Chapter Five
Wednesday was busy with sales at the Wurstspeicher Haus. It put Mom in such a good mood she played Die Fledermaus and The Merry Widow, her version of opera pops.
Visitors were hitting town for Thursday’s opening and they wanted hostess gifts. They’d be back before Sunday to buy take-home presents.
I’d taped my cracked toes and ignored them. But I couldn’t ignore the door. Every time the bell tinkled, my body tensed, hoping for Big Dark and Dangerous and sorely disappointed by every tourist.
Not disappointed. Relieved.
Our dozen regulars came in too, including Hermy and her little one. Blonde, blue-eyed and vacantly pretty, Hermy could have been any of a hundred young mothers toting her infant in a front snug sack.
She floated to the counter. “Hello, Junior. May I have my usual? What, Tiny?” She bent her head to the snug sack. “Oh, yes. Tiny would like some more of your homemade baby food. Did I tell you he got his first tooth? I’m thinking of weaning him off the formula.”
“Ah. Probably a good idea.” I pulled down a couple jars of creamed Thüringer. Inside the snug sack, Tiny meowed his pleasure.
Yes, meowed.
Hermy’s baby was a cat. She talked to it like it was her baby, fed it like it was her baby. To her, it was her baby.
Or at least made up for the one she lost.
In the big city, carting a cat in a snug sack would have been a sign of mental instability. At best, Hermy’d be in an institution. At worse, she’d be a homeless bag lady.
But in Meiers Corners…Mrs. Blau came in and glanced at Hermy’s snug sack. “I do believe Tiny’s gained weight, dear. What are you feeding him? I’d like to try it with my youngest.”
Yup, in Meiers Corners people talked to the snug sack too.
“Try the lovely organic baby food Mrs. Stieg makes.” Hermy handed Mrs. Blau a jar.
Also only in MC. Mentally delicate but the Wurstspeicher Haus’s number-one promoter, at least for creamed Thüringer baby food.
Mrs. Blau tucked the jar in her bag. “I’ll take three more, Junior.” As I got the jars she added, “By the way, who was that handsome young man Brunhilde Butt saw you with at Nieman’s?”
Another of Meiers Corners’s interesting attributes. Secrets were shared with your closest friends—all seven thousand of them. For me, annoying and at times downright invasive. But for Hermy, a blessing. Everybody knew she’d lost that baby, so we treated her with a sympathy verging on town-wide empathy.
When Hermy was ready, she’d rejoin us on the rational side of Main Street.
Glynn came again that night…I mean picked me up…for the final dress rehearsal. Mindful of Mom’s history (sexual entrapment was probably too strong a term, but in connection with Glynn, it conjured up all sorts of exciting—I mean disturbing—images), I didn’t invite him back inside. I didn’t need the temptation.
Then I fumbled for ten minutes packing up, not thinking about what Glynn could do with an actual bed, and we were late anyway.
On the plus side, we missed the acting warm-ups.
Tonight was final dress. The actors were forbidden to break proscenium—that is, corralled to dressing rooms and backstage. No calling for lines for the actors, no stopping for any of us, not even for a train wreck.
So when Toto flopped down on stage and started licking himself, we kept playing. When he lost interest in his doggie danglies to start watering the potted plants, we kept playing.
When Glinda stumbled asking Dorothy what kind of witch she was, saying instead “Are you a good bitch or bad bitch?” we kept playing. (Our dear Good Witch of the North was actually Lana the part-time Good Hooker of North Avenue. She’d gotten the part because her pimp was one of the show’s patrons. Only in Meiers Corners.) When she peeped her song like a toddler on helium, we practically doubled over playing into stands (to soften the volume as well as muffle our laughter), but we kept playing.
At intermission, because the actors had to stay backstage, Rocky and I had the water fountain to ourselves. She pushed her wealth of hair from her face before holding the handle for me. “So I got a new part-time job.”
“Another one?” I stuck my bottle into the stream. “What does that make, three?”
“Four. Teaching lessons, the homeless shelter, the community symphony, and now rating for CIC Mutual.”
“Insurance?” I stopped filling. “Don’t tell Nixie. She thinks buying insurance will lead to the heat death of the universe.”
Rocky let go of the handle. “But she’s married to a lawyer.”
“Julian also plays cello. That cancels out any lawyer cooties.” I grabbed the handle and cranked the water back on, resumed filling. “So do you like it?”
