Nome-o Seeks Juliet (An Odds-Are-Good Standalone Romance, #2) Page 7

  She sucks in a sharp breath, but I can’t see her face because my mangled hands are blocking it.

  “It was an IED the size of an ice cube. They told me it was deactivated. They asked me to pack it up for transport. So I did.” I pause. “It wasn’t deactivated.”

  She gulps softly but doesn’t say anything.

  “Look at them, Juliet,” I tell her firmly, an edge in my voice that surprises me. “Look at them, because if you stay, you’re going to see them every day. And you can’t throw up on me every time they gross you out.”

  I lower my hands a little, watching as her eyes stay with my hands, inspecting them. I look for revulsion and horror in her gaze, but this time, I don’t see it. I almost want to see it—to get this over with and drive her away, out of my life—but it’s simply not there.

  Her gaze is gentle, almost tender as she caresses my twisted flesh with her eyes. I mark sadness and compassion, curiosity and concern...but I don’t see repulsion. Maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe her stomach was already upset.

  After a good sixty seconds, she lifts her eyes to mine, and peripherally, I see her lift her hand to me, holding out her palm between us.

  “They don’t gross me out, and I still want to be your partner,” she says. “Can we shake on it?”

  I drop my eyes to her waiting hand, surprised by this gesture. It would be one thing to tell me she’s okay with my hands, but she’s asking to touch them—to touch the worst of me as a means of cementing our partnership.

  I raise my right hand and she takes it, her palm flush to mine, her four perfect fingers clasping the void where three of mine once existed. We hold hands for a while, looking into one another’s eyes, and as the moments tick by, I realize she’s smiling at me. Her lips tilt up into a small grin, and fuck me if mine don’t try to do the same, answering her peace offering with one of my own.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Cody Garrison,” she says, pumping our joined hands gently.

  “You too, Juliet Sanderson,” I say, realizing, only after she steps aside and finally lets me leave the shed, that she’s the first woman who’s voluntarily shaken my hand in over a decade.

  Chapter 6

  Juliet

  Three weeks fly by in the blink of an eye when your days consist of a tight, exhausting routine and you were—in no way, shape, or form—physically or mentally ready for it the day you arrived in Nome.

  Every day, we wake up at seven o’clock in the morning to start getting breakfast ready for the dogs, though the sun doesn’t rise until three hours later and we lose a full six minutes of that precious daylight every day.

  We boil two lobster pots of water to help soften the frozen chunks of fish, meat, and fat we feed to the dogs, then mix it with kibble, frozen vegetables, bone marrow, probiotics, and psyllium. Each dog gets three ladles of stew, which means the massive, ten-pound aluminum stew pot gets refilled once, halfway through feeding. The dogs require eight thousand calories a day now, but that’ll be increased by two hundred calories a week from now on, until they’re eating about ten thousand calories a day in January when racing season starts. That’s an insane amount of food, but race dogs easily burn it every day.

  After the dogs eat breakfast, Cody cuts about twenty pounds of meat from a frozen block he keeps in the grub shack deep freeze, and lets it thaw all day in water for the dogs’ dinner later. Meanwhile, I’m in the house making us breakfast. Most mornings, we have scrambled eggs, bacon, and frozen fruit blended with yogurt into a smoothie. I’m no Gordon Ramsey, but I do my best.

  After human breakfast, we harness a team of eight to ten dogs for a day of training. It still takes me about an hour to get them ready, but now that Cody’s shown me how, I need to improve my speed for the Qimmiq. My fingers work faster and more nimbly than his, and the extra time gives him a chance to pack dog and human snacks for a day on the trail.

  The snow won’t start in earnest until early November, and there won’t be enough for sledding until after a few major snowfalls, so we still have several weeks before we’ll start training with the sleds. For now, we harness the dogs to Cody’s golf cart and let them pull us on the seldom-used side roads to the north of Nome. We run them for two or three hours, between twenty and thirty miles, then stop for a snack and a little playtime. After that, we run them back home for another two or three hours. It’s not as arduous as the fifty-mile runs we’ll do in the snow next month, but it’s good exercise for them, and good practice for me.

