She smiled, reaching over to pat my knee. “Another time. I’m a little tired tonight.”
I wanted to ask for more, but it was clear that was as much of Anderson as she was willing to discuss. Maybe she was still thinking about Beau, or maybe the stories weren’t hers to tell, but still I wondered about him. And perhaps that was what bothered me most—I had said no more than thirty words to this man and he no more than ten to me, yet he’d piqued my curiosity. I was annoyed with him for being so broody almost as much as I was with myself for liking it.
I sat with Momma Von in comfortable silence for a while longer before heading back to the cabin to make dinner. When my plate was cleared, I pulled out my sketch book and stared at the blank pages. My fingers played with the charcoal pencil, twirling it between them, but nothing made them move for the paper. Nothing had, not in months, not since the night I left.
My phone rang at ten on the dot, and I closed my sketchbook with an exasperated sigh, taking the ringing phone upstairs with me and climbing into bed. Rev hadn’t come home, and so I laid completely alone for the first time in my life.
And I felt every second of it.
TIME
\?tīm\
Noun
A nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future
I was being stupid.
This was now the fourth time I’d walked past Wren’s cabin. I told myself it was because I left a tool at home, or I forgot to turn the coffee pot off, or I left my door unlocked. But really I just wanted to see her, even if it was just a glance through the front window, and as much as that pissed me off, it was true.
It’d been almost a week since I’d made her blush on Momma Von’s porch, and somehow I was still acutely aware of her presence. Her cabin was four away from mine, but it was right next door to the Morrisons’, and I’d been there every day working. The shed had been done since Monday, but I’d conveniently found other projects to work on, other work that “needed” to be done.
Stupid.
I huffed, finally annoyed enough with myself to make my way up her drive. When I reached the top of her stairs, knuckles ready to rap on the open door frame, I stopped short.
Wren stood in her kitchen, hands on her hips, hair tied up, just staring at her cabinets. She was dressed in overalls, the hem of the shorts rolled up, the denim ripped for fashion rather than from actually working in them. She left one strap of them unhooked, revealing the simple white tank top she wore underneath, and she had a screwdriver in one hand.
I didn’t know whether to be scared or impressed.
I knocked twice, jolting her from her daze. She fumbled a bit when she saw me, but a smile spread slow and wide on her lips. She wore a full face of makeup, complete with bright red lipstick, and her long lashes brushed her cheeks as she looked up at me.
“Hi,” she squeaked, dropping the screwdriver to the counter and reaching up for her hair like she wanted to fix it but settled for brushing a few fallen pieces behind her ears instead. “Uh, it’s nice to see you again. Glad I’m actually wearing clothes this time.” She chuckled.
“Wanted to make sure your foot’s okay,” I said, not returning her laugh, because apparently that function was broken.
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and I dropped my eyes to her foot, which was still bandaged.
“Oh, that,” she said, waving me off. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
I met her eyes again, and the silence stretched between us. So I nodded and turned to leave.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
I paused, cocking one brow in response in the door frame.
She’d picked up the screwdriver again and wrung her hands around it, nodding to the cabinet she’d been staring at when I walked in. “The hinge on that door broke the other day, and I just fixed it, only it’s the first time I’ve fixed anything in my entire life and, well, I’ve heard this is kind of your thing. Would you mind just taking a look at it to make sure I didn’t completely screw it up?”
I glanced at the cabinet she was referring to, knowing it was the right one only by the two different-colored hinges. The top one was gold and worn, where the bottom one was silver and shiny, like it had just been purchased. My brow rose farther. “How’d you fix it?”
“Bought a hinge repair kit over at the hardware store in Gold Bar and watched a YouTube video.”
My eyes must have given away my concern, because she grinned and offered a small shrug.
“What? It’s how I learned how to make a fire in that thing, too.” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder at the wood-burning stove behind her.
My eyes stayed there for a moment before finding hers again, and then I crossed the kitchen and opened the cabinet, inspecting it.
Surprisingly, the bottom hinge held strong. I jiggled the door, opening and closing it, pulling on the handle and attempting to break it free. It was sturdy, and I was impressed. I stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest before turning to face her again.
“Looks okay to me.”
“Really?” She bounced with the question, breezing past me to inspect the door herself. “I really did it?”
“You really did it.”
Her grin widened and she opened and closed the cabinet over and over while I stood behind her. “I am a bad ass.”
She kept on, humming to herself as she admired her handiwork, but my eyes were skating the rest of her cabin. The board on the back porch was still broken, but there were bags from the hardware store leaning against the back door, along with wood panels that were pretty close to the deep red shade of the one that had broken. The latch on her stove was broken, too, which meant she was probably burning through more firewood than she needed to.
At that thought, I glanced outside at the pile of firewood on the side of the garage. It was low, and when I thought of her slight frame trying to chop more from the larger pieces Abdiel stored under the back porch, I almost laughed.
More hardware bags still littered the counter, holding a plethora of tools, light bulbs, rope, and wires. I had no idea what other projects she had planned, but the fact that she was watching YouTube videos to figure out what to do made me cringe.
She glanced back over her shoulder at me, goofy grin still in place, but I was still taking in the state of the cabin. “I can help you fix this place up, if you want.”
“Oh.” She spun, propping a hip against the counter and folding her arms over her middle. “No, no it’s okay. Look at me, I’m Mrs. Fix-It now. I think I can do it.”
Wren smiled, bright white teeth framed by full red lips. I chose that exact moment to realize the white tank top she wore was very tight, and I had no idea what the hell I was doing here.
So, I left.