“Uh, Lawndale, outside of Philly,” Jack replied. “Why do you ask?”
“You have an East Coast accent,” I said with a shrug. “Not like you hear from folks around here, so I figured you must be a long way from home.”
“You don’t have a local accent either,” Jack said, frowning at me as though I’d insulted him. “You must be a long way from home, too.”
“Cape Girardeau,” I said. “But I don’t miss it. Folks are nicer here.”
“That’s good to hear,” Morgan said. “Though sometimes folks are too nice.”
“No such thing,” I said, and I meant it.
Inside my head, everything went still and quiet. I wanted to ask more, to pin down specifics about the young man that might be Blue’s fellow boxcar boy, but that would get me odd looks, besides, I needed to get back and tell Blue what I’d learned and let him decide what came next.
I tipped my fingers to my forehead and went back out to the truck. I didn’t have any leather wax to carry home with me, but some would be on the way. It’d cost ten dollars. I would pay Morgan in cash.
The drive to the cabin was quick, the truck barreling along the road hell-bent on returning me to the cabin so I could learn whether Blue would want to see Jack and make sure for himself as to Jack’s identity. Then maybe he’d want to leave, so as to not have to be in the same town as the person who he was sure hated him.
I didn’t know. I would find out. Duty pulled me all the way home without dawdling.
When I got there, Blue was waiting in the open doorway, in socked feet, his arms wrapped around his own waist. The sun was directly overhead and blinding as it bounced off the snow. I couldn’t see his expression. It wasn’t hidden by his fair hair in his eyes, but rather that he’d lowered his chin, and the shadows of the narrow eve shadowed his face.
He waited for me as though I’d been gone a long time, driving through chancy weather, which wasn’t the case at all. My steps to the front door after I’d parked the truck were slow. When I reached him, he reached for me, lacing his arms around my neck, pulling me to him, like someone long lost and precious to him.
“They didn’t have leather wax,” I said. My tongue was thick in my mouth. I took off my parka and unlaced my boots. Stuffed my gloves into the pockets of the parka. “It’s on special order.”
“Did we need leather wax?”
“No.” It was time for honesty. I dragged my fingers through my hair and took a sharp breath. “Maybe you had better sit down.”
Guiding him to sit at the kitchen table was the easy part. When he sat down, I dragged the other chair close and sat myself on it, thighs spread wide as I leaned forward to take his hands in mine.
“So,” I said, feeling the slender bones of his fingers beneath my thicker ones. Faint callouses. Bitten fingernails.
I looked up at his sweet face, that dark furrow between his eyebrows. Pink mouth drawn in a frown.
I knew the taste of that mouth. The softness of that skin. The feel of corn-silk hair against my cheek. I might not lose it all, but what came after the next step I needed to take was a vast unknown.
“I didn’t go to the store for leather wax.”
“No,” he said. “We already have some.”
“I went because.” I stopped. Then started. “There’s a young man staying at the feed and grain with Morgan, the owner. His name is Jack. I met him two weeks ago when I went into town on my snowmobile.” I paused so Blue would understand which day I meant. “He has dark hair and green eyes. Broad shoulders that he will grow into.” I made myself go on. “He said he was from Lawndale, a place just outside of Philly.”
Blue’s eyes went wide, and his hands went still inside my grasp. I saw the movement of his throat, the flutter of eyelashes. The faraway look in his eyes as he turned his head away.
“It must be him,” I said. “Mustn’t it.” This was not a question. “I saw three young where the train had stopped. This was the day the blizzard started. One of them was you, who I found in the snow.” I squeezed his hands to reassure him, though maybeI was reassuring myself. “One of them was Star and one of them was Jack. WasNimble. Am I right?”
That was a question, the answer to which needed to come from Blue. But I could already see it in his eyes as he stood up and drew his hands from mine. I went to him where he stood in the middle of the small cabin.
His shoulders were stiff, but I didn’t touch him, though my hands came up and curved in the air over his shoulders.
“I think you’re right,” he said, low, as though he were the only person in the room and he was talking to himself. “He couldn’t go anywhere with that blizzard coming. He sheltered from the storm.”
“With Morgan.” My throat was dry. I was at a loss.
“I need a minute,” he said. His arms were wrapped around his waist once more.
“Okay,” I said, because I understood what a minute could mean. One more minute of patience with the bullies in the bowling alley and I never would have gone to jail. One more minute resisting the pull of the touch of another human hand, and I would not have started stocking up ramen noodles to trade for kisses in the dark, and would not feel like jaded goods next to Blue’s sweetness.
