Nerd Gone Wild (14 page)

T
he minute he’d heard Ally’s alarm coming through the bug under her bed, Mitch was wide awake. It felt as if he’d been asleep all of two hours, and no light shone through the ice and snow coating his window, but apparently Ally was getting up. And that meant he was, too, dammit. He’d just started to feel warm.

He hit the button that lit up the dial on his watch. Seven already. She might be trying to sneak out of the lodge without him, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. He shoved back the covers. Pulled them up again, shivering. God.

Okay, so his room was colder than a meat locker. Jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering, he climbed out of bed and grabbed his wrinkled dork clothes—slacks, shirt, tie, and jacket. Ugly though they were, he couldn’t get them on fast enough.

Damn, it was cold. He’d promised himself as a kid in Chicago that he’d never live in snow country again. Yet here he was, his nuts drawn up tight against the arctic air as he tried to get his pants on before his penis froze up and dropped off.

He needed other clothes. Warmer clothes. He needed long underwear, thermal-lined sweats, and heavy-duty sweaters. Hell, he needed his leather biker jacket and chaps. This dopey outfit he was wearing didn’t work in Alaska. He’d suspected that, but he hadn’t dared modify it and tip off Ally that he was someone other than who she’d thought.

So down the stairs he went, feeling the cold air climbing his pants legs while he listened to the conversation in the kitchen to make sure Ally hadn’t left yet. She hadn’t. Furthermore, Clyde was still in residence, and he and Betsy were to the sickening pet-name stage. Mitch braced himself and walked to the kitchen doorway.

Big surprise, Ally wasn’t glad to see him. And she definitely had plans for the day because she had her backpack with her. On the one hand, he wanted them all to be snowed in so she couldn’t take off on a shooting expedition, which would mean he’d have to go with her. On the other, he’d love to have a tropical heat wave that would melt all that godawful white stuff by noon.

“Nobody’s going anywhere until we do some shoveling,” Betsy said. “Open the front door, there’ll be a wall of snow to meet you. Open the back door and step out, and you’ll sink crotch-deep in drifts. Right, Poopsie?”

Mitch winced, both at hearing Clyde’s nickname tumbling from Betsy’s mouth and remembering how much he hated to shovel snow. Besides, no way was he going to aid and abet Ally’s plan to leave the lodge.

“That’s right, Kitty-cat,” Clyde said. “I pried the front door open this morning when I went out in the hall to pick up the loose change I dropped last night. And there’s nothing there but solid white. We’ll have to go out the back way and tunnel in.”

“Or not,” Mitch said hopefully. He chose to ignore Clyde’s reference to loose change on the hall floor, because he didn’t want to think about how Clyde had spilled his money from his pockets. “I’ll bet you have a chess set around here somewhere, or wait! I have cards. There’s an idea! The four of us could play some poker. The snow will melt sometime, right?”

Ally glared at him. “I’d rather shovel.”

“Somebody has to shovel,” Betsy said. “Poopsie has to get back to the Top Hat in time to open up at ten. I have to run over to Heavenly Provisions and pick up eggs and condoms.”

Clyde coughed and got red in the face. “Kitty-cat, I thought you said we didn’t need to worry about that.”

“Oh, not for us! I’m way past the need for them, and with you not having anything but solo sex for years, we certainly don’t have to worry about disease. I’m talking about these two.”

“Save your money, Betsy,” Ally said. “Mitchell admitted last night that his interest in me is strictly business. He’s afraid that if something happens to me, he’ll have a lot of extra paperwork to do, and he would hate that. Right, Mitchell?”

Last night that assessment had seemed useful. This morning he was uncomfortable with such a sleazy concept, especially since Betsy and Clyde were looking at him as if they’d like to feed him to the nearest grizzly bear. “That’s not quite the whole story,” he said.

Betsy snorted. “Didn’t think so. I’d pegged you for a better man than that. I’ll stock up on those condoms.”

Mitch couldn’t have her buying supplies they didn’t need, though. “That won’t be necessary,” he said.

“You brought your own?”

“Uh, no, but Ally and I won’t be… that is, we’re not—”

“What he means is,” Ally said, “that I would sooner bed down with a musk ox than sleep with Mitchell.”

Clyde shook his head. “Lovers’ spat. Happens all the time when you’re itching to do the deed but holding off because you’re not sure it’s the right idea. Isn’t that so, Kitty-cat?”

