Chapter 8
Steam fogs up the small wall-mounted mirror in front of me, a super-soft white terrycloth towel wrapped around my middle.
I’d thought a shower was a good idea. A way to clear my head.
Wash away the day’s disasters and clean the slate of the last few hours as easily as scrubbing the road dust off my body.
Boy was I ever wrong.
If anything, my mind is as hazy as my reflection staring back at me. Why had I thought standing naked in a stranger’s house with only a builder-grade door standing between me and a behemoth of a man who could probably knock the hinges off with little effort was a good idea?
Okay, fine, that’s unfair.
Yes, Levi probably could knock the door down, but there isn’t any part of me that’s worried he’ll invade my privacy to get a lookie-loo or for any other reason.
Even if I was in danger and he had to barge in to save me, he’d likely do it with his eyes sealed shut, his jaw locked in place, and an air of annoyance about him thicker than his facial hair.
Is he always like this, or do I bring a special brand of curmudgeon out of him?
Ugh. Fine. Still being unfair.
Yes, it’s harder to pull words out of him than winning a tug-of-war competition with a herd of elephants, a person needs sunglasses to protect themselves from his constant glares, and I’m more than half suspicious that he wishes he’d left me on the side of the road.
But he didn’t. Even though he gives every indication of loathing my presence—loathing me—he’s technically been nothing but considerate, generous, and hospitable.
Technically.
The shower didn’t work. I need another way to clear my head.
I’d caught Levi taking long, deep breaths, which I assume he does because he finds my personality irksome and he’s collecting all his patience to deal with me.
Maybe I should try that.
I take a deep inhale of hot, steamy air.
And immediately regret my life choices.
Instead of clearing my head, Levi Redding fills my senses.
I lift my arm and sniff the crook of my elbow.
The soap I usually use is a subtle blend of green tea and lime that I buy at the local farmer’s market.
Now, instead of that familiar fragrance that has become a sensory part of my identity, I smell like a very specific mountain man in mechanic coveralls and a surly demeanor.
The container of bodywash in the shower claimed to be unscented, but there are faint whiffs of something I can’t quite find the right adjective to describe. Fresh. Clean. A man who can command a space without speaking a word.
That last one might be closest to the bull’s-eye of all three of them.
In the grand scheme of things, having the scent of a man who makes me feel off-kilter just by resting his expressionless, lion-like gaze on me for longer than a second shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
So I smell like we’ve been very close and very intimate and that he’s imprinted himself on me or marked me as his in some similar way that species from the animal kingdom do.
No big whoop. At least I was able to take a hot shower, right?
At least I’ll have a roof over my head and food in my belly and won’t have to sleep in the bookmobile or try out my nonexistent survival skills in the Cherokee National Forest.
Perspective, right?
I’m going to keep telling myself that until I’m one-hundred-percent convinced.
I rifle through the laundry basket by my feet. I’ve decided I’m not going to feel weird about borrowing his sister’s clothes without her permission. If the tables were turned and a woman was in need of something to wear and had access to my wardrobe, I’d want her to help herself.
Besides, I don’t really have any other options.
My fingers brush against soft flannel, and I pull out a cute autumn-toned plaid dress of sienna browns, tans, and navy blues.
It’s still about a month away before the temperatures start dropping in earnest and the leaves begin to change colors, but Levi keeps his house so cold that I wouldn’t be surprised if he told me he stored blocks of ice in his living room for an annual igloo building competition.
Seriously, his energy bill must be astronomical.
Either way, this flannel will keep me warm.
I’m in no way shocked when I hold the dress up to my shoulders and notice that it’s probably a little bit big for me.
It makes sense that Levi’s sisters would be tall as well.
Genetics is a beautiful thing. There’s probably a belt somewhere that’s supposed to cinch the waist in, but accessories are the least of my worries, and the material is so soft that I don’t even care if I’ve done a disservice to whoever designed the dress by turning it into a shift style.
Once I get all the buttons done up and roll the extra-long sleeves to my wrists, I finger-comb the tangles out of my hair, happy again for my decision to cut off twelve inches to donate after finding out about Evangeline’s alopecia.
