Liberating Mr. Gable Read online

  “Alright, then. I’ll make sure to write that down. For billing purposes, of course,” Vera explained. Etta knew better. She made a mental note to call Vera as soon as they made it home to assure her that Mr. Gable was not a gang member.

  “I’m not billing him, Vera. He’s just staying the night, and I’m not officially open for business yet anyway.”

  Vera shook her head. “Well, that’s up to you, I guess.”

  Etta moved slowly, matching Vera’s pace as she walked her friend to the door. The wind whipped them, making their cheeks so cold, they felt prickly with the painful freeze.

  “Thank you, dear.” Vera reached out to hold onto the girl again as she crossed over the one step that led to her cozy cottage. “Wait here for a second. I’ve got a few blankets I finished knitting and a dozen jars of jam. Would you mind taking them up to Benjamin’s store when the weather clears up?” She handed Etta a bag from the settee, and then began rummaging through her purse. “And give these to the boys.” Vera handed her a few butterscotch candies. “Tell them they’ll make them grow big and strong. They just love that.”

  “Can Thomas bring up the jams for me?” Etta did not want to track her sloppy boots into Vera’s home. She shivered as she spoke. The kitten motif was a little off-putting to Etta. Every time she entered the home, she felt dozens of sets of eyes staring at her, watching her every move. So despite the arctic temperatures, Etta remained on the stoop. “And Coop’s thirty, and Jamie’s twenty-one. I think they’re pretty much done growing by now, Vera.” Etta glanced past the old woman, relieved that her son Thomas’ standard Friday night casserole was baking in the oven, and that he had not forgotten. He had moved in with his mother to help her manage things and assist her in running the business. The only thing he ran consistently, though, was the television set.

  Thomas was sitting in his easy chair, and did not get up at Vera’s arrival home. Etta helped Vera take her boots off with a smile, though inside she was grumbling at Thomas’ laziness. “Thomas, can you grab the jams from the basement for me?” she repeated.

  Thomas stood and stretched. “Could you shut the door, Etta? It’s a little cold.” His red flannel pajama pants had holes in the knees. Etta secretly hoped the draft would attack him there and spread through his body, so he would really have something to whine about.

  Etta nodded impatiently as the wind whipped around her. “Jams, Thomas. Sooner I get them, sooner this door closes.”

  He came back up and handed her the box, unconcerned that she had one functioning hand. Donning the warmest smile she could muster in the freezing cold, Etta juggled the bag and box as best she could. “You all set in here, Vera?”

  “Oh, of course. Thank you for the ride home.” Vera waved to Etta, braving the arctic gale again so she could give the girl one last word of caution. “Be safe, dear. Lock your bedroom door tonight. That boy’s got shifty eyes.”

  “Will do, Vera.” Etta wanted to brush off the warning, but she was just as nervous about the situation.

  Etta shoved Vera’s bag and the jams in the bed of her truck. Then she hoisted herself into the cab – a thing that was far harder to do with only one hand that was able to maintain a grip. “Hey. Sorry that took so long.” The heater had worked its magic, transforming the cab into a furnace. Etta turned down the airflow and offered a small smile to the stranger. She was grateful he had not stolen her truck.

  The frostbitten look of him was beginning to thaw, giving way to a handsome face that would have looked commanding if it were not so gun-shy and borderline traumatized. Etta was determined not to turn into a mumbling idiot in his presence. She turned her head away to keep her junior high butterflies and heightened stranger-danger caution at bay. She was a business owner, after all. “My house is just a few minutes from here, but I need to stop at the general store for supplies, in case the storm doesn’t let up soon. You okay with that, Mr. Gable?”

  “Anson.” He looked over at Etta, returning her smile with a cautious one of his own. “You can call me Anson.”

  The roar of the truck muffled his answer. “Hanson? Like that boy group from the nineties?”

