Eleven
Once or twice a week Xander and Kevin grabbed a beer after work. Sometimes they actually planned it and met up at Loo’s, but for the most part it just happened.
It just happened that Kevin swung into Xander’s garage after trips to the lumberyard and the tile distributor—and the half an hour huddled with his electrician.
He knew how to juggle jobs. Naomi’s was priority, but he had a couple others going, which meant he spent a lot of time traveling from site to site.
And right now he wanted a beer.
The garage doors, lowered and locked, didn’t mean Xander wasn’t around. Just as his truck sitting in the parking lot didn’t mean he was. Taking his chances, Kevin got out of his own truck and headed around the back of the garage, where a zigzag of steps led to Xander’s apartment.
He heard the music, classic Stones; he followed it around to the rear bay—Xander’s personal bay—and found his friend tending to the love of his life.
The ’67 GTO convertible.
Or, as Kevin thought of it, the Date Car.
“Who’s the lucky lady?” Kevin asked, pitching his voice to ride over Mick’s.
Xander glanced up from polishing the chrome rocker panels. “She is. She needed detailing. I’m just finishing it up.”
Xander had what he considered a damn fine crew of his own, but nobody, absolutely nobody, touched the GTO but himself. He loved her from her chain mail grille to her eight taillights, and every square inch of her Coke-bottle body between.
He rose now to take a critical look at his own work.
She shined, sparkling chrome against the red body. That was factory red—just as his grandfather had driven it off the showroom floor.
“Are you going to take her out for a spin? I’m up for it.”
“Not today. We got rehearsal in—” Xander checked the old schoolhouse-style clock on the wall. “In about an hour. We got a wedding up in Port Townsend on Saturday. Lelo’s cousin.”
“Right, right. I remember. Got time for a beer?”
“I can make time.” Xander took one last look at his sweetheart and stepped out. “Nice evening. How about we do this on the veranda?”
Kevin grinned. “That works.”
They trooped up the steps into the apartment. The main space held the living room, kitchen, and—with the card table and folding chairs—the dining area.
Bookshelves—loaded—rose and spread over an entire wall of the living room. Kevin had built them—and the bookshelves in the skinny second bedroom used as an office, and the bookcase in the bedroom—when Xander bought the property and the business.
Xander opened the old fridge, a cast-off harvest gold number that had been the rage in the seventies, grabbed two bottles of St. Pauli Girl, popped the tops on the wall-mounted opener—a rust-colored naked woman holding the opener in upstretched arms—and tossed the caps in the trash.
They went out the bedroom door onto a postage-stamp porch and sat in two of the folding chairs that went with the card table.
And considered it fine.
“Big wedding?”
“Yeah. I’ll be glad when it’s done. The bride texts me every five minutes the last few days, screwing around with the playlist. Anyway. It’s a living.”
“Did you break your ban on the Chicken Dance?”
“Never happen. I took an oath.” Xander stretched out his legs. He’d positioned the chairs so he could just stretch them out without his feet dropping off the edge. It worked.
“I saw your built-ins in the big house—library? And the tile work in the half bath. Nice.”
Kevin stretched out his legs as well and took his first end-of-the-workday pull. “You were up there?”
“Yeah. The dog was wearing your pants, man. I gotta say, he looked better in them than you.”
“I’ve got excellent, manly legs.”
“With bear pelts.”
“Keeps me and my woman warm in the winter. It was a smart solution. I don’t know how the hell that dog kept getting out of the cone, but once she got the idea for the shorts, and we got them on him, he left his no-balls alone.”
Kevin took a second pull on his beer. “And you’re still trying to move on that?”
“The dog?” When Kevin just snorted, Xander shrugged. “I will move on that. In time.”
“I’ve never known you to take time on a move.”
“She’s skittish.” At least that word came to Xander’s mind. “Don’t you wonder why that is? She doesn’t act especially skittish, look skittish, but she is under there. I’m curious enough to take time. If I just liked the look of her—and I do like the look of her—but if I just, I wouldn’t bother with so much time. Either it’s going to happen or it isn’t. I like that she’s smart. I like the contrasts.”
