Anvil novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Saved by a Six-Year-Old

Tucker read the note twice and put it in his shirt pocket.

"I'll show it to Dutch," he said.

"What does it mean? Owe what?"

"Their president thinks the Kings owe him a life."

"That's not owing. That's killing."

"Yes," he said. "It is."

He said it plainly, and it frightened me more than shouting would have.

I turned back to the stove and cracked eggs into the pan so I'd have something to do with my hands.

Sunday morning light came through the kitchen window.

Upstairs, Birdie's feet thumped across the floor and thumped back again.

Behind me, a chair scraped.

Tucker came across the kitchen for the coffee.

He did not reach around me. He did not ask.

He put one hand flat on the counter on my left and the other on my right.

The cabinet was in front of me, and Tucker was at my back.

I could feel the heat of his chest all along my spine.

"Lizzie," he said into my hair.

The spatula stopped in my hand.

"Don't," I said.

"I haven't done anything."

"You're standing there."

"I know where I'm standing."

He didn't move.

I could smell the soap, and under it the road.

His breath moved the loose hair at my neck.

I thought of the grease on my cheek and the pulse under his thumb.

I thought of his mouth, an inch from my ear, saying my name in the dark seven years ago.

My body leaned back one inch without asking me.

His hands closed on the edge of the counter, hard enough to whiten the knuckles.

"Mom?" Birdie's voice came down the stairs. "Mom, can Mr. Tucker make pancakes? He said he knows how."

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