Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Bea
After everyone went home for the day, I spent an hour inspecting the work and wandering the area.
I never saw the mysterious guy, but I still had a high sun and daylight left, and I wanted to check out the lake Brand had told me about.
He’d described whole summers spent on Lee Lake, having picnics, barbeques, and rock-skipping competitions.
He said his dad used to dig a hole in the earth and pack hot coals into it, and then his mom would put veggies and meat into a Dutch oven and bury it to cook.
Growing up an only child was lonely sometimes, so I could imagine how fun that must’ve been, the adventures Bax and Brand and their siblings must’ve had when they were young.
I found the little trail that Brand had marked on a map for me and followed it to the lake, and boy, what a view.
The dark, green-blue water glistened in the afternoon sun, reflecting the mountain behind it.
It looked like one of those oil paintings by the guy from the eighties, with his fabulous hair and happy little trees.
A hollowed log floated near the bank, stuck to the edges of weeds and lily pads.
As I followed the trail around the lake, I kept my eye on it so I’d remember where the trailhead was, and when I looked over my shoulder to locate it, a turtle popped onto the log.
Deer drank from the little creek that ran down the mountain and fed the lake, and fish swam by as I meandered, rising to the surface of the water to gulp air, making little blip noises in the still afternoon.
Invisible birds sang to me, and peace descended over my body.
Taking a deep breath, I sat in the tall grasses lining the lake, patting down a spot with my butt and staring across the glassy surface of the water.
I looked up at the blue sky, wondering what Mother Nature had in store for me.
Would she cooperate and hold back her snow, or was she getting ready to rage?
I hoped for the former, but I knew there would be no negotiating with her.
Best just to focus on the work still left to do instead of worrying about all the what ifs.
Bax was never far from my mind. I saw him changing right in front of my eyes, from the closed-off widower he’d been when I got here to the bold, brave single father he was turning out to be.
He certainly had more courage than me. I’d stayed in a marriage I knew was no good because I’d been too afraid to admit that I’d failed or that I deserved better.
Bax hadn’t failed at anything, but he deserved better than the sadness and pain he’d barricaded himself behind.
My own dad had shown me that losing love was a recipe for the end of a life, but maybe he’d been wrong.
An hour later when I got back to my cabin, I was so utterly relaxed that I didn’t even notice the guy from this morning.
He moved out of my line of sight as I approached the front door, and I caught him in the periphery, dressed exactly as Clay had described.
He stood on the far side of my truck, trying, I thought, not to get too close.
When we made eye contact, he took two steps further away.
“Hi.” I tried to sound friendly and casual, though the hair at the back of my neck stood on end because the primal part of me knew he shouldn’t have been there and I shouldn’t have been alone with some unknown guy, who truthfully seemed a bit sketchy.
The guy didn’t answer. He looked back and forth between me and the cabin door. Had he been about to rob me? But I realized I didn’t fear him. All I felt as I looked at his ratty clothes and his dirty hair was… sorrow.
The day he promoted me, Brand had made me sign up for a self-defense class at a local martial arts studio up in Sheridan.
He’d said it was non-negotiable since I’d be alone on job sites a lot of the time, with only men.
He also bought me a bulk box of pepper spray to carry with me at all times that had some kind of UV identifying dye so if I ever was attacked, the cops would know who did it.
It had never come to that. The majority of the guys I worked with were respectful, and if they weren’t, they mostly kept their distance, but I was glad for the skills now.
I didn’t have my pepper spray on me. Stupidly, I’d left it lying useless beneath my seat in my truck, but I didn’t think I needed it this time, and if it came down to it, I could break his nose with one thrust of my hand to his face and flip him onto his back using one arm and his own body weight for momentum. Thank you, Hapkido.
Errantly, I wondered if pepper spray worked on bears. Did it have the same ingredients bear spray had?
But I also tried to remember that asking a stranger for a job wasn’t easy, if that was the reason he’d shown back up. “Can I help you with somethin’? Are you lookin’ for work?”
“No,” the guy said roughly.
“Oh. Okay, then what’re you doin’ here? This is private property.”
He scoffed. “I know that.”
“So then…?”
“Never mind,” he mumbled, and he turned to go.
Something made me try to stop him. I wasn’t sure why, but it just felt like he needed… something . He looked familiar somehow, but I couldn’t pinpoint the reason. I felt sure we’d never met, and we stood too far apart for me to really see his features.
