Black Creek Burning (The Black Creek Series, Book 1)

by R. T. Wolfe

  She laid one side of her head on his chest and listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart. It made her want to lean on him.

  * * *

  Brie lay in the dark, trying not to worry about what Nathan had confessed to her. How could she help it considering her terrible track record with men? Pulling the covers close around her neck, she realized she'd never stressed about a man before. It was also the first time she could remember ever having these feelings about a man.

  The phone rang and she rolled over, appreciating the interruption from her anxiety. She had enough to worry about without the man, and much to look forward to, like a big-budget landscaping project complete with a circular patio.

  "Hello?"

  The phone was silent. Again. She could tell there was a connection. "Hello?" She hung up hoping it was wrong number.

  Chapter 23

  Most of the next morning was spent digging the hole for the patio. The sky was completely clear and a striking blue. It reminded Brie of the color of Nathan's eyes. Good grief. She was acting like she was in high school. It was actually nice and exciting. She filled the spaces between the tiers of rocks below Nathan's window with the displaced soil from the patio hole. The extra was wheeled down to fill tiers around the pond corner. A leveled layer of road gravel, followed by a thin layer of sand and she would be ready to set the patio bricks.

  Days were longer now and the spring flowers were in full bloom. She could see the red tulips and purple hyacinths around her deck all the way from Nathan's yard. She worried how the lack of rain might affect finishing this project.

  Nathan wore his lacquer mask as he spread the finish on the stained floors. He started from the back of the upstairs rooms toward the front, then down and around to the back again, careful not to paint himself into a corner. He'd already packed his truck for the long weekend with Brie. He figured he would finish long before she would, and he was right.

  He watched out the window in the back of the garage as he made a phone call to the movers to see if he could get them to bring the rest of his things earlier than next Thursday. He noticed Brie covered in dirt again and that she was completely in her element when she was like that. He worked on spraying the kitchen's upper cabinets while she finished. When he came out of his spray room, she was sitting on his workbench, again, with her legs crisscrossed and, again, in shorts and a tank.

  "I'm at a good stopping point. How about you?"

  He wrapped a spray hose around his forearm. "Yes, and I'm stuck out of my house now. You hungry?"

  "Starved. How do you feel about a giant Mikey's tenderloin?" She slid down and picked up the spray can, placing it on the shelf where it belonged. "Liz asked if we'd like to get a drink with her and Tim, and we kind of owe them for keeping the dogs while we're gone."

  "I'll follow you to your place, and we can take my truck from there."

  The dogs rode in the back of Brie's pickup, running circles and lifting their snouts high in the air.

  He let the dogs out for her as Brie parked in the garage and opened the house. He thought it was a long shot, but did as Brie suggested, speaking with authority, yet not frightening.

  "Macey, Goldie come." Goldie hesitated. Traitor. But Macey trotted over to him and sat. Goldie wasn't far behind. "Well, I'll be damned," he muttered. He rubbed their heads. "Good dogs. Good frigging dogs."

  He found her inside, facing her unused fireplace in her family room, holding her unopened mail at her side. She looked up toward the photos of her parents and family arranged over the mantle.

  "I'm going to buy a couch," she said like she'd had an epiphany.

  He smiled with one side of his mouth.

  "A couch and a loveseat. Will you come with me?"

  "Mmm hmm."

  Brie picked up the phone. "I need to call Liz and see what time she wants to meet. I only have the one shower. Do you want to go ahead and go first?"

  "I'd rather wait for you."

  Looking up at him, she put the phone back down. "I can call later."

  He scooped her up and headed for the stairs. "Not that I'm not glad, but I still can't believe you didn't put in another shower."

  They stood in the bathroom together. Nathan dressed slowly, feeling weak and spent. Clean, definitely, but weak and spent. Slipping on his worn black jeans, he left the top button undone and stood at the mirror, shaving with bare feet and a bare chest.

  Brie was next to him, dragging something hot through her hair.