  A true smile broke out on his face, alerting Etta further to his appealing looks. Perfect teeth revealed themselves with his alluring mouth, transforming his features with the simple switch of levity. The rigid hold he had on his body loosened, altering his entire demeanor. His hands relaxed from gripping his backpack on his lap. His shoulders released a bit of their tension. “Anson. Without the ‘H’. ‘Mr. Gable’ makes me sound like your tenant, which I’m not. I’m just a friend of a friend, crashing on your couch.” He ran a mittened hand over his face and blinked the exhaustion away as best he could. His bloodshot eyes had bags underneath.

  Etta laughed quietly, cursing the preprogrammed blush that always came when she was nervous. “Is that so?” Her truck rocked against the angry wind. She was glad her snow tires were still holding up against the ice on the road. “Whose friend are you, then?”

  “Vera’s, of course. Couldn’t you tell? Long lost best friends. We went to high school together.”

  “Naturally.” Etta grinned, relaxing at his introduction of humor to the conversation. The smile illuminating her face was a welcome change. It dawned on her that she had been missing a reason to smile, and she was grateful to the outsider for giving her a moment of light in a period of dark. “And you’re not sleeping on my couch. You wanted to rent a room, but my place isn’t exactly customer-ready right now. So I won’t charge you, but I won’t make you sleep on the couch, either.” Etta kept her eyes on the icy road as she spoke. “You should probably think about grabbing whatever you need in the general store. Everything else will be closed down tomorrow. Weather report said the snowstorm would pass through tonight and be done in the morning, but we never know if they’re telling the truth. You might be stuck here longer than the night. Fair warning. I didn’t say anything back there because I didn’t want to worry Vera.” Etta snuck another glance at his striking features. “Her being your best friend, and all. She’ll be very concerned for your wellbeing.”

  Anson scratched a patch of his black hair that stuck out under the knit cap with his mittened hand. “Alright. I might need a few pointers on winter life, though. I’ve never actually seen snow before. Kind of a shock when I got off the plane.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Seriously? This is your first time seeing snow? Where are you from?” She asked the question as if the only logical answer he could give would be that he was from outer space. She covered her mouth with her cast, chagrinned. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Anson waved his hand to indicate his lack of a need for her to be on her best behavior. “LA. Always wanted to have a white Christmas and all that. Figured if I didn’t take a vacation now, I might never do it. So I just shoved a few things in a bag and hopped on a plane.”

  Etta mulled over his answer, guessing there was more to it than that. “Well, good for you. It’s healthy to be crazy every now and then. Wow. Your first time seeing snow is a mountain blizzard? You’re in for a real treat.” She frowned. “Or a scare. Can’t decide which, at the moment. It’s getting deep. We’ll have to make the shopping trip a quick one. I’m not keen on getting stuck out in the cold. You?” Her heart was beating faster than usual, and she tried not to be fearful of the man she insisted on rescuing. This was all her doing, not his.

  “No, ma’am. Not a second time.”

  “Any high school classmate of Vera’s can call me Etta, not ma’am.” She kept her eyes on the icy path ahead of them, avoiding the gaze that kept drawing hers. “Are you going to be alright? You’re looking kinda piqued.”

  Anson smirked, the little life still in him coming to light. He leaned his head back against the window to further size up the driver, leaving a healthy distance between them. “What a nice way to say I look like crap.”

  Etta shook her head. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean anything like that. Y
ou look… well, a little strange in my mittens, I’ll admit. But not like crap.”

  He laughed, breaking both of them out of the last vestiges of their unease. “Thanks for this, Etta.” Anson’s voice was deep and laced with kindness. “I’ll try to stay out of your hair tonight. I’d probably be a popsicle if you hadn’t given me a place to stay.”

  “Probably?” Etta shifted in her seat. “Definitely. What was your plan? Just show up and hope for an empty room to rent?”

  “Pretty much. It was supposed to be a vacation. I’ve never put one together myself. Thought it was a good time to try my hand at spontaneity.”

  “In my experience, snow and spontaneity don’t mix,” Etta mused, trying to hold back the scolding tone in her voice.

  Anson nodded. “Noted.”

  Etta pulled into the parking lot of the general store, relieved that hers was the only vehicle besides the owners’. The roads were difficult to drive on, and she did not fancy digging anyone out of a ditch with one functioning wrist.

