Nerd Gone Wild (23 page)

Her implication that he would spend more winters here made him shudder. If he believed that, he’d slit his wrists. “I’ll take your word for it, Betsy.”

“You’d be wise to do that,” Clyde said. “Now, what’ll you folks be having?”

Mitch ordered a sandwich after Clyde’s assurance that it contained actual commercial chicken and not some animal that had suffered a highway accident. Ally ordered the special, which Mitch figured could be anything. But that was Ally, ready for adventure.

Anyone who knew his choice of profession would think he had a taste for adventure, too, but they’d be wrong. He had chosen to become a PI and bodyguard not because he wanted adventure, but because he wanted control over the outcome of situations. He wished to hell he had more control over this one.

By the time they were halfway through their lunch, Serena had left to tend her store and Betsy had returned to the lodge. That left Ally and Mitch in a cozy twosome. He started thinking about the condoms he hadn’t bought yet, and whether her mood was softening toward him enough that he needed to find a way to quietly acquire that item.

He noticed she kept glancing at him, and each time her cheeks would get pink, but she didn’t say anything, just kept eating her sandwich.

“What?” he finally asked.

“I was just wondering something.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, you bought the nude while you were over at Serena’s.” She tipped her head toward the bar, where Quillamina was being toasted by a couple of burly guys who kept lifting up her sarong and then collapsing into fits of laughter.

“Yeah, I sure did buy a nude. And now I’d better get her out of here before Dave comes in. I think he’d be insulted that the guys felt compelled to give her an outfit and a name.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You care if he’s insulted? I didn’t think you liked him!”

Mitch sighed. “It’s not like I’m ready to be his best friend or anything, but you should have seen the expression on his face when I bought it. You’d think I’d handed him the moon.”

“Mitchell, you’re quite the softie, you know that?”

“I’m a sucker, is what I am.” But he enjoyed the way she was looking at him, as if she wanted another kiss like the one they’d had back in the snow. And her knee had come to rest against his knee. She didn’t move it. He started getting warm all over.

She fiddled with the toothpick Clyde had stack through the center of her sandwich. “Did you… um… get the other thing?”

Hot damn. His body reacted instantly. Maybe she was changing her mind. And he was still minus what he needed to make something happen. “No, I didn’t. With everyone around here so chummy, I’m not sure how to buy them without the whole town being in on it.”

“But you don’t want to take Betsy up on her offer.”

“No. That’s almost as bad.” But if Ally really wanted to go through with this, he’d go back to Heavenly Provisions. Hell, he’d hitch a ride to Fairbanks to buy them, except that he couldn’t leave her for that long. “Ally, are you rethinking your original decision?” He crossed his fingers under the table.

She sighed. “Mitchell, I have this terrible problem. The more I’m around you, the more I think about having sex with you.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

He couldn’t stop looking at her lips. “Maybe you should let me be the judge of that.” His heart thumped crazily as he remembered how those lips had felt on his.

“Look, I’m not saying that I’m changing my mind. I think giving in to this would show weakness on my part. But the chemistry between us is really strong.”

“Uh-huh.” He kept his fingers crossed tight.

“We could suddenly snap.”

“Uh-huh.” He was close to the snapping point right now.

“And I was thinking… I’ll bet they have a vending machine in the men’s room.”

“Oh.” He mentally slapped his forehead. This was a bar. A bar in Porcupine, where sex was the favorite winter sport. Of course they would have a vending machine in the men’s room. He should have realized that immediately.

Seeing the gleam in her eyes and knowing that she’d given it enough thought to come up with a solution pumped up his inclination even more. He’d better check out the men’s room while he could still stand without embarrassing himself.

He pushed back his chair. “I’ll go find out,” he said.

“Okay.”

Oh, boy. She was talking his language now. They’d be upstairs at the Loose Moose all night, with only a bathroom between them. He wanted to be ready for the moment she snapped and came knocking at his door. He wished the day would end right now. At least night came early in Alaska in the wintertime. It couldn’t come soon enough for Mitch.

A
lley couldn’t quite believe she’d told Mitchell where to pick up a condom or two. She’d never been so bold in her life. But the longer she hung around Mitchell, the more she thought of cool sheets and hot sex. She didn’t want to be caught in a situation where their hormones went crazy and they had no supplies. Maybe she’d maintain her self-control, but she wasn’t so sure about it.

While she was visualizing what tonight would be like, sleeping only a bathroom away from a man she wanted naked, Rudy walked into the Top Hat, all two hundred and eighty pounds of him.

“I was hoping I’d find you here!” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “Seein’ as how Mitchell said he’d help me find Lurleen, I wanted to do something for the both of you.”

Ally couldn’t figure out how the heck Mitchell could help locate Rudy’s ex-girlfriend. He was no private investigator. “That was nice of him.”

“Yeah, it was. Here he comes, now. Hi, there, Mitchell! Say, does anybody ever call you Mitch?”

Mitchell shook Rudy’s outstretched hand before sitting down again. “It’s happened before. Why?”

“I just like Mitch better, is all. No offense, but when you say the whole thing like that, I picture some dorky guy, somebody in government, maybe.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Ally said. She actually did, but she wanted to protect Mitchell’s feelings. People could be very sensitive about their names. “I think of somebody who’s efficient, thorough, resourceful…” She glanced at Mitchell and tried to read from his expression whether he’d scored any condoms. She couldn’t tell.

