Page 2 of Sweet and Salty
“It makes sense when you meet the owner. What I’m saying, Jesse, is you’re going to like it here. It’s a nice town. You’ll make friends. You’ll find a job.”
Despite there being absolutely no one else on the road, Harbor pauses at a stop sign for an extended period of time. Then he turns left onto a side street and away from the idyllic-sounding downtown. “Make it work. It won’t be forever. I’ll keep in touch and let you know when the trial is. Then you can go back to your old life, if you even want it anymore.”
What’s left of it to return to? Even before an ICBM named Esme LaDanza obliterated my life, I hadn’t had much but dreams. Now they’re charcoal too. No, less than charcoal. Ash caught in one of those fricking ice swords hanging from the trees up here.
A familiar aching sensation threatens to swallow me whole, but I choke it back.
Harbor turns into a long driveway, remarkable only for being a half-plowed impression between two walls of snow. “Enjoy yourself, is what I’m saying.” The SUV bumped along the snow, catching and then popping out of little grooves in the hardpack.
I’ll need a four-wheel drive and chains out here. I’ll also need to google how to apply said snow chains. “Are you going to tell me to find some nice person and settle down?” It sounds even more bitter out loud than in my head.
Harbor’s brows crease, and, beneath his neatly trimmed beard, his jaw tightens. “Wow, this place has changed.”
I follow his gaze out the front windshield. Coming into view is the most dilapidated excuse for a house I’ve ever seen. Shack, would be more like it. Hovel. Crack den, although that might be an insult to crack dens.
It’s a single-story cabin, or had once been. The front porch appears to be held up only by thick layers of snow and ice, any buttressing woodwork a mere suggestion of aid. There is nopaint to speak of, but the entire structure is a limpid shade of pine brown, like a Christmas tree left out until the last week of February.
“The roof looks solid.” Harbor’s voice sounds pained. He stops the car in what might have been a driveway or a full flower garden—it’s impossible to tell underneath the foot of snow. “I mean, I know we have budget cuts, but I still thought—”
“It’s fine,” I say. I glance up at the roof of the cabin, which defies the odds by looking almost sturdy, even underneath the layers of snow. “It’s a fixer-upper. I don’t need much, right?”
Harbor unbuckles his seat belt, his posture relaxing. “Right. You’ll make it work. It has good bones, from what I remember. Or you can find something else. You have a stipend for about six months.”
Like that will be anything substantial. Budget cuts.
The vast amount of change wells up inside me again, but I tamp it all back down. I know my options, bleak as they are. It’s a simple choice between live or die. Live in this falling-down murder shack or die with a bullet to the back of my head while grocery shopping at the Publix.
I chose falling-down murder shack. Yet another winner in my long line of poor decisions.
Harbor opens his door and steps out. I follow suit a moment later. No use in delaying the inevitable. My brand-new snow boots sink into the powder, leaving two deep impressions of my size thirteen feet. It’s even colder outside the car than in. I shiver and pull my thick woolen hat further down over my brow.
“Oh.” Harbor stops halfway to the front door. “By the way, about the whole ‘settling down’ thing. Have fun, play the field, whatever, but I wouldn’t recommend anything more than that. A relationship built on lies isn’t much of one, right?”
I bark a laugh that tastes like acid. “I think I know that better than anyone, Marshal Stryke.”
“I suppose that’s true.” He stares at me, his expression empathetic. Whatever. I don’t need his pity. I need a roof, a hammer and some nails—screws? I’ve never exactly done a lot of home repairs before—and a case of beer to get drunk enough to forget that I now live in this barren wasteland. I brush past him, climbing the snowy stairs to the front door, and pull on the handle.
It falls off into the palm of my glove, showering my arm with a fine spray of rust and other toxic debris.
Harbor attempts a laugh and slaps me on the back, a little too hard. “Welcome to St. Olaf, Jesse.”
CHAPTER TWO
Laura
The left turnsignal on my brother’s sheriff truck blinks before he drives down a long road that was well-paved maybe twenty-five years ago. Now it’s more a highway from hell carved of irregular pieces of concrete that threaten the suspension of my ten-year-old hatchback.
He parks his SUV just before the house, a single-story clapboard that looks held together with duct tape and sheer survivalist willpower. There are rust-colored bedsheets hung haphazardly across the windows, and a hand-painted sign with Beware of Dog written in faded black paint. Poor dog. Nothing about this place suggests a caring environment for animals.
I pull in beside Rory, the horse trailer hitched to my car skidding slightly on the slick pavement, and step out just as he does. “Morning,” I say casually, pulling my wool beanie further down over my ears and my thick mittens onto my hands. Winter in Wisconsin is all about embracing the weather and having appropriate clothing.
But animals can’t choose their clothing. Animals can’t choose their owners, whether they go to a good home or a place where they won’t have shelter or food or access to kindness.
Which is why Rory called me early this morning, waking my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. Which earned me an argument and a migraine.
Human choice is overrated. Sometimes we pick wrong.
“How’s it going this morning, Laura?” Rory asks. He rests his gloved hands on his hips as he inspects the front of the house. “How’s what’s-his-name?”