Chapter 8
MAX
About an hour after I get up, the sun comes out and the road outside my place dries up. The air is thick with the moisture from the rain before, but I head out and hook my Jeep up to Lacey’s car, pulling it out easily.
Then, though I try my best not to, I watch out the window for her coming down the road. From Jasper’s cabin to mine would be around a twenty to thirty minute walk.
As I go through the motions of the morning — feeding Dona, making and cleaning up breakfast, checking the gutters and the rain barrels — I wonder about making some sort of path through the woods from my cabin to hers. It would be much safer than walking on the road.
Then I remember first that Lacey isn’t staying, second that it’s not like she would be coming down to my cabin, and third that the absolute last thing I would want is a path from a rental to my place.
Last night, she’d assured me she would come first thing in the morning to get her car. Morning turns to mid-morning, then creeps closer to noon, and I check out the front window each time I hear a noise.
“First thing in the morning,” I grumble, finally deciding to head out to my shop. “Yeah, right. Some of us have stuff to do.”
Dona meows, weaving around my feet as we walk together to the shop. When we get inside, she jumps into her bed by the window, curling up to sleep.
I try to focus on the other leg for that aspen chair.
But, for some reason, I’m thinking about Lacey wandering out into the forest. Or messing with the wood stove and somehow managing to start a fire.
Grunting, I put down my tools and walk outside, shielding my eyes and tipping my head, looking up the mountain in the direction of Jasper’s cabin. I don’t see smoke.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I mutter, scooping Donatello up and ignoring her mewls of protest as I carry her back to the cabin, setting her inside and giving her a sheepish look when she glares at me.
She’s just as tied to our routine as I am — breakfast and some morning chores, then out to the wood shop. But today is different, and I’m not going to leave her out there when I’m not around to keep an eye on her.
A second later, I’m hopping in my Jeep and driving up the road, muttering to myself the whole way. It’s not like Lacey could have gone anywhere without her car; she said herself that she doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift.
When I pull up outside the cabin, I’m struck again by how good a job Jasper did on it. Situated right up against the pond, a deck offers a full view of the water, with the mountain reflecting in it. A couple of birds skate around on it, clucking and shaking their feathers.
The trees rustle in a gentle breeze, and for early August, it’s not nearly as hot as it could be. The magic of living far above sea level.
Outside the cabin is quiet, and for the briefest moment, I think about reversing, driving straight back down the mountain to my cabin, where I should be anyway. It’s not like she asked me to come up here. I never would have done this if it was Jasper here.
But Jasper never seemed like the kind of guy who would wander into the woods without bear spray. He wouldn’t have gotten stuck on the road in his 4Runner, anyway.
I’m just about to do it — go back home and mind my own business, which is what I moved up to the mountains to do — when I catch a glimpse of her through the front window.
Feeling like a creep and also shocked at her obliviousness to a vehicle being out in front of her cabin, I watch in stunned silence as she raises a drill and pushes into the wall.
Well, shit, she wasn’t lying. She really is going to fix up the place. Maybe I underestimated her.
Then, she seems to jolt, and a spark arcs across the room. Lacey stumbles back, then falls to the floor.
“Fuck, fuck,” I mutter, throwing open the door to the Jeep and racing up the front porch.
“Ow,” she says, bringing her hand to her head, and once I see that she’s alive, my mind races through what just happened.
“Were you drilling blind into a wall?”
“I looked at it first!” she retorts, then, slightly confused from her place on the floor, “What are you doing here?”
“Where’s the breaker box?” I ask instead of answering that, because if she nicked a wire in the wall, we could be heading straight for an electrical fire.
“I already fixed it,” she says, crossing her arms but looking uncertain. “It’s behind the cabin—”
I’m already moving, heading back outside and locating the breaker box, cutting the main power to the building and returning to her, finding her standing and holding onto the counter like she might fall down again.
“You drilled into an electrical wire,” I say, groaning when I see the spot she chose, “literally right above an outlet. What were you thinking?”
“I was—”
“You could have been electrocuted. You could have started a fire. Why didn’t you use a stud finder?”
Angrily, she says, “I don’t know what that is. And I’m fine. What are you doing here?”
“You were supposed to get your car,” I say, breathing hard, trying to figure out when, exactly, I started to care so much about this infuriating woman. We stare at each other for a moment, and I realize for the first time that she must have showered this morning after fixing the electricity.
Her hair is still slightly damp, and she’s barefoot, in nothing but a pair of soft sweatpants and a tank top that clings to her.
She’s not wearing a bra.
As though just realizing that herself, a flush spreads over her cheeks and down her neck and she crosses her arms, which actually doesn’t do much to help the situation. I swallow and avert my eyes.
Despite the fact that I saved her from an electrical fire, I still feel like a creep for driving up here and ogling her.
“I’m sorry,” she says finally, clearing her throat. “I should have come for my car, like I said. I just— I got excited about the idea of getting stuff done. Time kind of got away from me.”
Lacey gestures to a notebook on the counter, and I cross to it, looking it over. The list is long. And based on the fact that she almost killed herself trying to mount a battery-operated light, I doubt she’s going to be able to survive the rest of the renovations she’s planning.
I turn to her, ready to tell her that if she’s really dead set on these renovations, she should hire someone. She clearly has the money to do it. Then she could go back to the city and put an end to this weird thing inside me that wants to pay attention to what she’s doing all the time.
What I want is to go back to a time before, when I could wake up in the morning and not think about her straight away. And it’s only been two days of her being around. I can’t even imagine what it will be like if she stays long enough to get all these renovations done.
“Jasper should be here,” she says quietly, laughing and pressing her fingers to her eyes. That simple sentence nearly knocks the air out of me, and then she follows it up with, “He could show me what to do. It— it would be easier if he was here.”
Fuck.
“I’ll show you what to do,” I say, feeling like I’m walking off the plank of a pirate ship. I just got done thinking that I don’t want to be around her.
But I know that look on her face. And I remember what it was like to go through it alone.
“Really?” she asks, lowering her hands from her eyes and looking at me, confusion evident in her expression.
I don’t really get it myself. I definitely don’t like her, but I also, in a way, understand her. I know what it’s like to feel out of your depth.
And I know what it’s like to lose someone.
“Yeah,” I say, but then I notice how she’s shivering and think about the fact that, if she was electrocuted, it could fuck up her heart. Adopting my best no-nonsense look, I cross my arms and say, “Right after we get you a checkup in town.”