“Hi,” she answered. He immediately stuck a finger to his lips and came closer.
“Shh… Keep it down. She’ll hear us.”
Furrowing her brow, she turned back to her latest piece—a bleak landscape with only one flower in the foreground like a survivor breaking through post-apocalyptic soil. It needed more highlights, since she’d gone too dark and washed out the contrast. “Is there a reason we wouldn’t want Candice to hear us?”
“I’m hiding. She wants me to do another phone interview.” Coming to a stop behind her, he pointed, his arm sliding into her range of vision. “I like it. Does it have some deep meaning, like hope breaking through the darkness, or is it a case of the drapes are just blue?”
She turned, but he’d paced over to the twin-sized bed to flop down on his belly, pulling a pillow over his head. She sighed, again facing her work. “What does that mean, the drapes are just blue?”
“Sorry,” his voice rumbled out from beneath the pillow. “Sometimes I forget not everyone was an English and Creative Writing major. When they had us read stuff back in school, they looked for deep and overwhelming meaning in everything. A flute, a stick, anything hard really, represented sex, for example. We had to deconstruct—never mind. The point was that it was a joke. Was the author trying to point out the desolation, fear of death, sorrow with the choice of color for the curtains or were the drapes just blue?” He removed the pillow to peer at her and she snapped her gaze back to the painting. “Make sense?”
“Mmm…” She nodded, tapping yellow into the center of the flower with a mostly dry brush to make it have texture. “In this case, I don’t know.”
He laughed, rolling to his side and hugging the pillow like a child. “Okay, that’s funny. It’s your painting.”
She quirked a brow at him, tapping the bottom of the brush against her lip. “So with every book, every scene, you know what it means? Like the deep deconstructed meaning? Or are you just telling a story the way it comes to you and sometimes the drapes end up meaning something deeper you didn’t even realize you were saying at the time?”
His lips moved around a bit as he considered. Finally, he sat up and said, “Okay, sometimes I don’t know until afterward why I made the drapes blue. It falls into place, but not always while I’m writing.”
“See?” Wiggling her brows at him, she grinned. “Maybe it’s something more than a flower on a desolate landscape. Maybe it’s just a flower. I don’t know yet. I’ll have to ruminate on it once I’ve finished it.”
She dabbed up more of the yellow, touching the edges of the petals to make it look like a light source off canvas touched the delicate bloom in the unlikely dirt.
“I want to go through the boxes.”
She dropped her paintbrush, sighed at her return of klutzmode, and picked it back up while gathering her thoughts. “So, one step at a time?” She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He meant his mother’s boxes, the piles of hoarder stuff coated in dust.
“I want to pop the bubble. I went through a couple of Mom’s boxes. It wasn’t as bad as I guess I’d thought it would be… Actually, it was nice to see some of the things since they brought back good memories. Most of it is garbage, though, so I’m going to get a dumpster. I’ve been trying to be more polite and—”
“I noticed.” She practically growled the word and he dropped his feet to the floor. She’d no sooner dropped the brush into her cleaning solution than he loomed over her.
“Why don’t you sound happier about that? I thought you wanted to renovate me, turn me into someone fit for society and all that gobbledy gook you touted.”
“You make me sound like a Bible salesman at the door of an atheist,” she grumbled and moved away from him.
His hand touched her back, guiding her in the direction of the back door. “Outside. Avoiding Candice, remember.”
She thrilled that he’d finally touched her again. Tamping down on that unreasonable joy, she allowed him to lead her. “It’s not gobbledy gook.”
“Yeah, sure, ignoring my question.”
“Don’t state the obvious,” she quoted. “It’s boring.”
He snickered, striding fast across the back yard as if Candice would trot outside and catch him if he didn’t make the tree line. “Why aren’t you happy? I’m far more personable, don’t say half of what I’m thinking, and I’ve made many advances in personal hygiene. One would think you’d be over the moon with the state of your project.”
When he put it that way, she should be. Other than the fact she was reasonably certain he faked it… “Are you happy?”
Since he’d managed to enter the forest, he finally slowed down and turned to face her, walking backwards. “Define happy?”
She sighed. How in the hell did one define happy? “Are you pleased at your appearance? Do you like filtering your words? I’m impressed that you want to go through the boxes, but…”
“Isn’t there always a but?” He grabbed a tree limb and hung from it monkey style, looking more carefree than she’d ever seen him. Compared to the hunched old man, he did seem vastly improved right that second.
“In your case, I’m almost positive there is always a but.” Not giving him more attention, curious if he’d follow her, she continued walking away from him without a backwards glance.
“I feel like I’m faking it.”
His honesty with her made her more happy than the office orgasm. Somehow, she felt closer to him when he talked to her like this—as if he told her things he wouldn’t tell anyone else. “Because you’re not being a temperamental spaz?”
He’d caught up to her and stopped to sit on a fallen log, looking up at her. “I don’t mind cleaning up—actually, I’d hoped you’d be more impressed by that than you are—however I don’t like pretending and not telling people when they’ve extended beyond their stupid quotient for the day.”
