Chapter 11 Taryn
Taryn
I feel like I’m getting a tour from a fucking game show host.
Or maybe a Disneyland cast member. You know the people who captain the boats on Jungle Cruise? The jokes and fake laughter?
That’s exactly what this tour feels like.
Gabe rushes me through the main showroom where he and Gunner have laid out furniture, sculptures, and artwork in some haphazard way that I don’t understand.
I have enough time to notice that the pieces are flat out gorgeous.
Some are very rough in nature and look like they’ve just emerged from the tree fully formed, while others are smooth and finished.
Everything has the same bones, though, and it’s easy to see that all the pieces were done by the same set of hands. They’re all guided by the same vision.
I wonder whose vision it is.
Given the way Gabe runs his fingers along a few pieces on his way by, I’m guessing he’s the one who handles the wood. Gunner must do something else here.
Behind the showroom comes a wide, cluttered room with several desks, a few computers, and far too much paper. Gabe rushes me through this room as well, muttering something about this being the office where his dad usually is.
He doesn’t seem to be here right now, thank God. I’ve already come to the conclusion that both Gabe and Gunner are going to do their best to shut me out, and I’m not sure I can handle both of them doing it at the same time. Last night’s dinner gave me enough tension to last a lifetime.
When we get into the back room, though, Gabe finally slows down, and I watch the tension melt out of him. His shoulders drop and his hands relax, and a smile ghosts across his lips. This is his room, then. This is where he feels at home. And probably where his father doesn’t bother him.
I look around, wondering what’s made him so happy, and see that this is where the building must happen.
Several worktables sit side-by-side, each of them cluttered with a number of hammers, chisels, saws, and power tools, along with piles of dirty rags.
Another table holds paint brushes and cans of what has to be finishing spray.
This room is lined in windows and must be bright and beautiful during the day, though the curtains are all drawn right now so the only light comes from the hanging lights above us.
I look from one table to the next, taking in several pieces of unfinished wood and projects.
In the corner, I can see a stack of wood that looks random but must already be marked for something.
One full wall is covered in plans detailed enough to be for buildings or bridges, and I walk toward them, fascinated.
When I get there, I find that these are plans for projects.
They’re not buildings, but tables, chairs, lamps, bed frames, and sculptures, and they’re so delicate, so intricate, that I marvel at the detail.
Measurements and notes fill every blank space, and each plan features the project in question from several different angles.
These aren’t just blueprints. They’re works of art. And I haven’t even seen the pieces they built yet.
I put a gentle finger up to one plan and run it down the paper. “These are yours,” I say. I don’t know how I know, but I’m sure of it. These aren’t the work of a man who’s given up on life the way Gunner seems to have done. These come from a mind so alive, so active, that it can hardly sit still.
A large, blunt finger appears next to mine and follows my path down the paper, the touch light as a feather. A caress.
“They are,” he whispers. “This is where the art really happens. I see what the wood wants to be and have a general idea, but I don’t know how I’m going to do it until I start the design. Then it’s all measurements and calibrations, to make the wood into what I think it can be.”
“These are... You should have been an architect,” I breathe.
He snorts. “And miss the fun of living with my father? Please.”
I look up at him, instinctively responding to the genuine humor in his voice, and find that although he’s staring at the drawings, his eyes are hazy and faraway.
Full of dreams. Did he want to be an architect?
I can’t remember him ever saying anything about it, but looking at these plans, I feel like he must have at least thought about it.
Why didn’t he come down off the mountain to go to school? With this sort of talent...
“I couldn’t leave him,” he says, like he can hear the thoughts in my head. “You have no idea how bad it is. When you and Helen left—”
Before he can finish, the lights go out and the place is left in pure, sticky darkness.
And I panic.
I wasn’t afraid of the dark when I was a kid—that was Gabe, honestly—but now it sends a thrill of terror rushing through my veins, and all I can think about is that I have to get away.
Bad things happen in the darkness. Things come for me that I can’t see coming, and if I can’t see, I have nowhere to run.
Right now, though, I can remember that this is a big room. Sure, there are tables around the place, but there’s also plenty of open space, and that means I can get away.
And no, my conscious mind isn’t in charge of that decision. The moment the dark overtakes me, my subconscious remembers what happens in my stepfather’s house in the dark, and my body goes into fight or flight mode.
I erupt from the wall where I was leaning as I listened to Gabe and rush blindly into the room, my breath short and my heart hammering.
The first thing I do is run right into a table and cry out.
I bounce off it, though, and keep going.
My mind is screaming at me to stop and be calm, but my instincts are on high alert, and I can’t stop myself.
I’m in a full-blown panic attack, fear covering me like a second skin, and when I run into the second table and send something crashing to the floor, I nearly scream again.
“Taryn?” Gabe’s voice asks sharply. “What are you doing, trying to tear the place down? Where are you?”
Gabe.
Gabe’s here.
The thought brings my conscious mind closer to the surface, but then I bounce off something else and feel the brush of someone’s fingers over my skin, and it sends me right back into the spiral.
I gasp and run from the ghost of those fingers, but the presence comes after me, and though I can’t see it, I know it’s bigger than me. Faster.
Stronger.
When it catches me, I fight it, screaming in pure terror at the idea of being caught, but it pulls me close and wraps arms around me, holding me against its body and shushing me.
“God, girl, what’s gotten into you? Stop, stop!”
The voice is familiar, and I fight to calm my hammering heart. That isn’t a monster, and it’s not someone who wants to hurt me. It’s Gabe. Just Gabe.
My Gabe. My best friend.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and lean into him, breathing in the scent of wood and gun smoke coming from his shirt. Gabe. It’s Gabe.
