“Morning,” he managed.
“Morning,” I answered.
When the mailman crunched back across the gravel in front of the porch, Luke slipped into the shadows.
“Sorry, miss,” the mailman began. “But I have to have the bag back. It’s U.S. Postal property.” The spider of a man looked as if he thought I might make a run for it with his official bag.
I dumped the rest of the mail out on the porch.
As the mailman watched me, I asked, “Want to buy one of the heads out by the fence?”
“Nope,” he answered, “but you got any more of those biscuits? Willie said you were selling them. Jefferson never had anything worth eating to sell with his coffee.”
I led him to the pass-through window.
Nana wrapped two more biscuits and passed them along with a small paper cup of coffee. “The coffee’s free to uniformed men,” she said, “but the biscuits will cost you.”
While the mailman folded back into his hatchback, a dented Mustang rattled down my road, pulling a flatbed trailer with two canoes. Boys, so young they must have been skipping school, asked if they could set their boats off from the dock.
I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. While Nana wrapped more biscuits, I helped them unload.
When I walked back from the dock, I noticed Luke standing by the side of the house watching. “Did you mean it about helping out?” I yelled.
“Yep,” he answered without looking overly interested.
I decided to spend a few more dollars of my traveling money. “I could pay you ten bucks an hour, plus meals, if you’d help me get this place in shape.”
He nodded once. “What’ll we do first?”
I looked around. The list was endless. “How about we clean out the rest of Jefferson’s things from upstairs?”
He followed me up and we worked without talking.
By noon, Nana had made twelve dollars in biscuit sales and I’d made another three off a deer head.
After a lunch of soup and sugar cookies-left over from our dollar-store raid-Nana decided to cut the good parts out of the pitiful apples I’d traded with Willie and make fried apple pies. While she baked, I tackled the boards covering the front windows.
I didn’t think it would be hard. I’d seen men put the hook of a hammer between a board and a wall, then pop it off. Only problem was whoever nailed the planks over the windows forgot to leave any room for the hook. After five minutes of struggling, I had splinters in my palm and had managed to hit myself in the knee with the hammer. All the boards were still in place.
Manual labor had never been my strong suit, but you’d think with two years of college I could manage to get a few boards down. I’d even tried using a few carpenter swear words Nana wouldn’t notice, like “screw you, you knot-holed plank.”
It didn’t work.
I wasn’t surprised when Luke stepped onto the porch and took the hammer away from me. I must have looked like an idiot. His big hand wrapped around the first board and with a tug he loosened it.
In the sunlight I could see that he wasn’t near as dirty as I thought. His clothes were worn, but relatively clean. He wore a pair of hiking boots and an old fishing jacket. He didn’t look directly at me. I caught myself wishing he would, just so I could see his blue eyes.
I shook my head, disgusted with myself. I wasn’t nearly as starved for a man as I was for color. It was pathetic.
While Luke worked, I sat on the porch and sorted the mail, tossing most of it in a plastic laundry basket with my uninjured hand.
He made easy work of the boards, then lifted them over his shoulder and carried them to one of the sheds. I’d waited for him to say something when he returned. He didn’t. I couldn’t think of any way to open a conversation.
To my surprise, he lowered on one knee beside my chair and pulled a knife from his pocket. It was one of those expensive kinds that could do anything. Pulling the tweezers from the end, he took my hand and began pulling out splinters with no regard to my yelps.
I tried to pull away several times, but he held my hand firmly against his bent knee until he was finished.
The nearness of him made me nervous. He wasn’t flirting; in fact, he wasn’t even friendly.
When he finally let go and folded up his knife, I cradled my hand and said, “Great bedside manner, Doc.”
He shrugged as if he could care less what I thought. “Get some antiseptic on that. Jefferson used to keep it in his desk drawer.”
After picking up the hammer, he was halfway to the shed when I yelled, “Thank you.”
He didn’t even turn around.
Wandering back inside, I opened a few bills addressed to Jefferson Platt. None were overdue, telling me that for some reason Uncle Jefferson paid his bills in advance.
Tucked between two shelves, I found a neat little office space complete with an old Hunter desk and a lamp. The half-moon desk had nothing on it but a dented juice can full of pencils, another ledger like the one I’d found beneath the cash register, and a half-used tube of antiseptic. The top of each shelf was lined with file boxes, dusty from years of storage. I made a mental note to check in them when I had the time. Anything that dusty couldn’t be too important and the reading would be no more interesting than the other ledger.
As I rubbed a few drops of the antiseptic on my palm, I searched the tiny office for any clue as to who Jefferson Platt had been. There were no personal documents. No pictures. Not even an old calendar with dates marked out. I opened the one file box I could reach to find receipts dated in the eighties.
I had the strange feeling Uncle Jefferson cleaned up everything in his office before he died. Or someone else had. How could he be so neat about some things and leave his rooms upstairs such a mess? I wasn’t surprised to find the second ledger empty. I almost felt like he’d counted his days off in the old ledger, then left the new one for me. But how could he have? I didn’t even know the man.
But Luke had. He’d even known where Jefferson kept the medicine. I decided I needed to have a long talk with Mr. Blue Eyes.
“Company coming up the road,” Nana yelled even before I heard a car.
I didn’t make it to the front door before someone pounded on it full force.
I thought of darting up the stairs and yelling that I’d seen enough strangers for one day, but whoever it was didn’t sound like he had much patience.
Reluctantly, I opened the door.
The uniformed man before me eclipsed the late-afternoon sun. He had to be close to six-six and wore a hat that added another three or four inches. The gun belt around his ample waist held enough ammo to wage war. Though he didn’t look much over forty, his sideburns were the same silver of his Colt.
“Miss Daniels?” He smiled down at me as if he were talking to a child. “Allie Daniels?”
“Yes.” I straightened to all five-feet-one of me and stared at the lawman. “May I help you?” The only reason I could imagine that he’d be here was that he’d figured out I wasn’t supposed to have this place and he’d come to evict me.
The huge man laughed. “You ain’t much bigger than a chigger, darlin’.”
I stepped back and waved him in as anger settled over nervousness. Why was it some people think it is fine to comment on my stature yet I can’t return the insult?
I mentally continued to add up the lawman’s crimes when he used an endearment. I swear, I’d been born hating men who call all women “dear” or “honey” or “darling.” It always made me feel more like a product than a person.
“Hot out there for September.” He walked into the store part of the main room and looked around as if he had a right to inspect the premises. “You’ve done a good job of cleaning up the place. Last time I was in here, Jefferson was closing it down and there was trash everywhere.”
He glanced back at me and straightened as he added, “I’m Sheriff Raymond Fletcher. Just dropped in to meet you and let you know I’m around if you have any problems.”
“I’m-”