“Contrasts?”
“Skittish, but ballsy enough to buy that old place, live out there on her own. She handles herself—and makes you think she’s had to. I like what she’s doing to the old place, or paying you to do.”
“She’s got ideas.”
“Yeah. She’s damn good at what she does. You’ve gotta appreciate somebody with talent who knows how to use it. And then . . .” Smiling, Xander took a long drink. “She named the dog.”
“He’s a good dog. He loves her like you love that GTO. He stole Jerry’s hammer the other day.”
“A hammer?”
“Naomi brought it, a sandpaper block, two work gloves, and a pipe fitting back down the other day. He takes them up to her like presents.”
They sat a moment, in companionable silence, looking out toward the road where a few cars passed, the scatter of houses beyond, and the field where they’d both played Little League what seemed like a million years before.
“Tyler’s got a T-ball game on Saturday.”
“I’m sorry I’ll miss that. It’ll probably be more entertaining than the wedding.”
“I remember playing T-ball, right over in the field. You and me and Lelo. Remember?”
“Yeah. Dim, but yeah.”
“Now I’ve got a kid playing. Makes you think.”
It made Xander think, nostalgically, of Lelo, who’d been scarecrow scrawny with beaver teeth. He’d stayed scrawny, Xander considered, but had grown into the teeth. “We sucked at T-ball, man, both of us. Got a groove on in Little League.”
“Kids mostly suck at T-ball, that’s part of the charm. Maddy starts kindergarten next fall.”
Xander turned his head, gave Kevin a long look. “You’re thinking about having another.”
“The subject’s come up a few times.”
“Well, you do good work there.”
“Yeah, we do. We always said two, and when we ended up with one of each, hey, that’s a nice balance. Now Ty’s playing T-ball, Maddy’s going into kindergarten, and we’re talking about starting another from scratch.”
“Three’s a magic number. You can look it up,” Xander added when Kevin just looked at him.
“It’s looking like we’re going for the magic number.”
“Have fun with that.”
“That’s the plus side. It sure is fun working on making one. You’re not looking for sex with Naomi.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I mean not just sex.”
Xander contemplated his beer. “Why do married guys think single guys are only after sex?”
“Because they used to be single guys, and remember. Case in point—what was her name. Shit. Ah, Ari, Alli, Annie. The redhead with the rack and the overbite? Worked at Singler’s last summer?”
“Bonnie.”
“Bonnie? Where’d I get all those A’s from? That was just sex. She was built, so there’s that. But all the work went into the face and body, none into the brain.”
“It was the overbite.” Even now, Xander could sigh over it. “I’ve always been a sucker for an overbite.”
“Naomi doesn’t have one.”
“It’s a flaw I’m overlooking. Sometimes it’s just sex, as Bonnie illustrates and your memory serves. And sometimes, as you ought to remember, you want some conversation, some meat along with the sizzle. Bonnie had the sizzle, but I knew it wasn’t going to be enough, even for the summer, when she picked up a copy of East of Eden I had on the nightstand and said she didn’t know I was religious.”
“Religious?”
“She figured Eden—so it must be a biblical story. She didn’t even know who Steinbeck was.” And he could still shake his head over that. “Even an overbite can’t make up for that.”
“It’s good to have standards.”
“Oh, I’ve got standards. So far, Naomi’s meeting them, so I can take some time.”
“What if she’s lousy in bed?”
“That’d be both surprising and disappointing, but if so, we can still have conversations. Does she ever talk about her family with you?”
“Her brother, her uncles. Little bits and pieces here and there. Not much elaboration, now that you mention it.”
“Exactly. It’s interesting—what she doesn’t say. It’s interesting.”
—
He thought about that, late into the night, long after rehearsal and the cold-cut subs he and his bandmates chowed down on.
In general he liked the company of men more than the company of women. He understood what men didn’t say, didn’t need or want it all laid out in specific words, expressions, freaking tones of voice. Women, to his mind, were work. Often worth it, and he didn’t mind work.
