Free Sea Fever by Virginia Kantra Page B

bills and receipts. Twenty, forty,
    sixty, eighty . . . Counted: September, October, November, December . . .

    Her baby would be born in April. If there was a baby. If the pressure
    deep in her abdomen was more than nerves and water weight.

    She lost track of the numbers, had to begin again. Twenty, forty,
    sixty . . .

    Wipe the tables, clean the case and counters, haul out the garbage,
    mop the floor. The routine should have steadied her, but her mind kept
    racing like a hamster in a wheel, circling round and round without getting
    anywhere.

    She was accustomed to planning and preparing, more comfortable
    with “What next?” than “What if?” Even the gamble of going to Boston
    at the age of eighteen had appeared to her practical mind as the next
    logical step in her chosen career.

    Yeah, and look how that had turned out. Every risk she’d ever taken,
    no matter how calculated, had ended in dead ends and disaster.

    Except for Nick. She was glad she had Nick.

    But God, oh, God, she didn’t want to be pregnant again.

    Fatigue pulled her muscles, settled in her bones. She returned from
    the Dumpster and headed for the mop sink, a cramped closet in an out-of-the-way corner.

    She flipped on the light. The mops jumped out of the shadows,
    skinny monsters with clumped and stringy hair. Regina leaned against the

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    tiled wall, listening to the water hiss into the bucket and trickle down the
    drain.

    She couldn’t say what made her turn. A noise. A shadow. A tickle at
    the base of her spine . . .

    “Jericho!” The name whooshed from her, an explosion of breath, of
    annoyance and alarm.

    He blocked the work aisle behind her, skinny and stringy as the
    mops, and close. Too close. She could smell him, his clothes, damp with
    the outdoors, sour with sweat and the smoke from too many campfires.

    “He smells . . . wrong,” Margred had said.

    Yes.

    Her heart beat in her throat. “You scared the shit out of me.”

    “I’m sorry,” he said.

    But he did not move out of her way. She could shove past him. But
    touching him didn’t seem like a good idea. She didn’t want to commit
    herself to physical contact, to push him into violence. Skinny or not, he
    was bigger than her.

    The taste of adrenaline was flat in her mouth. “What do you want?”

    The job, she thought with sudden hope. Maybe he’d come about the
    job. Although now, with him looming between her and the door, didn’t
    seem like the best time to tell him she was thinking of hiring somebody
    else.

    He didn’t answer.

    “Listen, it’s late,” she said in what she hoped was a calm, rational
    voice. As if her tone could tug him back from whatever brink of crazy he
    was on. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow—” She wet her lips. In
    daylight, when there are people around.“— and we can talk about that
    job?”

    He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

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    He sounded sincere. Which, for some reason, made her knees
    tremble. Her knives were on the other side of the kitchen, like the phone,
    like the door.

    She couldn’t run away. Nick was upstairs.

    Should she scream? But if she screamed, Nick might hear and come
    down to investigate. Please, God, don’t let him come down, her boy, her
    baby. “Take care of yourself,” Caleb had advised, but he didn’t have an
    eight-year-old depending on him.

    Regina gulped and eased her hand around a mop. The handle was
    smooth and reassuring in her grip. “So, uh, can I get you something? A
    sandwich?” If she could reach the counter, if she could get to the phone . .
    .

    Jericho lunged.

    She jerked back. Swung. But she was too close, he was too close, the
    mop crashed into the wall and slid uselessly off his shoulder. She did try
    to scream then, but his hands closed hard and bruising around her neck,
    and it was too late.

    Nick, she thought. Nick.

    Too late.

    Jericho’s fingers pressed. Her vision grayed. She slammed her foot
    into his instep, tried to bring up her