Chapter 20
Juniper
She dreamed she was back in college, running hard to catch a bus to take her to an important job interview. As hard as she
tried, she couldn’t make it. It remained just out of reach. She almost reached it and tried to run faster, then felt a shock
as Ali driving a Jeep came out of nowhere from the periphery of her vision and ran straight into her, sending her flying through
the air.
She woke feeling disoriented and vaguely queasy. She blinked at the sliver of vertical light coming through the curtains she
hadn’t closed completely the night before.
As had happened to her every morning since she had come to Wyoming, it took her a moment to remember where she was, until
the pieces clicked into place. She was sleeping in the bedroom of the writing cabin belonging to Carson Wells, where she was
recovering from a cardiac arrest.
The reality still seemed as bizarre and outlandish as anything her subconscious could conjure up.
The alarm on her phone went off when she was still trying to drag herself fully awake. Why had she set it so early? She didn’t
have to go to work.
Suddenly, she remembered.
Beckett Hunter was starting a new project today and had agreed to let her watch the beginning stages.
She pushed away the warm quilt and sat up, sliding her feet to the cool wood floor. Out of habit, she touched a hand to her
heart, as if to reassure herself it was still beating.
More excited than she had been about anything since she arrived in Wyoming, she hurried to the bathroom. After a quick shower, she dressed and headed to the kitchen. She still had a half hour to eat something and make the short walk over to his workshop.
She poured coffee and threw a piece of whole wheat bread into the toaster, then slathered on no-salt almond butter when it
popped up. She was halfway through when she heard a snuffling sound out on the porch.
Peering through the window, she wasn’t at all surprised to find Hank on his haunches on the door mat, as if he had arrived
to escort her to Beck’s workshop.
“Good morning,” she said when she opened the door. The dog wagged his tail and she grabbed a couple of the treats she had
picked up at the grocery store the night before.
He wolfed them quickly then sat waiting patiently while she finished off her toast and took a few more sips of her coffee.
“Okay. I’m ready,” she said. She locked the door behind her and the two of them started off through the trees, birds chirping
noisily along their way.
She was grateful she had grabbed a hoodie, since the mornings here in the mountains were cool and refreshing.
She usually walked the mile to work in Seattle, even in heavy rain. She had to admit that she preferred the birdsong to horns,
sirens and the other sounds of the city.
It would be tough to go back.
She frowned at the thought. No. It wouldn’t be hard at all. That was where her life was, her career, the business she had
helped build. She loved it and missed it and couldn’t wait until she was healthy enough to return.
When they neared the clearing and Beck’s workshop, Hank trotted ahead of her with his tail wagging as he headed through the
wide doorway, the sliding barn door open to the morning air.
“Hey, bud,” she heard Beck say. “Where did you wander off to?”
She followed the dog. “Apparently, he came to escort me. I thought maybe you sent him.”
He smiled. “No. Wish I’d thought of it, though. Good morning.”
He looked gorgeous, wearing jeans and a navy blue T-shirt that showed off his wide shoulders and muscled forearms.
June did her best to ignore the sudden nerves fluttering through her.
“Are you still okay with me watching you work today?”
He grimaced. “I suppose. Are you sure you don’t have something more interesting to do? Like, I don’t know, watching grass
grow?”
“Yes. Positive. I want to watch, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. If you would rather we forget it, I can head
back home.”
He shrugged. “It’s fine. I need to set up.”
She watched as he placed three cameras at different angles, taking care to make sure they were focused on the work, not on
him. She again had the thought that if he did ever film his face, his videos would definitely go viral. A hot guy working
with his hands to create something beautiful and artistic was appealing on several different levels.
“I should have asked,” she said as he checked the cameras again. “Do I need to be quiet?”
He shook his head. “I never use the actual audio the cameras pick up. Who wants to hear power tools and all my occasional
curse words when I screw something up?”
She laughed, earning a startled look from Beck.
“I speed it up, anyway,” he said. “Otherwise, each video would be hours long. If I’m going to use audio, I record commentary
about what I’m doing separately, and the video editor dubs that in along with any music or sound effects.”
She found all of his videos fascinating, the silent ones and the few where he explained the process in that deep, arresting
voice.
There was a very good chance she might have a small crush on her nearest neighbor.
She knew she should be horrified by the realization, but in an odd way, she found it comforting. She had come back from the
dead only a few weeks ago. It was good to know the experience hadn’t left her completely altered. She could still feel tingles
in all the right places, even if her attraction was completely futile and inappropriate.
“Can I help with anything?” she asked.
He pointed to a chair she didn’t remember being there earlier. “No. You can sit down and try not to be too distracting.”
Why would he find her distracting? she wondered as she sat down. Would he find anyone distracting or was it something specific to her?
“Unless it’s too disruptive, do you mind explaining what you’re doing as you go?” she asked as he unrolled what looked like
a thin piece of flooring, then picked up a couple of two-by-six boards. He spread a bead of wood glue on them and used another
tool to angle them together.
He briefly looked up from his work then back down to the boards as he picked up a drill and began screwing them together on
the angle. “I’m building a form here that is the size and dimensions of the tabletop I’m making. In this case, it’s going
to be a coffee table. I use laminate on the bottom and then peel it away once the resin has dried.”
“Do you have to make a new form with every piece you make?”
