Tipping Point (4 page)

Costco had been her close, personal friend for a while now. Gigantic purchases never looked out of place there, especially when you had a business membership. She had gone through their aisles countless times over the years, looking at every single item available for purchase, and making sure she did that for every shopping season. Different things were available at different times, and that had helped her make sure she wasn’t overlooking anything important.

Many cartons of supplies had found their way to them via Amazon and eBay, too. Thankfully the landlord hadn’t been the nosy kind, and she knew Mackenzie had her own business that involved shipping things. It helped when Mac opened the package of adult-sized footie pyjamas in front of her.

At the thought of clothing, Mac started to wonder if she should buy a couple of Angora goats. Angora might come in very handy for making clothes.

It didn’t take long to buy out the stores in Rosseau, since there weren’t many of them. Then she headed to the knife store. She saw the sign and chuckled, even though she already knew what it was called.
Sharper Image
, indeed. Good thing the big boys in New York weren’t likely to come to this neck of the woods.

She walked into
Sharper Image
and waited until her eyes adjusted and the bell over the door stopped clanging. Then she moved over to a display that caught her eye. She was a bit of a sucker for weapons of all types. They had archery equipment, in addition to some firearms. What they didn’t have were survival knives.

A clerk sidestepped to the display she was eyeballing and asked if she was looking for a gift. She stared right at him, holding his gaze until he was thoroughly uncomfortable. Then she gave her usual sort of sarcastic response to a perceived sexist remark.

“Right. Because I couldn’t possibly have a use for one of these. Is that what you mean?” She raised her brows at him, not breaking eye contact, and awaited his response.

“Uh. No?” His questioning tone almost made her laugh, but she was more interested in pointing out the flaw in his assumption that she couldn’t possibly be buying a survival knife for herself.

“Right. No, I’m not buying anyone a gift, except maybe my daughter.” Finally she relented.

“I was actually looking for a straight razor to replace disposable blades.” Now the young man was looking at her all googly-eyed, like he couldn’t believe she would want to risk her lady parts with something so dangerous as a straight razor. In truth she didn’t, but now she was stuck letting him make the assumption.

“Granted, these caught my eye, so I may get one or two. I don’t have nearly enough knives.” Now she was just playing with him.

“A filleting knife or two would be good, don’t you think? Really good for getting the skin off, right?” This kid obviously didn’t understand how his preconceived notions were doing him in, because he turned pasty white. She
would
need good filleting knives, and knives of every other kind, but if she bought too many he might just have a heart attack, and he looked to be all of seventeen or eighteen years old.

“What I’m really interested in are a couple of survival knives, but they have to be good ones. I want full tang only, so don’t show me anything else. I don’t want one of those flashy Rambo knives. I need to be able to use it. Oh, and the straight razors of course. I don’t know much about them, so I’d appreciate any suggestions you might have, assuming you know more about them than I do.”

As she waited for him to bring over some straight razors, she perused the selection of knives he’d pulled out for her. Mac had done her research on knives a long time ago, but had been hemming and hawing over her choice ever since. Now she was down to the wire, so it would serve her right if they didn’t have anything she felt was good enough. She wasn’t sure when she’d be able to go somewhere else, or if she even
would
be able to.

She stared at what he had pulled out, flipping over the tags to be sure of what she was seeing. The tags listed the makes and models, along with their prices. It didn’t take long to discover that none of them were going to do the job.

He shifted back over, having never left her sight. After all, he had to be sure she wasn’t going to walk off with the cheap merchandise.

“Look, kid,” she said, “I don’t have time for joking around with you. Is this the best you’ve got?” He blushed a bit.

“Well, we do have some others, ma’am, but they’re pretty expensive. I thought you might want to see these first.”

“I really don’t. Have you got any KA-BARs? Maybe Ontario, Buck, Gerber, ESEE, something like that? I’m not interested in buying anything that’s going to let me down when I really need it. You don’t want me coming back here because I’m unhappy do you?” She paused for effect.

