Crazy for You (30 page)

“On each other?”

Why are guys so turned on by girl-on-girl?

“On Gloria’s boy cousin, you perv.”

“Mazie, this is the male ego we’re talking about here. Guys don’t practice. Guys automatically assume they’ll be the A-Rods of making out and just go for it.”

“That explains a lot.”

“My turn,” he said.

“Again?”

“Why did we break up?’

“Because …” The question caught me by surprise. Labeck wasn’t normally the introspective type. “I’m not sure. You tell me.”

He was quiet a moment, and when he spoke, it was in a sleepy, rumbling voice, accented with a tinge of Quebec. “Well, I guess because I have this need to take care of you and it goes into overdrive sometimes.” He thought for a minute. “And I think I rushed things, having you move in with me, which was great for me, but what you really needed was your own space—no, that’s not quite it. Jeez, what the hell was in those brownies? I feel like I’m stoned. Can’t think in English.
Une fille doit massacrer ses propres dragons
.”

I puzzled it out, using my six weeks of Montreal French. “One girl was killed by a proper dragon?”

“Non,
mam’selle
. A maiden must slay her own dragons.”

He yawned, then abruptly fell asleep. I didn’t wake him this time, just lied there with my arms wrapped around him, thinking about
une fille doit massacrer ses propres dragons
. Ben was right. He was absolutely right. He got
us
. He hadn’t used the words I would have used, but he’d gotten the concept. I wanted to be with him but I didn’t want to lose my independence. For the first time, I began to believe we might have a future together. That is, if we lived that long.

But I would see to it that we did. With Labeck out of the game, keeping us alive was my dragon to slay.

Chapter Thirty-five

Stupid villains are predictable. Smart villains come at you in ways you don’t expect.

—Maguire’s Maxims

A shaft of sunlight stabbed my eyes. I opened them. Light was streaming in through the chinks in the shed’s boards.
Sunlight!
Which meant the blizzard was over. Ben’s arm was draped across me, warm and heavy. Sliding out from beneath it, I raised myself on an elbow and studied him. He was sleeping deeply, his long lashes fanned across his cheeks, his chest gently rising and falling.

I was a rotten sentry. I’d fallen asleep on duty. If I’d been in the military I’d have been taken out and shot. Fortunately, Ben appeared none the worse for wear. When I peeked beneath the blanket, I was relieved to discover that his leg wound hadn’t reopened.

Scrambling out of the hay, I found a spot just outside the barn, pulled down my pants, and scandalized the cows by peeing. Icy wind blistered my backside and I thought my pee might freeze midstream into a long, yellow popsicle. About ten inches of snow had fallen, I estimated, not a knockout punch by Wisconsin standards, but enough to create four-foot drifts in places.

Last night it had been too dark to see, but now I noticed a galvanized metal water trough at the base of the windmill. The windmill’s vanes creaked and groaned in the rattling wind, rotating the shaft that brought up water from underground. I found an old shovel handle propped against the shed, and used it to smash the skin of ice on the tank water. Trying not to think of the cattle slobber and drowned bugs that were in it, I cupped my hands and drank.
Yow!
The water was so cold it made my gums ache. But it was fresh and sweet-tasting, and splashing it on my face shocked me fully awake.

Ben was stirring when I climbed back into the haymow. His eyes were clear and his smile made me forget how cold I was. I smiled back.

“Why is water dribbling down your chin?” he asked.

“There’s a water tank out there. I’ll fill a bottle and bring it back.”

He shook his head. “No more mollycoddling. My leg stiffened up overnight. I’ve got to move it.”

“I should check it first.”

“I did. It’s okay. I guess those pads worked.”

“How do you feel?”

“A little crampy and bloated. I need chocolate. And I have this urge to shop for shoes.”

“Smart-ass.” I put my arm around Ben to steady him as he hobbled around the floor of the hayloft, swearing in French under his breath, until he felt steady enough to walk by himself. He shambled out of the shed, blinking in the bright sunlight.

