Licking His Cane (2 page)

She took the rod fragment and slipped it into her pocket, making her way through the curtains to find Rex again. He was her best option.

“Excuse me, Rex?”

He was rolling out gingerbread dough on a sheeter. “Yes? I am sorry. What was your name?”

“Bel. I was wondering if you would be able to help me get the roller to my truck. I have a welding kit in there, and I can manage the repairs that are needed.”

“Sure, Bel. Just give me a moment to get these into the oven.”

He wielded a large knife and expertly cut out the front, back and sides of a gingerbread house, as well as a wide base. He slid them onto a pan without warping them and tucked a few gingerbread men and women onto the baking sheet. When it was all in the small industrial oven, he turned with a smile. “Lead on.”

Bel snickered. “My turn.”

She led the way back and pointed to the roller. “You lift, I lead.”

Watching his biceps bulge as he scooped the roller into his arms was hypnotic, but he was straining so she held the plastic out of his way and then whisked around him to clear a path and hold the door to the shop open. Again, she moved around him, and she opened her truck workshop door, putting down a tarp to keep the roller clean.

“Leave it here. I have chains and tackle to hold it where I want.” Bel smiled. “I promise to have it back as soon as I can.”

Rex nodded. “Will you call me when it is time to get it back in position?”

“Sure. If any space opens up in the back, can you let me know so I can stop hogging this parking spot? It makes me feel like I am stealing your client space.”

“I will. I will also come by in a few hours with a snack and some hot cocoa.”

He grinned, and she turned on the light before rolling down the door.

She picked up the heavy cylinder and set it on her workbench, clamping it down carefully so as not to damage it.

“Now, my poor, worn darling, what can I do to make you feel better?”

She tapped out the broken pin with the utmost care. Bel was going to work on this unit with the focus it deserved.

With the roller free of its broken part, she looked through her available equipment and found the rod she needed. Half an inch thick and three feet long, the rod slid into place, and she checked it for movement. It moved reluctantly and that is what she wanted before she started welding. A few hard taps and it was in place. The protruding ends were perfect. Time to tack them into place.

She was about to use lightning from her fingertips to weld the metal when there was a knock at the rear door. She dissipated the charge between her fingers and her thumb and shook her hand. With a smooth move, she opened the door. Rex stood there with a grin and a covered tray.

“You have been banging away in here for hours. As promised, I have brought you a snack.” He stepped up into her workshop and looked around. “Wow. You are geared for anything in here.”

She took the tray from him and set it next to the roller on her workbench. She was about to reach for the napkin when he moved around her and whisked it away.

Fresh shortbread was arranged in a fan next to a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows floating in a smiley face arrangement. Bel couldn’t help it; she smiled back.

“You might want to clean your hands.”

She looked at her grubby fingers on their way to the plate and scowled. “Right. Sorry. I am not used to stopping in the middle of a job.”

“Good to know.”

She went over to the pump of hand sanitizer and took a few shop towels, scrubbing down until she could see skin instead of grime.

She took a fresh towel and one more squirt of sanitizer cleared her skin, her hands sparkling and only dark crescents showing that she had been working.

Bel returned to the mug and frowned. The happy face had melted. “Dang. I wanted to suck down his cheerful little grin.”

“A little hostile toward cocoa, but understandable.” Rex was looking over the roller. “It looks finished.”

“Not quite; I have to weld it, cut the length to fit and mount it back in your machine.” She took a large bite of one of the cookies and closed her eyes as she leaned back against her bench. It melted in her mouth, buttery, sweet and salty, with just a hint of vanilla.

The cocoa followed and washed the cookie away in a wave of chocolate and sweet melted marshmallow.

“This is really good.” She sighed and finished the first cookie, going for the second.

“Thanks. We small batch the cookies. It means more work, but we are just trying to keep our shop up and running.”

“Our?”

He grinned. “Rex’s Candies is a co-op. We are all about profit sharing. The ladies were delighted when you showed up. They are just waiting for the go ahead to scour out the flour and get the copper kettles warmed up.”

“Give me three more hours to get the fit right and do a cleaning on the machine. It will be up and running by six this evening.”

He grinned. “How firm is that time?”

“Very firm. I will send you a text when I am ready for help with the roller.”

“Oh, if you wanted to move the truck, our spot at the back is clear.”

“Great, when I finish the cookies, I will move the truck.”

Rex chuckled. “You have already finished them.”

She frowned. “Dang. Those were good.”

He took the empty cup from her hand and tapped her nose. “There is more where that came from if you get the candy roller running.”

She snorted. “Well, let’s get out of here so I can move the truck. I am not insured for passengers, and I am not willing to take a chance with that roller back here.”

“Fair enough. I will leave so you can get welding.”

She watched him go, and he hopped out of the truck. She checked that everything was fastened down and followed him out. She pulled the door down, locked it and headed to the driver’s side.

Two vehicles filled the parking spot before she was clear of it, and she really hoped that he hadn’t been kidding about the space behind the shop.

She parked behind the shop with relief and slid out of the cab and back around to the rear door. In a moment, she reached her workshop, closed the door and was getting back into the zone of harnessing lightning.

Each of the team had a skill. She had gotten lightning instead of thunder. It was ironic that her folk had eschewed many modern conveniences and she carried nothing but power. Raw, unadulterated power.

Bel went to work on welding the central rod into the roller, and her mind wandered back to her home as it always did. She was the second youngest of nine children, and her job had always been to fix the small things around the house. Her father made the parts, and she fit them together.

She had been putting equipment together since she was little; her fingers were always itching to put things together. It was ironic that she had become the last part of the team. She made them work together. The power of them all was balanced by her place in the team.