Since the only people he spoke to were herself and Candice that she knew of, Sheri frowned down at him, stopping to face him full on. “Do I often exceed my quotient?”
He smiled, a half-grin that sent her heart racing. “How honest do you want me to be? And if I answer, are you going to smack me?” He wiggled his brows, suggesting he remembered their conversation and the repercussions of her smacking him and almost hoped she would.
Since he hadn’t touched her in days—two full days—she sucked in her breath.
She’d almost convinced herself that the reason he’d banished her from his office after licking her to earth-shattering orgasm had been that he hadn’t wanted her.
The look in his eyes suggested otherwise and she resisted a quick fist pump.
“Radcliffe, I’ve been thinking about Preston.”
His cobalt gaze dropped and he suddenly seemed very interested in shredding a leaf. “Well, that’s sweet.”
“You were right.”
“Usually.”
“I’ve been hiding as much as you have.”
The piercing intensity of his gaze snapped back up, honing in on her face. “I didn’t retract that statement due to the fact I was sure I had been correct.”
Shifting from foot to foot, she snagged a piece of her hair and twisted it between her fingertips. “I’ve also been thinking perhaps I was young, under pressure, and that my actions weren’t nearly as horrific or defining as I’ve considered them to be.”
He didn’t answer and she forced herself to look and see what he thought.
The most unguarded expression she’d ever seen was etched into his face. It looked, if she were to put a word on it, a bit like hope. When he swallowed and lifted a single hand toward her, she moved closer to him, accepting his hand and twining their fingers together. “I also realize that I might be afraid of some of the feelings I’m having in regard to you. I’m pretty sure I’m stating the obvious, so excuse me if I bore you, however I feel the need to say that
some of them have nothing to do with a simple personality renovation.”
“I’m not bored.”
She’d hoped he’d say more than that so she growled at him.
He added, “And I find it strangely hot that you’re picking up some of my bad habits. I don’t think you growled when you first came to stay with me.” His smile had erupted to spread across his face.
With her free hand, she touched one heavy dark curl that flopped across his brow. “I can’t promise I’m magically better, that I’m not going to freak out if things feel intense.”
“I’m not going to promise not to get drunk and throw shit at you, if that’s of any comfort.”
She snorted. “Well, God forbid you promise not to act like an oaf. Anyway, what I was going to say was, could you sit still for a moment?”
He nodded, seemingly otherwise frozen.
“Not that still.”
He raised his brows.
Leaning down, she cupped his face and did what she’d wanted to do ever since he banished her from the office.
She kissed him.
Chapter Fifteen
He’d been afraid to speak, to say the wrong words and make her stop speaking.
When she cupped his face, her soft hand against his cheek as she kissed him, his heart beat so hard he thought for sure he’d scare off the birds in the trees.
No mere meeting of lips ever mattered so much before. Hungry for the flavor of her after two long days of denying himself her touch, he changed the angle of her head and dragged her closer, feasting on her mouth. Like before, she met his demand with some of her own and he gave over his sanity to the feel of her.
As if she’d triggered a chain reaction, the sensations broke something free—akin to a log shifting in an ice-clogged river and freeing the water to again rush through a canyon—and his eyes snapped open and he pulled back from her abruptly. “I know what happens next.”
“Well, I thought I did too, until you pulled away.”
The ruffled annoyance in her tone recaptured his attention and he patted her head before standing. “I need to be at my desk. If he just—oh, I can’t even explain all of it.”
A good quarter of a mile from the house. Dammit. He strode away from her, only stopping when she caught his arm, a little breathless. Perhaps he’d been walking a bit fast, but he needed his file. So many ideas flooded his mind he needed to get them down while they were fresh—while he could see it all so clearly he could practically pluck it out of the air.
“Where are you going?”
He shook his head, trying to free himself of the story enough to focus on her. “I have to work. I know what happens next and I have to get it down. Can’t explain. Here.” The key he kept around his neck most of the time was easy enough to yank off and drop over hers. “If you need me. But for God’s sake, don’t interrupt me. I need to get this down first. You don’t have to keep up, simply don’t bother me until I’m done.”
One quick swipe of his lips against hers and he sprinted away, needing to write more badly than he’d had to for a long while. This one, it would be his masterpiece. Formulaic? Hardly. Not this one. Not any of them, but this one? So damned loud, as if the characters practically screamed in his ear, and so alive it was like barbed wire in his brain.
Once he’d gotten in the office, he lost himself to the world, to the characters, to the drama he could only play out by slamming the words into the keyboard as fast as his fingers could type.
Candice stood outside his office, shifting from foot to foot and looking like a supermodel who couldn’t find Rodeo Drive.
“He’s working.” Setting a tray of food outside his door, Sheri nudged the other woman aside so she could peek in the keyhole. Just like the last time she checked, her author sat at his desk, fingers flying across the keys so fast they practically blurred. Standing, she faced the dark-haired goddess to see her lip pushed out in a delicate pout.
Sheri couldn’t look that adorable if she super-glued kittens to her forehead.
“He’s been like that for a couple days now. How am I supposed to help him if he’s locked in the office?”