  She reached for the car door, paused, and turned to Anson. “So, just ignore the guys that run the store. They’re goofy, and they sometimes get a little weird. If they say anything off, just don’t listen.”

  He shrugged and tossed her an uneasy grin. “Hey, I’m not a client, remember? You’re doing me the favor. I won’t judge your friends.”

  “You say that now,” she commented, taking a deep breath before she thrust open the door. She looked over her shoulder at Anson, who had not moved. The dome light revealed his backpack clutched tight to his chest. He regarded the outside of the unimpressive general store with a wary expression. Etta wondered if he thought a bear might pop out of the woods and attack him. “You coming?”

  “I… I, um. I’m not sure. I don’t think I need anything.” The bits of unease that had been peeled away with their breezy banter did nothing to hide his cagey eyes as they took in the store. He was suddenly withdrawn again, which increased Etta’s anxiety over her decision to take him home with her.

  She refused to feel unsafe in her own vehicle. Etta shut herself back in the truck with the man and looked him over. He had gone from smiling to tense in the time it took her to park the car. “Something the matter?”

  “Um, no. I just… It looks busy in there.” He motioned to the two other cars in the lot.

  “Oh. Actually that truck with the plow belongs to the owners. And the other one’s a permanent fixture. Broken. Cooper keeps trying to fix it, but it’s not going anywhere.” Her best friend was always trying to fix things that she wished he would stop tinkering with.

  “Okay. Um, it’s just that I…” He wiped the fresh sweat from his forehead as he faced the store. “I’m not so great with crowds.” His eyes darted around the parking lot as his chest heaved, and Etta wondered if this was the beginning of some sort of panic attack.

  Etta reached over and placed her hand on Anson’s arm, retracting it when he gasped and jolted away from the touch as if her hand burned him. “I’m sorry!” Her apology came out at a squeaky pitch. “I

  didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You just seemed a little lost.”

  Anson’s breath came to him in shallow pants as he tried to steady himself. “No, you’re fine. I just… I don’t like to be touched a whole lot.”

  Etta held up her hands in surrender, wondering how she had dropped her own discomfort so easily around him. “Me neither,” she admitted quietly. She pulled a pen and scrap of paper from her coat pocket. “How about you write down what you want, and I’ll go inside and get it for you. You can just wait out here.”

  Anson gusted out a sigh of great relief when Etta put the pen and paper on the dash for him to retrieve without being accidentally touched by her. “Thank you. Really. So much. Thank you.” He scribbled down a few essentials and spoke without looking up at her. “I know I must seem strange. Thanks for this.”

  “You don’t seem strange,” she lied. Then, donning the serious cap she had admired on her grandfather, she leveled her gaze at him. “You are a stranger, though. I hope you’re not offended that I’m taking the keys in with me. I won’t be long, so you won’t freeze to death.”

  “That’s fair.” Anson dipped into his pocket and pulled out a crisp one hundred dollar bill.

  Etta examined the novelty like it was foreign currency. “Whoa. What’s on this list?” she wondered aloud. “I’ll be back with change.”

  Anson shrugged. “Get whatever you need. My treat. You won’t let me pay rent. At least let me buy dinner.” He fished around in his backpack and pulled out sunglasses and a bottle of prescription pills. He avoided Etta’s questioning gaze as he unscrewed the cap and downed two white pills, and then slipped on the sunglasses to shield himself from the moonlight.

  Etta nodded her thanks, thoroughly confused by the man. “By the way, those James Dean glasses look stellar with my fuzzy scarf and mittens. Sunglasses at this time of night? Totally normal.”

  Anson tried to slide back into their newly established easy back-and-forth. He hugged the scarf more securely around his neck. “Yeah? Well, for that, I just might not give your mittens back. They’re fetching on me, yeah?”

  The wind had picked up considerably in the short time it took them to get from Vera’s to the general store. Etta hopped out, opened the bed of the truck and stretched to swipe at the box and bag, struggling with her one-handed grip.