  Their eyes met in the mirror. "We still have an hour," he said, wiping left-over shaving cream from his face with her hand towel.

  "Jeez, Nathan." She grinned. "I'm not a machine."

  Lifting one side of his mouth, he said, "I meant for couch shopping."

  * * *

  They pulled up to Mikey's with the bed of his pickup filled with a sable green couch and matching loveseat packed into Nathan's eight-foot bed.

  "I can't believe how much money I just spent. I feel sick."

  "You're just hungry."

  He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as he pulled up to park across the street where they would be able to keep an eye on his truck from the windows. It was busy for a Thursday night. People were coming out of their burrows in the traditional reaction to spring and warmer weather. The beer garden was open and a band made up of two people sang off-key about margaritas.

  Liz and Tim were already in a bar booth with oblong plates full of wings and nachos. He and Brie took a bite as they said their hellos.

  Liz took a long time catching Brie up on the latest from their work. "Apparently, Mrs. Whittier wasn't in as tight with Dr. Tyman as she was with Sandy Finley," she said.

  The fifth-graders were anxious to graduate and, in his opinion, sounded like healthy fifth-graders should be acting. Nothing was said about next week's board meeting, at least not around Brie.

  He played with a piece of her hair as he and Tim kept to easier topics such as the Yankees' early stats.

  He turned his eyes to Brie when he sensed her chin lift and her shoulders stiffen. He followed her gaze to the other side of the room. GI Joe and baldy leaned against the bar, facing their booth. Buzz cut held a glass of what looked like whiskey on the rocks. Cue ball had a draft.

  Liz must have caught on, too. "They've been here a while. Some of their buddies were in the beer garden but left. What's his deal?"

  "My yard's one very large, complicated mess." Nathan changed the subject. "No one's been able to touch it for over a week now. Brie's making me a waterfall under my bedroom window with lavender around it so I can hear and smell while I sleep."

  "You were listening."

  Diversion successful. "Of course I was listening. I'm a guy," he said sarcastically. "You've planned blue chip junipers for in front of my porch because they only grow eighteen inches and won't cover up the railings I'll be making there. You said you would add some purple salvia and blue palace for color. A third grader could finish my yard from the detail you have mapped out in that binder of yours."

  "Blue salvia and purple palace, but I'm still impressed."

  They spoke of the house inside and out and Amanda's changes in lifestyle since she met Dave. After the best tenderloins in town, they sat back to relax and finish their last beer.

  "Why do they always go to the bathroom together?" Tim looked to Nathan as he stretched out his feet on the wooden bar booth.

  "Don't know, but are they always gone for so long? I think I'll take a walk myself."

  Nathan headed toward the bathrooms and noticed Brie and GI Joe through the glass in the door leading out to the crowded beer garden. He shrugged it off until he saw McKinney backing her up.

  With Tim on his heels, he pushed open the door in time to hear what the little prick had to say.

  Grabbing hold of Brie's upper arm, McKinney spoke through his teeth. "... and then jump into bed with the first guy you come across."

  Nathan made it to the two of them in a three long strides. Taking McKinn
ey's fingers, he bent them back unnaturally. Using his other hand, he moved Brie out of the way, let go of buzz cut's fingers and shoved him out the parking lot door.

  McKinney stumbled and fell on his ass. "I bet you know all about the police coming to question me." He bounced back up to his feet. "At my work. Who the fuck do you think you are?"

  "I told you not to put your hands on her again."

  Satisfied, Nathan started to turn and head back into the bar. He saw the sucker punch from the corner of his eye but not fast enough. It clipped the side of his temple as he dodged, but not hard enough to keep him from dancing around the next swing.

  Nathan blocked an uppercut, then landed a vicious hook to McKinney's left eye, dropping him where he stood. He walked back to the beer garden with McKinney mumbling and holding his eye while sprawled out on the concrete. He passed baldy on his way to Brie.

  Rob gestured to Nathan's eye and smirked.

