Chapter 1

I was on my way back from a gorgeous Saturday of skiing at Bolton Valley Ski Resort, perched on top of Bolton Mountain, thirty some-odd miles from Burlington. The day had started as a perfect day for skiing; the temperature had been in the mid-twenties and the sky had been a brilliant blue. By mid-morning however, it was plain that we were going to get some weather.

The sky had darkened with clouds that were fat with snow and the wind had picked up. By mid-afternoon, it was snowing hard enough so that you couldn’t see any other skiers on the slopes until you were right on top of them.

After I was nearly run over twice by kids on their snowboards, I decided to call it quits. The friend that had come here with me was in the bar, he had quit long before I did. When I held up my car keys and motioned to him that I was leaving, he shook his head no and waved good-bye to me.

I shrugged at him and left the bar, walking over to my van. His skis were already in the rack that mounted in the trailer hitch receiver. I started the van, loaded my skis in the rack and got in the van. I sat on the bed and changed out of my ski boots and into my favorite pair of cowboy boots, the ones that I had gotten resoled with heavily cleated rubber soles when the leather soles had worn out. They made excellent winter boots.

I was glad to see that there was surprisingly little traffic coming off the mountain. Bolton Valley Ski Resort does a hell of a good job keeping their road open but the storm was getting ahead of them. Even with snow tires on all four wheels, my big converted cargo van was slipping and sliding in the corners and on the steep downhill sections of the road. I breathed a sigh of relief when I made it to the bottom of the mountain and made the right turn onto Route 2 to head back to Burlington.

The going was painfully slow. The roads were treacherous with snow-covered ice, greasily slick in the waning light and not just in Bolton. The radio said that the roads were dangerous all over the state and warned listeners to stay home if they could. I had just passed through Jonesville when I saw the little Ford Escape off the road, almost lying on its side in the deep ditch. As soon as my headlights hit it, the driver started blowing the horn and waving frantically through the open driver’s side window.

I slowed down very carefully and pulled as far to the right as I dared, turned on my emergency flashers and grabbed a flare and a flashlight out of the emergency kit that lives under the built in bed in the back of my van. I stepped out into the storm and shouted, “Is anybody hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt!” a woman shouted back. “Please, help me!”

“I’ll be right there!” I shouted. I lit the flare and put it down on its stand in the middle of the road about fifty yards behind the van. When I got to the Escape, a woman looked at me through the open driver’s side window, her face pinched and white in the light of my flashlight.

“I can’t get this fucking door open!” she cried. “It’s too heavy!”

“Can you move it at all?” I asked. I would have to stand on the side of her car to open the door myself, but if she could unlatch it and lift it just an inch, I would be able to get it open and hold it while I was on solid ground.

“I’ll try again,” she said. I heard the power window go up and the door latch work and it began to open, while an amazing stream of cuss words flowed out of the car and scalded my ears. As soon as there was room, I wedged a hand under the edge of the door and heaved on it, getting it wide open and holding it there.

I offered the woman my free hand and said, “Grab hold, lady and we’ll see if we can get you out of there.”

She grabbed my wrist and released her seat belt. I grunted as her weight threatened to pull me off balance. “Put your foot on the side of the hump and climb out of there,” I instructed. She stood up and scrambled out of the overturned car. I stepped back, let the door slam shut and looked at her.

She was a chunky but handsome looking woman in her late forties, I guessed, with a pleasant face, shoulder length salt and pepper hair and startlingly blue eyes framed by laugh lines.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just cold and pissed off.”

“Come on,” I said. “My van is right behind you.”

A moment later, we were both in my van and I said, “I’m Larry, by the way. Do you want me to call a wrecker?” I held up my cell phone.

“I’m Peggy,” she said, “And I already did. The useless bastard says he can’t get to me until tomorrow. All his trucks are out plowing.” She said the last word like it had a bad smell to it and I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

She glared at me for a moment and then her mouth twitched and she grinned. “Aw, shit,” she said. “I suppose I can’t blame him. He’ll make a hell of a lot more money plowing than he will digging me out of that ditch.” She gave me a direct look and asked, “Can I trouble you for a lift home? It’s not far, just to Bolton.”

