Chapter 7 Salty
Salty
SADIE
Despite my insufferable, if undeniably sexy boss, I'm starting to think I lucked out into the sweetest gig in town.
I get to live in a beautiful farmhouse on a wide-open ranch, hang out with an awesome kid, and all I have to do is survive one grumpy cowboy who gets my heart racing.
Once he clears out, I spend the next few hours unpacking my things. Then I tidy the house a little bit, putting toys back in their bins, collecting stray puzzle pieces and legos to be sorted out later. When I’m finished, I make myself a peanut butter sandwich with a glass of lemonade for lunch.
This house is clean and airy. Perfectly air-conditioned, with no hint of the summer heat coming through the triple-paned windows. No TV blaring, no smell of cigarette smoke. It feels heavenly.
I take the opportunity to explore a little more, staying far away from Walker’s bedroom. I don’t need to know what that looks like. Don’t need to see any evidence of women he might bring back here, the idea of which makes me feel oddly, unpleasantly jealous.
But I poke my head into the other rooms. There’s an office, a playroom, and a music studio that looks unfurnished and untouched. Only a guitar in the corner.
There’s a thin coating of dust on it. It’s the only dusty thing in this whole house.
Weird.
Outside, there’s a custom cedar playground set, along with a gated swimming pool. It’s got deep blue tiles all around it and sparkles like a Montana sapphire in the sun. I stare longingly at it. Maybe if I ask nicely, Walker will let me swim laps.
Although knowing him, he’ll probably find a way to lecture me about swim safety, so maybe I should just stick to the community pool.
By the time I go pick up Jonah from camp, I’m feeling good about my decision to accept this job. Walker is a handful, but I can handle it.
At the camp pick-up, Jonah runs up to my Explorer. To my surprise, he gives me a big hug, which I happily return. He’s getting comfortable with me already, and I love that.
“How was your day?” I ask.
“Good. Except it’s my turn to bring snack tomorrow, and I have to make it good.”
He buckles himself into the booster seat in the back. I straighten out a kink in the seatbelt for him before heading back behind the wheel and starting up again. “I can help with snack,” I tell him. “Got any ideas for what you want to bring?”
“Chocolate chip cookies,” he says firmly. “Homemade.”
“Sounds good to me. Why don’t we stop by the store and get the ingredients?”
Ten minutes later, we’re strolling down the aisles. Jonah throws everything that catches his fancy into the cart, and I have a hell of a time negotiating him out of the high-fructose corn syrup bombs he gravitates towards.
I throw in a week’s worth of frozen dinners for myself too. At the checkout, I pay for Jonah’s ingredients with Walker’s card, and the frozen dinners with my own card. Not that he’d notice or care about the expense, but I do.
I provide for myself.
Back at home, I go over some reading coursework for a little while with Jonah. His main issue with reading, as far as I can tell, is that he gets easily frustrated when something doesn’t come easy to him. So I try to make it jokey and fun, and he slowly relaxes and starts having fun with it too.
Then I have Jonah wash his hands and I do the same before we tackle the chocolate chip cookies. Thirty minutes in, we’re both dusted with flour and giggling. Everything goes textbook perfect, and by the time the cookies are done baking, they fill the house with a delicious smell.
Then it’s time to taste one. We both take a bite.
And I nearly spit mine out.
They’re salty. Like, absurdly, insanely salty.
“Jonah,” I say slowly, “did you add extra salt?”
He beams. “They’re salted chocolate chip, just like the bakery does! Aren’t they amazing?”
I struggle to choke one down. “I think you’re supposed to sprinkle the salt on top, my friend.”
“I like my way.”
I give him a weak smile. “As long as you’re happy with them.”
There’s the sound of a truck rolling up the road. A moment later, Walker comes through the door.
He looks like he's been outside all day. Dusty Stetson, dirty boots, a sheen of sweat at his throat. His shirt is plastered to his chest and shoulders from a full day of outdoor work, and he smells like leather and fresh wood shavings. The smell of fresh wood makes me imagine him swinging an axe and I instantly decide I don’t need to add “hot lumberjack” to my list of Walker Rhodes fantasies.
But that t-shirt is sticking to his chest in a way that makes it very hard to concentrate on measuring chocolate chips.
I glance at the clock. It’s only four. He’s home early. Checking up on the new nanny?
Jonah runs to him. “Dad!”
Walker catches him and swings him up into a hug. “Smells amazing in here.”
“Sadie and I made cookies!”
As he takes off his cowboy hat, he looks at me. “Did you now?”
“We’re expert bakers,” Jonah confirms. “Just like Loretta at the bakery downtown. Want to try one?”
“All right, then,” he says.
As he picks one up, I lean in to murmur in his ear so Jonah can’t hear. I get close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin. “They’re the best thing you’ve ever tasted. Swallow every bit and say thank you.”
His eyes flare briefly. They flicker to my mouth and away again.
I guess you could take what I said a certain kind of way. If you have a dirty mind.
Which clearly Walker does.
And maybe I do too.
He takes a bite of cookie. Chews. Freezes. There’s a sidelong glare at me.
“Very… salty, bud,” he mumbles.
“Like the ocean!” Jonah says, satisfied. “These are for camp snack tomorrow.”
I get down on one knee so I’m at Jonah’s level. “Hey. Would you be okay with me making another batch with a little less salt, just in case some people like the regular flavor, and not the fancy salted one?”
He thinks about it. “Okay. That’s a good idea. This is gonna be the best camp snack ever.”
“That’s right. Ready to knock their socks off?” I ask.
“Hell yeah!”
I lift an eyebrow. “Pardon?”
