“When I get home,” I said. “Did you enjoy the chess squares?”
“I took the lot of them down to the Cut and Curl,” she said, grinning. “They were a big hit. Gertie Gogan asked what I’d done to merit a full dozen, and I told her I was just helping out a friend.” Susie looked mildly embarrassed now. “Of course, some of the ladies down at the beauty shop hadn’t been into the Glacier since you and Evie made all those changes. They hadn’t heard of you yet. So Gertie and I told them all about you, about you being a transfer and all . . . and then somehow, yourfullnameslippedout.”
Honestly, first Kara’s mom spills her guts, and now Susie. Didn’t I know any discreet people?
I shrieked. “Susie! I thought we had a deal!”
“It just happened!” she squealed. “It was all that chocolate. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Well, you are cut off. No chess-square privileges for a month.”
“But Mo!”
“A month!” I repeated, climbing into my truck. I rolled down my window. “I’ll sell you the lemon bars, but that’s it!”
Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “But I hate the lemon bars!”
“I know!” I called, rolling my eyes as I drove away.
In the safety of my cabin, with the shades drawn, I opened the box from my mother. Inside I found a very long letter, which I didn’t read, a copy of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Fast Food Nation, a cookbook called The Vegan’s Journey, and a lavishly decorated photo album, filled with pictures of me and my parents in happier times. There was four-year-old me having my face painted by Lutha, a “body artist” who lived at the commune for a few months. Six-year-old me sitting on my father’s shoulders when we saw Jerry Garcia in concert. Nine-year-old me standing with my mother in front of the Mississippi Supreme Court with signs that read, “Save our future!” The sad thing was, I couldn’t tell what we were protesting.
At the bottom of the box, her famous sugar-free honey-oat cookies, a carton of wheat germ, Sun Life Colon Health Fiber Biscuits, and Sun Life Colon Health Fiber supplements with a detailed pamphlet about caring for my digestive tract.
My mother had spent one hundred dollars on shipping to send me cookies, antimeat propaganda, and laxatives.
IT WAS SATURDAY NIGHT, and I was content to sit home sifting through the old photo album with a mug of hot chocolate.
I didn’t have to spend Saturday night alone. Alan had called, offering to take me to the movies in Dearly. Somehow a four-hour round-trip seemed like an awful lot of effort for the Kevin Costner movie he wanted to see. Or, really, any Kevin Costner movie. But our plans were canceled when Alan was called out to a trail on the preserve where a large black wolf had been spotted by some campers. We made tentative plans for dinner the next weekend, he wished me sweet dreams, and I returned to my childhood pictures.
I’d found myself pulling the album out more and more often lately, even though I knew that’s what my mother intended. It made me happy to see that little dark-headed girl and the adoring looks she gave her parents. It gave me some hope for the future.
Of course, this renewed affection for Ash and Saffron was tempered by the fact that my full name was still spreading around town like a virus. But so far, most of the snickers had been covered by polite coughing. Well, Lynette made some snarky comments about Deadheads and pot smoking, but mostly, there was just snickering. Walt even patted my hand as I poured him coffee the other morning and confessed that his first name was Marion. Just like the rest of me, my hippie-dippy birth name had been accepted in Grundy.
Through with reminiscing for the evening, I popped a Duffy CD into the stereo and picked up Walden. It seemed an appropriate selection. I’d just read the opening paragraph when I heard a thumping, dragging noise on my porch.
My blood ran cold, an unpleasant watery sensation that made my legs tremble. Yet some stupid, potentially fatal curiosity had me moving toward the door, even as my brain screamed at me to run in the opposite direction. This was the kind of noise that the blond, barely clad starlet heard just before the mask-wearing psychopath burst into her isolated cabin and turned her skin into some sort of household furnishing.
I crept to my window and peeked out. I saw a flash of bare golden skin. Whoever it was seemed to be breaking into my house in the nude.
A low, hoarse voice from outside the door whispered, “Please help.”
Whoever was out there was injured. The pain was apparent, even in his voice. Then again, I’d read about Ted Bundy putting a fake cast on his arm to elicit sympathy from his victims . . . Gwa-thunk. I looked out again to see that my nighttime visitor had slumped in front of my door. I opened it and was presented with an ass in the air. Even in my shock, I had to admit it was a very nice ass.
I glanced down to see that he had a bear trap clamped around his ankle. The cruel metal teeth were digging into his flesh, oozing blood in a way that made my stomach turn. “Oh, my God. I’ll call nine-one-one.”
“No doctors,” he mumbled, rolling toward me.
“Cooper? What the—” My eyes narrowed. Was this a trick? An elaborate scheme to chase me out of town or lure me out of the house so his werewolf fangs could silence me for good? I didn’t think Cooper could fake the greenish pallor to his face or the hideous trap-related wounds. But if the guy was a werewolf, anything was possible. If I was smart, I would tell him to stop bleeding on my porch and hike his injured, unclothed butt into town.
