Julian stood and faced me. “Quite capable, I assure you. Walk you to your door?”
I snorted. Ladylike was my middle name. “Sure, let’s do that.” We walked to my cabin in comfortable silence, the only noise being the crickets and general forest noises.
When we reached my door, I grabbed the keys in my pocket to unlock the door. When the door swung open, I reached a hand inside, feeling for the switch, and turned on the porch and main room lights. Julian stood just off the porch, hands in his pockets. “Do you want to come in for some coffee?” I asked, my head tilted to the side in question.
Julian didn’t respond for a moment, but stepped closer. “Do you have tea?” he asked.
Damn it. I didn’t drink coffee and didn’t even own a coffee maker. It was mostly a ruse to get him to come inside. I wasn’t absolutely desperate to have him in my bed (only a little bit), but I could stand for first base. “You’re in luck,” I said, gesturing for him to come inside. “I happen to have a collection of teas.”
Julian walked inside my cabin and I followed him in, appreciating the view before side-stepping him into the small kitchen that was open to the rest of the living space, separated from the living area with a small island, long enough to seat three people.
I followed his gaze around my cabin, taking in what he was seeing. It was a large open space, with high beam ceilings. My décor was mostly white and black, with random splashes of color here and there. I had painted the wood floors white one night years before in an effort to brighten up the place. It had worked. I kept the walls their true wood tone, but wrapped white Christmas lights around the exposed beams above. The only wall that wasn’t natural wood was the long wall that ran from one side of the cabin to the other, separating this front half from the back half of my cabin, where my bedroom, closet, and bathroom were.
I had half a dozen colorful throws tossed over the living room furniture: a small black sectional and two leather chairs. The walls of my living room were covered in thick frames with various black and white prints of people and places. My coffee table was rectangular and white washed, a bevy of coffee table books stacked in the center. I kept it minimal, kept things neat.
He walked over to the bookshelf I had installed above and around my small sectional sofa. It ran the width of that wall and was crammed with books and wooden trinkets that Six sent me from his travels.
“Your cabin is different than mine,” he said, looking back at me.
I filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove. “Set me back a lot of money to make it this way.”
“You have a lot of books on the royals,” he commented, before pulling one down to examine.
I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. “It’s interesting to me.” Several of the photographs on the walls were of the more unknown royals.
Julian moved to the frames hung next to the shelving unit, the only personal photos I kept in the apartment. I saw him focusing on one of Six and me.
“Make yourself at home,” I muttered as I grabbed mugs from above the sink. I heard his answering chuckle.
“Is this your brother?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. When he said nothing else, I grabbed my tray of paper-wrapped tea bags and walked over to set it on the coffee table.
“You look younger here,” he commented before tapping the frame.
“Well, I certainly wasn’t older,” I replied sarcastically, just a few feet behind him.
Julian turned to face me and smiled. I didn’t know what to do besides awkwardly stare at his face, his sexy short facial hair, so I nodded my head towards my book shelves. “Sorry, nothing up there is yours,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“I didn’t notice,” he replied before sitting down on my sofa.
I sat on the chaise part of the sectional and again gestured with my hands at the collection of books. “What kind of novels do you write?”
“I don’t think they’d be your taste,” he started. At the narrowing of my eyes, he quickly continued. “Not to say there is anything wrong with your tastes, but judging by all the historical non-fiction you have, I’d say my books haven’t been fortunate enough to live on your shelves yet.”
Hearing the water sizzling in the kettle I stood up. “Why, do you write romance novels that are constipated with angst?”
Julian’s laughter lit up my cabin with warmth. That warmth moved me to smile at him before moving to the kitchen. “Wrong guess?” I asked over my shoulder.
He joined me in the kitchen, leaning against the wall that separated us from my bedroom. Heat burned a hole through my stomach at his closeness, at his gaze. “I write mystery novels,” he replied.
I looked up at him as I poured the water. “Oh?” I asked. I already knew that.
“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate.
“Help yourself to your preferred flavor of tea. I set them on the coffee table.” I poured water into the two mugs I’d set out and handed him one before making my way to the sofa.
I grabbed the raspberry bag I favored and dunked it up and down in my mug absentmindedly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Julian grab the mint before settling into the leather arm chair adjacent to the sectional sofa.
I watched him as he stretched his legs in front of him. There was a grace in how he did everything, with an undercurrent of confidence and power. Even in sweats, he displayed a definite air of elegance. Probably came from money.
My eyes lingered on his hands as he swirled the tea bag around his mug. His hands held that same power, as if they could crush the mug he held without much effort. His fingernails were short, but clean, probably due to his occupation. “How long have you been a writer?” I blurted out, finally looking away from his hands to make eye contact.
Julian leaned into the armchair’s backrest, effectively stretching his tee tight across his chest, defining every muscle hidden behind the cotton fabric. “Ever since I graduated high school and decided I didn’t want to make football a career for myself. So, about seven years.”
That put him at about twenty-five years old, two years older than I was. I nodded my head in response and drank my tea, settling back into the sofa’s cushions. “A football player, huh?” I asked.
