“That’s the last of it.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Do you want me to drive the truck back to the U-Haul station?”
I dug into my pocket for the cash I’d grabbed at the gas station. “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“No problem.”
I peeled off a few hundred dollar bills and handed it to him.
He paused before taking it.
“Don’t worry about the mirror.”
“You sure?”
“Won’t make a difference, believe me.” I tucked the bills into his hand. I followed him out and dispersed the tip money to the other guys who were eager to be on their way, but happy with the bonus cash on top of whatever my publisher had already paid them.
The snow was rapidly piling up on the gravel lane.
“Sure you’ll be good?”
Dylan nodded. “Oh, yeah this is nothing.” He hopped into the driver side of the truck. “You should have seen the storm right after New Year’s. I had to shovel out the Winter Wonderland with a backhoe.”
I didn’t know what a Winter Wonderland was and didn’t bother to ask. “If you say so.”
He jerked his head toward the guy sitting next to him in the cab of the truck. “Phil will drop me off after. I’ll plow you out tomorrow, if you need me earlier give me a call. It builds up quick out here.”
I wasn’t sure how to get a hold of him, but nodded. Maybe if I got snowed in, then I’d actually write. I backed up as he started the ancient moving van. The kid waved, as did the other young guys now that they were free for the day with cash in their pockets.
The lure of the water drew me to the stone wall as I looked out over the beach. Snow had piled up like icing over the slick stones. My dark hair turned to crystals, but I still couldn’t pull my gaze away.
The Bay had called to me with my first million dollar advance but my condo had nothing on the vast expanse of this random lake in nowhere New York. My gaze tracked from the churning rocks to the white cottage across the road. A flash of something gold pulled my eye to her porch. Under the patinated copper awning was a large egg-shaped swing. In the center of a torrent of blankets, the woman from the beach was curled up like a cat with only her cheeks and nose showing.
Damn fool.
It was barely thirty degrees.
The urge to go and check on her annoyed me enough to drive me back into my house. I didn’t need to get involved with some weird neighbor. If she wanted to freeze her ass off in a storm that was her business.
I turned on some Breaking Benjamin and unpacked one of the dozen boxes of books in the living room. The first one was a mix of non-fiction and folklore born from random research I used for my novels. Twelve years in publishing and thirty books to my name had amassed an eclectic stockpile of titles.
I broke down the box and took it to the door to toss on my porch. More snow had fallen, obscuring the craggy lane that stretched between our properties. The lump in the swing was still suspiciously human shaped. What the devil was she doing out there still?
I rubbed my arms against the bite from the wind that lifted off the water and crackled through the overhead branches lined in ice and snow.
“Not your problem,” I muttered to myself.
I closed my door firmly and crossed to the fireplace. Wood had been laid inside by the owner of the cottage who had handled the rental. I found matches in a jar on the mantel and sacrificed some packing paper for starter. When the snap and pop of fire filled the room, I changed over the album to the dramatic, soaring voice of Myles Kennedy from Alter Bridge.
The complicated lyrics of longing and pain suited my mood.
Made me think.
And still my gaze continued to stray to the white cottage each time I emptied a box.
My overactive imagination specialized in horror and desperation. In psychological warfare that suited the slick, cold stones and cloying snow that climbed off the beach like crystalline fingers. The slate gray sky held an orange tinge of sun strangled snow. How long until a body slipped into hypothermia even under a pile of blankets?
My stomach roared with hunger, making me check my watch.
It was nearly noon.