“With a knife?” His previous colour leeched from his skin, turning it pasty again. She grinned toothily and waited for him to come to the conclusion that he should probably show her some decent knives.

“Maybe I should go get my dad, huh? It’s his shop. I’m still learning all this stuff, so I don’t really know what’s good and what isn’t.” With that he pretty much bolted, not even bothering to clear the knives off the counter. She could hear voices in the back, the teenager injecting a pleading quality into the conversation.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Billy! She’s not gonna jump over the counter and sink fangs into your neck. You gotta learn how to handle the customers. This’ll be your shop one day.” With that the stockroom door opened, and a man walked out who could have graced the cover of
Outdoor Life
magazine. She’d certainly seen enough of those covers to be able to judge.

The shaggy cut looked good with his wavy brown hair, and his goatee was well-trimmed. The laugh-lines creasing the corners of his eyes made him seem friendly and approachable. His smile showed he wasn’t a stranger to oral hygiene.

“Hello, ma’am. My son says you’re looking for a good survival knife.” He looked down at the pile on the counter and nodded.

“You know your knives. You’re right. These aren’t even meant for survival. These are mostly for show like what the city boys like wearing on their hip to try to fit in. Only makes ‘em look stupid. Do you know what make you want, or are you wanting to see a few different kinds?”

Mac was relieved to be dealing with someone who seemed to understand that she wasn’t there on a lark. She told him some of the knives she’d been considering, along with the various features she was looking for.

“Well, we don’t carry ESEE, but I do have some KA-BAR and Gerber I think you’ll like. I’d recommend them to anyone. I’ll get you a couple of models of each brand, and see if they’re what you want. As for these here straight razors, are you looking for something specific there?” There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye when he asked.

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m just looking for backup, in case I ever run out of disposable razors one day. And I like to have backups of backups. I just want them to last, and preferably not kill myself with them. The disposables are such cheap pieces of crap, and I tend to isolate myself for long periods of time.”
Jesus, Mac! Shut the hell up!
She could not believe she was talking so much. The twinkle had only grown into a little smile on the guy’s face.

“Well, what about an old-fashioned safety-razor then, where you just replace the blades. A box of blades doesn’t cost too much, and they can technically be re-sharpened if you’re in dire need of a shave. Uh...” He didn’t seem to know where to go from there, and Mac immediately started to blush.

“Or maybe one of each, just in case,” he went on in a rush. Mac nodded and cleared her throat.

“Yeah, okay. That’s probably a good idea. Just in case.”

“Alright, I’ll be right back with the other knives, the safety razor, blades, and a better straight razor than what my boy showed you here. It’s okay, but if you’re looking for real quality over the long haul, there are better. Most guys buy one as a sort of a phase or trend, and aren’t serious about committing to it. They soon fall back to using a Mach 3 or whatever it is they’ve got in their medicine cabinet.” Mac could see he was trying to reduce their momentary discomfort from the reference to her personal shaving habits, so she nodded and smiled to let him know she was okay with it.

The moment her lips curved, he snapped his mouth closed and just looked at her for a few seconds, before he shook it off and abruptly walked away. She couldn’t help wondering if she had something nasty in her teeth. She picked up one of the cheap knives on the counter and took a quick look at the reflection of her mouth. Seemed fine to her, and she’d brushed her teeth before leaving the house. She shrugged it off. Whatever it was, it wasn’t her problem.

When he came back he used his forearm to push aside the stuff on the glass counter, and then placed the new items on the freshly cleared surface. He had big hands, she noticed, and no wedding ring. Mac nearly sucked in her breath in shock when she realized what she’d been focusing on. She coughed to cover the slight gasp that had managed to escape.

“Sorry,” she said when he glanced up at her. “I inhaled a little funny.”

“You want some water? I’ve got some bottles in the back.”

“No, really, I’m fine. Just a momentary thing, like inhaling a dust particle or something. Not that your store is dusty or anything,” she blurted. She could feel the colour rush back to her cheeks, and wanted to roll her eyes at her reversion to high-school level communication skills. Mac had no idea why she was behaving this way. The guy was certainly attractive, but she had other priorities.

