Cold River (29 page)

“You got a ride home, if your car ain’t done in time?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Well, give me your keys. Stevie Joe’ll leave them under the seat.”

She took the Miata key off her ring and gave it to the deputy. “Thanks again,” she said and closed the door. She walked in front of the deputy’s cruiser to the porch steps, and as she mounted them, she saw the whole staff standing at the window. She forced a smile as Grange solemnly held the door open.

“Hello, all,” she greeted. “Don’t look so concerned. I had a small accident— I took a curve too fast and tangled with a blackberry bush. No harm, no foul. Have I missed anything exciting here?”

Mo wanted details, but she assured him there weren’t any except for her own stupidity. She asked Mrs. Berman to come to her office and led the way upstairs. As Mandy crossed the mezzanine, she looked down and caught Grange staring at her. He was frowning, and he looked so fierce that she dropped her eyes to the carpet and kept them there all the way to her office. Once there, she threw herself into her chair and clenched her hands in her lap to stop them from trembling.

Mrs. Berman closed the door and stood in front of it. “What happened?” Her voice was kindly and held a note of concern.

Mandy cleared her throat. “I hope I’m not going to act like a baby now,” she said, conscious that her eyes were welling. “It’s all over, and though it could have been bad, I wasn’t hurt at all, except—”

“Except what?”

Mandy rubbed her chest. “I’m a bit sore where the seat belt was. I wondered if you had anything that would help. I don’t want it to be worse tomorrow.”

“I’ll fix you some comfrey. But tell me, what happened?”

“I ran off the road at a place where it was pretty steep. My landlady rescued me. I reported the accident, and Doc MacDonald gave me a ride. He’s going to see that my car is fixed, too.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“All right, then.” Mrs. Berman opened the door. “While I fix that comfrey, you need to look at that note on your desk. Nettie Maypole has your whole afternoon planned. Remember, I warned you she was a bulldozer.”

Mandy smiled at that moment, but throughout the afternoon, as she watched Nettie lay the groundwork for a successful election, she reflected that the description was apt. Mandy sat as figurehead through meetings with Mrs. Foley and Wesley Gallant and nodded in support as Nettie primed a reporter from the
Hiesel Valley Herald
with facts and figures. In another meeting with committees from each of the towns in the district, Mandy endorsed Nettie’s plans and realized that, as hard as it had been to swallow her pride, she could not have asked for a more capable person to head up the levy campaign.

At the end of the day, as Mandy sat at her desk examining her list of assignments from Nettie for the next week, Mrs. Berman tapped at her door.

“I’m going now. Doc McDonald called while you were with Nettie. He said don’t worry about your car. Everything’s fine. I see it’s in the parking lot. Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you, Mrs.— Edith. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Mandy cleared off her desk, gathered her things, and went down to check out her car. The front bumper had a small dimple, and the right front fender had an ugly bulge on the top. Mandy ran her hand over it.

“You didn’t tell us you lost a wheel.”

She whirled. Grange stood just behind her. “How did you know?” she asked.

“It’s pretty obvious. The lug nuts get sheared off, the wheel comes off, and when the car drops on the wheel, it bends the fender.” He stepped closer and traced the misshapen place. “I lost one once. It’s a pretty scary thing. I didn’t run off the road, but the wheel chased me and ran over me.”

“Not really!”

He grinned. “Well, it didn’t run over me personally, but it ran over my pickup. It went up over the fender and hood and continued on down the road. I went sliding along after it on three wheels and a hub.”

She smiled back. “I’m glad to know it’s happened to someone else.”

Grange didn’t reply. He looked at his feet for a moment and cleared his throat, and when Mandy stepped away, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and said, “I’ve got to run downriver to buy some groceries. Do you have any shopping to do? Would you like to come with me?”

She considered. “Why, yes. As a matter of fact, the cupboard is bare. I was just wondering what we were going to have for dinner, since Leesie opened the last can of soup last night.”

He held out his hand in an after-you gesture. As she started walking toward his truck, he walked beside her. “A can of soup? I heard you make a great pot of chili.”

She laughed. “I know who told you that. But I would say that a hungry man is no fair judge.” She climbed in the cab as Grange held the door for her, and then she watched as he walked around to the driver’s door. His mouth was set in happy lines, and his blue eyes had a merry look about them as he got in.

He started the truck. “It will be nice to have company on the way down.”

Mandy replied suitably, and they continued on in silence for a while. Grange was the one who spoke first. “I noticed you were marching to Nettie’s tune all afternoon.”

“I’m glad to do it. She seems to know what she’s doing.”

He agreed and went on to talk about other levy elections Nettie had presided over. Mandy asked questions, trying to understand the process, and before they knew it, they were at the market in Stallo. They shopped separately and met again after checking out. Grange had large plastic bins with locking tops in the back of the pickup that they stowed their groceries in, and as they drove home, he told the story of how he lost a pickup load of food to a flock of crows one summer when he was a teenager and working at a logging camp upriver. “I had come to town to do the shopping for all the workers,” he explained. “There was a pretty girl that worked at a drive-in, so I stopped for lunch and stayed too long. By the time I got out, there wasn’t much left of the meat or cheese or eggs. They didn’t care much for the salad.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went shopping again, but I paid for it myself. It cost me almost a month’s wages.”

Mandy countered with a story about how she had gone out with her grandfather on fall roundup as camp cook, and how a grizzled old cowboy taught her to make biscuits in a Dutch oven after her first attempt turned out to be hockey pucks.

They shared other stories of monstrous failures. Mandy told about her first paying gig, playing the organ for a wedding at a huge cathedral, and how she lost the key to the organ just before the service. Grange told about trying to set the brake on a flatcar full of logs but turning it the wrong way so that it rolled down the hill and coasted a mile before he got it stopped. “It was a spur line,” he said, “so there was no danger of a collision. But my boss was really torqued because he had to send someone out to haul it back up the hill.”