The cows had smelled the water and moved to the trough, shouldering each other aside in their eagerness to drink, but they gave way to us as we bellied up. While Labeck drank, I kept my eyes on the cattle. They were Herefords, mottled red and white, generally a peaceable breed, wearing vaguely worried expressions, as though wondering why they didn’t have bigger udders. I checked to make sure no bulls had gotten in with the ladies. Bulls were bad news.

“Maybe the farmer will come out to slop the cows this morning,” Labeck said hopefully, gazing off in the distance, trying to spot signs of civilization: a cellphone tower, a jet trail, a flashing neon sign for Wisconsin Dells.

“I don’t think so. Beef cattle are pretty self-sufficient. In storms they just turn their rumps to the wind. Give them enough fodder and you can leave them alone all winter.”

“So which way to the nearest Starbucks?”

Tough choice. Walking in the storm last night, we’d completely lost our sense of direction.

“We should try to find that highway we saw last night,” Labeck said. “Can you hear traffic?”

We both listened, but we could only hear the snorts and shufflings of the cattle, and the creak of the windmill. Then the crack of a rifle broke the stillness and we both
jumped. It seemed to come from several miles away on a wooded ridge to the north. Another shot followed the first. I stood there, paralyzed.

“Hunters,” Labeck said. “It’s the first week of deer season.”

Just in case we weren’t in enough trouble, now we had to worry about some trigger-happy yahoo mistaking us for deer. Although I was wearing navy and Labeck was wearing black, not traditional deer-hide colors, some hunters would shoot at anything that moved. Or anything that didn’t move. The lawn tractor on my family’s farm had four bullet holes in it, courtesy of hunters who possessed the visual acuity of Stevie Wonder.

We went back to the shed, shared half a package of peanut M&M’s I found in my coat pocket, and washed it down with Agua de Cattle Trough. Running through our choices, we opted for the best of both worlds: we would walk through the field but stay close to the woods, so we could duck into the cover of the trees if our pursuers spotted us. We both felt a growing sense of urgency. We could
feel
Kennison’s crew out there hunting us.

“They may try to pick us off at long range,” Labeck said. “Make it look like a hunting accident.”

Quickly, we gathered up our stuff. I filled the water bottle and stuck it in my purse, then knotted on my blanket cloak and slung my purse across my chest, while Labeck tied on the jumper cables. We moved out, heading west across the field, which lay in a valley between two ridges. A few of the Herefords straggled along with us like gracious hostesses seeing us off after a sleepover. There were deep drifts of snow in spots, and we frequently had to lift our legs high to get through. It must have been agony for Labeck, but he just set his jaw and endured it. This was one hell of a tough guy.

We walked for what felt like miles, but was probably only a few hundred yards. When we were out of sight of the shed, we stopped for a minute to rest, both of us red-faced and panting for breath.

“Isn’t today Thanksgiving?” Labeck said. “We were supposed to be at your farm.”

“They’ll assume we’re late. Even if we don’t show up, they won’t worry. It just means more pie for the rest of them.”

We walked for a while, warm from the exercise. “What about you?” I asked. “Do
Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving?”

“We have a harvest feast in mid-October—I guess that’s our equivalent.”

“Turkey and football?”

“Hockey and a big supper. My
grand-maman
prepares most of it. My favorite is her
poutine
.”

“What’s that?”

“French fries with gravy and cheese curds.”

I made a gagging noise. “Sounds like the dog’s dinner.”

Ben laughed. His breath steamed out in a white cloud. “It’s fabulous. When you come to my folks’ house I’ll get
Grand-maman
to make you a big serving.”

My heart gave a delighted skip. He wanted me to meet his folks?

“Then there’s the
tourtine
. Very traditional. Pork pies served with a side of beets.”

“So it’s like a punishment? Pierre, eat your spinach or you’re getting the
tourtine
?”

Despite the fact that we were lost, starving, and being pursued by homicidal maniacs, we found time to insult each other’s national cuisine.

“Where do Yanks get off, sneering at our stuff?” Labeck said. “I ate Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house last year, and his mother served this sweet-potato glop with toasted marshmallows on top. Marshmallows! How does that fit in with the Pilgrims?”

“Maybe the Pilgrims brought the marshmallows on the Mayflower?”

Labeck gave a shudder of disgust.