Julian rubbed his knee as if lost in a memory before taking a sip of his tea and nodding. “All four years of high school, I played. I was good at it.” He winked, a playful grin stretching his lips.
“I’m sure.” I took another sip of the tea before asking, “So why quit?”
Julian set his mug on the table before angling his body more in my direction. “Have you ever done something for so long that it becomes second nature to you? So long that you don’t know what life is like without it? And that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing for you, mentally or physically, but you continue to do it because it’s what’s expected of you?”
The hair on my arms was standing on end. This was getting deeper than I expected. I nodded my head, unable to speak through the lump that had taken up residence in my throat.
“Well then you can understand, maybe, the need I felt to break free. To prove I could change what I was supposedly destined to be. To do something for myself.” He uttered that last word with gruffness in his voice. I met his eyes and saw the feeling behind his words reflecting in his expression.
“Yes. I know what you mean,” I said, swallowing hard behind the lump in my throat.
We just looked at each other for a few more moments before Julian stood up, grabbing his mug and making his way to the kitchen to rinse it out. “Thanks for the tea. I should get going.”
Despite my attraction to him, the energy from our conversation was making me nervous so I didn’t try to dissuade him from returning to his cabin. I followed him into the kitchen and placed his mug into the dishwasher. He was braced with his back against the counter opposite from me, his hands gripping the counter behind him. “Thanks for the company,” I replied, smiling softly.
Julian pushe
d himself away from the counter and made his way to the door while I followed behind. He stopped at the threshold and turned to me, leaning a hand against the frame, putting his face mere inches from mine. “I live a lot of my life inside, writing, editing. It was nice to have someone to talk to,” he said.
My body was practically vibrating from the closeness of his body to mine. “It was nice,” I agreed, wrapping my arms across my chest.
The side of his mouth twitched up in a half smile before he leaned in, his cheek coming in contact with mine, his mouth at my ear. “Sweet dreams, Andra,” he whispered before pushing off the door frame and striding out into the darkness towards his cabin.
I told myself I was watching him to ensure he made it to his cabin safely. But truthfully, and I couldn’t explain it, my eyes needed to study him, as he’d seemed to study me. There was no doubt I was drawn to him, drawn to the subdued power in his eyes, in his words.
I tugged the ear he had whispered into when I saw his silhouette, illuminated by the light glowing inside his cabin, climb onto his porch. As soon as he was inside, I went back into my cabin and leaned my back against the interior side of the front door, heaving out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding.
Julian Jameson was trouble. But damn if I wasn’t enjoying it.
I have always been a little afraid, and a little intimidated of numbers. There is no dishonesty with math. There is only one answer to each equation I work with. There are no options, no escapes. Two plus two will always equal four. If my math is correct but the answer is wrong, I can’t lie, I can’t choose another outcome. That’s a little frightening for a girl who has spent the last six years running on choices. Math is what I could never be: fixed, sure, honest.
Part of me would love to be brave by being honest. But my bravery is the reason for my fraudulent life. A life spun of lies and half-truths, stemming from the one brave moment I had when I doped up the Monster with sleeping pills and cold medicine. So I don’t regret my bravery. My only regret is that it took me so long to drown the fear out with adrenaline, to tie my tennis shoes and finally run away.
And this is why I would rather spend my time swatting flies from my face, shoveling horse shit until my arms are aching and I’ve lost my sense of smell. Because being inside a room faced with numbers that will tell the truth unless I tell them to lie has to be some circle of hell, even if the room is blasting cold with air conditioning. And that’s why, when I awoke the following morning, I bypassed the office entirely, seeking out a messy job.
I spent most of that day mucking out the horses’ stalls. I needed the manual labor. I’d woken up and immediately decided to clean the stables, needing to expel the excess energy from one of the most restless sleeps I’d had in months. I had no questions as to why I slept so poorly. I knew the answer.
Julian.
I had ear buds in, the melody of my favorite Queen album providing the soundtrack to my self-imposed chore. But not even Freddie Mercury could distract me from the thoughts that betrayed me, straying towards the ranch’s newest tenant.
With a growl, I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. Sweat soaked the long sleeve burnout shirt I was wearing and was collecting behind the knees of my skinny jeans, spilling into the rubber boots I wore.
The ranch hands had taken the horses out for exercise to allow me the space to clean. This was normally a task they took care of, but I’d volunteered earlier this morning as soon as I saw Dylan grabbing the pitchfork and shovel. I wanted to be physically worn out; hoping exhaustion would keep me from losing my head around Julian for our date later tonight.
And there I went again, thinking of him. I lay in bed the night before, remembering his voice tickling my ear, the way tingles had crawled down my arms. The way he had looked at me expectantly while we sat in the grass last night. The way he told me he accepted the challenge I didn’t know I’d made him. I couldn’t let him affect me so entirely. One and done, that was my motto. Anything more than that would be unfair.
After the floor had dried out in the last stall and I finished spreading the straw, I lifted my head and took a deep breath, pulling my shirt away from my chest, allowing some air to circulate. I glanced at the clock at the entrance of the stables. Three in the afternoon.