“Do you need help?” I had to ask.
I knew this guy. I didn’t know him , know him, not his name, but I’d met plenty of guys like him before.
Down on his luck, maybe he’d lost a job, or he was on drugs.
Or both. Maybe he had a kid to feed but couldn’t.
A man like that could absolutely be a threat to me, especially a tall guy like him.
Maybe I should’ve felt fear, but I didn’t.
He seemed surprised by my question. He stopped, but he didn’t turn.
I thought he might say something else, but then he picked up his pace and rushed to get out of there.
It was then I noticed something big and bulky dangling from one of his hands by his leg.
He gripped some kind of handle tightly, and I could tell whatever he was holding had some weight to it, but he’d covered the whole thing with a small plastic tarp.
Parked in the dark shade of a big tree off to the side of the dirt lane, a car waited for him.
I couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the car, but I thought he was most likely alone when he placed the covered object on his front passenger seat and then jogged around and slid into the driver’s side of a dirty, beat-up four-door sedan.
The next thing I knew, he had started the car.
Its muffler cracked loudly, and the tires spit rocks back my way as he took off.
Um. Okay?
“Bea!” Athena greeted me when I showed up at the house, with my backpack and suitcase packed into the passenger seat of my truck. She reached in to hug me through my open window and spotted the suitcase, and a smile spread across her cute face. “Are you stayin’ here with Daddy and me?”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing with my shoulder on my door when she backed away. I yanked the suitcase across my seat and set it on the gravel, then slung my backpack over my shoulder. “There’s bears by the cabins, I think.”
“Oh, well yay!”
“Yay?”
“Yeah,” she said, and she grabbed the suitcase by the handle and dragged me by her other hand to the porch stairs. “I mean, I’m not happy you’re scared, but I’m happy we’ll see you more.”
“Oh. Thanks. Yeah, I was gonna borrow a shotgun, but there’s a lot of people comin’ and goin’ all the time. It’s probably best if I, you know, stay with other humans.”
She laughed. “Good thinkin’.”
In the kitchen, Athena parked my suitcase next to the laundry-room door and introduced me to her “best friend in the whole wide world,” Shaylene, who had an elfin face and white-blond hair with raspberry-colored highlights streaked throughout.
It hung down nearly to her waist. Shaylene had been preparing graham crackers, pieces of broken-up chocolate bars, and huge marshmallows, situating them in a decided order on a baking tray, but she paused to wave at me.
“S’mores after dinner?” I asked, and both girls grinned and nodded. “Nice to meet you, Shaylene. Athena, where’s your dad?”
“He’s out back. Don’t laugh when you see him.
He made Uncle Rye drag his recliner out there before he left to go see Aunt Aubrey ’cause Daddy said his back hurt sittin’ in the lawn chair.
And he’s wearin’ these funny, plastic-y pants ’cause they’re the only clean ones he could find that will fit over his cast.”
The girls giggled and tee-hee’d, and I tried not to laugh.
“I threw his laundry in the wash. Oh, here,” Athena said, walking to the fridge. She opened it and grabbed a big, ceramic serving plate holding six fat beef steaks. “Can you take these to him, please? The veggies and potatoes are in the oven, but we’ll bring ’em out when they’re done.”
“Sure.”
The novelty of my presence wore off quickly, and Athena turned to Shaylene. “So anyway, Logan asked if I wanted to go to the dance with him. It’s on my birthday. Can you believe that? It’s like a fairy tale…”
Dropping my backpack by my suitcase, I took the heavy plate from her hands and pushed the kitchen’s screen door open with my boot, then carried the steaks out behind the house.
Sure enough, Bax was there, relaxing in his La-Z-Boy in front of a huge grill, wearing the plastic-y, maroon pants, which seemed to be some kind of track pants, a brick-red and hunter-green plaid sweater that looked like it could win an ugly Christmas sweater contest, and no shoes or socks.
“Well, ain’t you dashin’ tonight?” I said, holding back laughter. “This outfit is just weird enough to start a trend.”
Bax whipped his head in my direction. “Don’t you start too,” he complained. “I’m cold and these are the only pants I had clean that would fit over this damn cast.”
“Then why aren’t you wearin’ socks and shoes? Or a shoe.”