We're tightening the final ratchet straps when a sound cuts through the silence of the valley.
It starts as a low whine, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, then grows into a high-pitched roar that rolls down the valley.
I look up, shielding my eyes against the glare. A snowmobile is tearing across the white expanse of the lake. It's moving fast, too fast, throwing up a massive rooster tail of powder in its wake.
Nash doesn't look surprised. He doesn't even look up from the knot he's tying.
"May," he says simply.
"May?"
"May Sweeney. She runs the diner in town. And the post office. And the rumor mill. Usually from the same counter."
The snowmobile roars up the bank, catching air as it hits the rise, and skids to a halt ten feet from us in a spray of ice crystals. The engine dies, and the silence rushes back in, ringing in my ears.
The driver climbs off. She's a woman of indeterminate age, somewhere between fifty and timeless. She's wearing a massive fur hat that adds six inches to her height, and a parka that looks like it has survived several wars and possibly a bear attack. She moves with the bowlegged swagger of a woman who learned to walk on frozen ground and never quite trusted dry land after.
She marches straight up to Nash, ignores his outstretched hand, and smacks him hard on the arm.
"You didn't answer your radio," she accuses. Her voice is like gravel in a blender—rough, loud, and impossible to ignore.
"I was busy," Nash says, rubbing his bicep. "I had the radio off."
"You were brooding," she corrects. "I know your brooding face, Nash Hollister. You turn the radio off so you can stare at the mountains and feel tragic about your life choices."
She turns those laser-focused blue eyes on me. I feel suddenly like I'm being scanned by an MRI machine that detects fear and insecurity.
"And this must be the doctor," she says. "The one causing all the fuss."
"Dr. Aris Thorne," I say, stepping forward and extending a gloved hand. "I hope I'm not causing a fuss."
"Honey, in Port Promise, a new face is a fuss. A new face with a PhD and a government grant is a headline. If you sneeze, three people in town will offer you a Kleenex before you're done inhaling."
She shakes my hand firmly. Her grip is like iron.
"I'm May," she says. "If you need food, mail, or to know who is sleeping with whom, you come to me. If you need anything else, you're in the wrong town."
She reaches into the cargo box of her snowmobile and pulls out a wicker basket covered in a red checkered cloth. It looks out of place against the snow and the heavy machinery, something out of a fairytale, if Red Riding Hood drove a Polaris 800.
"I come bearing gifts," she says, marching over to the sled. "Because I know for a fact that Nash's idea of 'breakfast' is usually black coffee and staring at a map until he gets hungry enough to eat beef jerky."
"I made oatmeal," Nash says. He sounds almost offended.
May pauses. She looks at him, then at me, then back at him. Her eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline, disappearing under the fur hat.
"You cooked?" she asks. The skepticism in her voice is thick enough to walk on.
"I can cook," Nash says defensively. He crosses his arms over his chest.
"You can cook," May agrees. "You just usually don't. Last year, you told that lawyer from Chicago that if he wanted a hot breakfast, he could set himself on fire."
I snort. I can't help it. The sound escapes before I can clamp a hand over my mouth.
Nash glares at me. His ears are turning a distinct shade of pink against the collar of his jacket.
"She has dietary restrictions," Nash mutters, grabbing a bungee cord and yanking it tighter than necessary. "She doesn't eat meat. I couldn't just feed her pemmican."
"Mmm-hmm." May looks at me with a new, speculative gleam in her eye. She looks from Nash's flushed ears to my amused expression. "Dietary restrictions. Is that what we're calling it?"