Night came on as they drove. Mandy asked about working in the woods and watched Grange in the dim light cast by dashboard dials as he talked. He had a nice profile with a straight nose and high brow. A week’s worth of beard fringed his strong chin, and his dark hair fell over his forehead. Every now and then, he’d turn to her as he talked, and, though she knew his eyes were blue, in the dim light they looked dark. She could see the curve of his mouth and thought how much better he looked when he was laughing.

He smiled a lot when he talked about logging, even when he said his mother made him promise he’d get an education and find another way to earn a living. “It’s one of the most dangerous jobs there is. My grandfather, my father, and my uncle Jacob were all killed in logging accidents. I know that, and yet there’s nothing like being out there in the woods, working with an experienced crew, making it happen. I got my degree, like my mother asked, but I still work in the woods during the summers. Or I did, anyway.”

“That’s past tense?”

Grange turned off the highway onto Shingle Mill Road. “Yeah.” He didn’t offer any more, so Mandy didn’t pry, and they rode in silence to the district office.

He pulled up beside the Miata and got her groceries out of the back while she popped the trunk. “This will hold a couple loaves of bread,” he said. “Where do I put the rest?”

“In the front seat. Just stack it in.” She opened the passenger-side door.

When all the groceries were stowed, she closed the door and extended her hand. “Thanks a lot, Grange,” she said. “I enjoyed the ride.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Steenburg.” He clasped her hand briefly and then walked around to open her door.

She followed him, and just before she got in, she said, “Call me Mandy.”

There was the briefest of pauses before he said, “All right, Mandy.”

She looked at him narrowly, but his face was in shadow, and she couldn’t see his expression. She found the key on the floor under the seat, and as she started the car, Grange closed the door and stepped away. She waved at him, backed out of the parking space, and headed for home. Looking in the rearview mirror as she turned onto Shingle Mill Road, she saw he was standing where she left him, watching her drive away.

Even though Doc McDonald said not to, Mandy had intended to worry about her car all the way home. She intended to drive slowly in case another wheel should fall off. But she forgot about that, and instead played back in her mind her conversation with Grange. The corners of her mouth lifted as she remembered him telling about riding on the front of the railroad car, holding on to the brake, too scared to turn it. She smiled, too, at the story about Grange slicing his leg open when he worked out in the woods and how the cook had sewn him up with quilting thread. It wasn’t a funny story, but the way he told it had made her laugh out loud. She didn’t know what made him extend the invitation to go downriver, but she definitely preferred Grange Friend to Grange Foe.

She reached the turnoff from Timberlain Road before she remembered to worry about the car. Shaking her head at her fears, she shifted down, made the turn, and accelerated around the curve.

Mandy saw that Leesie was home, and someone else was there, too. It wasn’t Jake. They had decided Leesie wouldn’t have friends over when Mandy wasn’t home, and besides, this was a sedan that Mandy had never seen before. She parked, got the grocery bags out of the front seat, and climbed the stairs, looking at the car as she passed for some clue as to who it could be.

Leesie met her at the door. She took the bags from her sister and said, “I’ll take care of the groceries. Christmas has come, so you must greet your company.”

Mandy’s brow creased as she relinquished her burden. “What are you talking about, Leesie?”

“A fellow named Guy Noel. Says he knows you?”

“Guy? Is he here?” Mandy grabbed for the doorframe as she stepped in.

At her appearance, a man rose from the couch. Of medium height, he had broad shoulders, a lean face with a well-tended Van Dyke, brown eyes, and brown hair cut short.

“Hello,
cherie
,” he said.

MANDY WAITED FOR
the earth to tip back to a horizontal plane before she spoke. “Hello, Guy.” It came out sounding a little breathless. “What on earth are you doing clear up here?” She didn’t offer to shake hands.

“I’m going to an international conference in Vancouver. Canada is right next door, almost, so I took an extra day and thought I’d drop by and see you.”

Mandy sat in the chair opposite the couch. “Oh? Is the district sending you?”

Guy cleared his throat. “No. There wasn’t any money in the budget, but it was something I wanted to attend.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re French-Canadian, aren’t you? Old stomping grounds?”

Guy brushed the suggestion aside with a wave of his hand. “No, I’m from Quebec. I’m here to do research on an article I want to write.”

Mandy took a deep breath and exhaled. She smiled for the first time since greeting her guest. “Well, it’s nice to see you. We can offer you supper. Would you prefer chicken noodle or vegetable soup?”

“I picked up some chicken noodle at the Qwik-E Market,” Leesie announced. “It’s in the pot. Not that I’m listening to your conversation or anything.”

“That’s all right, Leesie,” Mandy said, standing. “We won’t exclude you. Come into the kitchen, Guy, and talk to me while I set the table. Then we’ll eat, and afterward, Leesie will play for you.”

“Um, I was going to go study with Jake,” Leesie said.

“Not tonight. We have a guest.” Mandy gave her sister a meaningful look before turning to Guy. “Where are you staying?”

“I hadn’t made any plans. I suppose there’s someplace in town, unless you’ll let me stay on your couch.”

“You wouldn’t get a wink of sleep on that couch.” Mandy picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Elizabeth? This is Dr. Steenburg. Does your grandmother have a room for tonight? Good. How late do you work? Okay. I’ll make sure he’s there before then so you can show him where to go. Call your grandmother and reserve the room for him, okay? Thanks.”

Mandy hung up and began to set place mats, silverware, and glasses on the table. “You’re in luck. There are two beds for hire in this town, and one of them is available. You’ll have to be at the Qwik-E Market by eight thirty, though, to find your way.”