“Isn’t there somebody you can call to come and get you?” I asked weakly. I definitely did not want to go anywhere on a secondary road in this storm and I especially didn’t want to go back to Bolton. I knew that the Vermont State Highway Department concentrated on the Interstate highways first. Only when the Interstate was well on its way to being clear would they start on the State roads. Until then, they left the State roads up to the various villages and towns. I was roughly halfway to the interchange that would get me onto the Interstate and a much safer road, or so I hoped.

“I wouldn’t have asked if there was,” she said. The radio grabbed our attention as I was trying to think of a way out of taking her back to Bolton. I listened to the announcer with growing dismay. A big rig driver had managed to jack-knife his rig just north of Richmond on the Interstate and the northbound lanes were closed indefinitely.

My shoulders slumped as I realized the news meant that I wasn’t going to Burlington anytime soon. Route Two was just barely passable and only God knew how bad it might be on that long straight between Jonesville and Richmond where the wind could drift the snow chest deep in minutes.

I looked at Peggy and said lamely, “Where in Bolton did you say you lived?”

“You can’t miss it Larry,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “There’s a fucking mountain at the bottom of my driveway.”

It was a tense ride back to Bolton that almost ended before it got started. Some asshole in an SUV ignored my flare, came blazing up the road behind us and missed the corner. The same corner where we were sitting in my van. Luckily, I saw him coming in my rear view mirrors. I dropped the van into drive and hit the gas. We lurched into motion but the tires didn’t have enough grip to get us moving fast enough to get out of his way.

I saw him start to fishtail as he saw us and slammed on his brakes, but I knew that he was going to hit us. He was going too fast to stop. We were going maybe ten miles an hour when I shouted, “Hang on!”

I cranked the steering wheel all the way to the left and nailed the gas. We swerved towards the other lane and then the back tires broke loose as the big V-8 roared. The rear end of the van came around just as neatly as you please and I stomped on the brakes. We shuddered to a stop facing the other way just as the most beat up Ford Expedition I’d ever seen went by us and into the ditch in front of the Escape, landing in the ditch hard enough to take the rear tires of the big SUV right off the ground.

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Peggy muttered. “It those fucking Tyler boys. I swear to God those stupid bastards are retarded!” She sighed and added, “We probably ought to see if they finally managed to kill themselves.”

“I’ll look,” I said angrily. “I have a few choice words I want to say to them!”

“Larry,” she said, laying a hand on my forearm. “You’re a pretty big fella but believe me, either one of those boys could have you for lunch and not even notice it. I’m coming with you.” She zipped her coat and we went back out into the storm, arriving at the awesomely beat up Ford Expedition, now with a newly crumpled front end just as the front doors opened and the Tyler boys tumbled out of them.

The smaller of the two, a six foot, eight inch behemoth looked at me and snarled, “Are you the dim fucker that was parked in the middle of the God-damned road?”

“Yeah, I am!” I snapped back. “Are you the stupid son of a bitch that ignored a warning flare while he was speeding in a fuckin’ snow storm?”

He growled incoherently and raised fists the size of canned hams as he came towards me. “Nobody calls my mamma a bitch!” he grated.

Peggy darted past me, slapped him with a full arm swing hard enough to turn his head and then kicked his right knee. “Shut your pie hole Billy Tyler, before what few brains you got left fall out of it!”

The behemoth groaned and sank down to his knees, rubbing a vivid red hand print on his face. “Doggone it Miz Taylor, that hurt!”

“You’re lucky I didn’t kick you in the jewels, boy!” she snapped. “Now you turn your big stupid ass around and git for home, you hear me? And take your little brother with you! You make me tired just lookin’ at you!”

Billy Tyler looked at me and his upper lip lifted as he snarled, “I still got words for your boyfriend, parkin’ in the middle of the road like that!”

Peggy reached out, grabbed his scrofulous beard and made him look at her. Billy Tyler’s little brother who was, for God’s sake, even bigger than he was started for me and Peggy stopped him with just a look.

“Joey Tyler!” she snapped. “You git home right now or I’ll tell your daddy just who it was that painted his prize bull pink last fall!”

Joey’s mouth fell open in dismay and a moment later, he turned and started down the road in a lumbering trot. Peggy turned her attention back to Billy, still kneeling in front of her.

