by L. D. Davis
I was going to sit down in a booth with a beer and start sorting through it all. It was the middle of the week and mid-afternoon, so I would have a little bit of peace and quiet until people started getting off of work and coming in to drink away their woes. I was almost to the door when I realized that one of the few vehicles in the parking lot was Connor’s truck. I knew it anywhere, even had the license plate memorized.
I had seen him only once since that day at McKenzie’s. He and Perry had come over to help Daddy fix his riding mower. He asked me how I was feeling, and I asked about his parents, and then I went on my way. I wanted to talk to him more, but I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I knew I should thank him, but the words just didn’t seem adequate.
I spotted him immediately when I went inside. He was sitting at the bar with his back to me. For a half a second, I didn’t know if I should approach him or not, but Trista, Louie’s wife, waved to me. Connor glanced over his shoulder to see who she waved to. He started to turn back before he realized it was me. I smiled briefly and made my way to a corner booth. I was barely seated for more than a minute when Connor placed a beer in front of me and slid into the seat across from mine.
“Do you always sit down at people’s tables uninvited?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Only people who can’t get up and chase me.”
“Bastard.” I sipped my cold beer gratefully. “Thanks for the beer.”
“No problem. Did you walk all the way here? Do I have to carry you again?”
I shook my head. “I drove, but I bet you’re disappointed that you can’t carry me anywhere like a sack of potatoes. You would like that too much, wouldn’t you?”
“Admit it. That was a Harlequin moment. Damsel in distress gets carried away by handsome, strapping male.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That’s funny. I don’t remember a handsome and strapping male. I just remember you.”
His laughter was loud and genuine. It was a sound I didn’t realize I missed until I heard it.
“I’ve forgotten how funny you are,” he said.
“No you haven’t, but if you think that’s funny, you should see me trying to get out of bed in the mornings.”
Glancing at his watch, he moved out of the booth and stood up. “I’m even more curious to see you getting into bed.”
My mouth dropped open, but before I could respond, he kissed my cheek and walked away. Too shocked to call after him, I watched him stop by the bar and hand Trista some money. They both glanced over at me for a second before I saw her nod. I read Connor’s lips as he thanked her and put his wallet back in his pocket. He winked at me and then left.
I smiled into my beer. The ease in which we had become us again, just Connor and Darla, gave me some hope that things wouldn’t always be awkward between us. I missed him. Not just the romantic side, but him, his laughter, his smiles, his humor and the easy conversations we always had.
Trista startled me when she appeared at my side and placed a large plate of nachos in front of me.
“Erm…I didn’t order this,” I said, pointing at it.
“No, you didn’t. Your not-so-secret-admirer did, and he told me to give you this note.” She slapped a folded napkin on the table and walked away.
I looked around as if I expected to find Connor watching me from some dark corner, but he wasn’t there. I picked up the napkin and unfolded it.
You need a manly snack. You’re still too skinny. If you need me to carry you home, let me know.
Biting my lip to keep myself from looking like a grinning idiot, I folded the napkin and put it in my satchel before digging into my manly snack.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Late that night, long after the rest of the household was asleep, I felt cool, soft flour sift through my fingers for the first time since the Fourth of July. My underused arm burned as I whisked buttermilk, honey, salt, and baking soda together in a stainless steel bowl. I lovingly caressed the humming standing mixer as it moved effortlessly through all of my ingredients. Kneading the dough with my hands instead of a machine was therapy for my soul.
Too long I had been away from the kitchen. Too many days and months had gone by without me getting lost in a recipe or making it up as I went. As the song says, I’d lost that loving feeling. My family had tried to get me to bake, but I hadn’t budged. The idea of baking had made me feel cold and empty, but my brief conversation with Connor earlier had made something spark. Instead of sitting in Louie’s and sorting through my mail, I’d played with my Earth keychain and scribbled down random ingredients that eventually came together to create a couple of recipes.
I had never been so excited to step inside that broke down Tilda’s supermarket. I’d spent money I really hadn’t been able to afford to spend, but I hadn’t cared. I’d just wanted to get in the kitchen and make magic happen.
By the time Daddy entered the kitchen at five, I had honey bread and brown sugar granola muffins cooling on racks, and some of the vanilla peach jam I’d made was sealed tightly in a jar.
“Good mornin’, my Darlin’ Darla,” Daddy said, stepping into the kitchen and sniffing the air. “You been up all night?”
“Good morning, Daddy,” I responded with a smile. “Yep. I’ve been up all night. There’s some bread and muffins and jam on the counter if you like some. Just don’t touch the ones that are on the table.”
I hugged him and kissed his cheek before leaving the kitchen. He held me a little longer than he used to, but I didn’t blame him. He had almost lost me, and we hadn’t said too many kind words to each other before that.
Ignoring the aches in my healed wrist and my still-healing leg, and the loud yawns, I took a long shower. I dressed in an Eagles hoodie and jeans and sneakers. I really missed my cowboy boots, though. I’d had them on during the accident, and when I’d asked Cade for them weeks later, he had looked at me grimly and said that they were ruined. That was all he would say, though, so I imagined that they must have been pretty bloody.
