Kristine Rolofson - The Husband Project

“It’s not real warm here. I guess Jerry left the electric heat on just enough so the pipes wouldn’t freeze,” he said. “There’s a woodstove, though. You know how to get a fire going? Oh. Food. I guess I should have asked you if you needed to stop for groceries. The café will be open until eight if you want dinner. Head north, and turn right at the main road. It’s across the street.”

“Thanks. I’ll be okay. Jerry said he’d have someone get the house ready for me.”

“Probably Lucia,” Theo said, looking eager to get back in his car and head home. “Lucia Swallow.” He pointed to a bright yellow house next door. “Makes the best pies in town.”

That sounded promising. A little old pie-baking woman next door would be a plus.

Sam thanked Theo again and shut the door behind him, leaving the merciless wind to batter the windows.

He stood on ancient brown carpet and surveyed the living room. He didn’t know how old Mrs. Kelly was when she died, but from the furniture he’d guess about a hundred and ten. The room ran the width of the house. The wall directly opposite the door was lined with bookshelves stuffed with ceramic animals and glass vases. To his right stood a dark dining room table with six ornate chairs; to his left lay a red velvet couch that looked old enough for Queen Victoria to have fainted on it. A wood stove occupied one corner and an empty wood box sat next to it.

Sam ignored the snow on his boots and made his way around the dining room chairs to a long, narrow kitchen. All the appliances he needed were there, and the room was spotless. A small Formica table sat in front of a picture window that faced what he assumed was the backyard, though the area was hard to make out in the storm. A woodshed backed up to a fence and a row of evergreens, but if there was a path, he didn’t see it. He completed his tour of the main floor, noting the back door, a hallway that led to a set of stairs, a bathroom and a large bedroom that opened onto the living room. He had no reason to explore the upstairs, not tonight.

All in all the place was perfect, though the downstairs bedroom looked as if its owner had been way too fond of purple. Purple bedspread, purple throw pillows and purple shag rug.

He’d manage. The house was luxurious for a guy who usually lived in a tent. In addition to a real bed he had an indoor bathroom. A picture of a vase of violets dangled from a hook on the wall over the toilet. Purple hand towels hung on a rod beneath the framed print.

The house still had a lived-in quality. It was as though poor Mrs. Kelly had just walked out of her house one day and never returned. The mayor must have bought the place “as is,” except for a brand-new bar of soap in a dish next to the sink.

Sam returned to the kitchen and opened cupboards until he found the drinking glasses. He removed his jacket, tossed it on the back of a chair and pulled a bottle of prescription pain pills from his shirt pocket. He’d had to keep them close. Not that he liked taking them. But traveling had been the hell his doctor had predicted.

In fact, now he couldn’t bend over.

He’d have to go to bed with his boots on.

Once again, nothing new.

He shivered, chilled to his bones, and after a brief struggle managed to get his jacket back on. He’d do one more thing before he collapsed into the purple bed, and that would be to examine the woodstove and get a fire going. He’d seen a thermostat on the wall between the kitchen and living room, so he could turn up the heat easily enough, but he didn’t like to depend on electricity. Especially not in a storm.

Besides, he liked carrying wood and building fires. He allowed himself a small ironic smile. He’d wanted cold weather, had dreamt of icicles the last time he was on the Rio Purus.

Acknowledgment of his sheer stupidity replaced whatever reason he’d chosen Montana for a winter retreat. He’d let a brief conversation with a stranger lead him to renting a cold house in a cold town in the middle of cold nowhere.

He usually had more sense, he realized.

No, that was wrong.

He was a man who took chances, who didn’t look before he leaped and jumped into murky rivers without knowing what waited for him.

Compared with the jungle, this town would be a piece of cake.

CHAPTER TWO

“MOM! HELP!”

“Mrs. Swallow?”

“Mommy!”

Lucia heard the screams coming from her backyard as soon as she opened the car door. It took her six seconds to run, slipping on fresh snow piling up on old snow, from the driveway through the space between her house and the Kelly house. Sure enough, there was a body in the backyard. Lucia’s heart seemed to stop for a moment, until she realized her three children and their babysitter, Kim, were not hurt. They looked at her and called for her, but their voices held more excitement than horror.

Her first thought: someone had fallen. The witch next door? No, the body was large, man-sized. Had Kim’s grandfather had a heart attack? The old man sometimes stopped in to check on his granddaughters, twin volleyball stars.

Tony, age four and the image of his father, ran as fast as he could toward Lucia. “Mom, we caught a thief! We caught a thief!”

“A robber,” her oldest son, Davey, insisted, calling from the back of the small yard. “I hit a robber!”

“He doesn’t dress like a robber,” was the first thing Lucia said as she hurried over, because the man lifting his face from the snow wore a new jacket and expensive hiking boots. “What happened? Did you call Hip?”

“I was just about to,” Kim said. “We were checking for a pulse. He has one. It’s a little rapid, but within range.” She held up her phone. “I just looked it up.”

Lucia leaned closer. “Can you tell us where you’re hurt?”

“I don’t think he’s a robber at all. He’s a nameless victim of inclement weather,” her babysitter declared, her cell phone clutched in her ungloved hands. “That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.”

The so-called robber groaned and rolled over onto his side. Thank goodness he wasn’t dead. Finding a dead thief in the backyard would not keep one in the holiday spirit. Finding some poor man frozen to death less than twenty feet from her warm kitchen would be positively tragic.

Boo growled, warning the man not to leap up and attack the children.

“Boo,” Lucia said, hoping the dog would listen to her. “It’s okay.” When he looked to her and wagged his tail, she knew the animal was enjoying the drama as much as her babysitter was. He turned back to the man in the snow and whined.

“Help,” the stranger groaned. “Get...them...away from me.”

“He was stealing our wood,” Davey said. “I was getting wood, like you told me to, and there was a guy stealin’ it!”

“Stealing our wood!” Matty cried, jumping up and down in the snow. His hat was missing and his ears were red. “The man was stealing our wood!”

“He’s not dead. See? I told you he had a pulse,” Kim said as she took pictures with her cell phone.

“Kim, stop that,” Lucia ordered, but she knew it was useless. Within seconds at least half the senior class of Willing High would know there was a strange man in her backyard and by tomorrow morning his photograph would be on the front page of the Willing Gazette’s Facebook page. “Don’t Twitter it, either.”

“Too late,” she said, stuffing her phone into her pocket. “Already sent. It’s a done deal, Mrs. Swallow. Sorry. But I’m glad he’s not dead. Really.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and studied it for a few seconds. “My grandpa wants to know if you called the sheriff.”

“Tell him I’ll get back to him.”

“Okay.” Kim’s thumbs flew over the keyboard. “I’ll tell him to ‘stand down.’”