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“How many what?”
“Books! History books!”
He folds his arms and laughs, deep within his chest. Before he can answer the rain comes down in such a torrent that it washes away anything we can say while standing so far apart. So he steps closer. He could reach out and touch me, which seems like the thing I want most, and what I am most afraid of.
Well, I said I wanted a real man. Or was it Lacey who said I wanted a real man? Either way, I had one here now.
“I stopped counting at three thousand,” he says.
“Have you read them all?”
He laughs again. “Afraid not, but as Umberto Eco said, who wants a library full of books they’ve already read?”
I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but this appears to be a man after my own dorky heart. “I don’t know Umberto Eco. I’ll put him on my list.”
“I love him. When he died last year I would have called in sick at work, if I still had a job, that is.” He smiles and turns to look at the books again.
I like the idea of him hearing that an author he loved died and then taking a day off from chopping wood or skinning rabbits or whatever he spent his time out here doing. It showed character.
Another sheet of rain slapped against the ceiling. “Let’s go back in by the fire,” he says.”
“Hey, I don’t even know your name,” I say when I sit in a chair across from his in front of the fire.
“You don’t.”
“I think I should.”
“I believe you. I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But if you think about it long enough, you’ll probably figure it out.”
Wait, what is he talking about? I realize that something about him has been nagging me since I showed up here. There is something familiar about him. Have we met? No, I would surely remember that.
He’s grinning, watching me try to place him.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say.
“I’ve no doubt.” He reaches behind him and when his hand emerges it’s holding a bottle of bourbon. He holds it out to me and raises his eyebrows.
“I shouldn’t,” I say. “I’m on a job.”
&n
bsp; “I’m not going to believe you until you tell me what the job is.”
Thunder crashes again and suddenly I’m worried for poor dumb Jarom, stumbling around in the dark. Surely he made it back to the car – I hope. He may have been a complete weirdo, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“He’ll be fine,” says the lumberjack, as if he’s telepathic as well as enigmatic. He tips the bottle back and drinks two big swallows before offering it to me again. Oh, why not? I take the bottle from him and take as big a sip as I can handle. I feel like I’m in high school, trying to impress a boy at a party. Although it took far less than that to impress Owen. He thought it was the thrill of a lifetime when I showed him that I had a slightly double jointed thumb.
Might as well come clean. “I was sent out here from New York to research a story for my editor.”
“Let me guess. You don’t write for The New Yorker?” It would be a hook in someone else’s mouth, but he says it kindly, as if we’re both in on the joke.
“Ah, if only. No, I’m afraid not. Jarom and I are here at the bidding of The Inner Eye.”
He literally slaps his knee, which is something I thought people only did in books and movies. But there’s more. He throws back his head and roars with laughter, making the cabin seem smaller than before. “I knew that someone would find me eventually,” he says. “I suppose The Inner Eye is as fitting as anything. But what’s the story? What does your editor think she knows?”
How are we already talking so easily? I find that I can’t wait to confide in him, gossip with him, to share and laugh with this burly stranger.
“She says that people are talking about an ex MMA fighter who lives out here. Apparently he’s a recluse with a dark secret, or so my boss would like to believe.”
