“The heater’s broke, so we had to use blizzard blankets,” the girl replies as she rubs her eyes.

“Oh, dear. Why didn’t you ask Rutherford to come tell me?” Mrs. Pearson goes back over to the heater unit under the window and messes with the switch for a few seconds. “The dials on this one are off, you have to put it halfway between hot and cold to make the heat work.”

“Wonderful, thanks,” I reply. “Now that the f**king night is over and we have to leave, I’m so glad we have heat.”

“Rutherford, your mouth!” Mrs. Pearson chastises. I feel like I’m ten again.

“Rutherford?” the girl asks, looking up at me, confused.

“Ford, I suppose you know him by, right?” Mrs. Pearson nods to me and my eyebrows raise at the girl’s stare. “I was the village librarian when he was little, so naturally I stick to given names.” She walks over to the girl’s bed, pushing me right out of the way as she does this. “Blizzard blankets,” she says, her fingertips gliding across the blanket, testing for heat. “He always was resourceful. Did he tell you he was an Eagle Scout?”

The girl laughs and suddenly I feel like I’m just scenery, something to be talked about, but not talked to. I shake my head and then stare at the two of them as they discuss me.

“Was he?” the girl asks, interested.

“He never told you about how he electrocuted Jason in the boys’ bathroom and then used that apparatus for the sixth-grade science fair and got his electricity badge out of it at the same time? Rutherford is not one to waste an opportunity.” The girl laughs a little at this image and Mrs. Pearson is encouraged. “Honey, I have some stories—”

“OK, that’s enough.” I snap out of my daze and grab Mrs. Pearson by the arm and start pulling her towards the door. “And for the record, I was not charged for that small mishap in the skate park bathroom that year, so technically I never did it. Thank you for delivering the message, Mrs. Pearson. If Jason calls back, tell him I’ll meet him over there at eleven.”

“OK, but your wife can come visit with me while you figure out the mechanical stuff. I’d love to talk to her—”

“I’m sure you would. Thanks!” I shove her out the door and close it before she can open her mouth again. I look over at the girl and she’s smiling at me. “What?”

“Rutherford?” she snickers as the baby squirms in her arms. “You look nothing like one now, but I can totally see you as a nerdy little prankster.”

“A what?” I’m not sure if that was a compliment or an insult. “And please, only my parents call me Rutherford.”

She hugs the baby to her chest and coos at it for a few seconds, then gets back under the covers and lifts her shirt and slides the baby in next to her bare skin.

I want to look away.

That’s a lie. Not only do I not want to look away, I can’t look away, so the girl catches me staring again.

“The librarian thinks I’m your wife,” she says, closing her eyes as the baby begins to suckle.

“Yes, sorry about that. I’ll set her straight next time I see her.” I climb back into my bed, hoping all my chance encounters with Mrs. Pearson are over. I’ll just leave the key in the room and not check out. The heat’s blasting out of the unit now, and the room is warming up nicely. “We have a couple more hours, might as well enjoy it.”

I get no reply and at first I think she’s ignoring me, but when I open my eyes and drag my stare over to her, she’s already breathing heavy with her mouth open. Her dark hair spills over her shoulders in a long cascade and for a moment I imagine she’s Rook.

Would I want a wife and a child if it was with Rook?

Yes. Unequivocally, yes. I would like that. I’d like that very much. I take the daydream a little further and imagine Rook’s body pressed up against mine as she feeds our baby. How warm her skin would be. I allow the slurping noises the baby is making in the next bed to lull me further.

If that girl was Rook, she would be naked, tucked up into my chest as she nursed. I’d rest my cheek against her and pull her as close to my body as I could.

I’d touch her all over. Every bit of her body would get my attention. I’d explore her daily. Take her as often as I could get away with it. And not from behind, either. From below. So I could watch her move on top of me, watch her br**sts as she arches her back when I make her come.

I could make her happy and she knows it.

She is the only woman I’ve ever wanted.

She is the one woman I cannot have.

The daydream fades and the baby sounds jerk me back to my reality. I’m with a strange girl and her child in the cheapest motel in Vail—a town I’ve avoided successfully for two-plus years. My vehicle is f**ked and even though I could just rent a car and be on my way right now, that hunk of shit means far too much to leave behind.

Chapter Seven

I sit up straight in bed, confused as f**k again. “What is that smell?”

I get baby noises as a response.

“And why the f**k is it so cold?” I manage to locate the source of the noise—the baby is cooing in her carrier seat on the floor. Then the cold—the door is propped open with one of my shoes. The girl bursts through a second later, shivering from the frigid alpine air, and shuts the door. When she turns around she jumps and puts her hand on her chest.

“Oh, crap, you scared me! I thought you were asleep.”