This time he didn’t look up. “Yes. I have to destroy each form in the process. I try to reuse as much as I can, but that’s
not always possible.”
He worked in silence and she almost thought he had forgotten she was there except for the occasional moments when he would
look up and find her watching the process carefully.
“What made you start creating tables?”
“I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands. My grandpa is a contractor in California, and I worked with him after school and during summer breaks in high school and again when I was in college. I grew up watching him tinker with wood in his spare time when he wasn’t building or renovating houses. He loved creating beautiful pieces. Still does. He always says he finds it immensely satisfying to take a piece of wood and create something both beautiful and useful out of it. I guess I inherited that from him.”
“Are you close to your family?”
He smiled softly. “Yes. Very. They wanted me to move home to Los Angeles after... well, everything that happened with my
wife.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I did for a month or two. I couldn’t stay in our condo in San Jose. And then I realized I needed space to work things out.
I came out here and instantly fell in love with this part of Wyoming. The people, the scenery. All of it. Now I don’t know
if I could ever leave.”
They lapsed into silence as he continued building the frame. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though. More like... restful.
She had a random memory of helping her mother make some bookshelves for Elizabeth’s classroom at the high school where she
taught. They had both been terrible at it, but the two of them had laughed through the whole thing.
She hadn’t built much since then. She had hired a contractor and decorator when she bought her apartment and had let them
furnish it.
At some point, the dog came over and settled at her feet and June reached down to pet his head, charmed at his easy affection.
For the next half hour, she petted the dog, watched Beck work and let her mind wander as the scent of wood glue and sawdust filled the air. Oddly, she felt more at peace than she had in a long time, even when she had been sitting beside the cascading waterfalls Ali had shown her.
“Do you mind giving me a hand?” he asked, jolting her from her thoughts.
He wanted her help? What could she possibly do? She wanted to warn him she would probably make a mess of things, but rose instead and moved
toward the worktable.
“I can certainly try. What do you need me to do?”
He picked up a long piece of planed wood, gnarled and weathered-looking. Two other pieces rested on a quilted blanket on the
floor of the workspace. “Now that the sealer has dried, I need to set the wood I’ll be using as the foundation of the table.
I could use help figuring out how to arrange them.”
And he wanted her help? She was flattered that he thought she could offer anything of use.
The planks fit perfectly inside the form he had created, obviously cut to size already.
“I was thinking this big one in the middle and those two smaller ones on the side. They will create a natural channel on each
side for the resin.”
“That looks good to me,” she said. “Maybe go a little off center with the big one instead of directly in the middle.”
“You’re right. That’s better,” he said after he had made the adjustment. “Thank you. Good eye.”
She found it hard to visualize the finished product, but loved being a small part of the process.
For the next hour, he shaped the wood, drilling out a few of the gnarls and planing and sanding it until the planks looked
gorgeous, even to her untrained eyes.
“Now what?” she asked after he had vacuumed up any trace of sawdust with a shop vac.
“Now I need to mix the resin.”
He put on a face mask and gloves and lowered the safety glasses from the top of his head.
She watched as he poured liquid from one container to a bucket then added liquid from another one.
He used the same drill he had utilized to create the form, this time attached with a long mixer bit, and stirred the clear
resin. She watched as he added several drops of something to the resin that spread out in a hypnotic cloud of color.
“Looks like I need a little more. I’m trying for a translucent bluish-green that I hope will resemble a mountain stream running
through the wood.”
He added several more drops and stirred again with the mixer bit.
“How do you know when it’s right?”
He shrugged, still stirring. “Experience? Luck? Some of both? I don’t know. This is a big leap of faith where you have to
hope you know what you’re doing.”
She envied that, since right now she certainly did not have faith in herself.
“The moment of truth,” he said when he was satisfied with the color.
He carried the bucket to the frame and poured the resin around the pieces of wood. It flowed in like that mountain river he
had talked about, filling all the empty places between the boards with that iridescent blue.
“Are you bored out of your mind yet?” he asked.
“Far from it. There’s something almost... zen in watching the process.”
“I’m afraid I’m not quite Bob Ross,” he said.
She smiled. “Grow some facial hair and a curly hairdo and you could be.”
“I guess a guy can dream,” he said, which made her smile again.
After all of the resin was poured, he made sure there were no bubbles on the surface.
“I have to let this cure now then add another layer. Some people say it only needs to be tacky, but I like to leave mine overnight.”
They had been there for hours, she realized. It was almost lunchtime. The time had flown by. She rose stiffly from the chair
he had set out for her. While she was reluctant to leave, she knew she couldn’t hang out for several hours.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s as fascinating as I thought it would be.”
He looked over, in the process of turning off the cameras. “Are you hungry? I always find I’m starving after I’ve been focusing
for a while on a project. If you want to come up to the house, I can throw something together for lunch.”
“You’ve already opened your workshop for me. You don’t have to feed me, too. I’m the nosy neighbor who won’t leave.”
“I invited you,” he pointed out.
The safe thing would be for her to turn around, walk out of his workshop and head back through the woods toward the cabin.
Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life being safe?
“Sure,” she said, almost defiantly, at least to herself. “Lunch would be good. But I can help make it.”
He smiled, looking dark and gorgeous with a small sprinkle of sawdust in his hair, and she had to shove her hands in her pockets
to keep from brushing it away.