“I’ve only been there a couple half days, but it’s pretty interesting. Did you know CIC insures a certain PAC?”
I stopped filling again. “Our PAC?”
“Well, I can’t talk about specific policies. Confidentiality, you know.”
“Huh.” I turned on the stream again. “Speaking of confidentiality, a certain Wurstspeicher Haus insures through CIC.”
“A lot of Meiers Corners businesses do. Theoretically, that is. The PAC, your store, the Sparkasse Bank, dozens more.”
“You know all this how?” I capped my water. “Theoretically, that is.”
She blushed. “I didn’t look up specific policies or anything. I just had to find some examples to use as templates.”
“Right.”
“I was surprised at so many. Usually Corners folk buy local.” Rocky unscrewed her water bottle.
“We don’t have any local insurance companies. Besides, Twyla says local-only isn’t good for us anymore, thanks to the latest recession. Did you know there’s more riding on this show than getting to Broadway?”
“Really?”
“We’re the draw for tourists to flock to our Quainte Local Shoppes to buy quainte shite. No pressure. Hey, how many cellists does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
“None,” she shot back. “They’re not small enough to fit. Why shouldn’t you drive off a cliff with three viola players in a Mini?”
“Because you could fit at least one more in. How many principal flutists does it take to change a light bulb?”
“Only one, but that light bulb really has to want to change?”
I snorted. “That’s psychiatrists. One is correct, though. The prima donna holds the light bulb in her hand and the world turns around her.”
“Ha-ha. Why do violists get worried when they see the Kama Sutra?”
“All those positions!” we said together, bumped fists and went back to rehearsal.
The second half went better, mainly because someone had Palin’ed Glinda and written her lines on her hand. The bows came off perfectly, despite squirrelly kids up past their bedtimes, and when we played the runoff music, I nailed the last low B-flat. I was feeling pretty good as I hauled my instruments backstage to pack up (instrument cases in the audience also forbidden at final dress).
So I was clipping along as I cornered into the back corridor, and nearly ran into the shady form in trench coat and mask.
Instantly I backpedaled, but a tenor sax creates a fair amount of momentum. I almost face-planted into the trench coat’s shoulder—which was slung with a black sack.
The kidnapper.
I pulled up at the last second. Beyond the stalker about twenty feet, Dumas gave notes to Mishela.
Shock burned the picture on my retinas. Skulking kidnapper foreground, Mishela background, Dorothy braids swaying as she nodded. Behind her, thick arms crossed over big chest, eyes like lasers on his charge, was Glynn.
Slo-mo, his head swung up to stare right at me. Fear and fury leaped into his sapphire gaze. Fury at the stalker.
Fear for me.
It went fast from there. Glynn shouted “Mishela, drop!” at the same instant the stalker squeaked, jumped like a cat turning midair and ran. Mishela ducked, Glynn leaped. I realized belatedly that here was my chance to catch the stalker.
Just as the stalker plowed straight into me.
I fell on my keister, barely hanging on to my three instruments. The pain flaring in my coccyx hadn’t even hit when the stalker grabbed my wrist and yanked me to my feet. Flute and clarinet jarred from my hands, and I heard the clatter of several hundred dollars hitting floor. Dammit, that would leave dents. I tried to punch him (or her or it)—for justice, but also to leave a dent in return.
With a muttered “Fuck,” the stalker shooped the bag over my head and my punch swept air.
I shrieked. My cry gagged to an ack when the drawstring yanked tight.
“Stay back,” the stalker hissed. “Or this one gets hurt.”
And then I was flying, hefted onto a shoulder so bony it practically cut me in two. Air huffed from my chest at the impact, exacerbated as the guy/gal/thing kicked into a run and bounced me into near-asphyxiation.
A bellow of rage sounded, Glynn, diminishing, like the skinny kidnapper was getting away fast. I scrabbled for a hold on bony shoulders, hoping like hell Glynn could track me—and wondered idiotically if I should be dropping breadcrumbs. I didn’t have breadcrumbs, but the way the stalker was rattling me maybe I could drop teeth. Or, like Toto, pee.
Another bellow sounded. Closer. Glynn, athletic tracker Glynn, was gaining. The stalker’s breath rasped loud in my ears. Tired gasps, and no wonder. Not only was he/she/it lugging a hundred-some pounds of me, but my sax, tethered to my neck, was a-flopping against its back, whacking with loud, bony thuds. Never was I so glad for weighty and awkward.