But time spent with women, when it wasn’t before, during, or after sex, was entirely different than hanging out with men or working with them.
In general, he preferred the short, straightforward mating dance and considered the extra steps and flourishes a waste of everyone’s time.
You wanted or didn’t; there was heat or there wasn’t.
For some reason he found himself willing to take those extra steps with Naomi. He didn’t really mind them; in fact, he enjoyed them, all the stops and starts, the detours.
And in his experience once the mating dance was done, the first rush of sex slowed, interest faded.
He liked being interested.
He turned on the bedroom TV, with the sound low as it was mostly to cover the silence so he didn’t miss Milo’s snoring so keenly. He picked up his nightstand book—a worn paperback of Lord of the Flies.
He never had a first read on the nightstand, not if he wanted to sleep, so he settled in with the familiar and fascinating.
But he couldn’t get Naomi off his mind.
—
On the bluff, Naomi turned off the lights. Her brain was too tired for more work, too tired to pretend to read, even to stream a movie. The dog had already settled down, and it was time she did the same.
Since her tired brain didn’t want to turn off, she let it wander, circling around faucets, lighting fixtures, whether she should do that study of Douglas firs she’d taken that morning, the green eerie through thin mists. It would make a solid cover for a horror novel.
She worked on it in her head, played up shadows until she drifted off, drifted away.
When she walked through that eerie green, the wind rolled through the tops of the trees, a whoosh and moan that laid a chill on her skin. She followed the path. She wanted to get to the water, to the blue, to the warm. Her footsteps were muffled on the thick cushion of pine needles, and those deep green shadows seemed to shift into shapes. And the shapes had eyes.
She moved faster, heard her breath quicken. Not with exertion, but with an atavistic fear. Something was coming.
Thunder mumbled overhead, over the rolling, muttering wind. The shimmer of lightning tossed all into an instant of relief, and brought a sick heaviness to her belly.
She had to run, had to find the light again. Then the shadow stepped from the shadow, a knife in one hand, a rope in the other.
Time’s up, it said in her father’s voice.
She tried to scream, and woke with it trapped in her throat, with the weight crushing her chest.
No air, no air, and she clutched at her own throat as if to fight away the hands that circled it.
Her heart thudded, sharp, vicious hammer blows that rang in her ears. Red dots swam in front of her eyes.
Somewhere deep under the weight, the terror, she shouted at herself to breathe. To stop and breathe. But the air wheezed, barely squeezed through her windpipe, only burned her starving lungs.
Something wet ran over her face. She saw it, felt it, as her own blood. She would die here in the woods of her own creation, in fear of a man she hadn’t seen in seventeen years.
Then the dog barked, hard and fierce, chased the shadows like rabbits. So she lay panting—breathing, breathing, with the terrible weight easing as the dog lapped at her face.
He had his front legs braced on the bed. She could see his eyes now, gleaming in the dark, hear his pants along with her own. Struggling to steady, she raised a trembling hand, stroked his head.
“Okay.” She rolled toward him, comforted, let her eyes close, focused on long, slow breaths. “It’s okay. We’re okay. Just a dream. Bad dream. Bad memories. We’re okay now.”
Still, she switched on the light—she needed it—brought her knees up to rest her clammy forehead on them.
“Haven’t had one that bad in a while. Working too hard, that’s all. Just working too hard, thinking too much.”
Since the dog remained braced on the bed, she shifted to wrap her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his fur until the trembling eased.
“I thought I didn’t want a dog. I’d say the way you were wandering you must’ve thought you didn’t want a human.” She eased back, rubbed his ears. “And here we are.”
She picked up the bottle of water she always kept on her nightstand and drank half of it before rising to go into the bathroom and splash cold water on her face.
Still shy of five, she noted, early for both of them, but she couldn’t risk sleep. Not now.
She picked up the flashlight—also handy on her nightstand—and went downstairs. She’d gotten into the habit of just letting him out in the morning, but this time she delighted him by going out with him. For a while they just walked, around the house, around the quiet.
