“Oh, yeah?” Carson wondered if that was supposed to spell trouble. What could Leo Potter care about him these days? They hadn’t spoken since high school. Their ancient, juvenile animosity couldn’t possibly carry weight any longer.
“Wanted to know why you were staying with his girlfriend.”
Or maybe it could. His fingers balled into fists, which he shoved into his front pockets for lack of anything better to do with them.
“Julie’s going out with Leo?”
“She has a few times.”
“How many’s a few?”
“Ask the ladies over to the cafe. They keep better tabs on that kind of thing than I do.”
“I’ll ask Julie.” His voice came out sounding exactly like his father’s. Irritable and bitter.
“There’s an idea. Tell her I said hello, will you?”
“Sure.”
Bruce rang up the oven cleaner, smiling because it was his default expression, and because he took great pleasure in making trouble.
“That girl’s a marvel,” he said. “If I were your age, I’d be half in love with her myself. Pretty, smart, and she’s made a world of difference in this town.”
“All right,” Carson said, handing over a fifty. “That’s enough.”
“You don’t put a ring on her finger, somebody else is going to do it soon enough. I heard Leo Potter was looking at ’em down at the mall in Fenimore.”
“Who told you that?” The idea of Leo shopping for rings at a down-market mall jewelry store was absurd.
Even more absurd, how it made Carson’s vision constrict to a tunnel.
“Your father.”
He shoved out his hand and took the change Bruce was trying to give him, crumpling the bills and coins into his pocket in an inelegant lump.
“You two are a pain in my ass.” Carson grabbed the plastic bag full of cans and headed for the door.
“Let me know about the lacquer,” Bruce said to his retreating back. “It’s gonna have to be a special order.”
“See you later, Uncle.”
“And put those in your coat. You don’t want them freezing on you on your way home.”
“Gotcha.”
The wind slammed into his face when he pushed the door open, and Bruce’s “So long, Nephew,” reached him from far away, a weak radio signal transmitted over a long distance.
Yesterday, they’d gotten the predicted ten inches. He tucked the bag under his arm, put on his hat and gloves, and zipped the cans inside his coat, all while crossing the parking lot at a diagonal that would take him toward Julie’s place.
Where he and Julie would be stuck alone together by another eight inches of snowfall if the weather report turned out to be right.
He spent the half mile back to the Comstock Pond Bed-and-Breakfast breathing in the cold air as deep as he could without coughing and trying to banish from his head any and all obsessive thoughts of Leo Potter, engagement rings, and Julie Long.
It didn’t work, so he focused on a very specific fantasy of Julie in the shower, wet and willing.
At least that one kept him warm.
It was curiosity that did her in. She ignored Carson’s presence in her kitchen as long as she could, but finally the chemical smell and the sound of bristles rubbing over metal drew her to him like a Siren’s song.