I’d imagined entering the Washington County First Responders Fundraising Gala with Mia on my arm, throwing a sizable check into their coffers, and then taking her out for coffee and pie at the diner afterwards. I’d tell her a funny story. And she’d laugh, and touch my arm. I didn’t have any funny stories, of course, but this was a daydream, dang it, and in it I was hilarious, charming, charismatic.
Somebody else, I guess.
Not the kind of man who unwittingly chased a woman out of his home in a deadly thunderstorm. I should have met her at my place in town, but my head was full of nonsense visions of sitting with her up here, in the cabin I’d built with my own two hands, where I’d always longed to have someone to share the couch by the fireplace.
I refilled her water and grabbed her plate of food, and ran both into her room, set it on the chair next to her. “I’ll grab you some clothes,” I said.
I rifled around in my drawer and found a flannel and an old pair of long johns, probably her best bet for fitting into any of my clothes without them falling off her.
When I turned around, she was struggling to sit up, her eyes squeezed shut in pain.
“Let me help you.” I waited to see if it was okay with her. When she didn’t protest, I knelt by her to put an arm around her and helped her up to sitting. I stuffed a few pillows behind her to prop her up, set one on her lap, and rested the plate on top. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It isn’t much. Some cured venison from last season, and a bit of cheese, and an apricot jam Mrs. Skelly made for us down at the station. Back when I was a sheriff. I never opened it, so it should still be good.”
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded small, compared to last night, or even the first time we’d met. She picked up one slice of the venison and one of the cheese, and popped them into her mouth, and I felt a huge sense of relief wash over me. At least she was eating something.
“Ibuprofen is there,” I said, pointing to the other little dish on the chair. “When you’re ready. And here are some clothes to wear.” I draped the pants and shirt over the back of the chair. “I’ll hang yours up near the fire, since we can’t get a break with this weather.”
Big drops started to lash at the windows again.
She eyed the pills and the clothes.
“You really don’t remember me, do you?” I didn’t even want to remind her of it, anymore. It made me seem like a stalker. And wasn’t I? But I felt obligated to come clean on how I knew her.
And she didn’t know me.
She scooped up the jam with a slice of cheese and shoved it into her mouth. She shook her head.
“I carried you out of the fire. Down at the club.”
“That was a fireman,” she said.
“It wasn’t,” I said. “It was a sheriff. Me. Marmot.”
“He had a big handlebar mustache. I remember that much.”
“I shaved,” I said. “After I left the force. It didn’t suit me anymore.”
“You should grow it back,” she said.
I smiled. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
She reached for another slice of venison and grimaced, but pushed through for the food. She was a real trooper.
“Marmot,” she said. “Interesting name.”
I picked up the little dish of ibuprofen and sat on the chair next to her, so I wasn’t staring down on her like a vulture.
“It’s not the name my mom gave me. I had a buddy in the army who couldn’t hear so good when we first met. He’d been intoo many explosions the day before, started calling me Marmot, because that’s what he thought I said, and then it stuck.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Armin.”
“Also interesting,” she said. “Never heard it before.”
“My mother was Bosnian.”
“Well, next time you see her, tell her she gave you a great name.”