Tag found one of his secreted balls and happily carried it around in his mouth. When she went back in, he watched her make coffee, let the ball drop when she filled his food bowl, picked it up.
“Let’s take it upstairs.”
He raced halfway up the back stairs, stopped, looked back to make sure she was coming, and then raced the rest of the way.
With the dog, with the coffee, she settled down, calm and content again, to wait for sunrise to bloom over her world.
—
When Sunday rolled around she thought of a dozen reasons not to go to Jenny’s, and the excuses that would cover it.
Why would she take one of her two days of quiet and solitude a week and spend it with people? Nice people, certainly, but people who wanted to talk and interact.
She could drive to the national forest, go hiking—alone. She could work on the yard, or finish painting the first guest room.
She could sit around and fat-ass all day.
Really, she’d agreed to go in a weak moment, in the rush of mermaid lamps and bargains. She should . . .
She’d agreed to go, Naomi reminded herself. What was a couple of hours? If she was going to live here, she needed to be moderately sociable. Hermits and recluses generated gossip and speculation.
And she’d said she’d bring dessert, and had even shopped for what she needed to make the strawberry torte. It was spring, after all—stubbornly cool, often rainy, but spring.
She decided to compromise. She’d make the torte, then see how she felt.
Tag cast suspicious looks at her new stand mixer, as he did the vacuum cleaner. But she loved it, had actually done a little dance when it had arrived two days before.
Cooking soothed her and gave her a chance to spend quality time in the kitchen with the pretty blue dishes behind the glass, her exceptional knives arranged on their magnetic strip.
Tag changed his mind about the mixer when she skimmed her finger over the batter left in the bowl and let him have a lick.
“Damn right, it’s good.” She slid the jelly roll pan into the oven, got to work on the strawberries.
She put them in one of her blue bowls first, found the right spot, the right light. Ripe red berries in a blue glass bowl—good stock photo. Considering, she added more props—new wineglasses—then put the bowl of berries and the wineglasses on the bamboo tray she’d bought and set it all out on her glider. She took another shot with the pot of pansies in frame.
She wished she had a throw pillow—hadn’t bought any yet. Maybe she would then set up this shot again with a colorful pillow in the corner of the—
No, better, a woman’s white silk slip or sexy nightgown, draped over the arm of the glider.
She didn’t have that either, and had less use for a slip or a sexy nightgown, but—
The oven timer buzzed.
“Crap. I haven’t done the berries.”
She went back to the kitchen work, composing other shots in her head.
The finished torte looked so beautiful, the making of it so satisfying, she convinced herself she’d be fine for a couple of hours with people she actually liked.
“And how the hell am I going to get it from here to there? Didn’t think of that.”
She didn’t have a cake carrier or a torte carrier or any carrier. In the end she lined a shipping box with foil, tented the torte on its white platter, secured it in the box, and, thinking of the dog, taped the lid shut.
She packed it in the fridge, then went up to dress.
Next problem, she realized. What did people wear to Sunday dinner?
Sunday brunch had been the thing in New York. Seth and Harry hosted elaborate Sunday brunches. Dress code had been casual or colorful, or whatever struck your fancy.
She hated to think about clothes, so she didn’t have any to worry about. Eventually she’d send for what was still in New York—the cocktail dresses, the sharp business wear, the artist black. Meanwhile, she had what she had.
The reliable black jeans, a white shirt. After a short debate, she went with the Converse high-tops.
Nobody would care.
She added a red belt to prove she’d given some thought to the whole deal, and remembered to do her makeup.
Anytime after four, she remembered, and as it was now four thirty, she should just go. A couple of hours—three, tops—and she’d be home, in her pajamas, back at her computer.
She loaded the boxed torte onto the floor of the passenger seat and let the dog in the back.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned him when he eyed the box.
Armed with the directions Kevin had given her, she set off.
She made the turns, took a road she’d yet to explore, and found a little neighborhood built around a skinny inlet. Docks speared out with boats moored. Sunfish, sloops, cabin cruisers. She saw a girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve paddling a butter yellow kayak toward the widening channel with such smooth skill she might have been born in one.