Glynn roared again, much nearer and supremely pissed. The trench coat under me squealed—and tossed me to the ground.
Silly me, my only thought was my sax. I flipped midair and landed flat on my back.
I hit the concrete so hard my diaphragm froze.
“Getting the wind knocked out of you” sounds like simple inconvenience. But it’s a horror of can’t breathe. You suck air but nothing happens. Nothing. You think you may never breathe again. It’s all over but for the My Life video replay, hopefully with RiffTrax.
I tried to inhale, really I did, but all I got was gak-gak-gak. I clawed hood. The sax weighted my ribs like a sandbag. I honestly thought I was dead. End of Junior, small fish in a small pond, never to grow to her full potential. Maybe a comedy instead of a tragedy, but now we’d never know.
Big hands righted me. Warm, ripply muscles pressed to my spine. An intense male heat permeated my chest cavity, eased the straitjacket on my lungs. I sucked in air. Shuddered. Breathed again. Oxygen never felt so good.
“Babi.” Glynn’s voice was threaded with worry. I felt a plucking at my neck. “Are you all right?”
Not really, but I was better so I just nodded. He shifted me to get to the tie from the front. I cradled the sax in one arm and lifted my chin to give him better access. The tie came loose, his fingers a lot more nimble under stress than mine. When the hood came off, the first thing I saw was his face, gorgeous blue eyes tight with concern for me.
Second was the yellow glow of a street lamp. We were outside.
“Mishela,” I croaked.
“Bloody hell.” He scooped me up and whizzed back inside, whipping so fast it blurred the walls like hitting light speed. I hugged my tenor like a teddy bear.
In the women’s dressing room, Mishela, dressed in a robe, was calmly removing her makeup. Her costume was draped over a nearby chair.
“I can take care of myself, Glynn.” She smeared cream on her cheeks. “I keep telling you and Mr. Elias that, but you never listen.”
Glynn set me down. I unhooked my sax and cleared off a section of the makeup counter to put it on. Not best practice but I was trembling from adrenaline and not up to carrying its weight.
Around us, trees and Emerald Cityites and other adult females stopped what they were doing to stare at this powerful invading male.
Glinda started doing a little striptease.
To his credit, Glynn ignored them all, even Little Miss Part-time Hooker. “Is anyone missing?”
Mishela stopped smearing, showing she wasn’t as unconcerned as she wanted to seem. “I’m sorry?”
“Anyone from the cast or crew not here? Slim build, a bit taller than you, missing right after the bows?”
She paled as the implications struck. “No. But things were pretty chaotic as the curtain closed. Jazzed.”
“Who did you see for certain? Lion’s too hefty, but what about Tin Man?”
She nodded. “Both were here.”
“The Gatekeeper? Captain of the Winkies?”
“I…I’m not sure.”
He pressed. “Steve? Our friend the Scarecrow?”
She went white. “Not Jon. You can’t suspect Jon, Glynn. He’s a Broadway star.”
“Everyone is a suspect. And Jon hasn’t had a hit in years.”
She flinched.
Glynn was scaring her, for no other reason than he was angry. With himself probably, but Mishela looked young and frightened, and I felt for her. Spine snapping straight, I stepped between them. “Oh for heaven’s sake. Why stop at actors? Half the pit is the right size and build. Why pick on insiders when it’s most likely a stranger? This is just scaring Mishela—who is fine.”
He whirled on me. “But you weren’t. You were in the clutches of that maniac, and I had no idea what he wanted with you or if I would get to you in time!”
I gaped at him. “We barely know each other. Why should you care?”
His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Why indeed?” He shoved out of the dressing room and disappeared.
“I think you hurt his feelings,” Mishela said.
She’d turned back to the mirror, toweling off cream and makeup. Trying to seem unaffected, but her hand trembled.
So I reined back my own feelings and tried to edge things toward normal by being domestic and hanging up Mishela’s costume. “I don’t think it’s possible to hurt him. Not Mr. Big, Grim and Invulnerable.”
“He’s self-contained, not invulnerable.”
“Says you.” As I picked up the Dorothy dress it revealed Mishela’s street clothes, jeans neatly folded beneath her underwear. On top of the pile was a pair of pink panties with a green blob which reminded me of the incident with Steve running across the stage at our first rehearsal. I looked closer. The green was a tentacled monster—with a cute pink hair bow. Under the picture was written “Hello Cthulhu”.