The shoulder-length strands are giving me enough trouble as it is; waist-length hair would have been impossible without a real brush.
With the toilet seat lid down, I perch precariously on the edge and set my purse on my lap. Everything I have with me is in this bag. If only I could MacGyver the contents and build some sort of tool or contraption that would solve all my problems. But, alas, I’m left with . . .
My wallet, a tube of lip balm, three pens, the refill prescription of immunosuppressants I’d picked up on my way to work this morning—thank you, Jesus—some gum, my phone charger, and my little journal of good deeds.
I put everything back inside the purse except the journal, opening the notebook to the next blank page. Goodness gracious, what am I going to put for today’s entry?
I didn’t kill Mayor Breckenbridge doesn’t quite fit the bill.
Mostly because I’d made the rule when I first started these journals that an act of omission doesn’t count.
I had to actually do something. And even if wringing the mayor’s thick neck was technically doing something, he was back in Little Creek and I was stuck here, way more than an arm’s length away.
Here with Levi.
Just the two of us.
I guess that narrows down my options on who to bless today pretty considerably.
I pull out one of the three pens in my purse and uncap the lid, getting my hand in position to jot down a stroke of brilliance on how I can make Levi’s life better within the last few hours this day holds.
Maybe I could . . . No.
Or, how about . . . Nuh-uh.
I conjure an image of him in my mind, the scowl in place, the muscle in his jaw ticking beneath the layer of scruff on his face, the way his fingers flexed on the steering wheel and the rigidity in his body.
He is the poster child for the grumpy, broody male role.
Mr. Darcy would appear as affable and genial as Charles Bingley if he were standing next to Levi Redding.
I’ve always had a theory about Mr. Darcy’s aloof and unapproachable demeanor—that he wasn’t really snobbish or arrogant at all, but that, in actuality, he contended with social anxiety.
That his refusal to dance at the ball was merely a defense mechanism and way to cope in an uncomfortable environment among people he didn’t know well.
He in fact later admitted to Elizabeth Bennet that he struggled to converse easily with people with whom he wasn’t well acquainted.
Would my Darcy theory hold up with Levi as well? Could his grumpy exterior be his first line of defense against social anxiety?
I tap the lid of the pen at the corner of my lips and think.
What can I do to put him at ease? Maybe if I shoulder even more of the conversation and not let any awkward pauses happen, that will help him to be more comfortable.
I can be extra extroverted if I need to be and if that’s what he needs me to be.
I’ll just fill up the silence with idle chitchat so he doesn’t have to mentally strain himself on my account.
I add the plan to the journal, then close the cover with a satisfied smile.
That should do it. I gather my purse and the laundry basket of clean clothes that’s my wardrobe for the foreseeable future and exit the bathroom.
After depositing the clothes and purse into my borrowed room, I head back toward the main part of the house, following the smells of Mexican spices wafting in the air.
My stomach rumbles, reminding me that the PB&J I’d had for lunch right before the mayor showed up for his photo shoot wasn’t all that filling.
“Something smells good,” I say as I stand beside the kitchen island.
Levi stirs ground beef in a skillet, sets down the wooden spoon, then turns toward me.
At the first glimpse he gets, his nostrils flare and his fingers flex before curling into his palms at his sides.
“What are you wearing?” he growls, enunciating each word in his low timbre like it physically pains him.
Like I physically pain him.
I look down. What does he mean, what am I wearing? He’s the one who shoved the basket of clothes at me. “It’s one of your sister’s dresses.” I wave my hand down my front in a sort of you have eyes, can’t you see for yourself? motion.
He must have missed the sarcasm in my gesture and instead takes my hand wave as some sort of command to get a good look.
His gaze moves over me in such a way that a chill runs from the top of my head down along my spine, sending a convulsion of awareness down each of my vertebras like a Slinky descending a flight of stairs.
I’m covered up more than a granny in a muumuu in this thing, the hem hitting the backs of my knees, sleeves down to my wrists, and the collar buttoned all the way up to the base of my throat, but the intensity in Levi’s eyes makes it seem as if I had the audacity to come to the kitchen in some lacy negligee fit for a honeymoon suite.