Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
BECK
She rearranged my kitchen.
Not just the mugs. All of it. The spice rack is alphabetized. The cast iron is stacked by size on a shelf she cleared by relocating my canned goods to a "more logical" cabinet. A mason jar full of wildflowers sits on the windowsill above the sink where I used to keep a wrench.
"Where's my wrench?"
"Toolbox by the front door." Piper is sitting cross-legged on my couch in my flannel and my sweats, rolled three times at the ankles, her bad foot propped on a pillow.
She's got a book from my shelf open on her lap.
Something about metallurgical properties of high-carbon steel.
"Why was there a wrench in your kitchen? "
"Because the faucet drips."
"So fix the faucet."
"I was getting to it."
"The mineral buildup on that handle says you've been getting to it for about four months."
Slag is on the couch next to her. On her lap, actually, which is a betrayal I'm going to remember. That cat hasn't sat on my lap once since he showed up. Eight months of feeding him and all I've gotten is a slow blink from across the room. This woman's been here eighteen hours and he's purring.
"Traitor," I tell him on my way out to the forge.
He doesn't even open his eye.
The morning goes fast. The chef's knife billet is ready for grinding, which means the belt sander and then hand-finishing with progressively finer grits.
Tedious, precise work. Good for shutting off your brain when your brain keeps circling back to the way a woman looked sitting at your kitchen table with sleep still in her eyes, wearing your clothes, eating your eggs, telling you your mug organization was psychotic.
An hour in, she appears in the forge doorway. The flannel hangs to mid-thigh. She's got the too-big boots on again. Hair pulled up with what looks like a rubber band she found in my junk drawer.
"Can I watch?"
Nobody watches me work. Clients get finished products. Social media gets photos Colt Reeves talked me into posting. Nobody stands in this space while I'm grinding.
"It's loud," I say.
She doesn't leave. Just leans against the doorframe, ankles crossed, weight on her good foot.
Fine.
The belt sander screams. Sparks fly. The blade takes shape under my hands, the Damascus pattern emerging as I remove material.
Waves of dark and light steel, folded and refolded until the metal itself tells a story.
My hands know this work. They move without my brain directing them.
Thumb pressure here. Angle adjustment there.
The blade narrows toward the tip, curves just enough.
When I kill the sander and look up, she's closer. Standing beside the quench tank, eyes on the blade.
"That pattern," she says. "How does it do that?"
"Alternating layers of steel. Two different types. When you fold and forge-weld them, the grain moves. The layers twist depending on how you manipulate the billet."
"So every blade is different."
"Every one."
She reaches out. Stops. "Can I?"
Handing her the unfinished blade is instinct. She takes it carefully, turns it in the light from the doorway. Runs her thumb along the flat where the pattern catches the sun.
"It looks like water."
"Most people say wood grain."
"Most people aren't looking hard enough." Her eyes come up to mine. "This is extraordinary, Beck. You know that, right?"
Something cracks open in my chest. A seam I welded shut years ago when my ex-wife Jenna said she couldn't build a life around someone more comfortable with fire than people.
Jenna who flinched when my hands touched her face near the end, the rough scarred skin snagging on her cheek.
Jenna who asked me to wear gloves to her company Christmas party.
This woman is standing in my forge holding an unfinished blade, looking at me like I've built something worth seeing.
"You want to see the forge?" Stupid question. She's already in the forge. But what I mean is the fire itself. The part most people back away from.
"Yeah."
Moving to the forge, I open the door. The propane flame burns white-hot inside, the firebrick glowing. Heat rolls out in a wave. She steps closer instead of back.
"This is where you heat the steel?"
"Twenty-one hundred degrees for forge-welding. Lower for shaping." Pulling a piece of scrap stock from the bin. "Here."
She takes the tongs when I offer them. Her grip is wrong, fingers too high, but she holds on. Guiding her hand, I position the scrap in the forge mouth. My fingers close over hers on the tongs. The heat is fierce on our faces.
"When it goes orange, you pull it," I tell her. Close to her ear because the forge is loud. Her hair tickles my jaw.
