Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
The next day, Chip stood amongst the bustle of children and parents gathered at Aggie’s nursery, a place he hadn’t visited since he’d been a kid. New shade cloths stretched overhead, sun rays piercing the in-between spaces while nearby fountains burbled a soothing and watery song.
The woman of his affection hadn’t yet noticed him and sat at a table surrounded by children, wincing at the green paint Whitney dabbed at the center of her forehead.
An overly enthused beam tugged at his face, and he drew closer. From her fitted pink t-shirt to her short and fluttery green skirt—plus, the fact she didn’t mind Whitney’s form of artistic expression—Ally looked a vision in what was a very Ally moment.
He tracked his gaze down to the skirt again, a scintillating portion of her thigh exposed, though he was quick to wipe his grin away, his current thoughts not right in a family setting.
“How did you know to find me here?” Ally’s bright lilt jolted him from his daydream, and he snapped his attention to her upturned stare.
“The flyers around town tipped me off.” He shrugged, and she squeezed her eyes shut in an I should have figured as much expression.
He jutted his chin to the tables teaming with children, paint, clay, wayward soil, and potted plants. “The flyers also said you’ll be finished soon. So…”
“So you’re staging an ambush?” She smiled, then winced again, another spot of paint hitting her right cheek. “There’s a lot to clean up before I can go anywhere.”
“All good.” He pulled out a chair and sat beside her, waving away Whitney’s slow approach to paint his face too. “I’ll help you.”
Her eyes shone their brilliant blue, causing his heart to do a hard thump beneath his ribcage. “Well, thank you.”
Seeing her here, absorbed in her self-created world of color and fun, a world that contradicted her claims of being a woman incapable of pulling her act together. She had her act together just fine. Only her act looked a million ways different to his, and he couldn’t help but be transfixed.
The mess. The squeals of laughter. Seedlings in pots and splashes of paint. Her presence sat at the core of all this joy, a joy only marred because he’d asked her to come with him to Boston, and she hadn’t yet given him an answer.
Then again, how can I take her away from all this?
“Nice to see you again, Chip.” This time, it was Aggie’s voice that interrupted his thoughts, and she strolled toward him from between a line of tall shelves. “I’m gonna guess your presence means I don’t have to help tidy up?”
He stood and confirmed her theory with a laugh, giving her an obligatory kiss on the cheek when she reached him.
Meanwhile, Ally clapped her hands, her outward gaze vying for the children’s attention. “Judging by the state of this nursery, it’s safe to say you all had an awesome time. Unfortunately, today’s session is over, so anyone with work left in the potting or painting station can take their art home now. Everyone with clay pots waiting to be fired in the kiln, you can come back and collect those in two days.”
The noise level lifted, and children jumped from their seats, scattering in all directions, many to Ally for a goodbye hug before returning to their parents.
“She’s great”—Aggie nudged him in the side with an elbow—“isn’t she?”
He stared at Ally, his heart thudding again because the moment held a hard to define magic, and his time with her seemed to tick faster and faster away.
“She is.”
He suppressed a frown. Maybe because he’d been wrong to ask her to come away with him. Maybe because she had more working for her here than he ever did on his side of the country, forever tripping over himself to make the right choices, all the while not knowing what they were.
He shook the thought off and focused on Ally strolling over while the last child skipped away. “Ready to get to work?”
He nodded, and Aggie gave Ally a farewell pat on the arm. “I’m off to shoot the breeze with whoever I can find at Maynard’s. I’ll set the lock on the nursery gate, just be sure to pull it all the way shut when you leave.”
While Aggie strolled away, Ally turned to a table and began collecting paint palettes, leaving him to figure out the mess strewn across the potting station.
“Ahh…” He stared at the multiple piles of dirt about the tempered glass surface. “Any chance you got a pan and brush stashed around here somewhere?”
She pointed to one of three metal carts, a stack of cleaning equipment nestled on the second shelf. “Over there. But first, let’s load the other carts with whatever’s on the tables. There’ll be less stuff to clean around, and then we can wheel what’s left to the kiln room.”
“Great idea.”
He collected what he could, shifting spades, unused pots, paint palettes, and brushes to a cart. Fifteen minutes of comfortable silence passed before everything was loaded and the tables wiped down.
Soon, he pushed the heaviest cart toward the pottery shed, Ally leading the way to a small, white building with two windows and a tiny wedge of wood holding the solitary door open.