  When we return back to Cody’s place in the midafternoon, we take turns mucking out the kennel yard and putting fresh straw in the doghouses, while the other human takes the eight to ten dogs that didn’t run to an eight-acre fenced pasture behind Cody’s house where they can burn off some energy.

  By early evening, we start preparing and ladling out the dogs’ dinner, and by five or six o’clock, Cody’s in the kitchen making ours. We sit side by side at the kitchen counter, exhausted from a long, physically draining day, sometimes making small talk about the dogs, and sometimes eating in weary silence.

  After dinner, we say goodnight.

  I go up to my room to take notes, recording what I’ve learned that day, and shaping Cody and the dogs into an informative narrative. Most nights I fall into bed by seven, drained to the marrow, and I sleep like the dead until morning.

  That’s it.

  That’s my life.

  Oh, sometimes I spice it up with an extralong shower in the evening or, when I’m feeling especially ambitious, I’ll download a show to my phone or iPad (and invariably fall asleep during the first ten minutes of viewing). But mostly, our routine fills my cup. I don’t have energy for anything else. I’m too busy learning everything I can about these dogs before the real training begins...and I love every moment that I spend with them.

  Augusta, for instance, finally lets me scratch behind her ears, although she pointedly ignores me while I do.

  Topeka, who sprained her hock several weeks ago, is back to full running strength, and she’s glorying in her renewed freedom of movement.

  Cheyenne treats me like one of her litter, herding me here and there with her nose when we’re in the pasture together.

  And Juneau, who was initially skittish, rolling onto her back whenever I approached, has learned to trust me and is a cheerful tease.

  I’m still getting to know Phoenix, Helena, Salem, and Olympia, but I’m drawn more and more to the female dogs, and I’m wondering how Cody would feel about my having an all-female team at the Qimmiq, with Cheyenne leading the way.

  Dover is his alpha male and lead dog, and Cheyenne is generally his swing dog, running right behind Dover and firmly enforcing his rule. I don’t know if Cody would be willing to give her up for that race and let her be my lead dog. I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask him yet.

  Since our confrontation in the grub shack three weeks ago after I first saw his hands, we’ve stayed away from personal conversations, avoiding any intimate conversation, as though by tacit agreement.

  We talk about training and racing, and every possible topic related to the dogs, but we don’t share our thoughts and feelings about anything else. When we shook hands and became teammates three weeks ago, it’s like we reset the clock on our relationship. We’re partners and teammates, and as the weeks go by, I find—to my pleasure and surprise—we’re damn good at it.

  Maybe it’s because we’re both so intuitive about the dogs, or because we are clear in our roles as mentor and trainee, but we work well together. We put the dogs first, laughing at their antics, celebrating their successes and worrying about them when they seem off. We’re coworkers who respect each other, but when the workday is over, so is our relationship. We aren’t friends, and so far, I haven’t pushed us to become friends.

  After dinner, when we retreat to our separate spaces, we leave each other alone. He doesn’t come out of his room while I use the bathroom, and I don’t ask him if he wants to download a movie and watch it together in the livi
ng room. We are separate people living in the same place, working toward the same goals, and mostly, I’m satisfied with it.

  No, that’s bullshit.

  I’m lonely.

  And—shit, I hate to admit this, because I feel like my work here should be enough—just a little bit bored.

  Which is why, as my stamina and strength grow day by day, I start looking beyond the insulated world of my life at Cody’s place and start thinking about what there is to do in Nome.

  When we drove to Cody’s place from the airport, I saw a few bars there and a couple of restaurants. But the question that circles in my mind the most is: if I wanted to go out for a beer, would Cody go with me?

  Not that he needs to. I’m perfectly capable of going to a bar on my own. I just...I guess for as much as I haven’t pushed for a friendship between us, I’d sort of like one. If Cody and I could be friends—could talk about our thoughts and share our feelings, occasionally watch a movie together or go out for a beer—I wouldn’t be lonely or bored anymore. I’d have someone. I’d have him.

