Chapter Six
In his kitchen, Dax unwrapped the cookies and tossed one in his mouth—and then immediately spit it out into the sink, coughing. Otto began to wag his tail furiously. “What the hell?” he asked, holding the rest of the cookies up to have a closer look. “That’s the worst crap I’ve ever tasted.” Was it a joke? It was all salt and something else, something truly awful.
He glared out his kitchen window. He could see her at her kitchen window, working at the sink. Maybe the kid really had made them by herself.
He bent over, opened the cabinet beneath the sink, and pulled out the trash can. Otto instantly thrust his nose into it. “Get out,” Dax growled. “Even you can’t stomach these.” He tossed the rest of the cookies into the bin, then shoved it back under the sink. When he straightened up again, Kyra had disappeared.
She had some very pretty eyes, he mused. And some perky breasts. Not that he was looking. Well, he’d glanced. He couldn’t help but glance because there they were, pointed directly at him in that tight shirt she wore. Not that he was complaining about that shirt, not for even a moment.
But his sudden preoccupation with his neighbor’s body parts did cause him to wonder if perhaps he ought to take Janet up on that arranged date. From time to time, he was aware, sometimes uncomfortably, that he could use a little companionship. Preferably the sort that only used two legs and didn’t stick its nose into trash cans. The truth was that he hadn’t had a date in . . . a very long time.
It was best if he didn’t try to count things like that. The passing of weeks and months depressed him. It was like counting the days until his baby was born—his son, his firstborn. He couldn’t wait, but at the same time he dreaded it. That was weird, he’d decided, because he ought to feel nothing but joy. And he did feel joy—incredible, overwhelming joy. But he hadn’t reconciled himself to how he might possibly share that moment with Stephanie, so he dreaded it.
Best not to count the days.
Best to just go in when the time came and deal with her then.
In the meantime, yeah, maybe he’d swing by and see Janet in the next day or two. She’d be beside herself with glee. She would set herself up as the grand marshal of his parade, and Dax would have to deal with that. But when he weighed that against how many times he’d imagined his neighbor naked in the last hour, it seemed the lesser of two evils.
The next morning, he was awakened as usual by the roar of a HEMI engine as it barreled up the drive, followed by the slam of a truck door. Dax moaned, which Otto took as invitation to hop up on his bed and settle in, half on top of Dax. He yanked the pillow over his head, put his back to his dog, and fell back asleep. He had hardly slept at all when he was awakened again by the sound of the Subaru grinding. That car needed work. A lot of work. At the very least a new starter.
It went that way for a couple of days, the morning wake-up call with the cars. The little coconut remained on her side of the fence. Dax saw her outside one morning, following Mr. McCauley around as he tended to some landscaping. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he could hear her endless stream of commentary, punctuated by the occasional deep voice of Mr. McCauley managing to get a word in edgewise.
The kid stayed true to her word . . . but Dax knew it wouldn’t last forever. Otto was the shiny object that attracted that little blue-eyed crow, and she would be back.
The other thing that didn’t change was the constant slam of the door at Number Three. He was going to have to do something about that. One morning he walked up to the main house and knocked on the door.
Mrs. McCauley, a tiny little thing with gray hair cut in the shape of a bowl and glasses with pink, sparkly rims, opened the door to him. “Well, hello there, Dax! Come on in! I just made some homemade lemonade. I don’t use that canned stuff—too much sugar.”
“Thanks, Mrs. McCauley, but I can’t stay. Would you mind if I installed a pneumatic door hinge on a screen door?”
“Won’t hurt my feelings. Why?”
Dax debated telling her which door he was referring to. “It slams.”
“Well sure, Dax, if that’s what you want to do. I don’t know if we’d want to pay for that—”
“On me,” he said.
“Then by all means. Whatever you need to feel comfortable. Now come on in and have some lemonade.”
“Thanks, but I have to run,” he said and touched the rim of his ball cap before he hurried off her porch. He’d made the mistake of coming in for a slice of homemade pie once and almost never escaped.