“So, I’m guessing you don’t get anyone coming here from New York to complain about the name of your store, eh?” He snorted out a bit of a laugh.

“Not so far. Rosseau gets a lot more tourists than it used to, since we’re getting a bit of a reputation as a resort town, so you never know. I’ve actually been considering changing it, because I don’t want to deal with any legal crap. Just haven’t come up with anything better. I’m not creative like that. I bought the store outright a few years back, name and all.”

“Probably all the really appropriate ones have been used, since it’s the sort of business that tends to use puns a lot.
A Cut Above
,
Close Shave
, that sort of thing. Maybe
Slice of Life
is available?” Mac rattled them off while he just sort of stared at her.

“You mind if I write those down?” She shook her head.

“How do you come up with stuff like that?” His expression was close to wonderment.

“In that case I don’t know that I really did. They may even be names I’ve seen in the past and they’re just kind of floating around in my head. I used to do some start-up consulting, and was always having to come up with names for clients’ new businesses. A lot of people came to me wanting to run a simple shop, rather than having new inventions or anything, so they needed someone else to do the creative legwork for them. I’ve always had a bit of a knack for it.

“I’d do a name search for Ontario first, before going to the expense of changing your signage and all that. I’d also suggest checking for domain names online. That’s often a good way to check for internationally used names. Like
The Sharper Image
. Then do a Google search using the key words
knife store
and then whatever name you’re thinking of changing it to.”

“Wow, thanks! You’re not at all what I was expecting when Billy said I needed to come help you. He seemed kind of scared actually. What’d you do to him?” Mac knew he wasn’t being belligerent by the return of his twinkle, and when she noticed his eyes were green she wanted to give her head a shake.

“Well, he sort of assumed I was looking for a gift, and I don’t like assumptions. Particularly ones with a gender-based slant. It’s not the kind of question that would have been asked if a male walked in, so I twisted him up a bit.” He laughed.

“Yeah, you certainly did that. I thought I was going to come out and find She-Ra in my store. Or a serial killer. Though it’s always pretty hard to tell with one of those, I guess.” He gave her a look, like he just might be pondering it, and she laughed. Given that the twinkle hadn’t gone anywhere, she knew he was yanking her chain.

“Nah. Just thought it would be a good idea to challenge his assumptions a bit.” He nodded at her.

“Good. His mother’s not winning any awards for independence and self-reliance. I heard she just hooked husband number five a couple of months ago, and this one doesn’t appear to be any better than the last four. We were never married,” he added.

“I think he may have gotten a bad impression of women from all that. And I haven’t exactly been bringing a lot of women around, so he hasn’t seen anything else.”

Mac was absolutely certain that he had purposely steered the conversation in that direction. She was also certain that she didn’t mind pointing it there herself.

“I know what you mean. I stopped trying to provide good male role models for my daughter a few years ago. Other things became priorities. I’m Mac by the way,” she said, and held out her hand to shake his. She drew her hand back when he started laughing outright. He held up his own hand when she made it obvious she wasn’t thrilled with his response.

“Mine too,” he managed, laughing even harder once he’d choked that out. Her jaw dropped.

“You’re kidding me!” She had to chuckle herself at that one.

“Okay, well, technically it’s Neil McKinnon, but people in town have been calling me Mac for so many years I’ve just gotten used to it. Maybe you should just call me Neil. Might be less confusing that way.”

“You’re probably right. And technically, mine’s Mackenzie. Uh, Thane.”

“You don’t seem so sure of that,” he said, with a big grin.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I just don’t usually give it out to people I’ve just met. I tend to be a lot more cautious about that sort of thing, and I’ve taught my daughter to be the same way.”

She really
hadn’t
hesitated because she was lying. In fact, even the property they lived on was owned by an umbrella corporation, rather than being listed under her own name, as was everything else that required an address.