  And Cody seems like a pretty excellent person to have in your corner. Maybe we haven’t talked about personal matters over the past few weeks—and truth told, I think maybe Cody needed a little bit of time to trust me again after what happened the first time I saw his hands—but I have learned a lot about him just by living here with him.

  He’s gentle, but firm, with his dogs. Patient and encouraging with me. He’s focused and ambitious, and good at what he does. Sometimes, when he’s in his room, I borrow a book from his massive collection, and I’ve discovered that his library is spectacularly varied. Yes, there’s an emphasis on science fiction and military novels, but he also has classic books, plays, and mainstream fiction. I even found a couple of romance novels in there. There are nonfiction sections of his library on cooking, gardening, and engineering, plus a ginormous area focused on dogs, which even includes some veterinary textbooks.

  He doesn’t say a whole lot, but I think he’s bright. And I like him. As a person. As a partner. In fact, I have grown to like him very much.

  Shoot. That’s bullshit too.

  I think it’s possible that I have a little crush on Cody.

  Okay, okay. It’s more than possible.

  Christ! Fine.

  Here’s the truth: as much as I have tried to ignore it, I have definitely developed a crush on him. Why? For every reason I already mentioned, plus the fact that his face is movie-star handsome and his body is so toned, I brace myself when he raises his arms because sometimes, I can see the defined V of muscle that disappears into his jeans. More than once, I’ve woken up in a sweat, dreaming about that V, dreaming about it pushing against my “v” in ways I probably have no business thinking about.

  But he’s literally given me zero encouragement. None. So the leap from my possibly—no, likely—one-sided attraction is daunting. I don’t want to come off as aggressive by asking him out, but if I never say anything, I’ll only have myself to blame if we stay permanently in the friend-zone when there was unspoken potential for something more.

  As we sit down at the kitchen counter to eat sandwiches for dinner on a Friday evening, I look askance at Cody, wondering what he’d say if I asked him to go out for a drink tonight and hoping I don’t just make a comfortable working relationship awkward by taking the leap.

  Hmm. I can be casual, right? Sure I can. Definitely. Casual is in my wheelhouse.

  I clear my throat. “So, um... I was just wondering...”

  Cody looks up at me, pausing midbite to put his sandwich back down on his plate, then wiping his mouth with a paper napkin as he chews. Something else about the last three weeks: they’ve allowed me to see how functional Cody is, despite his disability. I’m in awe of how much he can do with half the fingers I have. I’m amazed. I’m consistently impressed.

  “Huh?” ...but he is not a man of many words.

  His green eyes meet my blue, no doubt waiting for me to ask a question about one of the dogs.

  “Well, um...I was just...” I clear my throat again.

  Casual. We’re channeling....casual.

  “Yeah...?” He picks up a glass of milk with both hands and takes a long gulp, still looking at me, waiting for me to ask my question.

  “Just to be clear,” I hear myself say, “we don’t need to go out on a date.”

  He places his glass back down on the table as he blinks at me. “I wasn’t aware I’d asked you out on a date.”

  “N-No! You didn’t. You never did.”

  “Did you want me to?”

  “Nope! I wanted to ask you.”

  For fuck’s sake, Juliet, this is how you do casual?

  “What?” he asks, narrowing his eyes like he’s trying to understand. “You wanted to ask me out on a date?”

  “No!” I say firmly, my voice almost defensive. “I wanted to not ask you out on a date.”

  He stares at me for a second, then says, “Mission accomplished.”

  As he picks up his sandwich to take another bite, I blurt out, “What I’m trying to say...is that I’d like to go out for a drink with you, but it doesn’t have to be a date. We can just...drink. An alcoholic beverage. You know, together.”

  He chews his food slowly, making me wait as long as possible for his reply.

  Finally, he says, “Okay.”

  “What?”

