Rescue by Anita Shreve

snowmen?”
    “No, sir,” Webster said.
    “You’re still on duty, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

W ebster pulled back the curtain. He knew what town he and Sheila were in, but he’d seen it only at night when they’d driven
     to the B and B, both of them a little drunk, she more than a little. The streets had been dead at eleven, but now the town
     had action: pedestrians pitched forward against a sharp wind, pickup trucks traveling in both directions, a glare already
     on the crust of the snow. The B and B was Sheila’s idea. On recent successive Saturdays, they’d gone on day trips, stopping
     at a bar and a cheap place to eat on each excursion they made farther and farther away from Hartstone. But this time she’d
     wanted to make a weekend of it. Webster sometimes felt as if he were a rubber band, liable to snap back to Rescue at the first
     tones from his radio. He’d have to learn to ignore that summons. He was off duty.
    He stood in his boxers. The room was overheated, and they had no control over the temperature. When they’d arrived the previous
     night, the heat had been welcome. Almost three months in Vermont, and still Sheila hadn’t bought a winter jacket or hat or
     proper boots.
Spring’ll be here any minute,
she’d say whenever Webster brought up the subject, as if she’d never have to experience winter again. Never another winter
     in Vermont anyway.
    Two weeks after that night under the .9 moon, Webster had been promoted to full-time and stayed at Rescue during his shifts.He’d been given the graveyard tour: midnight till eight. Sheila worked days at Geezer’s, as she’d come to call it, which made
     him wonder why someone else hadn’t thought up the nickname earlier. When his tour was over, he’d hang around Rescue for twenty
     minutes to talk to the new team, and then he’d go over to the diner for breakfast. She looked demeaned in the shiny gray uniform
     with the white apron. She usually told him he looked like hell, and he told her she looked nice. Sometimes she’d manage to
     brush her hand against his. Once she’d bent down and wrapped an arm around him, pretending to be reading an article in a newspaper
     Webster had spread on the counter. For Webster, breakfast in the diner was a necessity, but he ached when he left. He thought
     of Sheila as a drug that had hooked him after only one hit.
    Sometimes Sheila asked him questions about his night. He’d tell her everything about each case, getting rid of the images
     and smells. She never made wisecracks about his work. Maybe the memory of her own accident was too fresh. He wondered what
     she did at night.
    Four days into the third week, he’d ridden into Rescue with Burrows. They’d had a bad night, and the images weren’t pretty.
     Webster unloaded the back of the Bullet and hefted as much equipment as he could into Rescue and onto the counter in the squad
     room. So intent was he on getting the equipment into the basins without dropping something that he missed her over by the
     coffee machine. He noted an odd silence in the room and looked up to see Sheila with Callahan, a new recruit who’d arrived
     for the next tour.
    For a moment, Webster felt paralyzed. What the hell was Sheila doing there? She had on her leather jacket, a black turtleneck, a different pair of jeans. Her hair was pinned up. A jolt traveled from his groin to his chest and back again. Burrows
     put a hand on his shoulder. “Relax, Webster,” he said. “It’s not as if anyone can keep a secret in this town.”
    Webster joined Sheila at the coffee machine, and Callahan slid away. A manufactured banter behind him broke the silence.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked.
    “I came to buy you a drink.”
    “It’s eight o’clock in the morning. There isn’t a bar open in the entire state of Vermont.”
    She leaned against the counter and cocked her head. “How about Albany?” she asked, teasing him. “That’s a city, isn’t?”
    “I’m