the tenant. Wasn’t his responsibility. But then he got to thinking about it, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. And since not too many opportunities to do the right thing crossed Eddie’s path, he figured he might as well take advantage of it. You know, just in case St. Peter asked him for a list or something down the road.
Didn’t hurt that the exertion had the added benefit of taking the edge off his run-amok libido.
It didn’t make a lick of sense. There she’d stood, no makeup, her hair every-which-way, wearing some kind of sack with a bigger sack thrown over it, and his blood had gone from frozen to boiling in about ten seconds. And she was just as close to forty as he was, to boot. In fact, in the stark light, he’d even seen a few strands of gray in her dark hair. Yet she opened her mouth, and that morning-gravelly voice of hers spilled out of the window at him, and all he could think was, whuh. He’d been trying to put a finger on just what it was about her that turned him inside out for the past half hour—okay, for the past week—but he was no closer now than when he’d started.
The sidewalk was looking pretty good, though.
Eddie straightened, letting his back muscles ease up some, then wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve before it froze to his forehead. Underneath the denim jacket, he had on three layers of clothes, and now he was overheated. His breath misted in front of his face as he squinted in the snowfall’s glare, taking in Mala’s neat little neighborhood, a conglomeration of one-and two-story houses, some frame, some brick, most with porches. Yards were small to average, tidy, liberally dotted with snow-flocked evergreens. Fireplace smoke ghosted from a few chimneys, teasing the almost bare limbs of all the oaks and ashes and maples, slashes of dark gray against the now crystal-blue sky. A few blocks off, a small lake, embedded in a pretty little park, twinkled in the sunlight.
It was a nice town, he supposed. If you liked that sort of thing.
From the back, he heard the kids yelling and laughing; Mala must’ve just let them out. Eddie went back to work, listening to them whooping it up over his shoveling, trying to ignore the ache of pure, unadulterated envy threatening to crush his heart. Still, it was a good thing Mala was doing, giving them the freedom to be happy in spite of what their daddy had done.
She was a good woman, he thought, almost like it was a revelation. And his thinking that had nothing to do with his breath-stealing sexual attraction to her. It had everything, however, to do with why he needed to stop thinking about sex every time he thought about Mala Koleski.
The front door opened. He bent farther over the shovel, but not before he noticed she was wearing baggy blue sweats over a gray turtleneck. She clunked down the steps in those clogs of hers, something clutched in her hand.
“Here. You might as well use these.”
Eddie looked over, noticed her hair was still damp, like she hadn’t taken the time to dry it properly. Then he saw the gloves in her hands. Turned away. “Those your husband’s?” Down the street, someone else came out of his house, shovel in tow.
“I would’ve burned them if they had been. No, they’re a pair of my father’s. He left them here a year ago. We couldn’t find them, so he got another pair. Of course, then they turned up. So, anyway…” She pushed them toward him.
They were good gloves. Pigskin, maybe, lined in fur.
He shook his head. “I can’t take those.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What am I going to do with them?” When he didn’t reply, she added, “Borrow them, then, if I can’t dislodge that bug from your butt. But in case you haven’t noticed, this is Michigan. In November. It gets cold.”
Eddie lifted his gaze. “Says the woman standing out in twenty-degree weather with wet hair.”
Stubbornness vied with amusement in those cat’s eyes of hers, softened by the breath-cloud soft-focusing her just-washed face.
“Who’d be back inside by now if you’d stop arguing with me.”
He took the gloves, put them on. They fit perfectly.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“You’re welcome. And thanks for shoveling. I appreciate it.”
Eddie grinned. The gloves felt real good, he had to admit. “I take it this isn’t one of your favorite chores?”
She smiled back. “You might say that—”
A child’s scream blew the moment all to hell. They both turned in time to see Lucas—at least, Eddie thought that’s who it was, it was hard to tell with all the clothes the kid had on—barreling through the side gate, bellowing his head off. Carrie followed, her hatless curls fire in the sun, yelling nearly as loudly.
Mala’s hands flew up. “Geez, Louise…what now?”
“Carrie hit me in the face with a snowball!”
“I did not! It hit your shoulder!”
“There’s snow in my eyes!”
“That’s ’cause it bounced! But I didn’t throw it at your face!” She whirled around to her mother. “I swear!”
“You’re lyin’! An’ it hurt!”
Carrie stomped her foot, her rage-red face clashing with her hair. “It did not, crybaby! The snow’s too soft to hurt!”
“All right, the both of you,” Mala said, her hips strangled by a pair of snowsuited arms, “that’s enough. Okay, honey,” she said to Lucas, cupping his head as he hung on to her for dear life. “You’ll live. But honest to Pete, Carrie, how many times have I told you not to throw snowballs at him?”
“He threw one at me first!” the girl shrieked, her arms flying.
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“I t-told you to stop and you wouldn’t! You jus’ kept throwin’ ’em and throwin’ ’em, an’ I ast you to stop!”
Her mouth set, Mala glared at her daughter. “Carrie…?”
The ensuing silence was filled only by the sound of someone else’s shovel rasping against their sidewalk. Then, “You always take his side! Always!”
In the space of a second, Eddie saw weariness add five years to Mala’s face. “That’s not true, Carrie—”
“Yes, it is! He’s the baby, he always gets his way! Ow!”
All three faces turned in Eddie’s direction, as Carrie wiped the remains of a half-assed snowball from her shoulder, her mouth sagging open in shock as bits of snow dribbled down one cheek. “Hey! Why’d you do that?”
Eddie leaned on the shovel handle. “Did that hurt?” he asked quietly.
“N-no,” the child said, tears cresting on her lower lids. “But it wasn’t very nice.”
“No, I don’t suppose it was, was it?” he said, then straightened, tapping the shovel on the sidewalk, just once, before he said to Mala, “You got any salt? I might as well lay some down so this won’t freeze up on you all over again tonight.”
“What? Oh, uh…in the shed,” Mala said, her voice brittle, her eyes glittering. Then after a couple of beats of looking like she was going to pop, she gathered her chicks and hustled them back to the house.
In the sunlight, her drying hair was fire-shot, too.
By the time Mala got back to Eddie, a good twenty minutes later, she was downright bristling. And yes, she knew she was overreacting, but tough beans. At least she was fired up enough to be able to march into the garage and light into him before he had a chance to do that thing with his eyes that threw her so much. “What the hell’s the big idea, throwing snowballs at my kids?”
In the process of putting oil in the Camaro, Eddie raised his head