Dax motored into the village and over to Eckland’s Hardware. Old Man Eckland was sitting in his favorite chair at the window, reading the paper. “Morning,” Dax said as he walked in.
“Morning,” Mr. Eckland said without looking up from the comics.
A few minutes later Dax was at the counter with his hinge. When he’d paid for it, he headed back into East Beach and turned onto Main Street. He was pulling into the Green Bean coffee shop when his phone rang. The ID said John Beverly Home Interiors. “Hello?” he answered as he opened the door to his truck.
“Hey, Dax!” Janet said. “Wallace and I are eating in today, and we were just sitting here talking about you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re our little project. We were wondering if you’d had a chance to think about Heather.”
It was kismet. With one leg out of the truck, Dax paused and rubbed his chin. He thought about Mrs. Coconuts, with eyes the color of his favorite wood and a figure that made his mouth water. He thought about all the things he was thinking and feeling while she was standing at the fence, talking. Like sex. He was thinking a lot about sex and feeling like he wanted to have sex in a very bad way.
“Just listen to me,” Janet said.
“Janet—”
“She’s really cute, and all you have to do is meet her. If you don’t like her, if you can’t see yourself dating her, then no harm no foul, but Dax, you have to try. You at least have to—”
“Okay,” he said.
Janet gasped. He could hear Wallace in the background and heard Janet cover the phone, say something to Wallace, then, “Okay . . . what?” she asked carefully.
“This friend of yours. Heather or whatever. Okay.”
Janet gasped again, this time so loudly and deeply someone might have mistaken it for a stroke.
“Don’t get so excited,” he said. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Yes it is, it’s a huge deal. I’m proud of you, Dax! I’ll get in touch with Heather and set something up.”
“Don’t go whole hog,” he warned her. “I’m just going to meet her.”
“Of course, you bet,” Janet said. “Hang on.”
“What? Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“Wallace is texting her now.”
“For Chrissakes, you don’t have to do it right—”
“Yes, he does, before you change your mind!” she shouted into the phone. “Okay, it’s sent. You won’t be sorry, sugar. You’re going to love—oh, look, she texted right back. She says she’d love to meet you and asks when. When, Dax?”
“Jesus,” he said, flustered now. He was still getting used to the idea and wasn’t ready for the actual date. He thought about when. How long could he drag this out? As much as a month?
“Ah . . .”
“I know when. How about lunch on Wednesday? Just a meet and greet, right? See if you two hit it off, which I totally know you will.”
Wallace said something Dax couldn’t quite catch.
“Wallace is right. The Lakeside Bistro for lunch Wednesday. He’s texting her back.”
“Can you guys just take a breath?” Dax demanded, sliding back into his truck and slamming the door closed. “I need a minute—”
“She says that would be great!” Janet chirped. “This is so exciting. You know the Lakeside Bistro, right?”
“Yeah, and that’s a little fancier than I had in mind—”
“Oh, shush. It’s perfect. You’ve got something to wear that’s not covered in varnish and sawdust, don’t you?”
Dax gritted his teeth. He was already regretting this.
“She says she is looking forward to it. Dax?”
“What?” he grunted irritably.
“You have made me so happy,” Janet said, as if Dax had just handed her one of those giant lottery checks for a million dollars.
“You worry me,” Dax said. “You’re too into this.”
“I love love, what can I say? Okay, half past twelve, Wednesday. Make sure you wear something nice!”
“Yeah, okay, good-bye,” he said and clicked off.
Dax didn’t go into the coffee shop after all. He was too annoyed and feeling a little queasy. By the time he reached home, he was feeling positively sick. He’d just agreed to a blind date. A date.
He marched up the porch steps and into the house with his door hinge. Otto slid off the couch he was not supposed to be on, stretched long, and trotted over to have a sniff of Dax’s bag.