“Now you listen to me boy, and you listen close!” she said in a steely voice. “I can still see the flare that this kind gentleman put in the road burning down there. Anybody with a half a fucking brain would’ve slowed down when they saw it. The only reason that you’re in the ditch instead of piled up into the back of that van is because Larry did some fast thinking and some damn fine driving and managed to get out of your way.”

Billy opened his mouth to say something and Peggy shook his head with his beard until I got dizzy watching it. “You’re already in a world of hurt for what you’ve done to your daddy’s SUV,” she growled. “If you try to lie your way out of this by hanging it on Larry, I’ll hear about it and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born! Do you believe me?”

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbled.

“Good!” she snapped. She let go of his beard and said, “Now get your stupid ass home! I’m wicked tired of lookin’ at you!”

He got to his feet and took off after his brother, vanishing into the storm as we trudged back to the Expedition. “See if the Emergency flashers still work on this piece of shit,” I said to Peggy. “The way this thing is hanging out into the road, somebody’s likely to come along and hit it.”

I went back to the van and found a reflective plastic triangle in the Emergency kit under the bed, and snapped it together as I walked down the road to the dying flare and replaced it with the triangle on the side of the road.

A minute later, we were both back in the van and on our way to Bolton. We passed the two Tyler boys a minute after that and Peggy laughed as she saw that they were both still trotting. “I swear those two boys are as dumb as fried ice cream,” she said.

“They shouldn’t be let out without a keeper,” I grumbled. “That Billy was ready to tear my head off.”

“The first time you hit him, he would’ve quit,” Peggy said. “You saw how he went down when I kicked him in the knee.”

“Yeah, but how would I know that he has a bad knee?”

“There’s nothing wrong with his knee,” Peggy said. “Kicking his leg was like kicking the leg of a grand piano. No, those boys are all bark and no bite. I think that they will both be barking plenty when their daddy gets done with ‘em. He just bought that Expedition.”

My jaw sagged and I exclaimed, “He bought that piece of shit? I would have thought that somebody paid him to take it!”

“Hell,” Peggy laughed, “From what I understand, it was in a flood and got washed down Otter Creek for a ways before it got hung up in some boulders. It’s in good shape compared to what they used to drive.”

“Tell me about the pink bull,” I asked. “There’s gotta be a hell of a story behind that.”

Peggy giggled and settled into her seat. “I don’t know who gave ‘em the idea,” she said. “It’s for sure that neither one of those boys are smart enough to think up something like that on their own.”

“So what happened?”

“Well,” she said. “They painted him pink and then staked him out right next to the road on Halloween night, where all the people going home from the bars on Bolton Mountain and the bars in Richmond would be sure to see him. It freaked out quite a few of the habitual drinkers around here and caused a hell of a traffic jam in front of their farm.”

I thought about that for a few seconds and started laughing. I could imagine what seeing something like a bright pink bull on the side of the road would do to my head if I had a buzz on.

“It caused so much of a mess that the State cops showed up to see what the hell was going on,” Peggy said, continuing with the story. “I hear that they issued something like a dozen DWI’s that night, right in front of the Tyler farm. Henry Tyler had some severely pissed off neighbors for a while and that damned bull still has some pink on him.”

I slowed down and made the turn off Route 2 onto the Bolton Mountain road. “Go slow,” Peggy said. “It’s coming up here in a second.” She pointed out her driveway and I turned into it, stopping in front of her garage.

“You might as well come on in,” she said. “You ain’t getting to Burlington tonight, not on these roads.”

“I don’t want to put you out,” I said. “I can sleep in the truck. I’ve done it before.”

“You’re starting to sound like a Tyler boy,” she said crossly. “Don’t be so God-damned dumb. I’ve got a spare bed for the man who probably saved my life.”

I stared at her. “Where does the ‘saved your life’ part come from?” I asked.

“Those idiot Tyler boys would have piled right into my car if you hadn’t been there. And just what do you think that huge truck would have done to my little Escape? Now stop giving me a hard time and get your ass in the house!”

“Yes Miz Taylor,” I said. “Right away, ma’am!”

Peggy Taylor’s house was small, comfortable and as neat as a pin. It was also cold. She heated the house with two pellet stoves, a big one downstairs and a small one upstairs, and both stoves had been throttled back to save on fuel.