He wrangled his cart inside, the room’s bright airiness catching him off guard. Despite the limited space, the muddy scent of clay added an uncomplicated mood—like memories of childhood—mixed with his ability to just see Ally spending all her spare time here. In her place of retreat.
“We’ll leave the wet clay pots on the cart to dry, and I’ll come in tomorrow to fire them.” Ally parked her cart against a wall and turned to him with a smile. “They’ll explode in the kiln if I do it earlier.”
“Exploding pots?” He left his cart next to Ally’s and peered about the room, taking in more details—the set of wall-to-ceiling shelves that supported her creations in various stages of completion, a two-person, magenta couch tucked along a side wall, the contrasting marigold and lapis blue cushions scattered on top.
He strode deeper into the room and eyed an octagonal machine he assumed was the kiln, the thing tucked into a corner not far from a small kitchenette, complete with kettle and sink.
“I’m sure exploding pots will bring about more than a few tears.” She pulled her purse from atop the kitchenette bench. “And that’s just the children.”
She let out a quick laugh and produced a hand mirror from her bag, her expression dropping the moment she brought the mirror to face level.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She flicked her wide-eyed gaze to him, and he tried not to laugh.
“What?” He shrugged, raising his hands and professing innocence. “I thought you looked cute.”
“Cute?” Her voice shouted out in an aghast tone, and she twisted the kitchenette’s tap to a heavy flow. “Half my face is painted green!”
“I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and bit back another laugh. “And just to be clear, I have no issues with your Princess Fiona look.”
“Shrek references, really?” She growled and hunched over the sink, splashing water over her face and scrubbing away before straightening and tugging a hand towel from a nearby hook. “Chip Overton, you think yourself too clever.”
He chuckled and strolled closer, reaching for the hand towel. “I have the papers to prove I am clever. Here, you’ve missed a spot.”
She dropped her shoulders and handed him the towel, her eyes closing as he drew in to remove green from around her nose creases.
“Still think you could have warned me.” Her voice was a sulky mumble, but the slight upward curve of her lips hinted at no real offense. “There I was, just merrily chatting to people, and the whole time my head looked like a cabbage.”
Her words brought another smile to his face, and he drew the towel away to press a soft and prolonged kiss to her lips. “And miss this? I don’t think so.”
Her tense shoulders eased lower, and her eyelids fluttered open, her gentle stare on him seeming to muddle through some unspoken problem in her head. “Is the paint all gone?”
Her new husky tone wrapped around him like a wool blanket, just as the light dimmed and a pronounced click came from behind him. She jolted back and then shoved past, her quick steps taking her to the suddenly closed door.
“Oh, no.” She wrestled with the silver handle and a repeated clack-clack-clack filled the air, but her efforts were to no avail. “No, no, no, no, no!”
He strode over to her, now slapping both palms to the door’s glass window. “Someone must have bumped the door stopper on the way in.”
A low growl rolled up her throat and released on a loud and frustrated “Arghhh” before she took out her mood on the ineffectual door stopper, kicking it across the lead-gray polished concrete until it bounced against the nearest wall and then rolled to a stop.
She sent him a taut and silent stare, then stormed across the room and back to her purse. Soon, the contents lay strewn over a small table, tubes of lip gloss, loose tissues, her phone… she sifted through it all in fevered sweeping motions, only to turn to him with shadows under her now glistening eyes. “They’re not here. My keys, they must be in my cardigan pocket, and that’s draped over my chair at the outside tables… I’ll… I’ll have to call Aggie.”
A small silence lingered, and she wandered over to the couch, plonking herself down onto the bright, velvety cushions, her cell phone clasped in her hand. “She’ll have to double back all the way from Maynard’s. I’m such an idiot.”
But she was so much more than she gave herself credit for, and he hated hearing her speak that way. “What about the windows? One of us could climb out and—”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “They only open a few inches. Aggie’s idea to stop anyone breaking in.”
She pushed out a heavy sigh and began pressing buttons on her phone, the forward roll of her shoulders and the deflated tilt of her head sparking a fire low in his gut.
He fought a sharp ache to reach out and touch her, to make her forget this misery, only he didn’t need to fight that ache at all. “Don’t.”
His tight command had her crystal blue stare pinned to him, her brow pressed into a quizzical straight line. Meanwhile, his gaze slipped to the silky white texture of her forearm and her phone in her hand, a new rise of desperation spurring him on. “Don’t call Aggie.”