A memory slipped into Dax’s thoughts—of the first date he’d had with Ashley. God, that had been a long time ago. He’d been just a baby then, fresh out of college. It had been about four months before he’d gone into the army. They’d met through friends, and man, he’d fallen hard for the girl with the silky blonde hair, the long legs, the toothy smile. He could still recall how hard it had been to summon the courage to ask her out. He couldn’t recall what he’d said, exactly, but he’d bungled it, because Ashley had squinted up at him and said, “Are you asking me out, or what?”
He’d taken her to an Italian restaurant, a chain. They’d dined on spaghetti and breadsticks, and then he’d suggested they go to a movie. Wasn’t that what a date was? Dinner and a movie?
“I have a better idea,” Ashley had said. “Let’s take a walk.” And then she’d slipped her hand into his like it was perfectly natural, and he’d felt that delicate hand in his, and he’d felt invincible. They’d walked along the canals in Phoenix, talking and laughing and talking some more until they were kissing, and Dax was completely besotted. He could vividly remember how his belly had been filled with butterflies and sparks.
He would never feel that way again, he was certain of it. For one, he’d been young and inexperienced, and love had felt new and amazing and extraordinary. For two, he wouldn’t allow it. He would never let himself go like that again, just free-falling into love, because look what could happen. The love of your life could leave you for another woman. The love of your life could take your sperm and make a baby, and you? You were standing on the outside looking in at the life you were supposed to have. You were trying to attend birthing classes and feeling like a fool sitting behind Ashley and Stephanie, and you were trying to read books about the stages of pregnancy and the first year of your son’s life, and you were reading alone with a lot of questions and no one to ask.
So what was he doing, meeting some woman he’d never even seen? He glanced out his kitchen window to Number Three. It was their fault, those coconuts next door. He’d been perfectly happy making his furniture and living with Otto until they’d come along and he’d been reminded of just how good a woman looked. Just how pretty a woman was when she smiled. Goddammit, he’d been sucker punched.
Dax was mad at himself now, and the only way to get over it was to get to work. He went out to the shed. Otto followed him, then plopped down onto his belly, stretched across the door opening so that Dax had to step over him every time he went back into his house.
He was starting work on a hutch, and that kept him busy for a couple of hours. He never heard the Subaru leave, but he heard the slam of car doors when they returned, and then it began, the slam of that screen door as Ruby Coconuts went in and out, in and out, slam slam slam.
Otto rearranged himself at the threshold so he could prop his head against the door and watch the goings-on at Number Three. Once or twice his tail thumped on the wooden floor of the shed, and Dax steeled himself, waiting for a child with blue-plastic-rimmed glasses to pop her head in.
She didn’t. Apparently the kid was otherwise engaged in a serious project, because the door was sounding off at a regular clip.
At last, Dax had had enough. He couldn’t take it, couldn’t bear the tiny start to his heart every time that door slammed. He dropped what he was doing, stepped over his worthless dog, and strode into his cottage. Moments later, he returned to the shed to pick up a power drill, then stalked in the direction of Number Three, going over the fence.
He walked up the steps and rapped loudly on the door. Through the screen, he could see Mrs. Coconuts at the kitchen table. A pile of papers was spread in front of her. She stood up, and he noticed she was wearing cutoffs so short that the interior pockets hung below the hem.
He swallowed hard and tried not to eye her legs as she walked to the door. “Hi,” she said.
She had a thick mess of wavy black hair tied in some sort of knot at her nape. No way she could untangle that thing. Dax feared she might have to chop it off.
Ruby’s shadow suddenly bounded into view. She had three pigtails today, each of them braided. “Hi, Dax! Guess what? I got some new bath toys. And two balloons at Taleesha’s birthday party! Do you want to see them?”
“No,” he said.
“My hair is like Taleesha’s hair. Mommy did it.”
“Fantastic.”
“Mommy, can I show him my bath toys?”
“Sure,” she said with a shrug, and Ruby darted off.
