Chapter 4
The dark, crisp, early autumn air was intoxicating.
Not cool enough for Cali to see her breath yet but cool enough to justify leaving her windows open tonight as she slept.
The faint buzz from the wine at book club was already wearing off, but in its place was a warm, cozy feeling in her belly.
She clutched her trench with one hand and her purse with the other as she and Ethan walked down the long handicap ramp toward the parking lot.
“You’re all smiles,” Ethan noted. He’d pushed up his sleeves again, exposing the intricate tattoo that wrapped his left forearm down to the wrist, while he waited for her at the door.
“The wine helps,” she quipped, “and fall is my favorite season.”
He shrugged. “Fall’s okay. I’m more of a winter guy myself.”
She asked him why, and she expected some contrived response like “I hate the heat” or “I love snow.” But what he said instead was “More time to cook.”
“You do not!” she blurted and let out a startled laugh, mostly out of surprise. Maybe the wine wasn’t wearing off after all. She regretted it the instant his face changed.
“I’m a really good cook!” he insisted.
Cali didn’t know how to counter that one. “But can’t—can’t you cook in the summer, too?” she asked. “Spring? Fall?” Three questions into twenty questions already. Way to go, Cali.
He straightened sharply, his spine rigid, and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Winter means less daylight and, therefore, shorter days on the construction site. Fewer hours there means more time at home, perfecting my coq au vin.”
Cali couldn’t tell if he was serious or messing with her again. “So you hibernate in winter with wine and French stew? Very manly.”
Ethan chuckled at the hazing as they strode toward the only car left in the library’s parking lot. “This one’s mine,” she said.
Her Honda didn’t exactly scream witty, early-thirties woman, but it was reliable and came with the house.
Cali never drove in the city, but she was just glad she had a car here—and a short and mostly traffic-less ride each workday to boot.
Autumn Ridge only had a handful of stoplights and a sprinkling of stop signs to navigate.
If it weren’t for the fact that her grandmother’s A-frame house and the lake were on the outskirts of town, she could have still been fine without a vehicle.
She unlocked her car and turned toward Ethan, thinking she’d say thanks and speed off, take some time to wonder why she felt pulled to the warmth of his body the longer they’d walked side by side.
But the way the moonlight illuminated his hair and face and chiseled torso, like one of those Roman sculptures, made her swallow her words.
“What are you doing right now?” Ethan asked, jarring her from her trance.
Was he about to ask her out for drinks? After they’d already had drinks? She knew herself well enough to know no good could come from this. And this man was transitory anyway. Here one construction project, gone for the next. To indulge in any thought of having something serious with him was naive.
“Washing my hair,” she lied.
“Cali …”
“No, really. Earlier today, because of the construction, I just walked into a big cloud of—” She flung her hands wide to illustrate, and her purse shot off her shoulder like a missile.
The insides of the purse spilled across the asphalt several feet away from them.
“Well, damn,” she said, almost in disbelief.
“Remind me to duck next time,” said Ethan.
He jogged toward her purse and crouched down, about to collect everything for her.
But she ran up beside him, fearful of what he might find.
Seven different shades of nearly identical red lipstick.
Loose cat treats rattling around like Tic Tacs.
That terrible half-blinking photo on her driver’s license.
A small vial labeled “tears of my enemies” that was really just filled with water but made her smile each time she saw it.
It was all on display on the sidewalk for Ethan.
He casually scooped up the vial and read it as she tucked the rest back into the purse.
“You are full of surprises, Cali Jacobs,” he said. But he made no moves to return it. She noted how he said her full name, the way it lingered on his lips.
If Cali was being honest, that vial was her most treasured possession since moving to Autumn Ridge. She and Minka had found it during a girls’ trip to Salem, Massachusetts last fall. A reminder of Cali’s first friendship here. The same vial was buried in Minka’s purse somewhere, too.
She waited a few beats, until his lips curved upward into a restrained smile.
“Careful,” she warned him. “I’ve got room in there for your tears, too.
” His gaze softened, and the vial passed between their hands, their fingertips touching.
Cali felt the warmth and electricity between them but tried to write it off as static.
She cleared her throat and pressed her shoulders back.
“What would we do?” she asked begrudgingly.
His eyebrows lifted. “‘We’?”
“Right now. Hypothetically. If my shampoo schedule allowed it.”
“Oh.” The question seemed to startle him, and he ran thick fingers through his hair as he looked away. “I just thought maybe we could, uh, search for the cat.”
Cali rolled her eyes. “In the dark?”
“Why not? Don’t you think, between us, we’d find him quickly? Cats are most active at dawn and dusk anyway. He’s bound to be around here somewhere.”
“Ethan,” she tsked. “It’s well past dusk. And the last time that cat was between us it bolted and left a mark on me.” She lifted her bandaged wrist to remind him. “I’ll believe in midnight cat hunts when you show up here with coq au vin.”
“Next Thursday then?”
“For book club?”
“No,” he said. “After. Coq au vin and wandering around in the dark together.”
She clicked her keys, the car chirping to life, and gave him a mock-sweet smile. “Careful, Ethan. That sounds dangerously close to a date.”