  "You might want to check on your friend." Nathan jerked his head toward the parking lot before turning to Brie. "And we might want to get out of here."

  "You're bleeding."

  "Not really." He took her arm and walked briskly with Tim and Liz on their heels. The crowd was growing in the beer garden and the noise picked up.

  "Why is it kind of sexy?" she added.

  "In that case, I'm hurt really bad." He turned back to Tim and Liz as they walked out the front door. "Sorry about all that."

  "I've never liked him," Tim interjected. "He gives me the creeps the way he paws around Brie."

  * * *

  "I've never flown first-class before." Brie stretched out, enjoying the room.

  Nathan was resting his head back with his eyes closed. "You'll have to choose the spot next time." He was massaging her hand with his thumb.

  She hadn't noticed how sore her hands were from carrying bricks. Her eyes nearly crossed from the feel. She shifted her body to face him, careful not to displace her hand from his. "There are camping sites in New York. And we didn't bring any gear," she said. How did he find all the tight knots?

  "Just wait and see."

  She pulled on her ear with her free hand. "Have you brought other women here?"

  "I've never been here. My folks came last winter. I've seen pictures."

  "You didn't bring any camping gear," Brie repeated.

  He opened one eye and smiled. Leaning over, he used his thumb and forefinger to clasp Brie's lips together. The corners of her lips turned up and she leaned her head back, let her lids drop and took a deep breath.

  * * *

  "Alone on a romantic fucking weekend."

  Without bothering with a glass, the swig of whiskey went down smooth and eased one side of the rage while lighting another.

  Copies of photos lined the walls of the tiny room. Pictures of Brie walking with her precious wheelbarrow, running with the two mutts, shopping for a couch with the latest flavor-of-the-day.

  "I am going to get off watching you squirm." The bottle was tipped to the photos in a kind of a toast.

  "Watching you afraid, watching you bleed."

  Chapter 24

  Brie decided not to ask him why he rented a convertible to drive to a campsite. Instead, she sat, enjoying the cool breeze and bright sunshine. The air smelled of pine needles and fertile earth. The enormous Douglas firs and Sycamore trees lined the roads and grew bigger as they drove farther back into the woods.

  "Redwoods." Nathan must have noticed the puzzled look on her face.

  "I thought you didn't know trees."

  "Farther west are trees big enough to drive cars through the trunks."

  She'd never known anything like this existed. They pulled up to about a dozen tiny cottages nestled high in the air, each in their own tree. Actually around each tree. Nathan checked in as she stood leaning against the convertible that looked all the more out of place in this remote gravel parking lot.

  She cocked her head at the one that was connected to the main lodge by a drawstring bridge. It also had access through a tall and winding staircase around the trunk of its towering Sycamore. Trying to imagine the visual of his parents staying here wasn't much of a stretch. They seemed like teenagers to her. Suddenly, she thought a little too much about them staying there. TMI.

  Nathan came out with a few brochures in one hand and keys in the other. "We're down the road a ways." He kissed her as he set the papers in the center console of the rental.

  "You call this camping?" she asked as she got in the passenger seat in her jeans and flannel shirt.

  "Point taken, but before you get too cozy, know there's no Jacuzzi or even a tub. I assume the structure of the cottage can only handle a shower stall fifty feet up in the air."

  "Fifty feet? What were you going to do if I was scared of heights?"

  "Distract you." He kissed her once more before putting the car in gear.

  * * *

  The cabin was absolutely amazing. The floor was hardwood laid in a hexagonal pattern that grew out from the center around the trunk of the tree. A colorful patchwork quilt covered the enormous bed that was centered in the single-area and was piled with matching pillows. Smoothed tree branches littered with knots created the arms and legs of the chairs and couch.

  The curtains were sheer. Brie assumed privacy wasn't a priority this far up. There was a mini-fridge and the smallest sink she'd ever seen. No table or desk, only a single chair, which meant no cooking or working. Perfect. A tiny loft that fit only a cot-sized bed looked out over the rest of the cabin.

