

“Bernie’ll be annoyed.”

“The Roadhouse is too small. Ruthe and Dina have been here too long and have too many friends.”

“I suppose.” He hesitated. “Did you think about waiting?”

“For what?”

“Ruthe.”

Kate paused. “Yeah,” she said, “I thought about it. But… I don’t know. Ruthe was-she is a ‘fish or cut bait’ kind of person. She’d say, Get it done.”

“Not the sentimental type.”

“No,” Kate said, smiling a little. “Dina was the idealist. Ruthe is always the pragmatist. The art of the practical, that’s Ruthe’s specialty.”

“Yeah,” he said, giving the copy of National Geographic he held a reminiscent smile. The cover featured a story entitled “Gates of the Arctic National Park.” “I remember that about her.”

There was a moment of electric silence.

For no reason at all, the hair stood straight up on the back of his neck. He looked across the table to find her eyes fixed on him, narrowed and hostile. The look pulled him to his feet, ready for fight or flight. “Kate?”

It was purely involuntary, a knee-jerk reaction. She didn’t stop to think about it; she just picked up the little tin lockbox and let fly. Its arc was swift and her aim was true. The box caught him just above the left eyebrow and burst open. A paper blizzard fluttered out and down.

“Ouch!” Jim slapped a hand to his eye and rocked back a step. “That hurt! Damn it, Kate!”

“Is there a woman left in this Park you haven’t slept with!” She grabbed a coffee mug and let fly with that, too.

The mug missed, which was a good thing, since he never saw it coming. He heard it slam into the sink and shatter, though. Warm fluid was running down the side of his face and obscuring his vision. He took a stumbling step forward, trying to preempt future missiles. He nearly fell over the coffee table, which movement, fortuitously for him, caused her to miss his head with the big red Webster’s Unabridged. It hit his right shoulder instead.

“Shit!”

“What’s with all the noise?” Dandy Mike said, peeking in the door, and ducked back just in time to avoid the poker. It missed Jim, striking the wall next to the door instead and landing at his feet with a clang. “Never mind, none of my business, just checking in. I’ll be leaving now,” said Dandy Mike, his voice barely audible over the sound of feet rapidly retreating down the stairs.

She’d snatched up an Aladdin lamp, the reservoir still half-filled with oil, when he tackled her and wrestled her onto the couch. The chimney fell off the lamp and miraculously did not break as it rolled beneath the table.

“Stop it, Kate,” he said, breathing hard. “Damn it, I said stop it!”

This as she dropped the lamp and he got an elbow to the jaw that made his teeth snap together painfully. He caught her hands and pushed them into the small of her back. She head-butted him. “Ouch! Jesus!” The only way to immobilize her was to lie on her full length, which he did. It wasn’t even funny how long he’d been waiting to get her horizontal and this was the only way he could get it done.

“Get off me!”

“What the hell is the matter with you!”

She tried to knee him in the groin. He shifted at the last possible minute. “Kate,” he said. He was angry now. “Knock it off.”

She heaved beneath him, trying to throw him off, and they both rolled to the floor, Kate on the bottom. She inhaled sharply. “Get off me!” He’d lost his grip on her hands in the fall, and she tried to hit him. He grabbed her hands again and held them over her head.

“Jesus!” he said. “What the hell is the matter with you!”

“Get off me, you son of a bitch! Get off!”

Their eyes met, hers narrow and furious, his widening as realization struck.

“You’re jealous,” he said.

She erupted in a fury of denial, kicking, butting, hitting, elbows, knees, feet, everything in action. “Let me go!”

He felt as if he were trying to hold on to an earthquake. “Christ! Stop it, Kate! Ouch!” This when she kicked him in the shin. “Kate!” She tried to head-butt him again. She was strong and agile, but he was bigger and getting angrier. After another attempt on his balls, he kneed her legs apart and pressed her down.

She froze. He froze. Sight of the edge of the cliff they were about to go over came to them both at the same moment, but then he’d been hard since they hit the floor.

“Kate,” he said, her name an unrecognizable husk of sound. He bent his head.

“No!” She erupted again, fighting, clawing, even trying to bite him.

Maybe it was the click of her teeth in his ear. Maybe it was just the result of all that friction. Whatever it was, something inside him slipped off the chain, something famished and feral and prowling, something totally out of his control. He could smell it, smell the need in her, the craving. It was as strong as his, as basic as his, and if it wasn’t, he didn’t care. He would take what he wanted anyway. His hand tightened around her wrists and she cried out. He used the other to yank up the hem of her shirt and tear off her bra. Her breasts were small and firm, the nipples hard and brown, and he took them into his mouth in turn, suckling as if he were starving. She cried out again and arched up, her body a tense bow. He slid his hand between her legs and rubbed the heel of his hand hard against her. She screamed then, in ecstasy or outrage, her body pressing into him, her head pressed against the floor, and he went for the snap of her jeans before she could start fighting him again.

But she wasn’t fighting him now. She had one hand free and knotted in his hair, holding his head still while she kissed him, her teeth and tongue voracious, one hand clawing at his shirt, one leg hooked around his waist. The coffee table got in the way and she kicked it over. It smacked into the unsteady pile of paperwork leaning up against the wall and the classics dictionary came crashing to the floor, barely missing their heads.

Oblivious, she ran her teeth down the side of his neck and he nearly came then and there. “Wait, damn it, wait, wait,” he said, tugging desperately at her jeans. Her hips gave a quick wriggle and the jeans slid, oh thank god, all the way down; he managed to pull them off one leg before she went for his belt. One second he was free and in the next he was caught again, driving into her, the one place he’d wanted to be for a year and a half, longer than that, an eternity of wanting, back where it was tight and hot and wet and Kate, Kate, Kate.