"How do you know when it's the right orange?"
"Experience."
"What happens if it's too hot?"
"Steel burns. Can't come back from that."
"And if it's not hot enough?"
"Won't move when you hammer it. You'll just be beating cold metal and nothing changes."
She's quiet for a second. The scrap glows orange. She pulls it out, sets it on the anvil the way I showed her. Her eyes are bright. Cheeks flushed from the heat.
"Everything about this is a metaphor and you don't even realize it," she says.
"It's metalwork."
"It's a metaphor for every relationship I've ever had. Either too hot and it burns, or too cold and nothing changes no matter how hard you work at it."
That lands somewhere deep. My hands are still near hers on the tongs. I let go. Step back.
"Sounds like bad relationships."
"Just one bad one. My ex. Two years of me thinking if I just worked harder at us, he'd eventually see me as something other than decorative.
" She sets the tongs down. Straightens. "He wasn't mean.
He just didn't look at anything I did like it mattered.
My job was cute. My side business was a hobby.
The apartment I designed from scratch was nice, like a restaurant he'd reviewed three stars. "
"Three stars is low."
"Three stars is devastating when you know you're a five."
My mouth pulls. An actual smile. She sees it and her eyes go wide.
"Oh my God. Was that a smile? A real smile? Should I take a picture for documentation?"
"Don't push it."
"That was a genuine Beck Craine smile. Somebody mark the calendar."
"I smile."
"When? In your sleep? While you're communing with the fire? Because I've been here almost a full day and that's the first one."
She's grinning. Full dimples. Eyes crinkled. Still flushed from the forge heat, still wearing my too-big flannel, still standing in my workspace where nobody stands, and she's teasing me about smiling, and I want to kiss her so badly my hands ache with it.
"My ex-wife," I say. The grin falters. "She left because this life wasn't enough. The cabin, the forge, the isolation. She said I was more comfortable with fire than people."
Piper goes still.
"She was right," I continue. "About the fire part. Not about the rest."
"The rest being what?"
"That this life isn't enough for someone."
She takes a step forward. One step. Closes the gap between us until she's right there, chin tilted up because I've got six inches on her, brown eyes steady. Warm. No flinch, no retreat.
"Your ex-wife was wrong."
Then she reaches up and puts her hand on the side of my face. Palm against my jaw, fingers in my beard. Her thumb traces my cheekbone. Deliberate, sure.
"Piper."
"Yeah?"
"If you keep touching me like that I'm going to kiss you."
"I know."
Her hand stays.
So I kiss her.
One hand on her waist, pulling her in. The other on the back of her neck, fingers in her hair.
She makes a sound against my mouth, a small catch of breath, and then she's kissing me back.
Her lips are soft. She tastes like my coffee.
Her fingers grip my beard, pulling me closer, and the kiss goes from careful to deep in about two seconds.
She's warm everywhere. Through the flannel, through the sweats, her body presses against mine. Full breasts against my chest. Her hips fit against mine. One of her hands slides down to my forearm, fingers tracing the burn scars without hesitation, gripping the damaged skin like it's just skin.
I pull back before I can't.
Her eyes are dark. Lips swollen. Breathing hard.
"I should not have done that," I tell her.
"Why?"
"Because you're stuck here. And I'm not the kind of man who takes advantage of a situation."
"You didn't take anything. I put my hand on your face."
"I know."
"So what's the problem?"
The problem is she leaves when the road clears.
The problem is I've been alone for two years and her hand on my face made me forget every reason that was supposed to be okay.
The problem is that Jenna was right about the fire, and this woman feels like the first time in years I've wanted to step away from it.
"No problem," I say. "Just needed you to know that wasn't a situation thing."
Her expression softens. The dimples come back.
"Good," she says. "Because I'm reorganizing your spice rack after dinner and I'd hate for that to be weird now."
"You already reorganized my spice rack."
"I'm going to do it better."
She limps back toward the cabin with Slag trailing behind her. Traitor cat. I watch her go. My flannel, my boots, my cat, my kitchen.
The road better hold off another day.