Had Steve stolen these the panties? How twee. Mishela’s first fanboy was a weenie of a stalker. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to talk about the incident.
Then a thought struck me. “Damn, my instruments. They fell in the hallway. I’d better go get them before they get tromped into scrap metal.”
My flute and clarinet were propped right outside the door.
Had Glynn found them? Angry as he was, had he really stopped to think about me, take care of my instruments?
Keeper.
No, not thinking about that. I picked up the flute. The G-sharp lever was bent but that was all. I tweeted a few notes, then tried out the clarinet. Everything worked, a huge relief. Hugging instruments, I grabbed a chair, scraped it up next to Mishela, sat and watched her.
Her scrubbing was brisk, expert—not a beauty routine, but as if her face were a palette to be cleaned.
I caught her eye in the mirror. “What I don’t get is, why kidnap you? If they’re trying to disrupt the show, wouldn’t it make more sense just to disable you with an accident or something?”
“You’re assuming they’re after me.” She tossed down the towel, eyes stabbing mine in the mirror. “I’m not convinced. After all, they took Dumas. Now they’ve taken you. If it’s about me, wouldn’t they take me?”
“I don’t know. Why’d Glynn suggest Scarecrow? Doesn’t he like him?”
“Glynn thinks Jon has an unnatural interest in me. I keep telling him it’s paternal interest. Or maybe a crush, but it’s entirely innocent. The man’s old enough to be my father.” She looked away. “Mr. Elias says it’s someone connected with the show.”
“Maybe he’s wrong.”
“Mr. Elias? He’s never wrong.” She blew a disgusted breath, turned back to the mirror and finished cleaning in silent concentration. It seemed to calm her.
I wasn’t calm. I’d been abducted. Despite my martial arts training, despite a building full of people, I’d been taken. Who had done that to me? Slim and connected with the show could be any one of several dozen people. Most were from Meiers Corners.
One of us.
If only we knew why the person was attacking. Was he/she after a specific person, or just trying to generally disrupt the show?
I was lost in possibilities and about to panic when I realized I had tools to unravel this. I was a businesswoman, used to solving problems from delivery logistics to the intricacies of stacking pounds of misshapen stock.
I could slice through the whole tangle with one sharp Sales Maneuver: “Follow the money”. Long run, who or why didn’t matter. Kidnapping Mishela or Dumas or even me would cripple the production at this late date. “Mishela. Who stands to gain if the show is trashed? I don’t, you don’t. Meiers Corners loses, especially businesses relying on tourists. Who’d gain by disrupting show?”
Tidying her work area, she paused. “A rival show, maybe?”
“Competition. A good, strong motive. Was someone passed over for a starring role? Revenge is also good.”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t suppose this is connected to the fire that destroyed our New York production?”
“Maybe.” Which widened the field of suspects from Meiers Corners to the whole United States. Though I’d asked the right question, it had the wrong answer.
“There are too many suspects,” I said finally.
“You’re giving up?”
“Not in this lifetime. I have a cunning plan. A plan so cunning it has a British Museum wing named after it.”
“Really?”
“No. Look, whoever grabbed Dumas and then me will try again. All we have to do is trap him. Her. It.”
“Okay.” Doubt shaded her tone. “How?”
“If the kidnapper holds to form, tomorrow after the show he-she-it will try again.” I smashed the pronouns together, pronouncing it “heesheeit”.
“Bless you.”
“Thanks. You’re probably the target, but just in case, all three of us will head to Nieman’s. You, me and Dumas. We’ll make a big deal of it, make sure everyone knows just the three of us are going.”
“What about Glynn?”
“See, that’s the cunning part. Instead of doing his hulking protector thing, he’ll be shadowing. Hidden enough that it looks like we’re totally alone. When the kidnapper attacks—”
“Glynn nails him. Her. It.” Smiling, Mishela clapped her hands. “I like it. When we get the kidnapper, we sweat him-her-it for answers.”
“Gesundheit.”
“Thanks.” Her smile faded. “The hard part will be convincing Glynn to stand back. Especially after what happened tonight.”
She was right. If he’d hovered before, the scare would make him a second skin. Nothing would shake him loose.
Except maybe a few well-placed kisses. “Convincing Glynn. Yes.” I took a deep breath. For the show. “Leave that to me.”
While my brain churned on well-placed kisses, nibbling carved cheeks, defined lips, flat waist, muscular thighs, thick, long…my pocket started vibrating. I half-stood and pulled out my cell phone, saw the number and swore. But I answered, ever the dutiful daughter. Yay, me. “What’s up, Mom?”