She trotted to the big stove and turned up the thermostat. The feeder for the pellets hummed and started dispensing more pellets and dispensing then more often. The result was that the fire got bigger and the room started to warm up.

She lifted a lid on the stove and frowned. “I need more pellets,” she said. “Would you bring in two bags of them from the garage please? Leave one down here and bring the other one upstairs.”

“Sure,” I replied. I went through the door she pointed to and stepped into a garage full of forty-pound bags of pellets. There must have been hundreds of them, all neatly stacked from the floor to the rafters. I wrestled two bags off a pile onto my shoulders and went back inside, dropping one bag by the downstairs stove.

I carried the other bag upstairs and put it down next to that stove. She smiled her thanks at me and expertly cut the bag open, using a big scoop to load the pellets into the fuel bay of the stove. I looked around while she was taking care of the stove and scratched my head.

I had never seen a house designed like her house was. The upstairs was two big bedrooms, with a bathroom at the head of the stairs and a small hallway where the wide stairs and the stove were. Straight ahead of the stairs was the small bathroom. There was a bedroom on either side of the stairway and they both were completely open to the stairs and to each other. The doorway to each of the rooms had to be at least ten feet wide and instead of a door, there was a floor length curtain hanging from a wire strung tightly from one side of the doorway to the other.

The curtains were open and I saw that one room was a bedroom, with a king-sized bed in it. The other room was set up as a home office, with a computer and two monitors, a scanner and an office printer. One wall was crowded with file cabinets and there was a table with a coffee maker on it, complete with sugar and creamer next to a couch. But no bed. ‘The couch must be a convertible,’ I thought.

She saw me looking and smiled. “When you heat a house with wood, it’s best for it to be open for the heat to spread. This house was designed to be heated over one hundred years ago by a single pot bellied stove downstairs. That’s why the stairs are so wide and why the bedroom doorways are so big and don’t have doors.”

“It kinda makes privacy a little hard to come by too, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“Not a problem for me,” she said. “I live all by myself, except for my cat Felix.”

I nodded and watched as she finished stoking the stove. She closed the lid and dusted her hands off. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

“I could eat,” I admitted.

She went to a big bureau, took out sheets, a blanket and a pillow, and loaded them into my arms. I followed her back down stairs into the rapidly warming living room. I dumped the armful of linens on a chair, took off my parka and unbuttoned the sweater I was wearing over my tee shirt.

She shed her coat and started unbuttoning, unzipping and unwrapping layers and layers of clothing and scarves. I almost laughed as I watched her take off her heavy boots, two pairs of socks, three flannel shirts, two scarves, a pair of warm-ups and a pair of flannel lined blue jeans. That still left her in wool leggings over a pair of tights and a knee length skirt, topped by a wool turtleneck sweater that went down well past her ass.

I discovered that my original assessment of her had been wrong. She was far from being a chunky woman. She had a very nice butt, a slim waist and an excellent rack on her. She had been so bundled up that I had been fooled into thinking that she was fat.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she saw me watching her. “Go ahead and laugh,” she said, eyeing the way I was dressed. “At least I was dressed for the weather. I swear I don’t know why you dumb-ass skiers don’t freeze to death.”

“You must be a flatlander,” I said. A flatlander is what ‘real’ Vermonters call anyone that wasn’t born in Vermont.

“Yup,” she said. “I’m a Georgia peach, through and through.” She slipped her feet into a pair of bulky sheepskin slippers and stood up. “You want a beer?”

“Always,” I confirmed.

“Well, come on then, I’ll whip us up some supper while you have your beer.”

“How come you don’t have an accent?” I asked, sitting at a small breakfast bar as I watched her bustle around the kitchen, cooking our dinner.

“I was born in Georgia but I was raised in Vermont by my grandma. I’ve lived here since I was ten.” She stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. “If I had any damn sense at all, I’d leave this freezing hellhole to you damned Yankees and go back to Georgia.”

“Hey hey!” I laughed. “I’m not a Yankee!”

“Of course you are,” she replied. “You’re a Northerner, aren’t you?”

“That’s too broad a definition,” I said. “To an American, a Yankee is a Northerner. But to anyone who lives in New England, a Yankee is a Vermonter.”