  She stepped onto a shallow porch that wrapped around the entire circumference of the cottage and was scattered with chairs covered in outdoor cushions and surrounded by the same bare-branch-looking railing. The air was clear and dry and felt amazing on her face. It smelled... clean. Turkey vultures and hawks circled the trees. The view was a breathtaking sea of brown and green needles littered with straight, brown trunks.

  She stopped when she came back in and noticed him watching her. He was leaning against the tree trunk with one ankle crossed over the other and thumbs in his pockets. So cute. She would never tire of the stance.

  He pushed off. "Are you up for a hike, or do you need some time to rest up after the flight?"

  "I'm anxious to get out there. Come. You can see where the trails lead from up here."

  She pulled him out to the skinny porch feeling like an excited child and tucked her arm in his. They compared the maps of the trails he'd picked up from the lodge with what they could see. She turned to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  "I'm glad we're here. I didn't know how much I wanted this, needed this." She looked in his eyes and smiled.

  He took her face in his hands and rubbed his thumbs across her cheeks. "I love you."

  She closed her eyes and felt his thumbs and the love he had given her. She could lose herself in this man without ever feeling lost.

  They walked through oceans of Douglas firs. The quiet was peaceful and only disturbed by snapping twigs under their feet and an occasional call from a bird. Brie stopped every few hundred yards to study a plant that was completely new or somewhat similar to what she worked with.

  "I want to find a native plant guide before we come out again. I know these are Penstemon, but I've never seen this variety. And look, these are bleeding hearts. You'll have these in your corner, back by the pond."

  * * *

  By the time they made it to dinner, both were starved. At the main lodge, they ate prime rib with garlic sauce and twice-baked potatoes. Brie wore her second flannel shirt, a clean pair of dark blue jeans and hiking boots.

  "I wish you would have told me what kind of camping to pack for."

  They shared a piece of carrot cake and experimented with the Oregon craft beers.

  Far too much experimenting made hiking up the trail a challenge. Her thighs burned as they climbed the stairs to their cabin. She headed straight for the huge bed.

  Nathan sat and loosened the strings of his shoes before
kicking them off.

  And she was sound asleep, fully dressed, boots and all.

  * * *

  Sunlight slanted through the sheer curtains. Brie opened her eyes to see Nathan inches from her. She sighed frustratingly and closed them again, kicking herself for falling asleep early.

  Feelings that stirred deep were new to her. His hair curled just at the ends when it was messy like this, much like it did when wet. She'd expected to feel fear attached to this kind of intense desire for someone. She thought how he looked sitting at the bottom of the stairs in his dilapidated house with his notebook in his hand. How careless and sexy he looked when she opened her door to him on New Year's Eve. That mind-numbing first kiss. With perfect clarity, she could picture him hiking Andy up onto his shoulders and how tightly he'd closed his eyes when Duncan first called him dad. No, there was no fear and for the first time in her life, Brie knew what it felt like to be in love.

  Carefully, she crawled out of bed and headed for the shower. The water was hot even if it was only a trickle. She stood there with the heat dripping down her back, feeling more relaxed than she could remember in a very long time. As she dressed, he slept. So, she decided to go out and pick up something to eat from the lodge.

  The scene seemed surreal. She walked through the towering woods over the damp leaves. Webs hung with droplets of dew, giving away the hiding places of spiders. She returned with egg muffins, bagels and coffee to find him toweling his hair dry.

  "I brought breakfast as a peace offering. Why didn't you wake me? We only have two nights together. You should have woken me."

  "Yes, but we have two days, too. Anyway, you're a light weight. I think you were passed out, not sleeping." He took the bag from her and peeked inside.

  She bit her bottom lip as he reached for the coffee. When he took it, she gave him a tiny push in the center of his chest, landing him in the chair behind him. Standing in front of him, she reached for the top button of her blue, cotton blouse. The look on his face was one she hoped she'd never forget.