Page 1 of Bloody Bargain

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The skies overhead opened up to the torrential wails and sobs of a Welsh storm. The night sky sucked heavy rolling clouds into rotation like oily lacerations above a sea of grey grass and black hills.

A crow traveled the horizon, flying low and encumbered with rain. It was the only indication of where the earth ended and the chaos began. I guessed the bird wasn’t more than fifteen feet away, still visible to me in the veil of rain and thick fog that rose like the hedges of a labyrinth to stifle the landscape.

I had no choice but to follow it and hope it led me to shelter. Boots dragging, feet numb, a duffel balanced over my shoulder, I pushed my pace, alternating my eyes from the path to the bird’s weaving shadow.

I hunkered into my heavy coat, battening down against the worsening chill. The light had failed a few hours before dinner thanks to the grey sky. I’d seen the wall roll in, eating my shepherd’s pie at a pub on the fringe of a tiny inland town.

“Autumn rearing her nasty head.Yn bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn.Sun's shining in the devil's arsehole while my sheep drown…”

The man mumbling into his tea a few stools away had been staring into his cup with a hollow, familiar look. Unsettled and impatient to leave, I’d left a bank note on the bar top and covered my duffel in a clean trash bag peeking out from the lip of the garbage can behind the bar. Then I’d ventured out, ignoring a shout to head towards town when my shins broke the grass on the other side of the road.

It couldn’t be later than seven o’clock in the evening now, when there should be a blue glow to the evening sky on a clear night. But I was no fool. There were dangers in the inky wilderness and I wasn’t keen on pulling out my LED lantern to guide me. I had been moving uphill, the better to avoid flooding. Now, I traveled on even ground where the rocky terrain had become compact and pebbly.

A good sign.

I would walk ten, maybe twenty minutes more, but if my gut was wrong and I wasn’t on a hiking trail right now, I’d simply find a flat bit of land and wrap myself in my tent to stay dry for the night. Better that than let it wash away if the rain worsened. Better than logging my name in an inn ledger.

Though the rain was fierce. Far worse than the weather reports. It weighed on me like a thick woolen blanket as I swallowed droplets of rain with each labored inhale.

I stopped abruptly, breath puffing in white clouds from my mouth. I bent down and placed my blue fingers on the loose brick at my feet. It had been mortared, part of some stone wall or barn perhaps. Raising my face to the sting of falling ice water, I saw the dark grey mass of a building twenty yards from where I stood.

It was a small cottage with a shed out back where the crow alighted, shook its feathers, and then disappeared in a howling gale.

I needed to take refuge too. The sooner the better.

The stone wall around the property had been toppled nearby. I trudged through the rubble; eroded bricks crumbling beneath my boots. The hill took a sharp incline and I dug my hands into the waterlogged grass lining an old gravel path. It gave way after a few steps and I slid shins-first into the mud, scrambling the rest of the way on my hands and knees.

A river of new rain spilled down the front of my hood and plastered it against my eyes. I pushed it back, squinting through the water droplets clinging to my lashes.

There was a light inside the cottage. Small, orange, inviting. It was barely recognizable in the fog, but a relief nonetheless.

A runoff of rainwater from the roof pounded the tiny porch. I hoisted myself up from the ground and ducked beneath it, washing off my palms. My frozen toes scrunched in my cashmere socks as I blew into my hands to ease the sting of the icy water. When I was sure I was no longer slathered in mud, I pounded on the door with the side of my fist.

I was so cold that I couldn't feel the old wood grain at all. But it was thick and barely budged. The way the water punched my plastic-wrapped duffel was so loud behind me that I couldn’t hear if there was movement inside. The wind was high and hair-raising as I counted to ten, ready to knock with my whole arm a second time.

But the door opened on seven, illuminating a dark-encroached room with a single yellow lamp and a tall man in a cable knit sweater. I couldn’t see his face as he stepped aside. Could barely hear him at all. But I got the message. He ushered me in with a shout and I slipped into the cottage.

Into the warmth.

?

The door closed behind me and the sounds of the storm dimmed as its lock slid into place. My ears rang as I lowered my hood. I realized then how hard I was breathing, how badly my head hurt. My pulse was heavy in my temples, a feverish heat carving paths along my cheeks and forehead like a soldering gun.

“You alright, love? What were you doing out in the storm?” the man questioned in a beautiful lilt. I turned over my shoulder to get a look at him, the man that had let me into his small refuge.

He was tall and beautiful. Perhaps in his early forties, with dusty brown hair and a slight scruff on his jaw that did nothing to hide a strong chin. He had big hands, thick shoulders, and honey eyes that drew me in like syrup on the stove. Warm, delicious, and inviting.

But he wasn’t amused, the way he stood with his arms crossed. I blinked away, rolling the duffel off my back. It landed with a heavythunkon the floor. There was a twin bed with a wooden frame near a small colony of candles and an oil lamp by the pillow. I slipped the dripping coat from my shoulders and they hissed at the shower of raindrops.

“I was hiking when the storm hit,” I sniffed, my generic American accent offending the old world charm of what I assumed was a family hunting respite. “Thanks for answering the door. I bet you don’t get many strangers out here.”

His eyes fell down my drenched, mud-spattered front, examining my blue hands and lips, my waterlogged boots. His lips rose in something not quite a smile but on the verge of warming up, as if he felt I needed scolding for a sentence longer and then he’d show me the sun. Opening a cupboard, he produced an armful of candles and a lighter.

“You must be frozen right through,” he sighed, letting it go as, one by one, the extra candles came to life under his zippo. “No electric out here, though. The camping heater will have to do.” He placed the candles on the shelves stacked with canned foods above a propane stove.

“I’m just grateful for the chance to get dry,” I said over my shoulder, shaking four extra-strength aspirin into my palm from a bottle I kept in my hardshell jacket pocket and swallowing them dry. His large hands appeared near my face, holding out a pair of dry socks, a sweater, and flannel sweatpants. I blinked dumbly at them and inhaled a spicy male scent that instantly soothed me. They felt warm compared to the rest of me, and the tension in my shoulders instantly eased.