He has the grace to look abashed. “Heck, yeah, I mean.” He looks up at me with puppy dog eyes. “But Dad says bad words all the time.”
My eyes meet Walker’s. His lips almost twitch.
I fold my arms. “Maybe we ought to help your Daddy work on his manners too.”
Walker’s gaze floats lazily down my body and back up again. “My manners are just fine, darlin.’”
“Mm.” I turn back to the counter and start measuring out the chocolate chips. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
I hear him take a slow step closer. Not close enough to be inappropriate, but close enough that I'm suddenly very aware of him standing behind me.
“Words ain’t bad or good,” he murmurs. “It’s how you use ‘em.”
I keep my eyes on the flour.
Walker Rhodes is one of the most talented songwriters to walk the earth at this moment. If anyone knows a thing or two about how to use words, it’s him.
Unfortunately for me, he seems good at weaponizing them against me. Along with that sexy, low drawl he says them in.
“Can I go play outside now?” Jonah says.
“You do your reading homework with Sadie?” Walker asks.
Jonah nods. “Yep! Ask her, it’s true.”
“It’s true,” I confirm, busying myself with measuring out the brown sugar.
“All right then,” Walker says.
Jonah scampers out the back door to the playground equipment out back. Walker leans his back against the counter next to me and watches me stir the baking soda into the flour and sugar mixture.
“Easy on the salt, darlin’,” he says, eyes glinting.
“I turn my back for one second...”
His lips almost quirk again. “That’s how they get ya. Always in those split seconds.”
“Hmph.” I add salt. A tiny pinch this time. “Suppose you speak from experience.”
“Unfortunately. Turn around and boom, he’s throwing a rock right into the window ‘on accident.’ I look away for another second, and he vanishes at the county fair. Damn near gave me a heart attack that day.”
I smile despite myself. “Sounds like he’s given you a run for your money.”
“Been aging in dog years since the moment he was born.”
“Worth it, though, right?”
Walker’s gaze goes to his son playing happily outside. “Every second.”
He might be a jerk, but damn, does he love his kid.
I grew up wondering what it would feel like to have a father who looked at me like that. Like I was the best thing that ever happened to him. Like I was worth every hard second.
Jonah will never have to wonder.
I don't want to like Walker Rhodes. But I like him for that.
“You look all right for someone aging in dog years,” I say.
He tilts his head. “Do I?”
“Like a spry, young-at-heart, old dog. Wouldn’t put you a day over forty-two.”
Now I get the familiar glower. “I’m thirty six, thank you very fucking much. How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty four.”
“Hmm,” is all he says. Then after a moment, he adds, “Tell me more about this job you’ve got lined up after the summer.”
“I’ll be teaching English to eighth graders in New York City. It’s an arts magnet school, so the kids that are there are really passionate. They actually want to be there, which make teaching that much more rewarding. And the pay and benefits are great. Honestly, it’s a dream job.”
“New York City, huh? Big change for a small town girl. Won’t you miss Marble Falls?”
“Of course.”
“Then why not find something here?”
“I tried. It’s a small town. The opportunities aren’t the same. Not all of us can work out of our home recording studio.”
I didn’t mean to let that slip. So far we’ve been avoiding the eight-hundred-pound-gorilla of his fame, and both of us seem to like it that way.
But the way he looks up sharply at me then, I guess that conversation is happening now.
“You know my music?” he asks.
Only every album, including the B-sides and covers.
I busy myself with cracking eggs so I don’t have to meet his eyes.
“Who doesn’t?” I deflect.
He grunts. “You hear the last album?”
“Sure.”
“What did you think? I’d tell you be honest with me, but I don’t think I need to say that to you.”
I pause. Artists are sensitive people in general. Walker might be an asshole, but a person capable of writing the lyrics he does must be a sensitive soul somewhere deep down.
It’s a long enough silence for him to say, like he’s bracing himself, “Come on, copperhead. Don’t hide your fangs. Give me both barrels.”
He seems weirdly vulnerable right now. So I choose my words carefully. Honestly, but carefully.
“It didn’t seem like your heart was in it,” I tell him.
“Your voice sounded great, the production was top-notch. But the words…. I don’t know.
It was all whiskey shots and Friday nights and dirt roads and girls in tight blue jeans.
Kinda paint-by-numbers. None of your usual poetic turns of phrase, or insightful observation, or soul.
Just seemed like you were phoning it in. ”
He slaps the stone countertop with the palm of his hand. “Damn fucking right. It was drivel. I hate that record.”
The dusty guitar in that empty studio suddenly makes a lot more sense.
“Then why’d you make it?” I ask, genuinely curious.
A deep exhale as his eyes go distant.
“Because I was in the middle of a divorce that was draining the life force out of me. Because I was trying to protect and provide for Jonah and feeling like I was failing every fucking day. Because I thought putting something out into the world was better than nothing. But I was wrong. Nothing is better, if that’s the something I made. ”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” I tell him. “You had three singles in the top ten out of it. It still went platinum. Fans loved it.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I’m not a fan.”
Not anymore.
His eyes narrow. “You’ve got some pretty strong opinions for someone who’s not a fan.”
“I have strong opinions on lots of things I’m not fond of. Mayonnaise, for instance. Or the color chartreuse.”
“Is that what my music is to you? Mayonnaise and chartreuse?”
“Not your first five albums,” I tell him truthfully. “But maybe that sixth one. Bland and flashy at the same time.”
For a moment, he just stares at me.
And then he starts laughing.
Walker Rhodes, unsmiling, moody, grump extraordinaire, is laughing with his whole chest.