“Is there something you need?” Mrs. Coconuts asked him, watching him like she expected him to announce something terribly important. You’ve just won the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes! You almost killed me with those cookies! Dax held up the door hinge. She looked at it. She squinted. “Okay, I give—what is it?”
“A door hinge,” he said. “Pneumatic.”
“Oh-kay,” she said slowly, clearly not getting the genius of it.
“I’m going to install it on your screen door.”
“Mine? Why?”
“Mommy, I think my bath toys are still in the car!” Ruby cried and darted past her mother, pushing the screen door open and forcing Dax backward as she raced to get them. The screen door slammed behind her.
Dax arched a brow.
“Ah. I see,” she said. “I should probably ask Mr. McCauley—”
“Already done,” he said, and without thinking, his gaze flicked to her legs, then quickly back up.
“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” she said apologetically.
“Me, too,” he said. “That’s why I need to do this.”
The car door slammed. “They’re not in there!” Ruby shouted and raced back up the steps, yanking the screen door open and jumping inside. The door banged shut again. “Where are they, Mommy?”
“I don’t know, pumpkin. Check your room.”
“She doesn’t need to go to so much trouble,” Dax said gruffly. “I’m not that interested. I just want to fix this door.”
Mrs. Coconuts—Kyra—smiled a little lopsidedly. “I’m not that interested in them, either, for what it’s worth. But there is nothing I can do to stop her. She’s going to show you.”
Somehow, Dax knew that. And sure enough, Ruby reappeared with a Walmart sack. She promptly turned it upside down, and out tumbled the contents. Nail polish remover. A box of tampons. Three bath toys attached to cardboard with plastic ties—a pirate, an alligator, a scuba diver. They had nothing to do with each other that Dax could see, and yet there they were, bound to the same thick piece of cardboard.
Ruby went down on her knees and tried to rip the ties open. She was mangling the toys. “Here,” he said impatiently. “Give it to me.”
She handed the package up to him, and Dax pulled a pocketknife from his pants to cut the plastic ties. Ruby tried to help.
“Honey, calm down. Let Mr. Bishop do it.”
“Dax,” he said. “Call me Dax. Otherwise I sound like a principal.”
“They squirt water,” Ruby said.
“Who would have guessed?” he said and freed the alligator. He handed it to her. Ruby turned to one side and held it out, squeezing it. “There’s no water in it,” he pointed out. This kid was missing a spark plug in the old ignition switch. She didn’t seem to hear him at all, but went down on her knees, her attention on the alligator, squeezing it.
Dax glanced at her mother. She shrugged again. He freed the other characters and held up the hinge. “So?”
“So . . . this isn’t going to be one of those all-day projects, is it?”
“Nope. Fifteen minutes, tops.”
She considered that. “You’re not going to get mad if you can’t get it to work and throw your drill or anything, right?”
He stared at her, mystified. “Who would ever throw a drill?”
She smiled. “You’d be surprised. Okay,” she said, gesturing to the door. “Have at it.”
She walked back into the kitchen and sat down with one foot tucked up under her. At Dax’s feet, Ruby was still studying the bath toys.
“Okay, Ruby Coconuts, you’re going to have to move,” he said, stepping around her.
Ruby didn’t move.
He nudged her with his foot, and she started. She looked up, blinking at him. “They all squirt water.”
“Well, that’s going to be a jolly time for you,” he said. “Move it.”
He took the door off its hinges and began to install the new hinge. It was mindless, easy work, which enabled him to steal glimpses of Mrs. Coconuts at the table. Well—glimpses of her legs, at any rate. He hadn’t realized he was such a leg man until the Coconuts moved in next door, but when presented with the evidence, he certainly was. Now he was trying very hard not to imagine them wrapped around him.
She glanced up and caught him looking at her. Dax felt his face heat. “What are you doing over there, anyway?” he asked.
“Studying.”
That was all she said. Apparently she was going to take a page out of his book and make him work for it. “College?” he asked.
