Chapter 6 Julian #2
“I will do that,” I say then I reconsider. “If your brother says it’s fine.” I have no idea what Wyatt Briggs’s stance is on internet use for eight-year-olds. Probably better if I ask although I would bet good money that my only response is a grunt. Maybe one word if I’m lucky.
“Homework first,” Caleb says.
He goes. Caleb follows, stopping to pour himself a glass of water at the sink. He drinks it in one go and sets the glass down. Then he leaves the kitchen without saying anything and I hear him go up the stairs after his brother.
The screen door opens again and Donna steps in.
She has a casserole dish in her hands, covered in foil. She sets it down on the counter by the stove, like she has set it down there a hundred times before, and turns to me.
“Lasagna,” she says. “For you and the boys. Wyatt knows where the oven is.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“He’s out back?”
“Always is.”
She smiles at me and sits down at the table. I close my laptop. “Can I make you a coffee?”
I am being polite. I am not actually sure I want to make Donna a coffee. But there is something that tells me she wants one.
“I’d take a coffee,” she says.
I put the kettle on. I find the jar of instant at the back of the cupboard where I found it last night, and two mugs.
If I’m going to end up staying, then I really need to buy a proper coffee machine and get the decent stuff in.
I stop where I’m standing, mugs in my hand.
If I’m going to end up staying. If. Where did that thought come from? Why on earth would I stay here?
I set the mugs down on the counter and open the fridge.
“Milk,” she says, when I hold up the carton. “No sugar.”
I sit across from her.
“The internet went in fine, then,” she says.
“It did.”
She looks at me over the rim of her mug. “I thought you were only staying two weeks,” she says. “That’s what Matthew said.”
I take a breath. “I am. I need it for my job.”
“You couldn’t take two weeks off?”
I get what she’s doing. I’m a strange alpha who has moved into a house with a man she sees as vulnerable for some unfathomable reason, as well as two boys, one of whom is only eight. She’s looking out for them. That’s fair.
I shrug. “Not really. This whole thing landed right in the middle of an urgent project. The Bureau have been real assholes about it. If I don’t stay here, I risk losing my professional accreditations. I didn’t have a lot of choices.”
“Mm.”
“The dish stays when I go and I’ve paid the year’s contract,” I say. “Did I want to lay out the money? Obviously not, but as I said, I have a job and I want it there when I get back.”
“Thank you. It’d be good for the boys to have it for their schooling.”
“They are.” She sets the mug down. “And Wyatt?”
I look at her. I feel my jaw set before I can stop it.
“I have barely seen him. I have tried to stay out of his way. That seems to be what he wants.”
She nods, slowly.
“There’s another town hall tonight,” she says. “The Linden people are coming down to answer our follow-up questions. The ones they wouldn’t answer last time.” She says ‘Linden’ the way she might say ‘dogshit’. “You should come.”
I am already shaking my head. “Thank you. I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
“You might as well join in a little bit of town life while you’re here.”
“Donna, I really —”
“Matthew says you’re an architect.” She says it flat. “You understand how these projects get sold to people like us. Maybe you can help us understand what’s going on here. Be useful to have your perspective.”
I keep my face still. My jaw has gone tight again.
“I don’t think I should get involved,” I say. “Briggs doesn’t want me there.”
She shrugs. “Wyatt doesn’t always know what’s best for him. Besides the whole town’s heard that Wyatt’s got a prime match holed up at his ranch. Best they take a look at you there before the whole town turns up at your doorstep with an excuse to take a gander.”
I hear the mudroom door open. Wyatt stalks in, nods at Donna and then makes his way past me. A moment later, I hear the shower go on upstairs.
Donna watches me over her coffee. There is no way she is going to let me get away with staying here.
I try to remember who they picked as representatives in town.
Brent Payley was one. He’s a dickhead but he owes me a favor.
I’ll send him a Teams message and just explain the situation, ask him to tell everyone to ignore me.
They’ll probably find it hilarious but they won’t want to rile up the locals any more than I will.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll come, but just give me a minute. I have a few work things I need to finish off.”
She smiles. “Wonderful.”
I take my laptop up to the bedroom and ping over a quick message to Payley. He doesn’t respond right away but it should be fine. The man is a workaholic. He doesn’t ignore Teams messages.
I close the laptop and head back downstairs.
Twenty minutes later Briggs comes down. He is in a fresh shirt, a clean flannel I have not seen before, dark green over a plain white undershirt. His hair is damp and combed back off his forehead and he has shaved.
He smells like soap and water and utterly, utterly delicious.
He stops when he sees me. His eyes move from me to Donna.
She says, “Julian’s coming to the meeting.”
His eyes move to me again. There is a small tightening at the corner of his mouth.
“Mmm,” he says.
“Not enough room in my truck for all five of us,” Donna says. She is already standing now, briskly pulling her coat back on. “I’ll take the boys. I’ll give Caleb some money to take them to the diner while we’re in the meeting. You two follow in Wyatt’s truck.”
Briggs opens his mouth to object but Donna has already turned toward the stairs and is calling up.
“Matthew. Caleb. Boots. We’re going.”
There is the thunder of two pairs of feet on the floor above. Matthew yells something down the stairwell. Donna disappears outside. Briggs and I are, for a very brief window, alone in the kitchen.
He does not look at me. He goes to the stove and lifts the foil on the casserole dish and looks down at the lasagna. He puts the foil back.
“You don’t have to come,” he says to the casserole. It has to be the longest sentence he has ever said to me.
“I don’t think she was going to let me say no,” I reply.
He turns around, finally, and he looks at me for what is probably the longest he has looked at me directly since I walked into his house four days ago. His eyes are a darker gray than I had registered.
“Hmm.”
His truck, a faded old Ford, is parked behind the barn. The passenger door sticks. He comes around without a word and yanks it open for me, one hard pull, and steps back.
“Thanks.”
I climb in. The cab smells of him. Of course it does.
It is his truck. He’s spent hours in it.
The seat, the steering wheel, the worn fabric of the headrest, every inch of it has his scent soaked into it, and now I am shutting the door and sealing myself inside a warm metal box full of nothing else.
He gets in on the driver’s side. The cab is small.
His shoulder is maybe eight inches from mine.
His thigh is closer than that to my thigh.
The gearshift is between us and his hand settles on top of it, loose, and I can see the pale skin at the inside of his wrist where the flannel cuff has ridden back.
He turns the key. The engine coughs and catches.
I reach for the window crank and I roll it down.
All the way. Cold air comes in over my face.
It is a relief for maybe two seconds. Then the wind swings around and pulls his scent off him and straight across the cab and into my lungs, warm and close, and I understand, with a clarity I did not have thirty seconds ago, that the window was a mistake.
Too late now. We’re stuck in here until we reach town.