“Yep. You heard how Clyde and me argued over at the Top Hat last night. We’d been doing that on a regular basis, until we finally figured out that we wanted to get in each other’s pants.”

“That’s, um, not our situation,” Mitch said.

“You just said a mouthful,” Ally agreed darkly.

Betsy clapped her hands together. “Listen to you two! You have it bad. But you’ll have to postpone your fighting and making up while we get ourselves fed and then dug out of this snow. Sit down and I’ll bring you both coffee.”

Mitch took a seat, and Ally chose the one across the table from him.

“Here you go!” She set an Alaska-sized mug in front of both of them. “And I see Poopsie needs a refill.”

“I’ll take anything you got, Betsy.” Clyde reached around and pinched her on the butt, and she reacted by laughing and slapping his hand.

Mitch glanced across the table at Ally, to see if she’d meet his gaze and indicate that a tiny bit of last night’s bonding experience was left in her. Nope. She looked at a point just beyond his right shoulder, as if bonding with him was the single thing she planned to avoid forever.

Figuring that now was as good a time as any to confess his sins to Betsy, Mitch cleared his throat. “Uh, Betsy, there’s something I need to let you know. About the bathroom door opening off my bedroom.”

Betsy laid several strips of bacon in an iron skillet. “It sticks, right? I should have warned you about that. I need to get up there and plane off about a quarter inch below the lock and it’ll be fine.”

“Well, that’s not the problem.” Mitch cast another look at Ally, but she’d abandoned him. “See, it was locked, and Ally was in the shower, and I heard her squeal. Turns out it was the water going cold, but I didn’t realize that, so I—” Sitting here at the breakfast table, he couldn’t believe he’d done such a stupid-ass thing. And all to save Ally from a cold shower.

“Jimmied the lock, I suppose.” Clyde nodded in understanding. “Wanted to check on her to see if it was a mouse or something. I would have done the same, son. I can help Betsy with that lock if it doesn’t work right, now.”

“The lock’s no big deal,” Betsy said as she began to beat a bowl of eggs with a wire whisk. “Now the door itself, I couldn’t replace that. It’s a hundred years old, at least. But locks are no problem. Don’t worry about it, Mitchell. You have bigger fish to fry, if you get my meaning.”

“The door’s… uh… how old?” Mitch wondered how much snow he’d have to shovel to make up for this.

“At least a hundred years.”

“The frame, too?”

“The whole shootin’ match is that old. Frames and doors. That particular one sticks a mite, but the rest are perfect. I’m real proud of those doors. No warping, no cracking, nothing. As good as the day they were made. People knew craftsmanship back in those days.”

“Well, the door may not be
quite
as good as the day it was made.” Mitch felt completely miserable. “Not anymore.”

Holding the bowl of whipped eggs against her hip, Betsy turned toward the table. “What’s wrong with the door?”

“I sort of… broke it down.”

“Whoa, Nellie!” Clyde’s eyes widened.

Betsy’s jaw dropped. Then she put the bowl back on the counter and turned off the flame under the bacon. “Guess I’d better see about this.”

“I’ll go with you, Kitty-cat.” Clyde pushed back from his chair.

“I’ll come, too.” Mitch thought he should be there for the first viewing. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought.

“Me, too.” Ally stood.

“That’s okay, Ally.” Mitch figured she was enjoying watching him twist in the wind. She probably wanted to witness the scene when Betsy laid into him. “Stay and enjoy your coffee.”

She met his gaze and shrugged. “I’m partly to blame. I’m the one who squealed.” Instead of mockery, there was sympathy in her eyes.

He was surprised, but he’d take whatever help he could get. “It’s not your fault, but if you want to come up with us, that’s fine.”

“I think I should.”

“Thanks.” Appreciative for the show of support, he gestured for her to go ahead of him out the kitchen door. “A hundred years old,” he murmured to her as they climbed the stairs behind Betsy and Clyde. “Man, I hated to hear that.”

“I know. I was hoping she’d picked it up at Home Depot.”

“Yeah.”

“Some places can make really good reproductions,” she said.

“They can?” He valued her encouragement more than she could know. He hated damaging something in his care. Although he hadn’t realized he was dealing with a one-hundred-year-old door, it had been temporarily under his care. And he’d busted it.

Betsy used a key she pulled out of her pocket to unlock his room. Then she turned on a light and stood there silently staring at the door propped against the splintered frame. Mitch hadn’t realized until now that the door itself had a sizable crack in it. A good kick and it would split in two.

