“Is now.”
Another time North observed, “Reckon you and me are alike. Neither one of us care what folks think.”
“Don’t I care?”
“Wouldn’t put on that dang fool voice if you did.”
“True.”
“Ain’t usin’ it now. Must have forgotten.”
“No use putting it on with you,” Randall pointed out. “You don’t fall for it.”
North merely grinned.
Randall began to be aware of the land. Though it was still hidden under the snow he found he’d developed a feel for it, almost as though it were his own.
Many a day he would rise and watch the dawn, when the world glowed pink and purple under the morning moon. And in the late afternoon he would slip out alone to see the sunset. The unbelievable beauty of the snow with the red and yellow light on it took his breath away.
Sometimes Claire would come and stand beside him, and they would watch together in silence. Once she asked, “Is it as lovely as this in England?”
“Yes,” he said. “But softer, more pastel colored.”
“Do you miss it?”
He thought of the pearly light over the corn, the gentle rustle of the stream he’d fished as a boy, the willow bowing its head into the water.
“Yes,” he said. “I miss it.”
And for once he wasn’t alive to her reaction, and didn’t see the look she gave him.
Another time, when the last light had almost gone, and a breathless hush lay on the land, Randall almost found the words to speak of the feelings that were growing in him, for her. But she spoke first, looking up into the sky.
“What do you think Gabe is doing now?” she whispered.
And his words died, unspoken.
His body, too long trapped behind a desk, grew iron hard under the rigors of winter work. He began to fill out, but it was muscle, not fat. There was a vibrancy about his flesh that made him alive to new sensations as he hadn’t been for years. And the sensation that plagued him most was his growing desire for Claire.
He’d wanted women before, but seldom felt such pressing desire for one he couldn’t have. The rare women who refused were casually asked and soon forgotten. But Claire was different. She mattered. Because she mattered, he minded that he couldn’t have her. And because he couldn’t have her, she mattered more than ever.
She enchanted him as no woman ever had. He loved-that is, he was attracted by-her defiant courage and her flashes of vulnerability. He was entranced at the way she tried not to find his British humor funny, and the little gurgle she gave when she was defeated. But what made his head spin with total delight was the feeling that something was about to happen between them. He didn’t know what, or when. But it was going to be momentous.
One night Randall was awoken by a sound downstairs. He listened and it came again, a kind of scratching. Pulling on jeans and a shirt he made his way along the corridor and halfway down the stairs to where he could see the big main room, lit by only one table lamp, beside the leather sofa.
North was by the bookshelf, going from book to book, studying titles with such fierce concentration that he didn’t hear Randall. At last he found what he was looking for, pulled it out and went to stretch out on the sofa. He glanced up as Randall came down the rest of the way.
“Mrs. McBride don’t mind me looking at her books,” he explained. “She says nobody else ever does.”
Randall collected the whiskey bottle and a couple of glasses. “Charles Dickens,” he said, observing the spine.
“Began on him when I came here last summer. Goin’ through, book by book.”
Randall was startled. In all his time at Eton and Oxford he’d never come across anyone who read their way right through the collected works of Dickens even for study, let alone for pleasure. He put a glass of whiskey by North’s elbow, and settled himself comfortably in a leather armchair. The fire had burned low but it was still pleasantly warm.
North jabbed at the book. “I tell you, this guy knew how to tell a story. That Miss Havisham, she was just like my Aunt Nell. Ol’ Nellie took a shine to this fellow, had the weddin’ all set, then he rolled in the hay with her cousin.”
“Did she live in her wedding dress for twenty years?”
“Nope, but she threatened and cussed every man she saw after that. Kept a shotgun in the corner, ’case a man showed his face.”
Randall eyed him, fascinated. “How long will it take you to get right through Dickens?” he asked.
“Maybe until next summer,” North said. “Then I’ll go. Don’t like to hang around.”
They sipped their whiskey in companionable silence. Randall leaned back in the armchair and studied the ceiling.
“You really gonna ride Nailer tomorrow?” North asked after awhile.
“Guess so.”
Another long silence.
“You’re a fool,” North observed.
“Must be.”
“Know why he’s called Nailer?”
“Probably for something I’d rather not know about.”
“’Cause he’s a brute who’ll ‘nail ya’ if he can.”
“Reckoned it was something like that.”
“Wouldn’t ride him if I was you.”
“Yes, you would,” Randall said with conviction.
North considered this. “Guess I would at that,” he said at last. “But then I’m used to him. I know he throws to the left, so you gotta lean to the right.”
“Then won’t he start leaning to the right?”
“Nope, ’cause he’s stupid. Mean and stupid. And he likes to get you off in the first two seconds, ’fore you can settle. If he doesn’t manage that it gets him good ’n’ mad.”
“But do I want to get him good ’n’ mad?” Randall asked plaintively. “I’m shaking with fear as it is.”
“Yep, I noticed that,” North said with a grin.
“So what else can you tell me about Nailer?”
“Well, he-” North stopped and a cunning look came over his lean, amiable features. “Make a deal?”
“Anything you like.”
“No kiddin’. There’s something I want real bad.”
“Anything in my power.”
“But no telling the others, right?”
“It’ll be just between us,” Randall assured him, growing more mystified by the minute.