“Then after we give thanks for the marshmallows, we pass around the Founding Fathers’ green beans and canned onion rings casserole,” I said.

He muttered something in French that sounded like “execrable,” which I assumed meant the same as it did in English, except in French it sounded snottier.

“I’m thinking of uninviting you to the Maguire homestead,” I said. “I don’t think you should meet my family.”

“Am I that bad or are
they
that bad?”

“My brothers have driven away every boyfriend I’ve ever had. They think it’s funny. First off, you get the farmer handshake.”

“The bone crusher? Been there.”

“Then they invite you to help with chores that look easy and fun, but they’re not.”

“Like milking the bull?”

“That’s always a good one. Then there’s having you stack hay bales on a wagon, but running the bales through so fast you can’t keep up and the whole load topples over.”

“They’ve done that?”

“It’s the Darwin principle. They weed out the weaklings so I mate with someone worthy of Maguire genes.”

Swapping stories about the horrible things our littermates had done to us helped keep our minds off our misery. Under other circumstances it would have been fun. We walked for about two hours, making good progress, but then the field petered out in woods.

“Merde,”
Labeck muttered.

Merde
was right. I’d been certain that the field would lead us to a farm or a road, but now we were back in the woods, in all senses of the word.

“I think this is the state forest,” Labeck said. “Now what?”

I studied him, trying not to be too obvious about it. He looked tired, but his color was good and his wounds weren’t bleeding. “We could retrace our steps, try another direction.”

“Shame to waste all that effort.”

“Right. So into the woods.”

The snow beneath the trees was shallower than it was in the open, and the walking was easier. The air held the sharp, nose-prickly aroma of pine. Blue jays called from a nearby cluster of cedars; chickadees flitted through the underbrush; squirrels leaped from branch to branch. A gust of wind shook a pine bough, showering snow down Labeck’s collar and knocking off my cap. I retrieved it, brushing off the snow, taking my time because Labeck needed a rest, even if he was too proud to admit it.

He helped me tug my cap on. “What’s this?” Gently he touched the scar on my left cheekbone.

“Nothing.”

“It’s where that thug burned you when you were on the run, isn’t it?”

“You never noticed it before?”

“I guess I’ve never seen you in direct sunlight before. Your hair always covers it.”

“I asked Dr. Demento about getting it removed.”

“Removed? Why?”

“It’s ugly, duh.”

“It’s just a little scar tissue, Mazie. Badge of courage.”

His eyes were the color of root beer in the bright morning light, his cheeks windburned red. He cupped my jaw in his hands, brought his face down to mine and kissed me. His nose was cold. His lips were warm. His eyelashes made shadows on his cheekbones; I know because I peeked. Then I closed my eyes again to fully experience the most wonderful kiss of my life, a kiss that thawed me from cowlick to toes, a kiss I returned in spades, putting all those weeks of longing into it, touching my tongue to his, giving him the full-court press, shamelessly bumping my bumpy parts against his chest and grinding my pelvis against his, in case there was any question how much I wanted him. My lips had become ultrasensitive to the slightest movement of Ben’s lips. He slipped his tongue inside my mouth, filling me with ecstatic sensations that left me reeling and light-headed. Finally we broke apart, breathing hard, staring into each other’s eyes, smiling.

“You
are
the A-Rod,” I said breathlessly.

“What?”

“Of kissing.”

He frowned. “You kissed Alex Rodriguez?”

I frowned back at him. “Don’t you remember what you said last night?”

“No.”

I unwound myself from him. “You said—”

That’s when we heard the buzz.

Labeck, who hadn’t grown up on the frozen tundra for nothing, caught on before I did. He jerked my hand into his and pulled me into a run.

“Is that a—”

“Snowmobiles,” he said. “At least two.”

Chapter Thirty-six

Jumper cables. Don’t leave home without ’em.

—Maguire’s Maxims

When I taught high school, I’d once volunteered at a fund-raising benefit, agreeing to a stint in the dunk tank. The dunk tank had been sitting around a chilly gym all day, and though the water may have started out warm, by the time the school’s star pitcher stepped up and hurled the baseball straight at the trip lever, the water was ice cold. As I plunged into it, a billion trillion capillaries screamed in agony.