Love and lust, ice and heat, battle and comfort, thunder and lightning. Each one of them had a role to create a more balanced team that could be more powerful and get further with every year. Now, the trip around the world was second nature.

Her first trip had been something else entirely.

* * * *

Her papa and mama set her down and looked at her with kind expressions. “Daughter, this is an excellent offer. You are changing too quickly for us to keep hiding the effects from the gathering. We wish you to soar and be what you are born to be. We know not how you came to us, but we know that you do not belong with us anymore. You have outgrown us, Bella. The lord has a plan for you, and this man will help you to it. Do you believe us?”

Her parents had spoken in nearly identical words and had smiled down at her as they always did when they wanted her to stop working.

“I believe you. I feel what rises inside me; I just acknowledge what it means. No family of my own, no brothers and sisters to laugh with. I will be alone amongst strangers, and it is the hardest thing to bear. But, I shall bear it. My efforts will move portions of belief along, and that is a worthy result.”

The woman named Ru spoke from the far side of the team. “We will step in to become your new community. You will not be alone, Arabella. You will become everything that you were born to be. A symbol of light, hope and generosity.”

Her father chuckled. “She will be a symbol of fixing things. Keeping things together and putting things together. She finds the things that bind and puts them into action. We will miss her, but she is not for our world.”

Ru walked toward them, and horns sprouted from her head. “She is meant for our world.”

Bella’s horns came out in response, and she took Ru’s hand. Ru tucked her in against her body and hugged her. “You will not be alone, Bella. I promise you that.”

Ru looked to her parents and spoke slowly. “She will live with us, be educated and grow into a young woman before she will join the team. She will have a life of contemplation and study before it turns into action.”

They nodded, but her father asked, “Will she find love?”

Ru nodded and made her promise. “When the time is right, she will find love. We will not be her family, but we will be her community. We will keep her safe until it is time for her to strike out and seek love.”

* * * *

Bel shook her head and focused on the power that melted metal and made two pieces become one. The arcs of power accomplished her goal in a few motions and a lot of flashbacks. Every time she used the energy, she remembered the past.

She flicked her fingers to cool them and used her free hand to dump water on the steel. The sizzling confirmed her work, and she looked at the melted joint, making sure that she had caught every millimetre of the connection to avoid corrosion inside the roller.

It was perfect, but then, it always was. She moved to the other side of the roller and engaged in the same procedure, once again plunging her mind into the past. It was bizarre to think that she was hundreds of years from her family. It was why she was obsessed with taking the past into the future. Taking her past with her and looking forward made her feel complete.

She had cried over her lost roots, but her parents had given her books to take with her, and her education in mathematics had extended into mechanical engineering. Her focus on keeping machines alive had taken the place of all the ladylike pursuits her mother had tried to instill.

This time, when the light faded, she had a perfectly repaired roller ready to be set into place on its machine.

Bel smiled and wiped the metal down. Well, it was time to slink into the back of the shop and get the candy roller back on duty.

As quietly as she could, she took the roller out of the truck, and after she latched the door with her free hand, she pulled open the door to the candy shop and crept inside.

Bel entered the little shroud and set the roller into place with a click. The machine vibrated at the impact as if happy to have its missing limb back.

She returned to her truck for her cleaning kit and crept under the machine to try and clean things up as thoroughly as possible. It was her honour to restore old machines to as close to showroom condition as possible. She worked like hell to keep things up and running in excellent shape. So far, this season, she had no repeat customers for the same machines, but several for different ones. The quality of her work was not in doubt.

She hummed along as she worked on the machine and heard excited exclamations from around her. She heard a burner engage a few feet away and the clang of a copper kettle was right behind it. The sugar was soon on its way to boiling. She had better get herself in gear.

She finished her cleaning and heaved herself to her feet, getting a clean cloth to wipe down the rollers with mineral oil to remove any dust and debris from her housekeeping.

Bel disengaged her lockout and fired up the machine, starting the tiny gas burners that kept the candy from hardening as it compacted it.

The rollers tumbled, settled and were soon churning along at the angle that would take a ball of candy and turn it into a long, thick rope, suitable for candy canes.

With the machine humming away, she wiped down the jigs that were hanging near the pulling hook.

Rex came around and carefully lowered the outermost layer of plastic. “With the elements firing, you should have opened this to the air.”

She chuckled. “There is plenty of circulation, and I am watching it for any hiccups. It all looks good.”

“And you are getting our equipment ready. Thank you.”

“All part of the service. I have never seen anyone pull a candy cane before.” She looked at Rex hopefully as the last layer between them came down.

“Is that a hint?”

She shrugged. “I have to stay to make sure that the machine is functioning. It is a matter of professional pride.”

“Feel free to stay as long as you like. I love performing for an audience.” He winked one of his sparkling grey eyes at her and headed to the copper kettle as one of his staff manned it.

She could imagine a dozen things she would like to watch him do and none of them involved clothing. Her time in the modern world with romance novels and the internet had given her a tremendous grasp of what the masculine body was capable of, in theory and practice. She was always in favour of verifying a good theory.

One of the counter staff came by and parked a stool in the corner. “It will be safe over here. Once he gets moving, you don’t want to be in the way. That stuff is hot.”

Bel grinned and gathered her tools up. “You mean the candy, right?”

The woman winked. “That, too.”

The sounds from the front of the shop indicated that there was a bustling trade going on. The back of the shop had a few women working with chocolate on marble slabs and there was no sign of the baked gingerbread.

Rex was working with the boiling sugar and watching the temperature. When he had judged it to be correct, he turned off the burner and lifted the copper vat onto a wheeled trolley to move it to one of the clean and waiting marble tables.