Chapter 2 #2
I should leave. She wants me to leave. Every line of her body is screaming go away except for the part that's cold and tired and standing in a puddle in boots she bought yesterday.
But the plumber won't come until tomorrow at the earliest. She has no water. The temperature drops into the thirties tonight, and without functioning pipes there's no heat from the baseboard system, assuming the baseboard system even works.
"You need water tonight. I can run a hose from my outdoor spigot to your kitchen window. It's temporary. Just so you can fill pots, wash your hands, flush the toilet."
"A hose."
"Garden hose. It'll reach. I've done it before when the Henderson place was occupied and their well pump went out."
"The Henderson place."
"Your cabin. That's what people call it. Old man Henderson owned it for forty years before he moved to Reno and let it go."
She stares at me. Behind her, through the open kitchen door, her cat is still on the counter, paws tucked under her chest, watching both of us with a judgment that feels earned.
"You lived next to an empty cabin for eight years."
"Pretty much."
"And now I'm here."
"Yep."
"And you're going to run a garden hose to my kitchen window."
"If you'll let me."
She breathes in. Breathes out. Her shoulders drop by an inch, which on Margot Hemmings constitutes total surrender.
"Fine. But I'm paying for the hose."
"It's my hose."
"Then I'm paying rent on the hose."
"That's the most ridiculous thing anyone's ever said to me, and my dad once tried to sell Christmas trees to a Buddhist monastery."
Her mouth twitches. Just barely. Caught fast and killed before it turns into anything, but I see it. My chest does something stupid.
"I'll be back in ten minutes." I turn toward the tree line before I do something reckless, which at this point means standing here long enough for her to notice that I can't stop looking at her.
Because here's the thing I didn't say last night, the thing I couldn't say, the thing I've carried since college alongside the guilt about Ryan.
I fell for Margot Vance the first time she walked into that dorm room with her books and her opinions and her laugh. Fell for her before Ryan even noticed I'd gone quiet. Buried it because she was his, and I was loyal to a fault, and the timing was never, ever right.
Fifteen years. One broken engagement to a woman who called this town a snow globe and left for somewhere bigger. Eight years of living alone on two hundred acres, growing trees that take a decade to mature, and learning that patience is fine for agriculture but brutal for everything else.
And now Margot's here. In the cabin next door. With a broken porch, busted pipes, and a grudge so old it's calcified into her identity.
She's going to hate me for a while. Maybe forever. She's earned that hate honestly, because even if the reasons are wrong, the hurt is real, and I'm the face she put on it.
But I can fix her porch. I can run a hose to her kitchen. I can tell her about the plumber and the contractor and the shutoff valve, and maybe, if I'm patient enough, one day she'll let me tell her the truth about Ryan Prescott.
Or she won't. And I'll spend the rest of my life forty feet from the woman I've never stopped thinking about, running a garden hose to her window while her cat watches me through the glass and judges every single thing I do.
Back at my place, I grab the hose from the barn. Tinsel follows me across the tree line, tail wagging, completely unaware that this is a terrible idea. I connect one end to my outdoor spigot, uncoil it through the trees, and feed the other end through Margot's cracked kitchen window.
She's inside. Changed into dry clothes. Hair still damp but pulled back fresh. She's got three books standing open on the counter, pages fanned, and she's working through the fourth with the careful hands of a woman who edits manuscripts for a living.
"Hose is live," I tell her through the window. "Turn the end piece and you've got water. Won't be hot, but it'll be running."
She looks up from the book. Her glasses have slipped down her nose, and she pushes them back with one finger. The gesture sends me straight back to that UNR dorm room, sophomore year, the first time I saw her do it and felt something crack open in my chest that never healed right.
"Thank you, Briggs."
My name in her mouth. Still sharp. Still reluctant. But there. Said voluntarily, without a fifteen year grudge attached to it. Progress, maybe.
"You're welcome."
Princess Buttercup jumps down from the counter, walks to the window, and headbutts the hose. Then she looks up at me through the glass. Tilts her head. Meows once.
"Your cat likes me," I say.
Margot turns back to her books. "My cat has terrible judgment."
Tinsel shoves his head through the lower part of the window frame, and Princess Buttercup hisses so hard she falls off the counter. Margot catches her. Tinsel looks personally devastated.
"Your dog is in my kitchen."
"Just his head."
"Remove him."
"Tinsel. Home."
He pulls his head out, drooping, and sits in the dirt underneath the window looking betrayed. I know the feeling, buddy.
"The plumber's name is Ray Castellano. Tell Parker that's who you want. He's fair, he's fast, and he won't try to sell you a new system when a patch will hold."
She writes it down on the back of a moving box with a Sharpie. Doesn't look up. "Got it."
"Night."
"Goodnight."
I collect my heartbroken dog and walk back through the trees to my cabin. Inside, it's warm. Clean. Quiet in a way that used to feel chosen and lately feels empty. Tinsel curls up in front of the woodstove, his favorite spot, and sighs with his whole body.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
Mom:
Heard the new neighbor moved in. Bringing a welcome basket tomorrow. Is she nice? Is she single? You should introduce yourself.
Mom. She'd have this woman married to me by Thanksgiving if I let her within fifty feet of the situation.
Me:
Already met her. She's settling in.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Mom:
And?????
Me:
And nothing, Mom. She's my neighbor.
Mom:
We'll see about that.
I put the phone face down. Lean against the counter. Through the kitchen window, I can see Margot's cabin. One light on in the kitchen. Her shadow moving behind the glass as she unpacks boxes.
Fifteen years ago, I fell for a woman I couldn't have.
She's forty feet away now. Still furious. Still convinced I'm the villain of her story. Still pushing her glasses up with one finger in a way that makes my hands ache.
And I'm still the man who fixes things because he doesn't know another way to say what he means.
Tomorrow I'm going to look at that porch. Whether she asks me to or not.