After taking a shower and getting dressed, I whittled away at the time by straightening my bedroom, folding laundry I had done the night before, and looking at the pink card on my dresser while I rolled the round keychain around in my hand. At seven o’ clock, I left a note for Daisy letting her know that I had her car, and then I took off.
As I pulled into Connor’s driveway a few minutes later, I wasn’t sure if I would find him awake. Sometimes he got up early to go tinker with his old Camaro in the garage. Maybe I should have waited another hour until I knew he was up for sure, but if he had to go out to any of the facilities in the county, I would just end up slowing him down when he needed to get out the door. Besides that, I was impatient and excited to share my baked goods with him.
When I stopped in front of his door with my hand poised to knock, an uncomfortable thought crossed my mind. What if I was unwelcome? Just because he was nice and funny at the bar didn’t mean that I could just show up at his house at the crack of dawn, did it? Well, if I was wrong, there was only way of finding out.
I was about to knock when another thought occurred to me. I dug into my coat pocket, pulled out my keys and looked at the keychain Connor had given me. There was a key dangling from it, always had been. Up until that moment, I thought it was just a figurative statement, a key to the world type of thing. I didn’t believe that it was a real key that did anything, but what if…
My breath plumed out in a small cloud in front of me and dissipated as I looked at the lock on the door and then at the key in my hand. After another few seconds of deliberation, I decided not to try it, that I would ask about it first. Who was I to enter the man’s house without invitation?
I again put my hand up to knock, but the door swung open just as my knuckles grazed the wood. Connor stood on the other side, dressed in only a pair of boxers even though the weather had abruptly turned the week before and brought a chill into the November air. He had bed hair, and he squinted at me a little as if he had just woken up.
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I hastily took in his athletic body before meeting his gaze. The sight of his almost nude body made me feel things I hadn’t felt in months. A tingle. Warmth. A bit of electric.
“Hey,” he said, lazily scratching his beard. It was something he did when he first woke up in the mornings. I didn’t think it really itched, it was just one of those things to help him wake up, like stretching.
I was nervous like I had never been nervous before with Connor. My smile was too big and stupid, but I couldn’t seem to wipe it off my face.
“Hi. Did I wake you? Oh, wait. I guess I couldn’t have woken you if you were here to open the door before I even knocked. I know it’s early, but I know you get up early sometimes to work on your project in the garage. And I’ve been up since…well since yesterday, and I was a little impatient. I wanted to bring these to you while they were still fresh. Is it too early? I can leave the basket with you and come back another time. I mean if you want me to come back another time. Whatever you want. I’m easy. I mean, you know. Not easy. Not like that. Though I don’t know if you think so or not after…anyway, I brought you this basket. I mean not the basket itself, but the things inside the basket. Unless you don’t—”
Connor stopped my circuitous talking by putting one big hand over my mouth. His eyes gleamed with amusement as he looked down at me.
“Shut up,” he said gently, “and come inside.”
He removed his hand and stepped aside to let me in. Except he didn’t move that much. My body had to graze his for me to get through the door, which only made the tingling, warming, electrifying feelings worse—or better, depending on who you ask.
After closing the door, Connor took the basket from me and his fingers brushed over mine purposely before he led the way to the kitchen.
He sat the basket on the island countertop and lifted one end of the cloth. His eyebrows went up as he looked up at me. “You baked?”
“Well, I wouldn’t bring you anybody else’s baked goods, would I?” I asked, half offended. “Besides, what else would be in the basket? Puppies? Kittens? Baby bunnies?”
He laughed lightly. “I’m just surprised. You haven’t baked since…” He trailed off, swallowing once.
“Since the Fourth of July when I made cinnamon rolls for your family,” I breathed, looking away from him. “I couldn’t at first, between my busted leg and my wrist. Then I…” I shrugged. “Then I didn’t want to.”
“What made you want to bake now? Is it because I called you skinny? Did you think you needed some carbs and starches in your life?”
I glanced up at him, smiling. “Well, there’s that.”
Connor reached for a strand of my hair. He twirled it around his finger, and just that simple act took my breath away. Damn him and his breath-stealing ways.
“So, tell me why you decided to bake,” he asked softly.
“You,” I responded just as softly. “I wanted to bake for you. To apologize. To thank you. Either way, a couple loaves of bread and some muffins aren’t enough to say I’m sorry and thank you, but there probably won’t be enough things in the world for me to do to show you. I’ll owe you my sincerest apologies and gratitude even when there’s nothing left of me but bones in the ground.”
Our eyes locked together for several heart-racing seconds. Connor’s hand moved from my hair to my cheek.
“There’s so much I want to say to you,” he said. “So much we need to talk about, but not now. I don’t want anything to spoil whatever is smelling like heaven in that basket.”
He kissed my forehead, lingering seconds longer than necessary, but not enough seconds than I would have liked.
“I’m going to go put some clothes on,” he said, moving away from me. “Unless you want to even things out by stripping down to your underwear, too.”