Cooper panted. “Please, you can help. Tools?”
Gah. I couldn’t believe it was taking me so long to respond. Yes, he was a jerk, but he was a human being . . . ish. And he had saved me from a violent trucker. I at least owed him basic first aid.
I ran for the Craftsman tool chest I kept in my kitchen. Everything in the kit was brand new. I hoped that was enough to stave off infection, because I didn’t think I had time to sterilize. I dragged the heavy plastic box to the living room, where Cooper was curled in front of my fireplace.
“No doctors,” he repeated, his face now an icky blue-gray. “I’ll be fine by morning. Just let me stay here, OK? And no matter what you see, just don’t be afraid.”
My eyes locked with his, and I found that I believed him. Even with all of the horrible, dangerous implications, I trusted him.
“Deep breaths,” I told him.
My glasses slipped down my nose as I used the pliers to depress a spoon-shaped metal lever of the trap, while I held down a corresponding lever on the other side of the foothold. The jaws slowly relaxed, allowing Cooper’s limp leg to slide out. He whimpered as his foot dropped to the floor.
“Thank you,” he whispered before letting unconsciousness claim him.
At those words, the trap slipped out of my hands and clanged loudly on the floor. I winced, my eyes flitting to his face, which was still lax and peaceful.
How on earth had he been able to get through the woods with this thing clamped on his leg? Was he a victim of some sort of weird Saw copycat? Or did he poach animals in the nude, some weird wolf thing? Was that why he didn’t want me to call for an ambulance? He didn’t want to answer rangers’ questions?
If my mother had been there, she’d have made a tincture of yarrow and applied a poultice to the wounds. She would have sprinkled cayenne over his abrasions and chanted to the western winds. I, on the other hand, put my faith in a higher power: Neosporin. I went to the kitchen for my first-aid kit. I grabbed the peroxide and ran back into the living room. Even when I poured the bubbling mixture over his ravaged skin, he didn’t wake up. The wounds didn’t seem as bad after I cleaned them. The edges seemed smoother, shinier. I turned my head to reach for bandages and saw that the wounds had shrunk. The surrounding skin was a healthy pink. I packed the punctures with antibiotic ointment and wound gauze around his leg.
I threw a quilt over Cooper and another two logs onto the fire. I sank to the couch and wondered what exactly you did in a situation like this. I was overwhelmed with the compulsion to boil water. For what I had no idea, but in the movies, when someone is injured in the wilderness, they’re always boiling water.
I tilted my head, watching the firelight play on Cooper’s skin. I don’t think I’d ever really grasped how huge he was—long, rangy arms and well-muscled legs that stretched well beyond the limits of the blanket. His feet were long, narrow, and highly arched; the pads were dirty and covered with shallow, healing scrapes.
In all of the injury hubbub, I hadn’t had the acuity to look at his . . . lower forty-eight. How wrong would it be for me to lift the quilt? I mean, technically, he did owe me his life. And if he had an incredibly small penis, it might explain why he was such an ass all the time. Watching his face, I lifted the blanket and snuck a peek.
Wow.
“There goes that theory,” I muttered.
Cooper shivered and stirred as the cooler air seeped under the blanket. He whimpered, curling his body protectively around his leg. Blushing, I tucked the quilt around his body.
If I were smart, I would call Evie or even Alan right now. But something about this Cooper, the vulnerable, honest Cooper, made me want to protect him. Or at least find out what the hell he was doing. There had to be a compelling reason for him to be running around outside my house naked with a bear trap on his leg. Even with the odd assortment of characters I’d met in Grundy, even when you factored in the werewolf issue, that was the sort of thing that merited attention.
I coiled in the corner of my couch and pulled the quilt up to my chin. I closed my eyes, enjoying the way the lights danced behind my eyelids. I dreamed of running. I was racing through the woods. My feet were bare, slapping against the blanket of pine needles on the ground. A living canopy laced over my head as my legs stretched in front of me. I expected the leaves, the low-hanging pine branches, to slap and sting, but they were caressing fingers, welcoming me to come deeper into the forest. I wasn’t afraid. There was something waiting for me deep within the dense gathering of trees. Something I needed.
When I woke, there was a large black wolf curled up on my rug. I shrieked, springing up from the couch. I scrambled over the back and landed with a thump.
Ow.
For the briefest second, I thought I was going insane. Or that my mom had slipped peyote into her honey-oat cookies. Really, either option was possible.
“It’s true,” I whispered. “Holy shit! It’s true?”
The wolf lifted his head and looked up at me. I tensed and wished I had thought to grab the fireplace poker. I wasn’t frequently confronted with fairy-tale stock characters. I didn’t know what to expect.