Chapter 8 Lara
Lara
“Who taught you to cook?” I asked, watching Calder at his stove from the same seat I’d taken earlier.
After leaving Callum’s, we’d made a pit stop at his dad’s; I’d waited while he went inside the greenhouse abutting the far side of the house. When he returned, it was with two sweet potatoes and a handful of kale.
It was these moments when my sister’s disappearance didn’t feel like the only mystery I wanted to solve.
The Stone family was a puzzle of so many incongruous yet interconnected pieces, each just as intriguing as the next.
But none so much as the eldest. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the latent silver lining to my impetuous plan was to have an excuse to learn more about Calder.
About his life. His family. About why he seemed so alone.
“Cassius,” Calder answered, volleying several jars of spices from the cabinet to season the meat hissing in the frying pan.
“But growing what we cooked and knowing what was safe to eat was my mom’s domain.
” The way his hands moved suggested he’d made this meal a thousand times.
“Survival means knowing the difference between what can sustain you and what will kill you.”
Another rule.
I propped my elbow on the table, resting the side of my head on my hand. “So, the greenhouse was hers?”
He pressed his lips together and nodded.
“Cassius mostly tends to it now, with some help from Colby and Creighton. The rest of us can get by but never quite mastered Mom’s green thumb the way they did.
Ironic, since they had the shortest amount of time with her.
” He stiffened at that, like he hadn’t meant to say it.
I vaguely remembered that Calder’s mom had died when he was young.
“How old were they when she passed?”
Talking about his mom was a sore subject. I could see him pull away from the topic just as surely as if I’d physically pushed on a pressure point.
“Six and eight.”
“Wow.” I swallowed, feeling my throat start to tighten.
“I didn’t realize . . . I’m so sorry.” The words felt awkward.
Insufficient. I’d never been good at sympathy, even at the hospital.
Not because I didn’t feel it, but because as soon as I expressed it, it started to swallow up my thinking.
My judgment. My composure. “How old were you?”
“Fifteen.” He reached for the kale left drying in the sink.
“That must’ve been hard,” I murmured, blinking rapidly. “I was twenty-six when I lost my mom. I couldn’t imagine losing her at only six. Or with my sister only being six.”
“We survived.” Survival implied both perseverance and grit, but also scars.
I wanted to ask what happened. Like every other piece of his family, there seemed to be more to the story. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t risk rocking the proverbial life raft that was barely floating on the sea of civility between us.
He changed topics, and I let him. “Do you cook?”
If my small snort wasn’t a clear enough answer, I replied, “I microwave. And DoorDash.”
“Those are the kind of things that sustain you while also slowly killing you,” he grumbled and began cutting up the kale, the thump of the knife rocking on the cutting board echoing the thud of my heart.
Extensor carpi ulnaris. Extensor digitorum.
I stared, the wavelike ebb and roll of his wrist mesmerizing me.
My eyes grew hooded, and for a second, the lack of sleep and the eventful day drew me into exhaustion, but then he tossed the green leaflets into the pan and their sizzle jerked me out of my stupor.
“I aim for the healthiest I can make work with my schedule,” I said, taking a deep breath of the amazing scent filling the Airstream.
“I have to say, it’s several steps up from my childhood menu, which consisted of Rachel making us PB he gets restless staying in one place. We call him the Drifter.”
“What do they call you?” The question jutted out, my fork poised in front of my mouth as I waited for the answer.
He looked at me like I’d just asked one more thing I wasn’t supposed to know. But now I needed to. “If we’re going to be—pretend to be a couple, I should know if you have a nickname.”
His eyes narrowed. “The Director,” he grunted and went back to eating.
The Director. Now Callum’s comment earlier about Calder directing his work made so much more sense.
In fact, the entirety of the male specimen in front of me made so much more sense.
His initiative. His command. His skill for calm disregard.
And his frustration when I changed the direction of our search.
With my first bite, the desire to talk faded.
Like most of my meals, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I started eating.
There were days when I’d go a whole ten-hour shift without anything more than a protein shake.
It wasn’t healthy, but to me, that was being in health care.
I gave my all every second I was in the hospital and only returned to myself and my well-being as an afterthought.
But this . . . Calder’s dinner was delicious. The sweet starch of the potatoes, the savory spiced beef, and the slight crunch of the kale.
“This is incredible,” I barely managed to get out between bites, scarfing down everything on my plate.
“Thanks,” Calder drawled, and it took me a minute to realize he was staring.
Heat flushed my cheeks, and I quickly dropped my fork onto my empty plate, noting how his was still half full.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, wiping my mouth with a paper towel and searching for the right words to explain why I ate every meal like I was going for gold in Olympic speed-eating.
“I don’t get a lot of time to eat on my shifts, so I’ve gotten good at eating . . . quickly.”
I tried not to think about how much of my life outside of work was lived in short bursts. Eating. Sleeping. Reading. I didn’t slow, let alone stop, and maybe that was why I never saw my crash coming.
Calder made an indecipherable sound. “So, Colorado State for medicine and then ended up in Arizona?”
Right. This exercise in preparation couldn’t be one-sided.
“My residency was there, and then I decided to stay.”
“What hospital?”
“Sunrise Medical Center,” I answered and felt a delayed sting of worry. What if he looked it up? Or saw the story in the news? I didn’t want to talk about what had happened any more than he probably wanted to talk about his brother’s accident or his mother’s death.
“What did you tell them?”
“I’m sorry.” My heart slammed into my ribs so hard, I swore one cracked. “What do you mean?”
Calder frowned, gathering the last of his food on his fork. “For why you’re here? Did you tell them about your sister?”
“Oh. No.” I swallowed. “I’m just taking personal time.”