Tipping Point (12 page)

“That’s a lot done in one day.”

“Helps to have a couple of people working on things while you’re gone. I came back and did the gate, and divided it into temporary pens. Mostly it was the nesting box setup I did around here. Everything else was Leigh and Cameron. They’ve got all the wood cut for the goat pen, too. I was pretty impressed when we got back. Now I’ll have to set an alarm to remind myself there are live animals out here. They might never get fed otherwise.”

“You seem to manage with your ferrets, so I don’t think you’ll forget.” Billy overheard the last remark and perked right up.

“You’ve got ferrets? Can I see them?”

“Sure, as long as they’re awake. You like ferrets?”

“They’re awesome. A friend of mine had one.” The enthusiasm on his face was unmistakable, and he seemed like a nice kid.

“Great! Looks like we’ve got something in common, Billy. I’m crazy about my boys. Let’s go see if they’re still playing.”

“Why don’t you point out the stuff you want cooked up, honey, so I can get dinner ready while you’re doing that?”

“Perfect. I just have to grab some mushroom caps before I let you cook up the rest. Then Billy and I can go play.” Neil laughed at her eager tone.

“What do you need the caps for?” It was Billy asking her. Mac explained as she pulled out the food from the fridge for Neil, and got her caps.

“I’ll be growing them, and underneath the caps is where the spores are stored. Most of the time people just eat them. If you put the caps face down, though, and leave them out for a day or so, they drop their spores onto whatever surface you put them on. Then you can put the spores in a growing medium like soil and peat moss and grow your own. I’m growing Portobello and button mushrooms because they’re the easiest.”

Mac walked off with Billy, him keeping up a steady stream of questions, while she answered. He obviously had a lot of curiosity about things, which was another trait they shared, so it looked like she would get along with Billy just fine.

At the sound of a strange voice, Kirk and Leigh both looked up. Mac introduced them to Billy. Leigh looked a little pouty, but Kirk was his usual gregarious self.

“Let me introduce you to Cameron while you’re here. That’s my daughter. She’s a few years older than you.” Cam opened the door before Mac even had a chance to knock. Obviously she’d overheard her mother as she was coming to her door.

“Hey,” she said to Billy. “I’m Cam. Neil’s your dad?” When Billy swallowed and nodded, Cam started talking again.

“He seems nice. My mom sure seems to like him.” Billy was showing every sign of being lost in space at the sight of Cameron, so Mac just watched the show. He nodded at everything Cam was saying, until Mackenzie wanted to laugh. She wouldn’t embarrass him like that, of course. She still had to make up for terrifying him at the store yesterday.

“I was going to let Billy see the ferrets. Maybe you can take him. I want to get these mushrooms set up for the spores. If you’ve got the PS4 set up, maybe all four of you can play if he’s into that kind of thing.”

“I haven’t set it up yet, but it’ll only take me a minute.” Billy just stared at Cameron, apparently blown away by a girl who could do that, and Mac gave a sly smile. If anyone could show a man female ability, it was her daughter.

By the time she had the mushrooms done she started smelling something amazing coming from the kitchen. Her stomach growled angrily at being made to wait. She walked into the kitchen area and watched Neil as he worked. It was enough to make her mouth water, even if she hadn’t been hungry.

Mine
, she thought. Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face. When Neil looked over at her, he started giving her the same look. She walked toward him, the pull stronger than gravity. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“You’re looking pretty hungry, honey. Anyone I know?” She had to swallow her saliva.

“I’m not sure I know this guy’s name,” she said, and bent down to stare through the window of the oven.

“And he’s got an awful lot of legs if it’s only one chicken.” He burst out laughing.

“You’re gonna pay for that one, sweetheart. Just you wait.” She winked at him and spun away.

“I can afford it.”

9

T
RIPPING THE
M
OONLIGHT
F
ANTASTIC

The food was amazing, and the conversation was great, too, though things got awkward when Leigh made snide remarks. Mac wanted to tell her she hadn’t been forced to come, but she refrained. She needed to talk to Leigh and find out what was going on.

