Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(12)

He’d liked Matilda. He’d hated to disappoint her. After all his big talk, all his good intentions, all his fantasies about being the brilliant courageous intrepid blah blah blah who saved the maiden fair.

Reality was always such a f*cking letdown. Matilda had been nice about it when he threw in the towel. She understood. Still, she was the kind of woman you wanted to bring results to. To get your pat on the head, your cookie, your sternly measured dose of approval. A strict but benevolent grandmother type.

It made him . . . f*cking . . . furious.

He got gas at the station at the pass, holding his breath against the fumes, ignoring furtive stares. He must look strange, after weeks of sleeping rough and not much attention to hygiene, other than the occasional icy plunge into a mountain stream. He had to haul ass if he wanted to clean up and find decent clothes for the damn wedding.

His smartphone found him the perfect trifecta; a drugstore, a motel and a big-and-tall men’s clothing shop, all in the same strip mall. No time to schlep up to Aaro’s lair for his own stash of clothes.

The gods that protected speeding motorists were kind, even when he hit the I-5 corridor. The drugstore was his first stop in Portland, for toiletries, a comb, some razors. The fluorescent lights made his eyes burn, even through dark glasses.

His motel room stank of cigarette smoke and room deodorizer when he got inside, but he breathed through his mouth and ignored it, heading straight for the shower.

He stared at himself grimly in the mirror afterward as he combed out the caveman dreads. His torso was burned a leathery brown from shirtless climbing. He still had muscle mass, but he was lean, stringy. Every muscle, vein, and tendon, right out there on display. He looked like a wild-eyed, underfed Afghani goatherd, left out alone in the desert mountains way too long.

Scraping off the beard helped, but that made his shaggy mane look that much wilder. At least it was clean. He might not have even recognized himself, if not for the nose, which was as big and hooked as ever. Christ, he looked so much older. New lines burned around his mouth. And his eyes . . .

He looked quickly away from his eyes.

Just keep moving. Breath. Through his mouth. He dragged the cleanest clothes he had left back on, clean being a relative term.

The clerk at the big and tall store gave him the fish eye when he walked in, gazing pointedly at the grubby jeans, the stained T-shirt.

“I need a suit,” Miles announced. “Dark gray. I’m supposed to be at a wedding in . . .” He consulted his smartphone. “Shit,” he hissed. “Thirty-five minutes.” Maybe he’d get lucky, and the bride would be late. Like, forty minutes late. A guy could hope.

The young woman behind the counter leaned on her elbows and gazed at his torso appreciatively, dirty clothes and all.

“I need a shirt, too,” he told them. “White, I guess, or a pale gray. And a tie, and a belt. Dress shoes. Some underwear.”

The male clerk’s nostrils flared. “Price range?”

Miles shrugged. “It needs to look good, and it needs to be fast. Try and keep the tab under two grand.”

The clerk’s eyes squinched down. “And how will you be paying?”

Miles took off his sunglasses, and just looked at the guy. The man’s larynx began to bob up and down.

Aw, f*ck it. Back in the old, pre-Spruce Ridge days, that guy’s attitude would have pissed him off. Not now. He didn’t blame the guy for judging by appearances. Every normal person did. He had, too, in the old days. Admittedly, he looked like hell.

Still, he let the prick blink and sweat for a minute before fishing the plastic wrapped envelope out of his jeans. He’d shrink wrapped some cash for random emergencies. He slit open the plastic, and peeled off fifteen C-notes. “We’ll start with this.”

The guy scooped up the bills. “One minute.” He disappeared into the back. The girl behind the counter fluttered heavily mascaraed lashes. “You don’t look like the type for a suit,” she observed.

Miles grunted. “Don’t feel like one, either.”

“You look more like the leather and chains type.” Big dewy blue eyes went blinkety blink. “Like, do you ride a Harley?”

Heh. Leather and chains and a Harley. That would have been rib-cracking, gut-busting funny, if he’d been capable of anything approaching humor. “Could we start with the shirt?” he asked.

The girl’s flirty expression cooled. Her colleague came back out, marginally more polite, but clearly wanting to get him served and gone as soon as possible. Fine with Miles.

Some time later, he walked out, in a suit a full size smaller than his previous, pre-Spruce Ridge days. Just his enormous feet and hands and nose were eternally constant. He peered at himself in the rear-view, wishing he’d bought clippers and buzzed off the hair. Even with the snarls combed out, it looked like exactly what it was, a badly grown out haircut that had been self-inflicted months ago in a state of emotional crisis. Ragged primordial locks dangled between shoulder and chin. It did not jive with the suit. But there was no time left for a barber.

After all, once he waltzed into the wedding, egregiously late, and faced down a mass of people who were all pissed off at him to varying degrees, his bad hair day would be the least of his problems.

He put on his sunglasses, and his ear plugs. The city haze of electrosmog, exhaust fumes and particulate matter were making him nauseous as hell, but there was no shield or remedy for that. He clenched his teeth till his ears ached and hit the road, wedding bound.