“It’s Papa,” a booming male voice said. “There is work to be done. I need you to forgo partying with your little friends. Sausage doesn’t—”
“—sell itself, I know.” Explaining after-rehearsal burn to Pop was useful only if I had five lungs and an hour. Though it’d make a good wind exercise. “What do you need?”
“Uncle Otto has run out of breakfast sausage. How can he make his famous Southern German Guten Tag Y’all sausage gravy if he has no sausage?”
“He needs it tonight?”
“It is almost tomorrow. And Otto’s wife must be frying by five for the smorgasbord to be ready by six.”
Some inns kept business hours, some country hours. My uncle Otto kept military hours. Frying by five meant shower at four which meant up at oh-dark-thirty. “All right, Pop. Be right there.”
I lugged instruments home, wishing for a nice limo ride and a nicer kiss… Instead of after-rehearsal rush, I got presausage letdown.
Got the job, do the job. Besides, Uncle Otto was one of our best customers. Stiegs never let nepotism get in the way of profit.
At home, I picked up the box my dad had packed for me, mapping a mental route to haul my tired ass to Uncle Otto’s. I’d been the brothers’ courier since the age of six, when I’d been a brat pedaling brats on my little bike. I’d ridden or walked every single combination of those eight blocks over the years, knew every flamingo and garden gnome, every decorative pebble. Not much changed in our small town.
I left by the side door, saw a new Cheese Dudes webcam staring at me. Okay, some things changed, and not always for the better. But I was too tired to give them even a courtesy finger.
I emerged onto Fourth. Across the street, lights glowed inside the bombed shell of Kalten’s skate rink. For the past month, contractor trucks had parked in front, so I knew they were renovating it. I wondered what business was going in, whether it was compatible with sausage. The builders were working awfully late. Maybe they were close to finishing and putting on a push.
I know I should’ve been planning a way to “convince” Glynn to help us trap the kidnapper. But it was late and I was so tired. My brain hopped from idea to idea without any of them sticking, that cross-pollination state between Teflon Zen and a kangaroo on crack.
I headed east. Yellow streetlights and early summer mosquitoes were my only company. Here I was, alone, just me and my basket of sausage goodies. Little Red Riding Junior. And we hadn’t caught Mr./Ms./Meh Wolf-in-Trench-Coat-Clothing.
In fact, it was almost like our trapping scenario, with me as bait instead of Mishela. Oh, and without Glynn to spring the trap.
I picked up my pace.
If only I knew who the attacker was really after. Why grab me? A deterrent to Glynn, maybe, but why would Glynn care? Just because we’d shared a couple kisses, and a little more…okay, a lot more, but Glynn walked away, acted invulnerable—
“You’re alone,” a baritone snarled right behind me.
Shock spun me into a groin shot, knee rising sharply. With my whole body powering it, testicles would have achieved low earth orbit.
A hard palm blocked my thigh, judo-style, tossing me completely around and pitching me toward concrete.
Sausage leaped from my grasp. The box made a beautiful arc before hitting pavement. The smack-crunch of cardboard was loud but I knew the sausage was fine. One good thing about Pop’s it-vill-be-perfekt packaging.
I wouldn’t be so lucky.
At the last second, hands netted my arms, yanked me flush to a hot torso. A big, familiar torso, the monster sock puppet nestling into my butt like home, cinching it.
“Glynn? What the fu…?”
“I might ask you the same thing. Out at night. Alone.” He spun me, hands clenching as if he’d like to shake me. “After being attacked by three monsters only last night. I thought you were with Mishela. What are you doing?”
“I’m—”
“What were you thinking?” His voice crescendoed like “Bolero”. “Abducted by a maniac just tonight. Yet here you are, alone. Are you trying to drive me mad?” By the end he was practically yelling.
My mouth fell open. Why was he so angry? Could he possibly be worried about me?
Ridiculous. “What do you care? It’s not like you’ve been smothering me all my life or are here to take the job over from my parents.”
Which sounded like I wanted him to. Oh, my foot did not taste good, but I bulled on. “In less than two weeks you’re going back to Iowa. I’ve walked these streets for years. I’ll be walking them after you’re back in the land of corn and…and corn.”
“There’s more to Iowa than corn.” He growled it, but a glint of sapphire humor warmed his eyes.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like trucks. And cows.”
