Page 15

CHAPTER 15

W e rolled into Rocky Start around midnight. The roads had been bad, and I had made some distance on foot since leaving over two weeks ago. There were streetlights on State Street but no sign of life. The proverbial pulling up of the sidewalks or rolling them up or whatever it was. I could see Oddities straight ahead, one light burning inside, and my heart suddenly pounded harder.

What the hell?

What did that mean? Heart failure? Damn, Rosalie Malone.

Tanke stopped the truck in front of Oddities, staring straight ahead while Dmitri looked over his shoulder at me, probably noticing my breath had quickened. “Enjoy your welcome home, Max Reddy.” He grinned.

“Are you going to Betty Baumgarten’s?” I asked.

He shook his head. “If I approach her now in the darkness, it is very likely she will shoot me. Again. She will need time to warm to my presence. Perhaps you could inform her in the morning that I would like to call upon her sometime this week?”

Right. Tell Betty the Russian she’d shot decades earlier wanted to say hello. “Sure. Does she know you’re coming?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

I owed Dmitri that much, since he’d pretty much saved my life. Maybe. Beyond that, I didn’t trust him at all. I nodded at him and got out of the truck and grabbed my rucksack from the bed, and then I went up to the door and knocked on it.

Rose was behind the counter working on something, and she jerked her head up when she saw me, but she didn’t come open the door, just stood there frozen. Even in the dim light, she looked good. Terrified, but good. And then it occurred to me that she probably couldn’t see who it was. “Rose, it’s me,” I called, and she dropped what she’d been working on and ran around the counter and pulled the chain off the door.

“Max,” she said, her voice a little higher than I remembered it, and then she stepped back so I could come in.

And then we stood there for a minute. I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was a long moment when I don’t think either one of us knew what to do. So I said, “I’m back.”

She reached up and touched my face. “With a beard,” she said, sounding as off-balance as I was. “That’s . . . different.”

She didn’t like the beard? “In cold weather, shaving removes essential oils and?—”

She shook her head. “No, the beard is fine. I’m just . . . I’m glad you’ve come home.”

That hit hard. I was home. “Yeah, me, too,” I said.

She nodded and then leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

“Really?” I said, and then she put her arms around my neck and moved close, and she smelled like roses, and I kissed her and she tasted like chocolate, and then I felt her give way against my mouth and we just stayed like that for a while, holding on to each other tightly. It had been too long, and I was just so damn glad to be with her again, to feel her pressed up against me?—

Somebody banged on the door.

Rose jerked back and looked through the window. “Who is that?”

“The Russian who rescued me,” I said, grimly. “Alexei Dmitri. His minion, Tanke, is in the truck.”

“Pike and Ozzie’s Dmitri?”

“Yeah.” She was so close and I didn’t want to let go of her, but Dmitri knocked on the door again.

“He has a minion?”

“Yeah. A very big one.”

“Why is he here?”

“Long story. Very boring.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“He saved my life. I think. Either that or he sent two assassins after me and then killed them so I’d like him.”

Rose looked horrified.

Dmitri knocked again, harder this time.

I opened the door and snapped, “ What? ” to Dmitri.

“I have just learned via phone that there are no rooms in Bearton,” he said, smiling at Rose. “Nor do you have accommodations for strangers in this town. Is it possible you have beds for my friend and me tonight?”

“No,” I said, but Rose put her hand on my chest and said, “Yes. Wait here.”

She went back to the counter, taking all that heat and softness and the smell of roses with her while I glared at Dmitri, who was enjoying himself. When she came back, she handed him some keys and said, “Two stores diagonally on your right is the Nice Funerals building. There’s an apartment upstairs you can use for a couple of days until we can figure out something better. There’s a bed in one room, a couch in another. Please don’t kill anybody while you’re here.”

“You are a lovely lady, Miss Rose, and we thank you,” Dmitri said, giving Rose a slight bow, and I shut the door in his face, narrowly missing his forehead, and pulled Rose back to me.

“I need a shower,” I whispered in her ear, “and I’m afraid of drowning.”

She laughed then and softened against me again, and I was going in for another kiss when Dmitri banged on the door again.

I opened it and said, “Dmitri, if you knock on this door one more time?—”

“Unfortunately, we have not eaten,” Dmitri said, “and every place is closed. I, myself, can do without, but Tanke requires much nourishment.” He put on a sad face which seemed like the inverse of Rose’s Cheery Boost.

“ I don’t care ,” I began, but Rose patted my chest again, went out to the kitchen, and came back with a foil-covered pan that I was pretty sure was leftover lasagna, a baguette, and a bottle of wine.

“Microwave it,” she said, handing the pan and everything else to Dmitri, ignoring my protests. “Coral opens for breakfast at seven AM next door, but she’ll probably let you in at six when she starts baking. You and your friend have a good night, Dmitri.”

Dmitri bowed over his pan of my lasagna. “You are an angel, Rosalie Malone.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Rose said, and I shut the door.

“That was my lasagna,” I said.

“There’s another whole pan in the fridge,” she said and kissed me, arching into me now, not tentative at all, soft under my hands.

“I wasn’t sure what it would be like with us after two weeks,” she whispered, smiling. “But I’m beginning to remember.”

