Standing in the middle of nowhere with a shotgun pointed at her by a crazy woman in an aluminum foil hat wasn’t what Daelin pictured as a fresh start. Charming had chattered on about chaste air and mountains, lots of sunshine and sky, not weirdoes acting as crazy as loons on the subway. And why wasn’t she here yet? “Do you know where my sister is?” Maybe she was stuck at work. “Which way is the Paleo Institute?”
Shotgun Evita took three steps backwards, whirled, then ran across a meadow of brush to a grouping of five dilapidated trailers the next street over. Nuttier things had happened in New York: naked people on the train in a snowstorm, a pink bear racing down Fifth Avenue, men in bras and lipstick. One loony woman with a gun didn’t faze Daelin.
She took the prepaid phone out of her pocket and tried her sister again. It went to voice mail. “Charm, I’m running out of minutes, I can’t find your key, and I’m standing out here in the freezing cold. You should have said Settler was like Alaska and full of half-baked fish.”
The phone tucked away, Daelin surveyed the whole of the town. Charming lived on Madeline Street, number 24, atop a knoll. Closer to East Lake than Gold Lake on the south side of town, she had a nice view of them both. No building rose higher than three stories, most two or less. Houses dotted the blocks, no more than nine to each one, grouped like well-edited paragraphs. Charming’s cottage stood alone at the end of Madeline, which stretched farther into the wilds than the other streets, giving an unobstructed view of nature to the west, the center of town across some scrub brush to the north, and the quiet neighborhoods to the west and north.
The unblemished soul-quaking vista of unpopulated lands spread before her as fine as classic literature, finer than lines of poetry — snowcapped mountains, pine trees, two blue lakes, a cinder cone, tumbleweeds, and a field of black rock, which appeared to be asphalt but wasn’t. From her research on Settler, she knew it was lava. Miles and miles of lava. The town seemed so lonely, the edge of the world.
Daelin shivered and reached for another frog. A mob of them thronged her sister’s gardens. The first fifteen croakers hadn’t had the spare key, but one of them did. So Charming had said.
“The key isn’t under that one. I believe it’s under a frog on the side of the house. A blue one.”
Daelin dropped the frog, braced her hands on her hips, and spun around. Holding a U.S. Postal Service pouch and dressed in a blue uniform, the man had no gun. He stood a few feet away next to her car. The cock of his hip and the hitch of his lips marked him as a once-was bad boy who hadn’t completely outgrown his rakish ways. Dark hair flirted with his eyes, partially covering them, definitely calling attention to their inky depths.
“At least you’re not holding a shotgun.” Daelin crossed her arms, waiting for what he had to say for himself.
His fingers fiddled with the old-fashioned aviator goggles hanging around his neck. “You met my cousin then?”
“Little thing with messy dark curls?”
“That’s her. Trinidad Cepeda, and I’m Culver Swit. Descendents of the illustrious Patrick Swit.” He said it as if it meant something, puffing his chest and raising his chin. The world beyond urban boundaries was strange.
“If you know which frog, you must know my sister,” Daelin said. “Which side of the house?”
“You won’t be able to avoid knowing everyone by the end of the week. That’s the nature of places like this.” His expression curved into a chuckle, igniting sparks in the ebony pools beneath his thick long eyelashes. He left the car, heading to her, clutching a fistful of envelopes. His perfectly angled nose almost touched hers, and he came only an inch shy of her height. His regard didn’t leave her, stripping her naked, heating her skin wherever the wind had chilled it.
Daelin reached for the letters. “Well, I don’t know anybody yet.”
His smile dimmed. He placed the mail in Daelin’s hand, but didn’t let go. “You know me and my cousin, Tiny. You’ll see us many times again. Keep that in mind. Things are different here.” He went with her up the porch steps. “You can’t just sashay in like you belong. You have to give the place and people a chance to know you.”
A throat cleared behind her, deep and gruff, startling her frayed nerves. Daelin whirled, wishing she had kept a frog. Then she’d have something to hurl. The mail in her hand would only cause a paper cut at best.
A well-dressed cowboy resembling one of her favorite authors stood there. Like the postman, he appeared close to her age, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Maybe she didn’t want to throw anything.
In a long rust-hued coat, black boots, and black cowboy hat, the newcomer leveled a pair of startling blue eyes at Daelin. Familiar blue eyes. “Go on about your rounds, Culver, I’ve got this. I can let you in, miss.” A few inches shorter than her didn’t prevent him from being as confident as a mountain.
“And you would have a key because?” Daelin shoved her sister’s mail in her purse.
“I’m the landlord. I live straight down the road.” He pointed at a dirt track that hugged along the lava flow then disappeared into the trees. “The name’s Earl Blacke.” He came closer and extended a hand. “Darlin Dae Long, I presume?”
Despite the nip in the air, his hand boasted a hearty warmth when Daelin grasped it and shook. The set of his jaw and the sternness of his eye made her feel safe, as if he knew how to take on the world.
“I prefer Daelin if you don’t mind.”
“I’m all for people naming themselves whatever they like.” He let go and tipped his hat. His hair shone as gold as the brush covering the lowlands spreading wide before the mountains. The curls on top were longer than the sheered sides, a roguish and playful style as hip as the in-crowd in the city, and his beard and mustache framed it all perfectly.