“Nope. A real estate license.”
“Oh yeah? Going to sell some houses, huh?”
“That’s the plan,” she said, looking down at a book. “Hopefully some of these mega lake houses around here.” Her brow was furrowed as if she was trying to concentrate. Dax took that to mean that she didn’t want to talk. But then she said, “I need something with flexible hours, especially now that Ruby will be entering the first grade.”
“How close are you?” he asked.
“Hmm?” She glanced up.
“When will you get your license?”
“At this rate?” She looked at her wristwatch. “In about ten years.” She smiled. “What about you?”
“I’m not getting a real estate license.”
“Very funny,” she said. “I mean, what do you do? What’s with all the wood and iron and that little shed next door?” she asked.
“Furniture,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I make furniture.”
Mrs. Coconuts laughed. “Do you think you could give me a little more than that? Like what kind of furniture? And for who?”
“Tables. Bureaus. Hutches. Mostly for rich people.” He looked at her sidelong. “The summer people who own those lake houses you want to sell.”
“Nice,” she said, nodding. “So that’s what you’re doing over there.”
“What’d you think?” he asked curiously.
“Oh, I don’t know. I had some theories—building crypts. Burying bodies.”
Dax stared at her, uncertain what to say to that.
She laughed. “I’m kidding. Well . . . sort of.”
Her eyes were twinkling at him, Dax thought. He liked that twinkle. It made him feel sort of twinkly himself.
“You’re kind of a mysterious guy,” she said. She’d twisted around in her seat, had crossed one leg over the other. Her foot was bouncing in time to the pencil she drummed against a thick, spiral-bound notebook. She wore a happy, amused smile that made him feel a little wobbly inside.
“I’m not mysterious,” he said. “Actually, I’m pretty boring.” He drilled the last screw in. “There you go.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She didn’t look convinced, and stood up, walking to where he stood. She ducked around him and slipped between the door and him. With hands on hips, she looked up at the hinge, then the door. “It doesn’t close all the way,” she pointed out.
“Just adjust it,” he said.
“Just adjust it,” she repeated. “I don’t even know what this is, much less how to adjust it.”
Dax clucked his opinion of that. Everyone ought to know how to adjust things. Adjustment was part of life. He reached around her, but the hinge was a little bit out of range. He shifted, and she bumped up against his chest, and that mess of hair brushed against his cheek and made his skin tingle. “Here’s how you do it,” he said, showing her the tab.
“Aha,” she said and turned around, looking up at him with eyes the color of warm teak, crinkling in the corners because she was sort of smiling again like she was amused or happy, he didn’t know what. All he knew was that something was crackling in him, like a piece of paper thrown into a fire . . . crackling and crumbling and turning to ash. Dax couldn’t help himself; he looked at her mouth. He wanted to kiss that mouth in the worst way, wanted it so bad that he was a tiny bit fearful he might vomit with all that want churning in him.
The corners of her mouth turned up into a full-fledged smile, and Dax felt himself perilously close to doing something stupid.
“Thanks,” she said lightly, her voice reminding him of a morning bird. “I never knew how much that door annoyed me until you fixed it.”
“Yep.” He made himself look away and pick up his stuff. “Where’d the kid get off to?” he asked and risked a quick glance at Mrs. Coconuts.
She was still smiling. “She’s in her room—can’t you hear?”
All he could hear was a buzzing in his ears, Dax realized, due to the manic beating of his unused heart.
“She’s singing with her little recorder. She wants to be Katy Perry.”
“Well, if you can ever get the singing part of that to work out, she’ll be great at it,” he said.
She laughed.
“Okay, well . . . see you.” He opened the door and didn’t notice how soundlessly it closed behind him. He walked down the steps of the porch and tripped over one of Ruby’s toys in the yard, which he’d failed to notice right in front of him. Dax had been made deaf and blind by lust.
Okay, maybe not lust . . . but something equally precarious.