  When the box moved magically toward her, she looked up and found Anson at her side. “Oh, thanks. I’m still not as useful as I imagine I am.”

  Anson displayed half a grin as he braced himself against the cold. He kept checking over his shoulder as if a tornado or something equally threatening might descend on him at any moment. “No problem. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.” He motioned to the store. “Crowds, I just… I can’t. I’m sorry.” He placed the box in her outstretched arms with a frown, as if he hated himself for the lack of chivalry he was displaying.

  “No problem. Could you hand me the bag, too?” She smiled up at him when he gently placed the bag atop the box. “Thanks. Now get back inside. You’ll catch your death out here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s a good boy,” she teased, not able to recall the last person who called her “ma’am”.

  It was difficult to balance with the cast, but she managed, even after nearly toppling over on a patch of ice. Etta kept her head down as she braved the elements, though she could feel Anson’s shielded eyes on her the whole way.

  “Fine” in the General Store

  The bell over the door announced her entry. A tall middle-aged man with brown hair, studious gold-rimmed glasses and a warm smile for Etta greeted her from behind the register. “Etta! So good to see you. I didn’t know you’d be stopping by.”

  “Hey, Benji. Just a quick pit stop. Not exactly sunbathing weather out there.”

  Jamie dropped his pricing gun and trotted over to her, his dark hair matching his father’s in style and color. “What are you doing here?” His youthful exuberance had not slowed when he entered his teen years. Even at twenty-one, he was still like a puppy who only needed the slightest bit of excitement to wag his tail.

  “Well, hello to you, too, Jamie,” she greeted with a smile. Etta stood on her toes and pecked Benjamin’s cheek. “Got a delivery from Vera. Do you want it all in the back?”

  Benjamin nodded. He was about to offer his assistance, when a male voice boomed from the storeroom behind the register. Cooper sang with much bravado an operatic tune with Etta’s name laced through the harmonious French lyrics. “Etta, my love!” Cooper shouted from the back, then threw open the door to make his presence known.

  Benjamin waved his hand to the boys. “Jamie, go on back and grab the pie tins for Etta. Could you load them into her truck for her?”

  “I’ll get them,” Etta spoke up. “I’ve got a renter in the truck who wants some quiet.”

  “I’ll do it. I can be quiet,” Cooper said, offended.

&
nbsp; “Maybe when you’re asleep.” Etta thought on this, and then revised. “Nope. You snore. Scratch that.”

  Cooper stared out the window in confusion as Jamie fetched the pie tins. Then his gaze turned skeptical. “You’ve got a renter? Since when?”

  “Since ten minutes ago. Storm’s moving in, and everyone else was full. It’s no big deal.” When Cooper’s eyebrows furrowed with the big brotherly concern she was all-too familiar with, she added, “He’s a friend of Vera’s. Just crashing for the night.”

  “Huh. You want me to stay over?”

  She was afraid he would say that. “No, Cooper. I want you to move so I can put the jams in the storage room.”

  As if just coming back to himself, Cooper Grant shook his head at his best friend. “Give me those.” He lifted the box easily that she had been struggling with. He flexed his thick bicep and grinned. “Need me to lift anything else with my big, strong arms? My two, functioning hands?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  Cooper frowned down at her thinned face, sizing up her fatigue. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy. You look exhausted.”

  “You need to work on your compliments. I’m fine, Coop.” Etta figured the bags under her eyes would be noticed by the people who knew her best, which was why she had decided to become a shut-in for the past month. She turned her head away from Cooper to avoid his scrutiny. She quickly shoved a few items into her basket.

  “Uncle Ben?” Cooper called over his shoulder to tattle on Etta.

  “You’re thirty!” she scolded him. “You should know better than to tell on me to your uncle.”

  Cooper shrugged. “And you’re twenty-seven. That makes me older, wiser, and cooler.”

  Benjamin Grant looked on the woman with a paternal smile. “I can come by a week from Monday to take your cast off, if you can’t wait.”

  “You can’t just do it now?” she whined, glancing at the scissors by the register. “I’m totally healed. I swear.”