“The universities and international businesses?”
“Those don’t count.” The corner of his mouth quirked. Stunningly handsome lips became downright edible. But I’d be a fool to tell him that.
“Did you know your lips are really yummy?” I slammed a hand over my idiotic mouth.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me.”
“I doubt that. I’ve seen how women look at you.”
“Perhaps it’s not the words, but the one saying them.” He pulled me tight, stroked my head. “Babi. I can’t live through seeing you in such danger again. As long as I am here, you will not go unescorted at night.”
“I’m not helpless.” I pushed him away. “I fended off a burglar last year. Side-kicked him on his ass.” A Meiers Corners-style burglar, a teenage kid with midnight munchies and no sausage in the fridge, but Glynn didn’t need to know that. “And I nearly kneed your balls to the moon. I’m not helpless.”
“You’re not.” He considered me with proper seriousness. “But you’re facing a different kind of foe, far stronger and faster than you’re used to. Inhumanly so.”
“Oh, right. Like monsters? Space aliens?” I snatched up my dropped sausage.
“No. Chicago vam…hoods. Big city thugs.”
“Big city automatically makes them worse somehow?” I started across the river. “Meiers Corners folk are narrow-minded because they’re stuck in the echo chamber of small-town tradition and don’t know any better. What’s your excuse?”
He caught up easily with his long legs. “You think big cities are somehow better? I’m to be open-minded simply because I’m more urban?”
“Urban, urbane. They’re related for a reason.”
“A small town can teach people many things, Junior. Things found only in the smaller group, a tight-knit family, a home—”
“Sure, if you want to learn about being an intolerant, tight-knit idiot.”
He made a tch of dissent. “Being an idiot isn’t a function of community. There are idiots in small towns and big cities. But there is love in both, too. Acceptance, nurturing.”
“Sure, but a fish grows to the size of its pond. Simple physical fact. Small pond, small fish. Wanna grow, you gotta get into the ocean.”
“That may be true of fish, but not of people. There are big people in small towns, and small people in big ones.”
“I’m not talking good-hearted, I’m talking broad-minded. Name one Meiers Corners resident who thinks outside the box. Just one.”
“Julian Emerson—”
“Was a hotshot Boston attorney before he settled here last year. Boston’s kinda fair-sized.”
He blew a frustrated breath. “Nixie Emerson.”
“Thinks everyone is out to repress anything fun or spontaneous in her—because they are. She doesn’t count, Glynn. She’s our oppressed minority.”
“Oh? What about your parents? They strike me as worldly. They’d have to be, to run a store with imported sausage.”
“Are you joking?” I shook my head. “Mutti und Vati are the worst of the lot. So insular they could be used as parka stuffing.”
“‘Insular’ means ‘island’.”
“Fine. Little islands, never seeing beyond the borders of town. Half the town is related and the other half is married to it.”
“Such connection. Such belonging.” Glynn stuffed hands into his pants pockets. “It is a rare gift. You should appreciate it more.”
“Such inward focus. Such limiting ties. Why defend it so hard?”
“No reason.”
“Right.” I stopped to punch him with a good glare. “This is the second time you’ve made an issue of it. We don’t have to talk about it, but don’t lie to me.”
“Fine.” He swept by me, snagging my elbow on the way and tugging me into motion. “I have no mother, no father. Be glad you do.”
“Say what?” I grabbed his wrist, tried to yank him to a stop. Like halting a truck. I tried digging in my heels, but he kept going and I pitched off my feet.
With a growl he stopped to catch me, his big strong hands splayed on my… But he’d stopped, so mission accomplished. I dropped sausage (to another crunch) and took his face between my hands. His skin felt like warm satin. I searched his eyes. “You lost your family? When?”
He didn’t say anything. But his eyes twitched away, an answer in itself.
“You never knew your parents?”
He turned out of my hands, jammed his deep in his pockets again.
“Oh, Glynn, I’m so sorry.” I caught his biceps, stopping him. Facing him, I wound arms around his waist and hugged him tight.
At first, his body was stiff under mine. I rubbed gentle circles on his spine, let my heat sink in. He softened. His arms came around me in return…and then he was hugging me back, so tightly I thought ribs would crack.
The pain was worth it if it helped him even a little.
We stood in silence, drawing comfort from each other. We might have stood that way for the rest of the night.
“Is that my sausage on the ground, liebchen? I do not think the health inspector would look on that favorably.”