Naomi pulled up behind Kevin’s truck and gave Xander’s motorcycle a beady-eyed stare. She should’ve known.
She thought the house charming and decided she should have known that, too, given who lived there. Bold blue trim against weathered cedar shakes, wide windows to bring in the view of the inlet. It stood two stories, with dormers and the enchantment of a widow’s walk.
She immediately wanted one.
Flowering bushes, trees, and bedding plants danced in cheerful profusion and made her think of her own scrabbly, neglected yard.
She’d get to it.
Ordering herself to put on her Be-Sociable Suit, she got out and circled around for the torte and the dog. Tag all but glued himself to her side as she walked the pavered path to the covered front porch.
“It’s not the vet, so buck up.”
Before she could knock, Jenny opened the door—and Tag’s tail wagged in relief and joy at the sight of her.
“I saw you pull up.” Immediately Jenny moved in to hug, hard. “I’m so glad you came! Everyone’s outside running around. It’s almost like summer today.”
“I didn’t realize you lived on the water—and you have a widow’s walk. I had instant house envy.”
“Kevin built it. And half of everything else. Let me take that.” Jenny reached for the box as they stepped into an entranceway cleverly outfitted with a built-in bench and cupboards above, drawers below.
“Sorry about the delivery system. Dessert’s inside.”
“You made something? I thought you’d just get something from the bakery. You’re so busy.”
“I needed to try out my new mixer. I love your house. It’s so you.”
Colorful, cheerful, the bold blue of the trim echoed in a big sink-into-me sofa loaded with patterned pillows. And those were echoed by boldly patterned chairs.
Echoed, Naomi thought, but nothing matching. And everything complementing.
“I like cluttered.”
“It’s not cluttered. It’s clever and happy.”
“I really like you. Come on back to the kitchen. I’m dying to see what’s in this box.”
The kitchen showed Kevin’s hand and Jenny’s style. It followed the open floor plan with a lounge/play area, more comfortable seating, and the man-size flat wall screen.
Jenny set the box on the long, wide white granite peninsula and tore at the tape.
Naomi glanced toward the dining area, the painted blue table, the mix and match of green chairs with flowered cushions. “I love the dining room—did you paint the furniture?”
“I did. I wanted color—and easy maintenance.”
“It’s happy, again, and I really love the chandelier.”
Distressed iron strips formed a large ball with clear, round bulbs inside.
“Me, too, thanks. Kevin found it on one of his job sites—it was some sort of decoration. He brought it home, I fixed it up, he rewired it.”
“Handy couple—and I’m getting so many ideas.”
“I’m going to get you a glass of wine in just a minute,” Jenny promised, “but— Oh my God, you made this?”
“I can’t make a chandelier, but I can make a strawberry torte.”
Almost reverently, Jenny lifted the torte from the box. “It looks like something out of Martha Stewart. I’d ask for the recipe, but I already know it’s beyond me. And it’s going to put my lasagna to shame.”
“I love lasagna.”
“Mostly with two kids and a part-time job, I toss meals together. So Sunday dinner’s the day I actually try to cook, take time with it. Shiraz all right?”
“Yes, it’s great. I almost talked myself out of coming.”
Jenny glanced away from the torte she’d set in the center of the prep counter—like a centerpiece. “Why?”
“I’m easier alone than with people. But I’m glad I came, even if just to see your house.”
With a humming sound, Jenny poured Naomi a glass of wine, then picked up her own. “I should tell you, then, I’ve decided we’re going to be really good friends, and I’m just relentless.”
“I haven’t had a really good friend in a long time. I’m out of practice.”
“Oh, that’s all right.” Jenny wrist-flicked that away. “I’ve got the skills. Why don’t I show you my workshop? I’ve got your desk stripped down.”
They went through a laundry room and straight into a space full of tables, chairs, shelves, workbenches. Though both windows stood open, Naomi caught the scents of paint thinner, linseed oil, polish.
