face, grabbed the tool kit out of the utility room and took me out to the alley. Using an awl and a hammer, she carefully tapped at the top of the rock.
“Evie, what are you—”
“Shh. I’m concentrating,” she said, chewing her lip. “I haven’t done this in a couple of years.”
With one final ringing tap, the rock split open. Even in the dim light of the alley, I could make out the glimmer of milky crystal surrounded by dark slate-colored agate.
“It’s a thunderegg,” Evie said, her eyes twinkling. “The ancients believed that when the thunder spirits in the mountains were angry, they’d chuck these things at one another. It takes just the right geological conditions to make them, and they’re pretty rare, even around here.”
Thanks to my hippie parents, I’d seen a lot of crystals and geodes in my day but nothing compared to this. The patterns, the dance of light across even the rough slice, were hypnotic. “But why would someone leave one on the bar? As a tip?”
“It’s for you, for your birthday.”
I rolled my eyes. “Evie, it could be for anyone. Some tourist could have just left it there by accident.”
“Do you see anyone else turning thirty around here?”
“OK, if it’s for my birthday, who’s it from? Why didn’t they leave a card?” I asked.
“Sometimes the gift is message enough,” she said in her “wise” tone. “Fine, I saw him drop it off. I think someone feels a little guilty over how he’s treated you.”
“Cooper? But he—he—” He howls at the moon and murders defenseless elk.
“He doesn’t like me,” I finished lamely.
“Aw, honey, he’s been nicer to you than he is to most of the locals. Sometimes a man just has to pull your pigtails a few times before he can deign to admit that he likes you. Honestly, I don’t know why we put up with any of them. You just wait and see. He’s coming around.”
“I don’t see how not insulting me or openly sneering at me for a few days can be considered being nice to me.” I snorted weakly. I looked down at my watch. I was supposed to be at Alan’s house in an hour. “Crap. I’ve got a date.”
“Well, that’s the right attitude to head into a date with,” she said, smirking.
“Alan’s fixing me dinner.”
Evie sighed. Loudly.
“What?”
“Mo, it’s not that I don’t like Alan. I love him to death, but he’s not right for you. You need a challenge . . . like, say, my idiot cousin, who apparently doesn’t know about signing gift cards so he can get credit for what is clearly a romantic gesture. A weak and somewhat backward romantic gesture, but—”
“Evie,” I huffed in a warning tone.
“Cooper needs someone who won’t put up with his surly crap, someone who will sift through all that and find the great guy he used to be. And you, you need someone who’s going to make you work a little bit. And Cooper will make you work like a dog just to get him to ask you out.”
“Well, you make it sound so appealing,” I muttered. “And what do you mean, the great guy he used to be?”
She preened. “I have you intrigued now, don’t I?”
I glared at her.
“Look, I’ve watched you every day since you moved here. You don’t trust anything that comes to you too easily. And Alan is the definition of easy-going. Anything you have with him will be doomed from the start.”
“It will be now that you’ve put your evil date voodoo on it. Jesus, Evie!” I pushed to my feet and shoved the thunderegg back into the gift box.
“OK, ‘doomed from the start’ was probably going a bit too far,” she said, following me to my truck. “I just think you need to be careful how you handle this.”
“I will be.” I slid into Lucille’s driver’s seat, rolled my window down, and started the ignition, all the while glaring at her. “If I go into your office and find an Alan doll with pins stuck in its crotch, I will be super-pissed.”
I drove at highly illegal speeds to get home. I put the thunderegg on my mantel, rushed into the shower, and spent fifteen minutes scrubbing Eau de Blue Plate Special from my general person. And then another fifteen debating among the few nicer outfits I’d brought with me. I was torn between a sweater and jeans and a low-cut red party dress, which was a little too much for a dinner in.
I settled on jeans and a sky-blue silk blouse that brought out the color of my eyes, a birthday gift from Kara the previous year. With her in mind, I put on my silver charm bracelet as I thumbed through my bathroom drawer searching for my eyeliner, which I hadn’t used since I moved. Overall, the effect was quite nice, considering I’d been assembling tuna melts only an hour before.
I managed to slide into Alan’s driveway two minutes early, which I figured was polite but not desperate. And because I was physically incapable of not bringing some sort of hospitality offering with me, I presented Alan with a batch of chocolate chess squares when he opened the door.
“I told you, just bring yourself,” he said, feigning a stern tone. I fought against the giggle forming in response to the little plaid apron he was wearing over shirt and jeans. He said, “I have dessert covered.”
Just then, the loud screeching of a smoke alarm sounded over Alan’s shoulder. As he turned, I could see smoke billowing from the kitchen. Alan paled. “Oh, shit.”
I chuckled. “Would that be the dessert you have covered?”
Alan dashed into the inferno and came back with what appeared to be a large charcoal briquette. I assumed that at one point, it was a pan of brownies. Alan chewed his lip. “You know, with enough icing, it might not be half bad.”
“Alan, take the chess squares, and stop being stubborn.”
“Thank God, my hands are freaking burning!” he yowled, ending his manly acceptance of second-degree burns by tossing the burning lump into the bushes.
“Don’t you want to salvage the pan or something?” I asked as he ushered me into the house.
“Nah, I’ll get it later. The stench will keep the bears away.”
“Nice,” I said, snickering as he led me into the great room, a combination dining room, living room, and office. In the corner, I could see a radio, several maps on the walls, a huge first-aid kit, all of the equipment you’d expect a forest ranger to need on hand. But the rest of the house was all Alan, exactly how you’d expect a single man living in the woods to decorate his home. We’re talking a lot of plaid and hunting trophies. But it was clean and tidy. There was a comfortable little blaze going in the big stone fireplace and a pretty pine rocker next to the hearth. The table was set with dishes that matched and wine glasses that didn’t. There was a basketball-sized bunch of blue petals blooming from an old crockery pitcher on the table. And the smell of slightly singed brownie filled the house.
“Forget-me-nots?” I asked, rubbing my fingers against the tiny, velvety blue petals. He nodded. “That’s very sweet.”
Alan shrugged. “Well, it sounds nicer than eating by a bouquet of wooly lousewart.”
I considered that for a moment. “That it does.”
“I wasn’t kidding about the Stouffer’s box. Tonight’s menu consists of bagged salad and frozen lasagna. I don’t cook for myself much, which is why I come to the saloon for most of my meals. Well, it’s not the only reason,” he said, winking at me. “The company isn’t bad.”
“Yes, Abner, Buzz, and Leonard are charming,” I conceded. “I appreciate not having to cook. I’m sure anything you serve will be great . . . with the obvious exception of the brownies. Can I help with anything?”
“Nope, you just sit, and I’ll get everything on the table.” I climbed up onto a bar stool near his kitchen counter, watching as he got dinner on the table with all the agility of a wounded moose. I would have offered to help, but I figured it was a point of pride for him. All I could do was watch, cringe, and try to make polite chitchat. As we ate, we talked about his job, his huge family back in Montana, how he had adjusted to life in Alaska.
“It really wasn’t that different from home,” he said as he tried to dish a third square of lasagna onto my plate. Stuffed beyond capacity, I waved it off as I poured both of us healthy glasses of red wine. “The same kind of weather. The same kind of rough living. I missed my family a lot at first. I’m the only one of seven kids to have moved off the ranch. Everybody else married and set up house right there with my parents in a sort of complex of those prefab houses. I told my dad if they added too many more, they’d end up on the news like those weird