The postman butt in, smirking. “I’m not sure Earl is his real name.”
What an odd thing to say. Daelin studied them both and their stiff posture toward one another. They weren’t friends and would tear each other to pieces whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The dapper cowboy ignored the postman and held out a key, a beautiful old-fashioned thing with ornate scrolls worked into the aged metal.
She plucked it from his outstretched palm. “Where is she?”
“Hmm?” He arched his brows as if he laughed at her.
Nothing about any of this was funny. Here she stood in the middle of wilderness with no city in sight with no hope of a career with no promise of a better future. All she had was the hope of reconnecting with her sister and surviving. “Charming. The only reason you would have come with a key is because she asked you to.”
He shifted his weight to his other hip. The pressed crease of his gray slacks highlighted his graceful movement. He obviously spent a good amount of time on physical activity. “She did.”
That was all? These people were unbelievable. “Then where is she?” Daelin’s tone crackled more than she intended. She didn’t need enemies, not in a new home where she could see half the houses from where she stood. There’d be no avoiding anybody. Taking a deep breath, she wetted her lips and tried again. “Where can I find Charming?”
Culver shifted his letter bag, his lips twitching. “Yeah, where is she?”
The glower Earl shot at Culver could bleach all the words out of a book. “She’s out on a dig with the Paleo Institute.” He waved his hand behind the town. “They’ve been gone all week.”
Glancing over the low-lying town and the vast nature surrounding it, Daelin balked, taking a step closer to the door. How did her sister stand spending days out there? “I just spoke to her yesterday, and she never mentioned it.”
“She thought they’d be back by now. She texted me last night, saying they were about to go off the grid.”
Off the edge of the world most like. “Which means what?”
“No signal, darling.”
She hoped he wouldn’t make a habit of getting her name wrong. “Daelin.”
He stood straighter and nodded. “Right.” His boot scuffed at the ground. “May I assist you with your luggage?”
“No, let me.” Culver beat Earl over to her rental.
“Do get her settled. Quickly.” The words snapped as brisk as the wind.
Daelin twisted, facing toward town, finding an older lady. She wore huge round glasses, had short pin curls as white as the snowcapped mountains, and a lithe build that stretched to match Culver’s height. The crocheted sweater and green pants would have fit in the 1970s, the same with the green polyester scarf decorating her long neck.
The woman held out a set of papers. Her hand had character, knots and lines depicting years and adventures. Surely, a person couldn’t live in the wild west without adventures. Daelin hoped to find some soon.
“I’m Sabina Staley,” the woman said.
Culver and Earl inched toward the road, obviously intending to leave Daelin alone with this formidable personality. Sabina had the air of a person who could beat down any obstacle in her path, and what an impression Daelin made.
Her new boss, and here she stood in a dirty dress, flip flops, and among local crazies in a garden of a hundred frogs. If only Daelin could delete this scene and start over. Smoothing her hair, she did her best to make herself more presentable. “Ms. Staley, it’s great to meet you.” She held out her hand in greeting.
Sabina slapped the papers into Daelin’s waiting palm. “Fill these out and return them to Wald Macadam before ten in the morning. You’ll find him on the ground floor in reception of the county building. It’s the only one with a steeple. Understood?” The large glasses scanned Daelin from flip flops to wind-tossed hair. “Culver, come with me. Now.” Sabina pivoted on her heels and swept back the way she’d come, toward the center of town. The postman trotted after her.
“I think she likes you,” Earl said. His chuckle brightened the hard edges of his expression. If he kept it up, they might wind up friends.
“I imagine life here to be miserable with enemies,” Daelin said. “There’s nowhere to run.”
“There’s always the mountains.” He gripped onto the lapels of his rust-colored duster and shrugged in the direction of her car. “Give me your keys and I’ll get your bags.”
Daelin handed them over. “I probably shouldn’t have locked it. It’s a habit. Everything has to be locked all the time in the city.”
“A good habit to hang onto.” Earl left her on the porch and went to the sedan. He pulled out both suitcases, the duffle bag, and the assorted shopping bags. In one trip he brought them to the door. “What else can I do for you?” His gaze met hers.
He appeared to really mean his offer. “Do you know when Charming will return?” She chewed her lower lip, glancing at the car. “I have to get the rental to the Bend lot by four, or I’ll get charged for another day.” Another fifty bucks she didn’t have. “The company said Bend is close. About an hour? And I’m starving.”
“Yup, about an hour northwest of here.” He tipped his hat. “At your service. How about you get unpacked and settled, and I’ll come for you later this afternoon? Will that do?”
Daelin shook the papers in her hand. “I have to get these completed and to Ms. Staley.”
Earl took out a pocket watch and checked the time. “She said tomorrow morning. If we leave within the hour, we’ll have time to enjoy the city, a late lunch, and be back by sundown. I’ll bring you a snack to tide you over. Your sister never has any food in the house.”
He had to know Charming well. If so, Daelin felt better about trusting her day to him. Another word he said struck her. “City?” She didn’t think she could wait an hour. With the exception of Boise, it had been days since she saw one.
hapter 