Fit hits the Shan - a Jake Burbank mystery thriller working title coming soon

Fit hits the Shan - Working Title

There was too much leg to take in at once. They stretched up like monuments to dance crafted perfection, long lithe and lean. There was a line along the outside of her calf as she shifted on the uneven dirt, highlighting the muscle beneath.

There were too few perfect legs in the galaxy, too few by far and the set standing in front of him attached to the red hair staring down at him knew she was one of the chosen.

She worked at it.

“Take a picture,” she smirked.

“You burned all the pictures,” Jake rolled over on his back and blinked the sleep out of his eyes.

He was on the porch again.

At least this time, his hand was on the door.  He tilted his head to one side and groaned at the crack of pain that tried to split his skull apart.

“Hair of the dog?” Gretchen asked.

He blinked open again and spied his truck.  It was parked in the yard, rear wheels on the gravel driveway.  The driver’s side door was open and the lights were still on, though he couldn’t tell if they were dim because the battery was failing or it was the morning sun that made them look so pale.

“Ah,” he answered.

“You got anything in the kitchen?”

“Ah,” he repeated.

“Of course you do,” she stepped over him and opened the door.

The legs flashed over him, a swirl of skirt fabric that twirled around him a dizzy whirl of flesh and color and hope for what was hidden underneath.

Then they were gone and he hear the soles of her flats clacking on the hardwood.

“When’s the last time you cleaned?” she called.

“Maid’s day off,” he smacked the sandpaper taste of his tongue against his dry lips.

Last night hadn’t felt rough, not at the time at least.

Jake pushed himself up and leaned against the slat siding of his house.

It was an exercise in patience to get his eyes working right. He blinked one open and closed until the world beyond the drive started to come into focus, then switched to the second eye to make it right too.

Gretchen returned and handed him a coffee cup full of lukewarm liquid.

“I didn’t want for it to finish brewing,” she told him.

He took a sip of the bitter liquid and grimaced.

At least it made the sandpaper go away.

“What are you doing here?” he asked after a moment.

The coffee gurgled in his stomach and set off a cascade of growls and roars.

He wondered if he ate last night.

Hell, he couldn’t remember eating yesterday.

“Food in the fridge?” she asked and went back in without waiting for an answer.

Jake took a second sip of coffee and started the process.

He called it a process, a routine really, developed after many nights like last night.

And there were many nights much like last night.

He flexed and twisted foot, ankle, knee on one leg and switched to the next.

Then his hands, the free one first to check on fingers, wrist, elbow and shoulder before he held the coffee cup in the opposite hand to check that arm.

All was good.

He finished with a roll of his neck, slow to keep the dull throb of his headache from pounding through his gritty eyeballs or cracking the back of his head in half.

No blood anywhere, and he hadn’t pissed himself when he passed out on the porch.

There were grass stains on his palms and knees.

He assumed he crawled from the truck. Or maybe he bent over to chuck up into the bushes next to the walkway.

Maybe both.

Gretchen did what she did in the kitchen.

He could hear the rattle of a pan on the iron rings of the stove, the clink and clatter of dishes and cups.

The smell of bacon wafted through the screen and he wondered when he bought bacon.

The smell tantalized him, and his stomach knotted with the thought of what was to come.

Jake pushed himself up the wall and was only half surprised he could stand up somewhat straight.

“Almost ready,” Gretchen called out to him.

He hated how familiar it felt, how right.

She didn’t belong there, didn’t need to be in his kitchen cooking him breakfast, just being there.

The domesticity of it pissed him off, the way she breezed in just as easy as she left him before.

Jake took a deep breath and reached for the handle on the screen.

“Coming,” he said and had to clear the frog in his throat.

Damn her, he cursed himself. And damn him too for letting her make him feel this way.

Again.