“But that’s what I said!” she interrupted.

“You didn’t let me finish,” I laughed. “To a Vermonter, a Yankee is someone who eats pie for breakfast. I don’t eat pie for breakfast.”

She stared at me for a moment. “Shit!” she laughed, “By that definition, I’m a friggin’ Yankee! Grandma used to give me pie for breakfast when I was a kid. I still eat it for breakfast whenever I bother to bake myself one, so it won’t go stale on me.”

“Damned Yankee!” I drawled.

“Humph!” she snorted. “Only a friggin’ Vermonter could pervert the work Yankee to mean a true Southerner!”

“Yeah well,” I chuckled, “Us Vermonters tend to make do with what we have. Why make up a new word when we have a perfectly good old one that just needs fixing?”

“Make do,” Peggy grumped. “That’s all you fuckin’ Vermonters ever think of is ‘making do’. Why won’t you ever admit that you’re a state full of dim bastards that can’t think up an original idea and leave it at that?” She tossed me an amused glance and I took up the challenge.

“That’s not true either,” I laughed. “There were plenty of Vermont inventors. You ignorant Southerners just don’t know any of ‘em.”

“I’ll bet you can’t name three,” she said, “And maple syrup doesn’t count! You clowns swiped that from the Indians.”

“All right,” I said. “What are the stakes?”

She leaned a hip against the counter and grinned at me. “How much money do you want to lose?”

“Hey, I’m just a starving teenager,” I protested. “I can’t afford to lose a dime.”

“Hmm, all right then, you name the stakes.”

I gave her my best evil grin and said, “Your bed against me shoveling the driveway tomorrow morning.”

“You’re on!” she said immediately. She pulled a pad of paper and a pencil out of a drawer and said, “Start naming names boy, and they’d better be right ‘cause I’m gonna Google ‘em when you’re done.”

“All right” I said, “One. A guy named Hopkins from Pittsford got the first patent ever issued in the United States for making potash.”

“Never heard of him,” she said. “Next?”

“Number two, a guy named Blodgett in Burlington invented the cast iron cook stove in the mid eighteen hundreds. They still have a factory on Lake Street where they make commercial ovens.”

“Shit!” she muttered, scribbling furiously. “I forgot about him.”

“Number three,” I grinned at her. “A guy named Snowflake Bentley invented micro-photography in Jericho in the early nineteen hundreds.”

“Oh God damn it!” she said, throwing down her pencil. “I forgot about him too.” She scowled at me. “I never heard of number one. You sure about him?”

“Yeah, I am. But if you want one that you’ve heard of, how about Jake Burton? He invented snow boards back in the seventies.”

“Shit a God-damn,” she sighed. “I forgot about him too.” She slanted a glance at me and that glint was in her eyes again. “I hope you don’t mind sharing your bed,” she said.

My eyebrows went up and before I could stop myself, I squeaked, “With you?”

“You wish!” She laughed but I noticed the catch in her breathing when I had asked, ‘With you’. “No, I meant with Felix. That bed is hers; she just lets me sleep there because I’m warm.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind sharing a bed,” I paused a beat. “With anyone.” I tipped my head back and took a pull off my beer, but not before I saw her bite her lip and give me a speculative glance.

“Where is this cat of yours, anyway?” I asked. “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

“He’s not a he.” Peggy said. “He’s a she.” I raised an eyebrow at her in question. “It was a case of mistaken identity. I didn’t realize that he was a she until she was answering to Felix.”

“Uh huh,” I drawled. “I’m buying that story.”

“Alright, so I didn’t look until it was too late! She’s probably under the stove,” she replied. “She likes it under there where it’s warm and dark.” She picked up a pouch of cat treats and shook it. “That ought to bring her out of hiding.”

Sure enough, I was joined at the breakfast bar by a sizable cat just a few moments later. She ignored me as she sat down and looked at Peggy. “There you are,” she said. She scratched her behind her ears and asked, “Did you miss me, Felix?” The cat arched her neck and purred, getting a smile from Peggy. “I’ll bet you did,” she said, digging into the pouch of treats and giving her one. She went back to stirring the pot that was making the kitchen smell so good as Felix devoured her treat and licked her chops.