As if on cue, my stomach growled, pissed that I’d forgotten lunch. I made my way around the stables towards the big house, stripping my gloves off as I went. The sun was beating down, beckoning me to lie out and soak up some vitamin D. I jogged up the steps into the main entrance, stopped to toss my boots and socks by the door, and headed down the hall towards the laundry room.
Rosa was moving clothing into one of the dryers and looked over at me above her glasses when I walked into the room. “Have you been in the stables all day?” She asked, eyeing my sweat-soaked clothing.
I nodded as I stripped off my shirt, leaving the kelly green bikini swim top I wore underneath. Whenever I finished mucking out stalls, I always headed for the pond. The coolness felt good on my sore muscles, laying out on the floating dock helped deepen my olive skin tone, and the heat usually provided me a nap in the process. I always wore my bikini under my clothing when I knew it would be a manual labor kind of day.
Rosa caught my shirt when I tossed it to her, tossing it right into the wash. I hopped on one leg as I tried peeling the skinny jeans off my legs. Rosa laughed out loud when I plopped my butt on the floor to yank them off. The sweat had glued them to my legs.
Shoving the jeans in the wash, I grinned at Rosa as I moved back out the other side of the laundry into the kitchen. I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and a banana from the fruit bowl on the wide, white-marbled island. I sucked down the first bottle of water and tossed it into the recycle before moving out the kitchen door onto the wrap-around deck, banana and water in hand as I headed down the hill to the pond.
The sounds of summer greeted me in my brisk walk down. A circular saw in the garage, the neigh of the horses in the paddock, the sprinkler on the front lawn. The sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in the abyss. It was an ideal day for a swim. I had meant what I said when I told Julian this was my world. The grass between my toes, the trees casting afternoon shadows over the pond, the dust being kicked up by the horses.
I didn’t bother testing the water before getting completely in. Holding the banana and water bottle above the water, I walked in on the shallow side, heading towards the dock. I scissored my legs quickly, keeping my head and arms above water, until I reached the dock and set my snack on the pale wooden planks, pulling myself up next.
The pond was man-made. It was a home for just a few types of fish, but many types of vegetation. Lilly pads and cattails and duckweeds coexisted peacefully in the water. Along the edge of one side were large trees that provided shade over half the pond, along with a few types of wildflowers. Rosa’s father had built the pond years ago to provide another kind of recreation for the ranch. In the summer, I spent hours upon hours in the pond, cleaning it or, like today, cooling my overheated muscles.
Opening the water bottle, I took in the view. Off to the right of the big house, I could see the last six cabins wrapped along the edge of the tree line. The sun glinted off the windows, making it impossible for me to capture a glimpse of Julian moving inside his cabin. I’d purposefully slowed my walk passed cabin ten on my way to the stables earlier this morning, but the lights were off and the shades were drawn.
I capped my water bottle before sliding into the pond to swim leisurely, letting the coolness of the pond soothe my tired limbs as I dove to the bottom, dragging my fingers through the roots emerging through the mud. Kicking my legs, I shot back to the surface.
I grasped the black band that held my hair back, undoing the messy bun I’d worn all day. My dark brown tresses fanned around me as I floated on my back, eyes closed. The heat of the sun clashed with the coolness of the water, making me sigh aloud in contentment.
After floating around for a little while, I cli
mbed on to the dock and ate my banana, satisfying the growl of my stomach. After setting the peel on the dock, I twisted my long hair, wringing out the excess water. I left it twisted as I lay down on my back, the warmth of the wood underneath me and the sun above me lulling me to sleep.
I awoke to a large amount of water being tossed onto my body. The contrast of the heat from my sun-warmed skin and the seemingly ice cold water made me sit up with a start, my hair unraveling behind me.
I heard Dylan’s distinct laugh in the distance and watched him haul himself onto the sandy beach across from me, his arm wrapped around his chiseled stomach in laughter. “About time you woke up sleepy head!” he yelled in between laughs. “You’ve been asleep for an hour!”
Shit. I glanced at my watch. It was already almost five, two hours before my date with Julian. As much as I wanted to be annoyed with Dylan, I was grateful for the wakeup call, though his method could use some refining. “Thanks a lot, dickhead!” I yelled back, in good humor.
Dylan slid his jeans back on over his now soaking wet boxers before reaching down with his long, muscled arm to grab his tee. I wasn’t blind to his good looks. But our sexual history, however brief it was, was exactly that – history. I appreciated his excellent muscle tone, the way his bright blue eyes sparkled when he laughed, and his sun-highlighted blond hair. But my affection for Dylan was now that of a good friend. And that’s all he would ever be for me.
Dylan looked over his shoulder at me, his amusement clear on his face. “Anytime, Andra,” he replied, grinning. “I brought you a towel.” He gestured towards the beach towel, folded on the sand, before he jogged up the hill.
I pulled my hair back into a bun on top of my head, securing it with the elastic, and slid off the dock, banana peel and water bottle in hand as I swam back to land.
He Found Me Page 4