Pulling my coat off, I shook my head. “That ain’t happening, buddy, but you’re free to wander around in the buff if you like. You were the sex object of our arrangement.”
He laughed heartily as he disappeared down the hall.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
A little while later we sat side by side gorging ourselves on muffins and bread and washing it down with coffee.
“I’ll never be able to eat bread from the grocery store again,” Connor declared. “And the muffins? I need these in my life every morning. As for this jam…” He shook his head as he spread some of the jam on another muffin. “I can eat this on anything. Other muffins. Bread. Chicken. Beef. Pork. Duck. Squirrel.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Squirrel?”
He pointed at me with his knife. “You’ve been up in that darn city too long if you can’t appreciate a good bite of squirrel from time to time.”
I stuck my tongue out in disgust. “Squirrel is gross. Possum’s that eat well aren’t too bad. Armadillo is tasty if done right—like any other meat. I had bear stew twice. The first time was horrible. I don’t know what that thing ate, but it was nasty. The second time, I licked my bowl clean.”
Connor gaped at me with the muffin frozen at his open mouth. “I was…I was joking,” he said. “I was trying to make a joke about our isolated little country-slash-mountain town, but you…you really ate all that?”
I lifted one shoulder, almost embarrassed. “Yeah. None of it was roadkill or anything like that. I’m an adventurous eater. I’ll try almost anything once.”
He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “What won’t you try?”
“Cat, dog, or any endangered species. I’m sure there’s more I’d be reluctant to eat, but for the most part, I’m willing to try.”
“I guess that’s a very good thing for someone who wants to roam the earth and eat her way through every continent.”
I smiled sadly as I dropped my gaze to my mug of coffee. “Yeah. That would have been a good thing.”
Connor was silent for a few moments before he spoke softly, ducking his head a little as he tried to meet my eyes. “You can still do it, Darla. You’ve had a few setbacks, but you can still move forward and do what you always wanted to do.”
I met his eyes. It wasn’t his fault. None of it was his fault, but I snapped at him anyway, even though my bitterness was directed at myself.
“Actually, I can’t still do it, Connor. I broke the biggest, badass leg in the body. I don’t walk. I hobble. I can’t stand on it for extended periods of time, or I’ll be in pain for days. I’m too tired to feel it now, but my little baking explosion last night? I’ll pay for that before the day is out, I’m sure. It’s not healing as fast as it should be, which makes me wonder if it will ever be the same again, if I’ll ever be able to walk right again without pain. Even if my damn leg heals perfectly and I’m physically fine in a few months, I still won’t be able to go because every penny I had saved is as good as gone. I’ve been using it to support myself so I don’t have to rely on or put unnecessary financial pressure on my parents. And that stack of mail you saw me with in the bar? Most of it is medical bills, and I’m still generating new bills all the time with my physical therapy appointments and checkups with the doctor. Not to mention that I have a stack of past due bills from when life was ordinary before the accident. Even if I cashed in my magic ticket tomorrow—which I wouldn’t even consider doing so after all the money you spent on me already—I still wouldn’t have enough money to just live, to have somewhere even semi-safe to lay my head at night. So, no, Connor. I cannot still go.”
I shook my head and dropped my gaze again. My hand trembled slightly as I lifted my coffee mug.
“It was too big of a dream anyway,” I murmured, and used the coffee to try to dislodge the knot in my throat.
Connor’s hand splayed on my back, and I felt him lean toward me.
“Darla,” he started, but was cut off by a loud familiar ring. He cussed as he reached for his cell phone and answered the call that I knew came from one of the people on his team at work.
While Connor went to his home office, I began to clean up our breakfast. I was glad he got
the call because I wasn’t interested in continuing that conversation. I didn’t want to hear that anything-is-possible crap. I refused to become disillusioned again, just to hit another brick wall and to fall down again. Traveling the world had seemed like a great idea, but it was just that. An idea. It wasn’t a real and tangible thing, not for me.
Connor came back out a few minutes later as I was drying the last dish. I knew he wasn’t done with his phone call. I could hear voices on an apparent conference call coming from his office.
“I have to work,” he said guiltily. “But I don’t think I’ll be on this call long. I want you to stay if you can, Darla. If you want to.”
I bit my lip as I thought about it, but I knew he didn’t have all day to wait for me to make up my mind. After only a moment, I nodded. “I’ll stay but…I don’t want to talk about the traveling thing anymore.”
He stared at me much longer than he really had time for, as he tried to assess me, to dig into me with his brandy colored eyes. Finally, he deflated a little and nodded once.
“Okay. We won’t talk about it.” He began to walk backward as a small smile formed on his face. “Stay, okay? If I come back out here and find you gone and another lame note left behind, I will shave the other side of your head.”
My smile was smug. “No, you won’t. You love my hair too much.”
He grinned. “Got me there.”
“Hey,” I said, before he could disappear. “The key on the keychain you gave me? Is that a real key? I mean does it go to anything?”
Connor rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. It does.”
“Your front door?”
He smiled, but it was almost sad. “My door.” He paused. “My heart.”
He turned around and went back to his office, leaving me stuck in place with my heart banging in my chest.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
