“I wonder what they use for kindling around here,” he muttered, pawing through the wood basket in vain.
Someone tapped on their door. It was Jase, wearing a hiker’s headlamp over his knit cap so that both hands were free to hold canvas carriers of firewood. He looked like a miner standing out there in the darkened hallway.
“Just the man I wanted to see,” said Mitch, as the squatly built caretaker dumped more logs in their wood basket. “I can’t find any kindling.”
“We don’t use it here. Too much of a fire hazard. Here…” Jase reached a rough hand into the pocket of his wool overshirt and gave Mitch a sealed plastic packet of something called Firestarter 2. Inside, there was a shapeless blob that distinctly resembled earwax. “Don’t open it. Just light the whole packet.”
“What’s this stuff made out of?”
“Man, you don’t want to know. You folks need any extra blankets?”
“You won’t hear me saying no,” Des answered sweetly.
Jase went and opened a vacant room and came back with two heavy wool ones. Des thanked him and got busy piling them onto the bed. Outside, another tree gave way under the weight of the ice and crashed to the ground.
“Will you and Jory be okay tonight?” Mitch asked Jase, who’d retreated back out into the hall.
“Shoot, yeah. Got us a couple of kerosene space heaters out in the cottage. We’ll be fine. Have yourselves a good night.”
“Back at you, Jase,” Mitch said, closing the door after him. “He’s a nice guy. I couldn’t believe Carly called him a monkey right to his face.”
“She called him a what?”
“What’s that woman’s problem anyway?”
“Aaron brought his mistress here for the weekend. She’s totally bugging.”
“Are we talking about Hannah?”
“We are.”
“So that explains the evil eye Carly was giving her during dinner.” Mitch set the packet of Firestarter 2 under the logs he’d stacked in the fireplace and lit a match to it. The waxy blob flamed blue, much like a can of Sterno. Actually, it smelled a lot like Sterno. Whatever it was, it worked-the logs caught quickly and began to crackle. Mitch sat back on his ample haunches and watched them. “Carly’s a lot more crush-worthy, if you ask me.”
“She’s also a lot older than Aaron,” Des said from the bathroom, where she was already brushing her teeth. She got ready for bed faster than any woman he’d ever known.
“Really? How much older?”
“Sorry. Girls never tell on each other.”
“Why is that?”
“Because we have to trust one another. We sure can’t put any faith in our husbands.”
“Hey, I resent that. It so happens I was a husband once.”
“My bad. But that woman has taken just about all she can handle, Mitch. Aaron’s a total raw dog.”
“He’s a mess is what he is,” Mitch said, piling two more logs onto the fire. “A classic case of the Pip Syndrome.”
“The wha-a-a…?” She was gargling with mineral water now.
“His dad was a real dynamic person, sounds like. And we know his grandmother is. So he’s always carried around this weight of great expectations. Aaron is desperate to prove to everyone, particularly Ada, that he matters. But, believe me, when he looks in the mirror he doesn’t see a man who matters. He sees an overweight geek who couldn’t get a date to the prom. I feel sorry for him, actually. That is not a happy camper.”
“Your toothbrush awaits you, m’lord,” Des informed him, padding back barefoot from the bathroom in one of their Astrid’s Castle nightshirts, her trousers thrown over one arm.
Mitch gaped at her as she moved around the room. He couldn’t help it. The merest glimpse at the way that flannel was clinging to her incomparable booty was enough to send his engine racing right into the red zone. His mouth went dry, his palms tingled. A vein began to throb in his forehead. “Tell me,” he croaked, “why did you drop your napkin on the floor?”
“I was checking to see if Aaron and Hannah were playing footsie under the table,” she replied, draping her trousers neatly over the desk chair.
“And were they?”
“They weren’t.”
“Interesting. You don’t suppose Carly’s imagining this whole thing, do you? Because Hannah hardly seems like… Freeze frame, was someone else playing footsie?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Des pulled back the covers on the bed and dived in, shivering and whooping. “God, it is freeeezing in here!”
“Well, who was it? Give it up.”
“Not until you get your hot bod in here with me. Come on, move your pink butt. Your girlfriend needs warming up.”
Mitch needed no more in the way of encouragement. Quickly, he brushed his teeth, tore off his own clothes and joined her. Des’s teeth were chattering, her hands and feet like ice. She snuggled close, one incredibly long, smooth leg thrown over him, her head on his chest. As Mitch held her there under the mountain of covers, warming her, he watched the reflection of the flames dance across the ceiling and walls. He listened to the storm rage outside. And he remembered to be happy. Happy he was sharing this moment with her. Happy that she was such a big part of his life.
And here is what Mitch was thinking: If only we could stay like this forever. If only things didn’t have to change. If only WE didn’t have to change. But we do, we do…
“So talk,” he said to her. “Give it up.”
“It was Norma and Teddy.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. Norma’s stocking toes were in Teddy’s lap.”
“So the two of them are…?”
“You now know as much as I do.”
“Des, can I tell you something I’m not very proud of?”
Her eyes met his slowly in the firelight. “Mitch, you can tell me anything.”
“I have trouble picturing two people that age having sex together. I mean, they’re as old as my parents.”
“Well, you’d better start picturing it,” she chided him. “Because you’re going to be that age yourself one day, and I expect you to be having sex with me regularly and with great…” She drew back from him suddenly. “God, shoot me right now. I can’t believe what just came out of my girl hole.”
“Which was…?”
“That what we have going is… that we might still be together in thirty years. Or thirty days. Make that thirty minutes. I had no business going there. Forget you ever heard it. Erase it from your hard drive, will you?”
“It’s a duh-deal…” Suddenly, Mitch had great difficulty swallowing. That same damned melon-sized lump had formed in his throat. “You’re awfully funny sometimes, know that?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m a regular Henry Youngman.”
“It’s Henny Yuh-youngman,” he gulped.
Now she was glaring at him in the firelight. Here it was-Her Wary, Scary Look. “Mitch, have you got something you want to say to me?” she demanded stiffly.
“Absolutely not. Why would you suh-say that?”
“No… reason.” Her eyes widened with alarm. She’d started breathing in ragged, uneven gasps. Plus her entire body was clenched tight.
“Des, is something wrong?”
“Absolutely… not. Why would… you… ask me that?”
“No reason.”
“It’s just… I’m still cold, that’s all.” She raised her nightshirt over her head and flung it aside. “Why don’t you see what you can do about it?”
“You sure you’re…?”
“I’m fine,” she purred, her naked body taut and elastic against his, her flesh satiny.
He closed his eyes and buried his nose in the long, sweet hollow of her throat, inhaling the spicy fragrance that made him dizzy with longing.
“Ada likes my work,” she whispered after a moment, her breath warm on his face. “She thinks I’m gifted.”
“She’s right, you are.”
“But she wants me to get out of the academy. She thinks they’ll try to control me.”
“She’s right again.”