“I keep picking things up,” Jenny explained. “It’s a sickness. Then I fix them up and talk my boss at Treasures and Trinkets into taking them on consignment. She’ll use pieces for display, and if they don’t sell, I haul them down to this co-op in Shelton. If they don’t sell there, I haul them back. I’m getting some work from people who want a piece redone or fixed up, but most is Dumpster diving, I guess.”
Naomi gestured to a three-tiered piecrust table. “You didn’t get that out of a Dumpster.”
“Job site again. The lady sold it to Kevin for ten dollars—it was broken, the top tier snapped clean off. So he fixed it—you can’t even tell it was broken. And I’m—”
“I want it. When you’ve refinished it, I’ll buy it.”
Thrown off rhythm, Jenny blinked. “You think fast.”
“It’s just the sort of thing I want. I’m looking to mix a lot of old pieces, character pieces, through the house. This is perfect.”
“I should have you over more often. Will you barter for it?”
“You’ve already got the torte.”
“I mean, would you trade me a picture for it and the work on the desk? You’ve got this one on your website, and I keep seeing it over our little fireplace in the living room in a white—shabby-chic white—frame. It’s sunset, and oh, the sky is just full of red and gold and going to indigo blue, and the trees are reflected on the water. And there’s a white boat—sailboat—in the sound. It makes me think that’s what heaven could be. Sailing in a white boat on the water into the red and golds.”
“I know the one you mean, but it doesn’t seem fair—two pieces for one.”
“I know what your work goes for. And I know what mine goes for. I’m getting the better deal.”
“Depends on where you’re standing. Done—but I frame it. Tell me what size you want.”
Jenny pointed toward a frame—shabby-chic white.
“About twenty-four by eighteen. I’ll take the frame with me.”
“Oh boy! And what I really wanted you to see was that bench. It just seems right for your bedroom deck.”
Following the direction, Naomi stepped around a couple of projects in progress and saw the high-backed wire bench, done in a distressed forest green.
“No pressure,” Jenny said quickly. “If you don’t like it—”
“I do. And it would work there. Better, if I ever get the grounds cleared and decently landscaped, it would be wonderful as a garden seat, wouldn’t it?”
“In a shady nook,” Jenny imagined. “Or in the sun, by a weeping cherry.”
“Absolutely. And it would make pretty seating on the bedroom deck in the meantime. Sold.”
“Will you trade me the water lily print for it?”
“You make it easy,” Naomi agreed.
“I have this frame—distressed silver—and I can just see that print in it, on my bedroom wall. It’s fun helping decorate each other’s houses.”
“Let’s see the frame.”
“Ah, it’s over . . . there.”
With Jenny, Naomi started toward it, then stopped. “Oh! My desk.”
At her tone, Tag stopped exploring and trotted over. Naomi all but cooed as she ran her hand over the smooth wood. “I know it’s just stripped and sanded, but it’s already beautiful. Look at the hues, the grain. It’s like somebody had dressed a gorgeous woman in a baggy black coat, and you took it off. I think we just made a hell of a good deal, both sides.”
“That’s what good friends should do.” Delighted, Jenny hugged an arm around Naomi’s waist. “I’m going to love seeing my work in your space, having your work in mine. And now, why don’t we go out the door here so we can walk around outside. I bet Tag wants to see Molly. They’re friends, too.”
“He decided she wouldn’t try to rip his throat out. Now he takes her the tug rope when he sees her. It’s sweet.”
They stepped out into the side yard.
“It’s awful quiet,” Jenny commented as she turned to secure the door. “Quiet worries me.”
She’d no more than said it before Naomi took a blast of cold water—heart-shot.
Xander swung around the corner, leading with a huge water rifle. Naomi held her hands out to the sides, looked down at her soaked shirt, and looked up.
“Really?”
“Hey, sorry. I thought you were Kevin.”
“Do I look like Kevin?”
“Can’t say you do, but I figured him to double back from this way. Kids broke the treaty, and the three of them are ganging up on me. This would be the fog-of-war sort of situation.”
“Fog of war, my ass.”
“It’s more your—” He broke off when he took a volley of shots in the back.
“Xander’s dead!” Tyler did a war dance. “Xander’s dead.” He wiggled his butt and shook his water gun at the sky.