Everyone else pushed the conversation forward and left the strange comments behind. Mac didn’t think it was just the chicken shit she’d had to contend with. She was eating like she was starving and Mac was starting to get suspicious. She wouldn’t bring it up with everybody else around, though.

“Hey, Mac. You said you were going to tell us a story about those knives. What was it?” Mac smiled at Kirk, unsurprised that he would remember her promise.

“Well, it’s what I was reading online about the history of the name of the KA-BAR. I can’t remember what the company was originally called, but they changed it. A hunter had his gun jam, and had to kill a bear with his knife. He sent the company a letter thanking them for making a quality knife that allowed him to kill a bear, but the lettering was smeared. ‘Kill a bear’ came out looking like ‘K a b ar’ with all the other letters missing. They changed the name of the company to honour his testimonial.”

“Seriously?” Kirk’s eyes were wide.

“As far as I’m aware. It’s on their website. For all I know they could have concocted the story as a PR thing, but it’s what they say about it anyway. I found out when I was looking for reviews on survival knives.”

The food and conversation seemed to put everyone in a good mood, including Leigh, so the younger generation moved to the TV to play some
Black Ops
. Once the dishes were cleared, Mac could see a certain look in Neil’s eyes, and knew he was entertaining the same thoughts she was.

“You know, I’ve got some great camping equipment in all this stuff. What do you say we go, uh, look at the stars.” His smile was slow and seductive, flirting with sinister.

“I thought you’d never ask.” The others were all being so loud they didn’t notice Mac rooting through the supplies.

Once she had everything piled together, they filled their arms and snuck out. She led him toward the small river, and dropped her armload of gear on the ground. They were out of sight of the house now, with plenty of trees blocking anyone’s view of the river, and she wasted no time in stripping off.

“Well that was fast! I thought I’d have to do some sweet-talkin’ to get you out of those clothes.” When he reach for her, though, she slipped away.

“Not just yet, cowboy. I haven’t had a chance to go skinny-dipping in this river, and I’m not missing the opportunity. You have to take them when they come.”

“Do you?” His voice was like silk, and she froze while he stalked slowly toward her.

*     *     *

“Well,
that
was a hell of a thing,” Neil asserted, twenty minutes later, clearly not complaining. He blew out a breath as he eased his weight over.

“Those mad skills of yours have left us both sticky as hell,” he observed.

“
My
mad skills? I think it’s the other way around.”

“Let’s go fulfill that skinny-dipping fantasy of yours.” She burst out laughing, jumped up, and raced him to the river. Suddenly she had all the energy in the world.

The water was cold, of course, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. They splashed each other like little kids and then made love again in the water, her legs wrapped around him as he held her up against his slick flesh.

When they were finished they dragged their weakened bodies to the bank, both of them shivering.

“You eat a lot of oysters or something? Or do you just have an excess of testosterone that keeps you at full-mast?” She could barely get the words out through her chattering teeth. Neil smacked the extremely cold skin of her ass, making her yelp.

“There’s that sass again. You can’t help it even when you’re practically freezing to death. Might be your best quality.” Her mouth dropped open, and he relented slightly.

“Well,” he drawled suggestively as he leered at her naked body. “Maybe not
the
best, but it ranks right up there.

“Look here, boyo,” she began, and cocked her hip.

“Boyo?” His question interrupted what might have been an interesting tirade, but she was cold and let it go.

“Yes, boyo. Every once in a while my Irish pops out.” She grabbed her clothes and pulled them on.

“Irish, huh? Well that explains a few things.”

“Probably explains most things about me,” she said. She looked around at the scattered camping supplies.

“I’m not sure that we really needed any of this stuff. How late is Billy going to want to stay up?”

“He’s playing Black Ops. He’ll stay up all night if the rest of them are into it.”

“Why don’t we make this fun for everyone? We can camp out here if you’d like to stay. I’ve got really good sleeping bags, and that air mattress is perfectly comfortable. Cameron can take my room. Leigh and Kirk can take Cameron’s, and Billy can crash on the futon whenever he’s ready to go down. Of all of us I think Leigh will be the first one wanting to go to bed. I need to talk to her, though.”