“I never forgot,” I said, and then she kissed me again, and we spent a few minutes necking like teenagers until Maggs came down the stairs, saw me, and threw herself at me.

“Easy! Easy!” I said, letting go of Rose to catch my dog, scratching her behind her ears as Poppy came down the stairs after her.

“We heard a scream,” Poppy said, half asleep, and then she saw me. “Max!” She ran up and threw her arms around me and Maggs. “You’re back!”

“Yep,” I said, patting her on the back, not sure what else to do but feeling gratified all the same.

“And you have a beard!” she said, and I began to think the beard had to go. It had kept me warm, but I didn’t want to talk about it every time I met somebody. And with Rose so close, keeping warm was not a problem anymore.

Then Maggs pawed at the door, and I noticed Rose wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I heard a scream just now, too,” she said, listening now. “Not Coral’s, the other direction. I think somebody’s in troub?—”

There was another scream, and then somebody pounded on the door, and I decided Dmitri was going to die, but when Rose opened it, it was Hermione Witch. In bunny pajamas.

“ Russians have invaded the funeral home! ” she screamed. “ They tried to kill me! ”

“Stop it,” Rose said calmly. “They didn’t try to kill you. They’re staying there for the night. Why were you there?”

“ They’re the ones killing everybody in town! ”

“They just got into town fifteen minutes ago. They’re not killing anybody,” Rose said, which I thought was optimistic on her part, but she was so calm that Hermione was slowing down, too.

“I was asleep and they came tromping in ,” Hermione said, breathing heavy. “I screamed and they said something in Russian , and I ran.”

“Hermione,” Rose said, “why were you sleeping in Geoffrey’s apartment?”

Hermione’s chin went up. “I had permission from the owner.”

“You did not,” Rose said.

“You don’t know that,” Hermione said, sounding like the world’s oldest teenager.

“Yes, I do. Geoffrey’s dead and I own Nice Funerals.”

Okay, that was news to me. “Since when?” I asked.

“Since you went to the Appalachian Trail and Barry came down the street to tell me that Geoffrey had left me everything,” Rose said. “Evidently he’d made a will years ago.”

I decided I didn’t care, although there was something disturbing about a serial killer making Rose his heir. I looked past Rose to Hermione. “Go away.”

“I don’t have any place to go,” she wailed.

Rose frowned at her. “I thought you were staying at Bea’s.”

Hermione sniffed. “She, uh, asked me to leave. She was really very cruel. She said I was incompetent and accused me of stealing from her.”

“Did you?” Rose asked.

“No, I borrowed ? — ”

“Hermione, you have to ask first for it to be borrowing. The same with squatting.”

“It’s not like anyone was using Geoffrey’s place,” she said.

Rose took a deep breath. “Go back to Bea and tell her I sent you there and that you’ll find a place in the morning. Do not go back to Nice Funerals . . .” She stopped and frowned. “How did you get in to Nice Funerals?”

Hermione’s chin went up again. “The back door was unlocked.”

Rose frowned at her. “It was not.”

“It was too,” Hermione insisted.

I really wasn’t in the mood for this. “Did you break in?”

“The lock was really old,” Hermione said, which I took as a yes.

“Well, the Russians are there now,” Rose said. “Go back to Bea’s.”

“I could stay in Oz’s apartment,” Hermione said, smiling now. “That would be a good thing you could do. I’m sure Oz would want me to have it.”

“Ozzie’s apartment is occupied,” Poppy said from behind me, sounding much colder than when she’d hugged me. “And he never knew you existed, so he wouldn’t want you to have anything.”

“Go back to Bea, Hermione,” Rose said, and Hermione whined, and Rose shut the door. “Crisis over, back to bed, Pops,” she said to her daughter, and Poppy kissed me on the cheek and hugged her mother and went back upstairs with my dog.

When she was gone, Rose grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me close again.

“ I missed you, ” she said, and that hit me hard again, in a really good way.

“I missed you, too,” I said.

“ I love you ,” she said, and I exhaled and said, “I love you, too,” and meant it.

She kissed me again, threading her hand through my shaggy hair, holding my mouth to hers. She didn’t need to hold on, I wasn’t going anywhere, but God, it was good to be so wanted. She felt so right, the place I needed to be.

“I’m so glad you’re here ,” she whispered when we finally broke the kiss to breathe. Then she patted my face and laughed softly. “Even with the beard.”

“I can shave?—”

She shook her head. “Leave it. Let’s see how we feel about it. Are you hungry? I do have more lasagna.”

I put my forehead on her shoulder, just for a minute, just to get a grip. I wasn’t freezing to death, nobody was trying to kill me, Rose was warm and loving in my arms, and there was lasagna.

I really was home. I really had a home.

“Yes,” I said when I could speak. “I’m very hungry.” And I kissed her again.

“Good,” she said against my mouth, and then she tugged me back toward the kitchen, which would be warm and full of great smells, with a long table that could feed a lot of people and a big bay window to let in the morning light.

Home.

I had one fleeting moment when the old me thought, Don’t get comfortable, don’t be a fool, nothing lasts, this might be a trick, and then I buried that fucking voice and followed the woman I loved into our kitchen.