“Traitors. You’re living with traitors and back-shooters,” Xander told Jenny.
“You shot an unarmed woman. I’ll get you a dry shirt, Naomi.”
“Thanks. And thank you for killing him,” Naomi said to Tyler. “He ambushed a noncombatant.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re a really good shot. Could I . . .” She took the gun and shot a stream into Xander’s face. “There. That’s what we call a coup de grace.”
Maddy giggled, then started climbing up her father’s leg. “Xander’s got cooties.”
“That’s right.” She gave Tyler back the gun, then narrowed her eyes at the gleam in Xander’s. “Don’t even think about it,” she said before walking away with Jenny.
She ate in one of Jenny’s T-shirts and enjoyed herself more than she’d thought possible. Good food and good company, two things she rarely took the time for or had the inclination for, proved the perfect end to the day—even when she found herself cornered into playing Xbox.
“You’ve got game,” Xander commented after she’d trounced everyone at the LEGO Movie game—twice.
“Everything is awesome when you have a brother who’s still a video game maniac. And now that I remain undefeated”—she added a finger in the belly for Tyler—“I really have to go.”
“Play one more!”
“Practice,” she advised, “and I’ll take you on next time. But Tag and I have to get home. Everything was great, Jenny, thanks for having me. I can take those frames with me if you want.”
“I really want.” In her easy way, Jenny stepped up and hugged Naomi. “Sunday dinner, open invitation. I mean it.”
“Thanks. And thanks, Kevin. See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll get the frames. Meet you out front with them,” Xander told her.
She hadn’t intended to stay so late. But the setting sun painted the sky in the west and the air had cooled enough that she could have used a sweater.
Still, she thought as she walked the dog to the car, she could get some work in, plan out her agenda for the week, and have time to read herself to sleep.
She opened the door to the back; the dog jumped agilely in. Then she sat on the back of the car, facing the water, and took pictures of the sunset over the inlet, the empty docks, the shimmering silence.
“Do you ever quit?” Xander asked as he carried the frames across the lawn.
“I get amazing sunrise shots from my place, but this little spit of water edges west, and that’s one champion sunset.”
“My place isn’t on the water, but I get some worthy sunsets through the trees. You might want to check it out.”
“I might.”
He propped the frames in the back, gave the dog a rub, and then managed to turn in a way that boxed her in.
“It’s still early.”
“That depends. Maddy was drooping.”
“Maddy’s four. Why don’t we go into Loo’s? I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I had several glasses of wine.”
“Over about four hours. Walk a straight line.”
She laughed, shook her head. “I can walk a straight line, and since I want to continue to be able to, I’ll pass on another drink. You have terrific friends, Xander.”
“Seems like they’re your friends, too.”
“Jenny won’t take no.”
“Why say no?”
She shrugged, looked back to the sunset. Going to gold now, she thought. Soft, shimmering gold. “General rule.”
“You make it hard not to ask questions.”
“I appreciate that you don’t. I really have to go.”
He ran a hand down her arm, but stepped back. Didn’t kiss her, Naomi realized, because she expected it.
He had game, too.
But he walked around, opened the door for her. “Do you like eggplant parm?”
“I do.”
“Come to my place Wednesday for dinner. We’ll have eggplant parm.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re going to make eggplant parmesan?”
“Hell no. I’ll get takeout from Rinaldo’s. They make good eggplant parm.”
“Two social outings inside one week? I don’t know if I can handle it.”
“Try. Bring the dog.”
She blew out a breath as Tag shoved his face out her door and pushed his muzzle into Xander’s big, callused hand.
“Just dinner.”
“I can take no.”
“You’re going to have to. What time?”
“About seven works best. I’m over the garage. You come around back and take the stairs up.”
“All right. Wednesday. Probably.”
Still letting the dog nuzzle his hand, Xander grinned. “You like keeping the door cracked open.”
“Always. Good night.”
Why was that? he wondered when she drove away. What was it she needed to be ready to run from?
Yeah, she made it hard not to ask questions.