“Okay, let’s go sort everyone out, so you and I can come back here and just enjoy each other’s company.”

“Sounds faahhbulous, dahlink!” Her German accent was completely hideous, since it was vaguely British and Russian at the same time. Neil chuckled and grabbed her hand.

“I’m not sure you’ve got a career in theatre, honey. Stand-up maybe.”

“Yeah, I’m hilarious when I’m terrified and standing frozen in front of a bunch of people. Something about it just makes people giggle uncontrollably.”

“Fear of public speaking?”

“Not so much. More performance anxiety.” They were walking through the door when Neil suggested she get some music for them to listen to, but since the open living area was right there, they dealt with the kids first.

Neil explained the situation, and the four of them just continued playing their game, nodding vaguely in amongst the swearing and laughing as they killed Nazi zombies.

“Fuck, I’m dead. Son of a bitch sniped me!” Billy shook his head in a dazed fashion.

“Wait. What did you say, dad?” Neil growled good-naturedly and repeated himself. Even if the others didn’t hear him, at least one of them knew and could tell the others when the subject came up.

Mackenzie waited until Leigh got killed in the game, and quickly spoke in her ear.

“I should have made it clear to you, Leigh, so I’m really sorry. You’re entitled to eat anything you like, or use whatever facilities we have in this place. It’s not much right now, but it’ll get better, okay?

“Seriously, never feel as though you have to wait for someone to offer you food, blankets, shampoo, you name it. It’s here for everyone. And just so you know, you’re welcome here. You’re not an outsider. This is your home for as long as you need or want it to be. That offer even includes the chocolate we’ve got stashed. Alright?” Leigh nodded, and Mac could see there was a sheen to her eyes.

“We’ve got some hard work ahead of us, but once it’s done we can start having some fun with it. Regular chores won’t be a big deal, and we’ll find stuff that each of us is good at and enjoys. We’ll just have to share the stuff everyone hates. Like chicken shit.”

As she’d hoped, the last comment put a smile on Leigh’s face. Leigh got off the futon and stepped to the side, making it clear she wanted to speak privately.

“It wasn’t just that, Mac. Something happened in Oakville that threw me. I didn’t tell Kirk about it, because he would’ve flipped. A little kid got trampled in the grocery store by some snotty bitch, and when I helped him up she turned around and told me to keep my brat under control. I don’t even like kids, and don’t plan to have any, but I’d never treat a kid like that.

“His mother found us a minute later, and I told her what happened. The kid was still crying and holding his arm, so I think it might’ve been broken. I was so pissed at the bitch that stomped on him, but it scared me, too. That’s a big reason I was so happy to leave the city when Kirk told me about coming here. I could see where things were headed.”

“Jesus, Leigh. I’m surprised you didn’t clock her.” Leigh gave a weak smile.

“I wish I had, but I was completely stunned. It happened so fast, and then she disappeared into the crowd. I actually looked for her after, but couldn’t find her. Kirk likes kids, and he’d have lost his shit if he’d known. It would’ve taken hours to convince him to stop looking for the woman and leave the store. I knew she’d be gone, after bullying her way through like that.”

“Hey, Leigh,” Kirk shouted. “What the hell? You playing or not?” Leigh shrugged at Mac and went back to the game.

The ferrets were awake when they went into Mac’s room for the laptop she had her music on. It was the first time Neil really had a chance to see what they were like.

“Watch your ankles,” she warned.

Neil engaged in a scaled-down wrestling match with Pickle, using his hand, which was almost as big as the ferret. Mac couldn’t resist making a comment.

“My, what big hands you have!” Neil glanced up at her and stared into her eyes. She sucked in her breath. She knew very well how proportionally accurate his hand size was with other parts of his anatomy, and she was suddenly itching to get her hands on him again. Apparently she had the libido of a rabbit these days, and he was the one with the carrot.

Hurriedly she gathered up her laptop and the accessories she might need, stowing them in a backpack-style computer case. She spent a few minutes cleaning up after the ferrets, and making sure their food and water were fresh.