  “I will have a non-date drink with you,” he says. “In town, I’m assuming?”

  “Yeah,” I say, surprised that after all my blundering, it was so easy.

  “Alright,” he says, finishing his first sandwich.

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  I’m smiling at him. I can feel myself smiling, but I’d know even if I couldn’t feel it, because when I smile at Cody, he does this thing where he licks his lips and tugs his bottom lip between his teeth for a split-second, then lets it go. He’s such a dead ringer for Brad Pitt when he does it, I’ve almost said something a hundred times, but held back.

  Tonight I don’t.

  “You look like Brad Pitt when you do that,” I say, popping a potato chip into my mouth and feeling excited about my first night out in town with Cody.

  He laughs.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever made him laugh about something non-dog-related, and when he does, it makes him look about ten years younger. It crinkles his eyes, brightening and softening his whole face, as it sheds a decade of worry. And it sounds like the rumble of deep, beautiful thunder from miles away. Soft and low. It makes me shiver in a good way.

  “I mean it,” I say, eating another chip as I watch him chuckle.

  “You might not believe this, but I used to get that a lot.”

  “What?” The next chip hovers near my lips. “You did?”

  He nods. “Yep.”

  “People told you that you look like Brad Pitt?”

  He cocks his head to the side. “You just said I did, and now you’re surprised someone else noticed before you?”

  “I don’t know!” I say, reaching for my water and taking a sip. “Yeah. I guess I thought I was the first person to notice.”

  “A guy at a mall in Sacramento once asked if I’d be interested in a look-alike job. I guess famous people hire nobodies who look like them to, you know, like, leave from the front door of hotels so they can sneak out the back. Stuff like that.”

  “You turned it down?”

  “I was days away from boot camp.” He sighs, his smile completely fading. “I wanted to serve my country. Young and stupid.”

  “I don’t think it was stupid.”

  “Well...” He pushes his plate away, leaving half of his second sandwich uneaten. “No one would mistake me for Brad Pitt now.”

  “Nope,” I say, wishing his smile would come back, “your hair’s still blond and his is gray.”

  “Yeah. Right,” he says, his voice as dry as sand when he plants his elbows on the counter and holds up his hands, palms facing me. “The c
olor of my hair would throw ’em all off.”

  His hands don’t shock me anymore. Not even a little bit. Most of the time I don’t notice them, but when I do, I think about his sacrifice: about how a twenty-year-old young man was asked to package up a deactivated IED only to have five of his fingers blown to smithereens.

  I rest my elbows across from his and reach up to press the heels of my palms against the heels of his, slowly closing the distance between our palms until my skin is flush against his. In one pairing, our pinkies and thumbs touch. In the other, our last three fingers.

  Part of me is surprised that he allows this intimacy.

  And all of me is glad that he does.

  “I admire you,” I whisper, “for so many reasons.”

  His green eyes, so vibrant and clear, seize mine, holding them, searching them, nearly touching my being through the windows of my soul. Then suddenly, he drops his hands and his gaze, leaving my hands unanchored and alone.

  “I’ll clear the table,” he mutters, standing up and taking our plates to the sink. He deposits them in the basin with a loud clatter. “Dogs are fed. We can go in a little bit.”

  “Go?” Go where? I’m still a little dazed by the intensity of the moment we just shared.

  “On our not-a-date to town,” he says softly, standing at the sink with his back to me.

  I don’t know what I did wrong. Or if I did anything wrong at all. But I sense Cody needs a moment to himself, so I leave the kitchen counter and go upstairs to freshen up.

  ***

  Cody

  Freud once observed that despite three decades of research into the “woman soul,” he still couldn’t answer the question: What do women want?

  Freud, I think, scrubbing our dinner dishes, I hear you loud and clear, man.

  I can hear Juliet moving around upstairs, and I exhale a long breath. I love having her here, but sometimes I know it’s not good for me. And right now is such a moment.

  She doesn’t want us to go out on a date...but two seconds later, she tells me I look like Brad Pitt.