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Besides, Daniel’s journals needed to go to his widow. She would be thrilled to receive them.
He exhaled a heavy sigh and hit the shower. Half an hour later, he pulled his truck into the post office parking lot and grabbed the box from the passenger seat. After eyeing his cane distastefully, he elected to leave it behind. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a poor decision. He’d hit rush hour at the post office, and he had to stand in line behind three other people.
Three chatty other people. Doing business with a chatty postal worker. Chatty chat, chat.
Noah wanted to snarl.
Instead, he kept his expression impassive and stared out the window toward the Lake in the Clouds town square. The snow had stopped, and the sky cleared to a brilliant azure blue. With the improvement in the weather, people had started emerging from their homes like ants after a rain.
Great. Just his luck. The grocery store would be swarmed. Probably with chatty people. Lots of chatty folks in Lake in the Clouds.
Noah shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Stepped wrong and set his teeth against the stab of pain. Maybe he’d skip the groceries. Beans for supper didn’t sound that bad, did it?
No, it didn’t. However, beans for supper, breakfast, lunch, and supper again tomorrow didn’t sound all that great. Better he suck it up and soldier on. He would ratchet up his don’t-mess-with-me attitude, brave the crowds, and stock his larder to overflowing. With any luck, he wouldn’t need to speak to a stranger again for weeks.
Ten interminable minutes later, Noah approached the post office window with his package. The postal worker, whose name he recalled was Liz, beamed at him and spoke in a chirpy tone. “Hello, Mr. Tannehill. It’s so lovely to see you again. It’s been quite a while since you stopped by to send off your boxes to fire departments. Becky and I have worried that perhaps you’ve been having trouble with your poor hands.”
Noah very deliberately did not look down at his burn-scarred hands. He did not bother to mention that he now scheduled pickups from a private shipper when he had a load of inventory ready. Instead, he ignored her question and stated, “I need to send this package overnight.”
“Overnight? Good thing it’s so small compared to what you ordinarily send. It’d cost you an arm and a leg to express ship your usual boxes.”
Liz waited expectantly, but he didn’t respond.
Finally, she picked up her tape and measured his package, her lips pursed as if she were sucking a particularly sourlemon. She informed him of the mailing cost before asking begrudgingly if he needed stamps. Noah nodded and requested one roll. Rather than the flag stamps he’d expected, she handed over yellow roses. He counted bills from his money clip and slid them across the counter.
Noah hesitated. Perhaps because the rose stamps reminded him of his mother, and he knew what she would have said about his behavior, which he acknowledged was rude. It wasn’t the clerk’s fault that he felt like a grizzly.
“Keep the change.” Noah turned to leave.
“What? No! Mr. Tannehill, stop! It’s against our rules! And… you have more than twenty dollars coming back.”
“Order a pizza for the office for lunch.” He stepped outside the post office and filled his lungs with icy winter air. His shrink had given him a series of deep-breathing exercises when he needed to chill. He’d run through them in his truck before braving the grocery store.
It didn’t help. Noah lost his zen before he’d made it through the produce department and cut his shopping trip short. By the time he wheeled his purchases out the front door, he was back in bear mode. A traffic jam caused by a fender bender near the entrance to Raindrop Lodge didn’t improve his mood. They seriously needed a stop sign at that intersection.
When he returned to the cabin, he would call Dr. Hardesty’s office and schedule a tele-doc appointment. As much as he hated the idea, if he talked about the nightmares during the daytime, perhaps he could avoid revisiting them in his sleep.
Finally, he made it home. He hauled his meager purchases inside and put everything away. Then he grabbed his phone and headed out to the back porch to sit in the sunshine andsoak up some vitamin D while he made his phone call. He’d no sooner taken a seat in his favorite porch rocker when movement in the window of his workshop caught his eye.
An animal?
Then, a flicker. A flame. A frickin’ flame!
His heart pounding, Noah shoved immediately to his feet. Within seconds, with his firearm on his hip, his cane in one hand, and his phone in the other, he descended the back steps and headed for his workshop. The structure had been the original barn on the property, which his father had expanded into a large storage facility, apartment, and garage. It stood some fifty yards or so away from the new place. Noah planned to assess the situation and call for help if necessary.
Urgency pulsed in his blood as he covered the distance as quickly as he and his cane could manage safely. The last thing he needed was to slip and break his leg again.
Once more, he spied the flutter of a flame. Small. Not spreading. He smelled no smoke in the air. Good.
Mentally, Noah envisioned the fire extinguishers he kept in the shop. One on the wall beside the door. One on the wall near the power tools. He would go inside, grab an extinguisher, and put the fire out.
He would.
I will! I won’t freeze and fail to move. I can do this! I will do this!
Then, a shadow moved across the window. A small shadow. Small could be good—or not. Had Noah left the doors unsecured the last time he exited the shop? He didn’t think so. He was conscientious about such things. It was still early in the season for a bear to be about, but a small black bear could do plenty of damage. Hell, raccoons could do a ton of damage.
But they didn’t start fires.