“Well, sure,” Rudy said. “Efficient, but maybe too efficient, if you know what I mean. Now
Mitch
, that’s a guy who gets things done, but he’s sorta cool about it. So if it’s all the same to you, I thought I’d go with Mitch.”

“That’s fine,” Mitchell said.

But Ally was still concerned that his feelings were hurt. “Not me,” she said. “I like saying the whole thing. Mitchell. It has a nice lilt to it.”

She wondered what she’d call him if they ended up in the same bed. Mitch was a shorter name, and at moments like that, you didn’t want to waste your breath on extra syllables. Having sex with a guy named Mitch did seem a shade more exciting, come to think of it. And she was definitely thinking about it.

“So as I was telling Ally,” Rudy said. “I want to do something for you guys since you’re gonna help me locate Lurleen.”

“Yeah, how are you going to help Rudy locate Lurleen?”

“Through the Internet,” Mitchell said. “It’s amazing what you can do with the Internet these days.”

“I suppose so.” She laughed. “For a minute there, it sounded like you were getting into the PI business.”

“Me?”

“I know. Far-fetched. But it ran through my mind.”

Rudy looked at them expectantly. “So aren’t you gonna ask me what special thing I’m gonna do for you?”

“You could surprise us,” Ally said.

“No, he couldn’t,” Mitch said. “I like knowing what’s coming. What’s the plan, Rudy?”

Rudy beamed, showing off his gap-toothed smile. “Snowmobiles, that’s what!”

“Yeah?” Mitch sat up straighter. “You have snowmobiles?”

“Two of them. I rode one in and towed the other one.” He turned to Ally. “Wanna go for a ride?”

She hesitated, not really crazy about the idea. But Rudy seemed so eager, and even Mitchell looked interested. “It sounds like fun, but… doesn’t it scare the animals?”

Rudy blinked as if he’d never considered that. “I suppose you could, if you ran right into a herd of caribou, but I didn’t have that in mind.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Mitch said. “It’s all about operating them sensibly, right?”

“That’s what I do. Operate ‘em sensibly. Now once in a while, you might have to jump over a drift, but I know what I’m doing.”

“Right.” Mitch nodded. “It’s all in the technique.”

Ally wasn’t fooled for a minute. They both could hardly wait to get those machines up to top speed and try all sorts of fancy-dancy maneuvers. They didn’t care if they terrified whatever creatures might be in the vicinity.

Even stodgy Mitchell was salivating at the idea. Ally decided she’d better go just to keep those two in check. She’d take her camera along, on the rare chance they didn’t scatter all the animals as they charged over the snow.

“I never try to hurt nothin’,” Rudy said. “It’s just for fun. See, I have two snowmobiles, on account of I bought Lurleen her own, and she left it here in Porcupine.” He paused. “She left a lot of stuff. All she really took was…” He cleared his throat. “My heart.”

“Oh, Rudy.” Ally put her hand on his arm and gave it a little squeeze. “I have a strong feeling that Mitchell will locate her for you. I’m sure this story will have a happy ending.”

“I’ll do my best, buddy,” Mitchell said.

“I hope when you find her she still has that heart,” Rudy said. “I paid Serena a pretty penny for it.”

Ally did a double take. “Excuse me?” She glanced over at Mitchell, who shrugged as if he had no clue what was going on.

“It was a thing of beauty,” Rudy said. “Polished so nice, made out of rose quartz. It was supposed to be a paperweight, but I don’t have any papers. I just liked holding it, you know? It felt good in my hand. I miss that heart.”

Okay, so Mitchell needed to find Lurleen and see if she still had Rudy’s paperweight. The job seemed a little less urgent than it had a moment ago.

“Anyway,” Rudy continued, “I can take Ally up behind me and let Mitchell handle his own if he thinks he can do that. Want to try them out?”

“Definitely, but I should do something about Quillamina Sharp,” Mitchell said. “I don’t want Dave to come in and discover his interpretive art has been compromised.”

“Go on over and settle your bill, and while you’re at it, ask Clyde to take her up to his room over the bar,” Rudy suggested. “You can get her later.”

“I’ll do that.” He stood and walked over to the bar where Clyde was polishing glasses. In no time, Quillamina was undressed and whisked upstairs.

“Mitch seems excited about the snowmobiles,” Rudy said.

“Yes, he does.”

“But you’re not so excited, are you? Lurleen wasn’t, either.”

“Maybe it’s a guy thing.”

Rudy looked worried. “But you’ll go, right?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it.”

He grinned. “You’ll like it better’n you think, Ally.”

Moments later, they were headed out the door with Rudy. But Ally still didn’t know if Mitchell had found an operational vending machine during his visit to the men’s room.

Letting Rudy go ahead, she paused and turned back to Mitchell. “By the way, any luck with that other matter?”

“I managed to get one, and then the machine jammed.”

So he had one. That was enough to affect her pulse rate. “It’s only insurance, anyway. One’s plenty.”

He gave her a long look. “Ally, if we end up using that insurance, one won’t be nearly enough.”

Her pulse rate shot off the charts.

* * *

“So here we are, and this backwater town hasn’t even plowed the road!” Vivian sat staring out through the windshield at the drifts across the country lane leading to Porcupine. “Now what?”

Kurt hadn’t counted on this. An unplowed road into a. populated area didn’t make sense. “I can’t understand why it’s not plowed,” he said. “They must need to get in and out. They must want their mail, for God’s sake.”

“Maybe everybody
died
.”

“That’s gruesome, Viv. I’m sure they didn’t all die. They just have a problem with this road, for some reason.”