Christ, I need to get a grip. And a drink. And a good night’s sleep.
“Gabe?” I ask weakly.
“I am,” he replies. “I’m right here. Shhh.”
His arms tighten around me and the panic ebbs back down into the pit of my stomach, where it always starts.
And I begin to feel monumentally stupid.
God, he’s going to think I’m a complete lunatic.
Who the hell panics like that just because the lights go out?
It was probably just a short circuit or something, and I was running around acting like we were about to be murdered.
“What’s going on?”
His words are a whisper against my ear, and his hands have flattened out against my back now. He’s rubbing gently, like I’m a horse he’s trying to calm, and he’s big and solid and so, so safe. I’m safe. I can tell the truth.
Except I can’t. Because something inside me doesn’t want him to know how bad my life has been in the city.
“I just don’t like the dark,” I whisper.
He chuckles. “So you run around in it trying to break everything you can? What are you trying to do, scare the monsters away?”
“Something like that,” I say, giving him at least part of the truth.
And then the lights come back on and we’re standing in the middle of the workroom with his arms wrapped around me and my face buried in his chest like I’m a child who needed rescuing and he was the hero who took the job.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” a voice that doesn’t belong to either of us snaps.
Gabe and I both freeze, then jump away from each other like we’ve just been caught doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing—which isn’t far from the truth.
I whirl to find Gunner standing in the doorway of the room, his eyes snapping from Gabe to me and back, and a look of pure fury on his face.
“What’s going on?’ he asks again. “The lights go out and I turn on the generator and then get back here to find you two canoodling in the dark?”
My eyes swivel to Gabe’s and I see the same combination of laughter and panic that I’m feeling. Hysterical laughter bubbles up my throat, and I work to keep it down. I don’t know Gunner well anymore, but I don’t think this is the right time to start laughing.
Gabe evidently doesn’t feel the same restraint. “Canoodling?” he asks, his voice shaking with repressed giggles.
Instead of answering, Gunner growls in disgust and leaves, slamming the door behind him.
Gabe suddenly switches from laughing to furious, for reasons I don’t understand, and storms after his dad, leaving me standing in the work room like the third wheel I so obviously am.
Though moments later, I’m glad to have been left out of it, because Gunner and Gabe begin screaming at each other in the office part of the building, their voices rising higher and higher as the argument quickly escalates.
I look around the room, desperate for a place to hide, but then realize that they’re not really shouting. They’re having a conversation.
Granted, it’s a screamed conversation.
But they’re definitely talking.
And they seem to have forgotten that I’m here, which makes this a perfect time to gather a little information.
I move quickly toward the door and stand against the wall, making sure that I’ll be out of the way if one of them comes barging through, intent on dragging me into whatever argument they’re having.
It doesn’t take long for me to think they’ve forgotten about me, though.
They seem to be having an argument they’ve had multiple times before.
They’re arguing about money—or the lack thereof—and Gabe is accusing Gunner of being in a bad mood because he’s running the numbers again.
He’s saying that there’s an obvious answer to the problem but Gunner is too fucking stubborn and old-fashioned to see it, and he won’t listen when Gabe tries to help.
Gunner is shouting back that Gabe doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is just a kid who doesn’t know how to handle business.
Gabe screams that the business is running on his talent and he could be doing something else with his time and effort if he didn’t have to take care of Gunner.
I agree with this—Gabe should be in architecture school, from what I’ve seen—but I question Gabe’s timing. Gunner doesn’t sound like he’s in the mood to discuss Gabe’s future.
His answer runs along those lines, and Gabe shouts something that has to be new, saying Gunner is just upset that Gabe is getting close to me again.
This shocks me enough to make me step away from the wall, feeling guilty for having heard it, and Gunner also seems to have been stunned into silence.
Seconds later, Gabe slams through the door I’m standing next to, takes one look at me spying, and smirks.
Then he heads for one of the worktables, pulls out a sheet of paper, and starts scratching quickly through a new design like he’s using the work to try to calm his mind.
I watch him, wondering if that’s exactly what he’s doing.
I’m also wondering what the hell is going on with this business.
This shop was one of the only places Gunner didn’t bring me when I lived up here, and I only got Gabe to bring me here by literally threatening him with an axe.
Now I’m wondering how much trouble they’re actually in.
Reading between the lines, I’m guessing the business doesn’t make as much money as it should, but from what I can see, these pieces should go for thousands of dollars.
Gabe is incredibly talented, and anyone would be lucky to have one of his pieces in their house.
So what’s the problem?
Then I remember that front room and how disorganized it was.
Gunner’s desk, covered with papers and computers.
Gabe’s statement about Gunner not being interested in the business.
If Gunner is the one handling the business side and he’s not interested in growing the business, that could be the problem.
Gabe could have all the talent in the world, but if it’s not being showcased correctly, it’s not going to matter.
They don’t want me involved in their lives.
Hell, I don’t think Gunner even wants me up here.
But they don’t know that I’m about to receive a BS in marketing with a minor in business, and that I’ve just done my honors thesis on rebranding and marketing small businesses exactly like this one.
I could help them. I’m sure of it. I could give them a marketing plan that might change everything.
Of course, that only works if they let me, and I’m not sure either of them would allow it.
Between Gunner’s attitude, Gabe’s mask, and the weird tension between the three of us, I don’t even know how much longer I can stay.
I’m here because I’m terrified of going home again, and risking my mother’s fury and Johnny Massimo’s retribution, but so far, Hawke’s Wood doesn’t seem like the safe haven I hoped it was.
I might not have any choice about leaving the mountain.
Because I know how pointless it is to stick around when I’m not wanted.
And I don’t want to think about how much I hate the idea of leaving these men.
Again.