“How you doing, baby?” I said softly, scratching her under her jaw. She tipped her head up and started purring again.

“Wow,” Peggy said. “She doesn’t usually take to strangers.”

“I’m cat people,” I said, smiling at her. “They always seem to know when one of their staff is in the room.”

“Staff?” Peggy looked puzzled.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Don’t you know? Dogs have owners but cats have staff.”

She giggled. “Ain’t that the truth,” she agreed. She gave the pot a stir and gingerly tasted it. “This is done,” she pronounced. “You want to eat now or would you like to have another beer first?”

“Another beer sounds good.”

“I thought it might.” She handed me a frosty cold bottle and took a wine glass out of a cabinet. “I think I’ll join you,” she said, filling the glass with white wine.

We chatted for a little bit while Peggy had her wine and Felix got a thorough petting from her newest staff member, namely me. Peggy finished her wine and served the delicious stew she had made. After we ate, we moved to the living room, where Peggy settled into a recliner and I stretched out on the couch. A few moments later, Felix joined me, curling up on my belly and going to sleep.

“Is there anything you want to watch on TV?” Peggy asked.

“Nope,” I replied. “Whatever you want will be fine.” I stroked Felix as Peggy surfed the channels and settled on something called Modern Marvels on the History channel. A few minutes later, Felix uncoiled herself, stretched out on me, her head butting up against my chin, and went to sleep again. I followed her into Dreamland a few minutes later.

The living room was dark and quiet when I woke up. Felix butted my chin with her head again and then jumped off me, heading for the stairs and the comfortable bed on the second floor. I sat up and yawned, and looked at the clock on the VCR. It said it was ten o’clock. Peggy, it seemed, was an early to bed, early to rise kind of woman. The stairs were softly lit from above by a nightlight, which was a good thing because I had to go up there and take a leak.

I got up and headed upstairs, trying to be quiet in case Peggy was sleeping. The stairs creaked as I climbed them until I moved as close to the wall as I could get. That took care of the creaking. I went into the bathroom and closed the door, unzipped and drained my bladder, sighing in relief as I got rid of the beers I had had. It was not until I was put back together and ready to wash my hands that I saw the pajama bottoms and the note placed neatly on the hamper. It said;

Larry, These ought to fit you. I’m sure that you don’t want to spend the night in your clothes. Call me a welcher if you want, but if you want to sleep in the bed, you’re going to have to share it with Felix and me. I can’t sleep on that sofa downstairs and frankly, I’m surprised that you could. Either way, I’ll see you in the morning.

Peggy.

I opened the door to the bathroom slowly and peered into Peggy’s bedroom. There was a solitary lump under the covers and if I held my breath, I could hear her slow breathing. I closed the door again and decided that only an idiot would pass up a bed for a lumpy couch.

I stripped down and got into the pajama bottoms which fit me like a tent. I turned off the light, opened the door and carefully made my way to the bed by the light of the low flame in the pellet stove. Felix lifted her head and blinked at me, her notion of an enthusiastic welcome and watched as I slid under the covers.

The bed was toasty warm and sinfully comfortable, and at that moment I knew why Peggy had decided to share rather than sleep on the couch. I turned on my side, scratched Felix behind the ears and fell asleep almost instantly.

I awoke around two o’clock in the morning with the feeling that I was trapped under something. The something turned out to be about fifteen pounds of cat. Felix was curled up on my chest and sleeping peacefully.

I also discovered that I was almost completely entangled with Peggy. Her head was pillowed on my left shoulder and my left leg was entangled with her smooth legs. She was tucked right up against me, her arm around my waist and I could feel the heavy weight of her breasts on my ribs. Any kind of movement at all and I would probably wake her up.

I wasn’t the only one waking up early in that bed. Mr. Johnston, damn his drooling eye, was waking up too, slowly hardening inside the loose pajama pants I was wearing. I decided that there was absolutely nothing I could do about that and tried to go back to sleep.

Ten minutes later, I was still wide awake. I sighed and that woke up Felix. She blinked owlishly at me, got to her feet and stretched. She looked at me for a moment, and then she decided that she’d be more comfortable laying down somewhere else. That somewhere else was on Peggy’s face.