Turning toward Mitch, Betsy looked him up and down. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there?”

He coughed and pushed his glasses more firmly on his nose, typical nerdlike behavior. Maybe then he wouldn’t look quite so much like a black belt who could do serious damage with his feet. “Adrenaline. Makes people stronger for a few seconds.”

Betsy didn’t look convinced.

“Kitty-cat, I think we can save it.”

Walking over to the door, Betsy ran a loving hand over the wood. “We can sure try. But in the meantime, you don’t have much privacy, Mitchell.”

“Doesn’t matter. And I’ll pay for the damages. Whatever you think is fair, considering the value, and the work you’ll have to put in.”

She ran a finger down the crack. “How are you at shoveling snow?”

“Decent.”

Ally glanced at him. “How can you be good at shoveling snow? You live in Southern California.”

“But I spent the first twenty-two years of my life in Chicago.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

Betsy turned back to them, her expression resolute. “Okay, Chicago boy, I couldn’t come up with an amount to charge you for the door, or the labor, for that matter. We tend to work a lot on the barter system here in Porcupine, so I’m putting you on snow shoveling detail.”

He accepted his punishment, knowing this wasn’t the kind of thing that an influx of money could fix. “Okay.”

“I’ll help you,” Ally said.

“You don’t have to,” he said immediately.

“Yes I do. I feel partly responsible for this.”

“Let her help. She was the one who squealed when she got hit with a little cold water.” Betsy crossed her arms under her breasts. “But I would love to know something. What happened after you broke the door down?”

Mitch and Ally spoke in unison. “Nothing!”

Betsy studied the two of them like a parent who wasn’t about to swallow the story. “You break the door down like some hero in a B movie, and she’s in there naked, and
nothing
happened? What’s wrong with you two?”

“It’s the younger generation, Kitty-cat,” Clyde said. “They see it all the time on TV—bashing down doors, naked women right out of the shower, you name it. They don’t get excited about things like we do.”

Mitch wasn’t about to correct that impression. Let all three of them think he’d been totally cool when confronted with Ally and a skimpy towel.

“And the second thing,” Betsy continued. “I get up this morning to find a package of sliced caribou, a loaf of bread, cheese, and the blackberry pie missing.”

“Caribou,” Mitch muttered. “So that’s what it was.”

“That wasn’t just any caribou, either,” Clyde said. “That was a town institution. See, we had this caribou in Porcupine who had the habit of going around peering in people’s—”

“We ate the Peeping Caribou?” Ally cried out, her expression horrified. “Eeuuww!”

“You have to admit he’s delicious, though,” Betsy said.

Ally clutched her stomach. “If I’d known, I never would have had any. The way you described him, I thought of him as a town character, with a personality.”

“I thought so, too,” Clyde said. “But some folks got sick of him putting his nose in everywhere, and finally Ziggy Berluski shot him. We divided him up.”

Ally looked a little green, and Mitch’s stomach didn’t feel all that wonderful, either. From now on he was asking a lot of questions before he put anything in his mouth.

“We’re getting off the subject,” Betsy said. “I want to know how it can be that two people insist they have no intention of doing the wild thing, but one has already seen the other pretty much naked, and besides that, they obviously raided the refrigerator together, too. Now that takes some cooperative effort.”

“We liked each other better then,” Ally said.

“I don’t dislike you, Ally.”

She turned to him, her gaze hard. “No, but I’m just one of your projects, one you want to run smoothly.”

“No you’re not. I—”

“Enough!” Betsy raised both hands. “We’re going back downstairs, because I can smell the biscuits and they’re done. And I don’t want to hear any more arguments from you two during breakfast. It disturbs the digestion.” She started out of the room and Clyde followed.

“She knows what she’s talking about,” Clyde said over his shoulder,

“Damn straight I do,” Betsy said as she clomped down the stairs. “And after checking out that door, I know something else for sure.”

“What’s that, Kitty-cat?”

“I definitely need to lay in a good supply of condoms.”

* * *

After a breakfast that included bacon from a pig nobody had named or even knew very well, Ally was ready to tackle the snow-shoveling. So was Mitchell, after Betsy informed him that he would freeze his privates if he went out there dressed like that. Betsy had some outfits stored in the lodge’s attic, items of clothing her various husbands had left behind.