“Welcome to my world, sweetie.” Sheri shrugged and fingered the key under her shirt that he’d given her before shutting himself in. He didn’t explain, too lost in his own world to even seem to see her, but she assumed it would open the office. She hadn’t tried it, his warning not to interrupt him echoing in her mind.
“So I’m being paid to do nothing? Are you two, like, dating or something? I don’t get your relationship and neither of you explained—which is fine, but I’ve been dying of curiosity and figured I’d ask.”
Glaring at the perky assistant, Sheri shrugged. “Does everything have to have an explanation or label?”
The pout twitched into a smile. “Meaning you’re not sure?”
Sheri didn’t hit her, although her new Radcliffe-variety temper tempted her to do so. “No, it means I’m not sharing. Go read e-mails or something.”
As she stomped away, Sheri noticed Candice’s back looked as perfect as the rest of her, damn her. Sheri bent to again watch him for a moment, lost in his own world and oblivious to the real one. He hadn’t showered, hadn’t stopped to sleep that she’d seen, and his facial hair was again out of control. She couldn’t see if he was back to one eyebrow or not, but based on the darkness of his face, she’d guess all bushy hair was back to uncontrolled, unkempt status.
Part of her was glad—this Radcliffe she understood, more or less. Part of her was frustrated. She’d basically bared her heart to him, risked kissing him, and he’d sprinted away and locked himself in his office.
It was kind of hard not to take it as a rejection.
The day passed much as those first two days when he’d vanished. She worked, she paced outside and she called Lance. Like Radcliffe, she found herself hiding from Candice whenever possible—no company was better than perkfest. She checked her own e-mail and attended to her work.
But when three a.m. hit and he hadn’t emerged from the office—other than swiping and emptying trays of food when no one was looking—she decided she’d try out her key. Sneaking past the door with the sound of the sea, she crept down the stairs and peeked in his keyhole.
Instead of his legs propped on the desk while he slept or his fingertips clicking out words, she saw him hunched over the desk, face forehead down on the keyboard. The vague dinging she could hear must be his computer repeating some key because his face smashed it.
Using the antique key for the first time, she unlocked the door and entered his space. It smelled faintly musty—like unwashed man, old food and cold coffee—and he didn’t budge from his face plant on the desk. He did, however, snore.
Moving to his side, she nudged his shoulder and he sat up abruptly, blinking blindly at her. “They didn’t eat together, each lost to their own thoughts and pushing the food around their plates.”
She nodded, as if she had a clue what he was talking about. “Okay. Let’s get some sleep, shall we?” Clicking the undo key, she kept going until words appeared rather than backslashes and then saved the file. He could read whatever else he’d face smashed in the morning. She pulled his arm and he followed her as far as the doorway before reaching out a hand to catch the frame and stop their progress.
“I can’t go anywhere. I’m in the middle of a book.”
“You’re drooling in your keyboard. Sleeping in an actual bed for a few hours will let you come back fresh, pick up where you left off. Come on.” She tugged and he let her lead him up the stairs.
She was almost certain he sleepwalked that far because he shook himself alert—at least somewhat—once they reached the door to her room. “I said not to interrupt me. I’m working.”
The growl of his voice didn’t scare or deter her. The dark circles carved under his eyes said more than his words. “You’r
e sleeping. You’re exhausted. Take a break. When a woman invites you to her bed, you go, dumbass.”
Her harsh words seemed to find traction and he focused on her. “Although my dick might think that’s a wonderful idea, I don’t think the rest of me will cooperate. I might be a bit tired.”
“Ya think?” she snickered. “C’mon, Romeo, into bed.”
Crawling in herself, she tugged him with her and he allowed it, moving stiffly. She didn’t know how he slept in that damned chair, but for one night, he’d lie down like a normal human being. One swift yank pulled the blanket over him and, despite his complaints, he slid an arm around her and snuggled his face into her hair.
“You smell good,” he whispered, his voice slow and a little slurred by sleep already.
“You don’t.” But he felt good, warm against her back and she sighed. “But I don’t care. Go to sleep, McQueen. You can write in the morning.”
“Bossy,” he declared before letting loose a soft snore near her ear.
Closing her own eyes, she felt him relax around her and couldn’t resist the sense of peace it gave her.
No, he hadn’t rejected her. Something about him this comfortable with her brought her joy she didn’t really want to define or consider too hard.
When she woke to the streaks of sunlight passing through her curtains, she stretched and rolled to find him gone. Nothing marked the fact he’d slept the night away holding her close to him.
Nothing other than the lingering almost pleasant reek of him and the warm feeling of belonging she hadn’t realized she’d longed for.
Chapter Sixteen
Elation, triumph, an almost giddy sense of relief. Tapping six keys, he typed his favorite two words in the English language.
The End.
Of course it wasn’t, not really. He’d leave it sit for a couple days, then reread and do some cleaning up—there were at least three places he’d probably rushed the pace and could go back and smooth things out, not to mention grammatical and punctuation errors that always showed up in a first draft of a thing—edit once more and then off to his agent. Once she decided what she thought about it, there’d be shopping it to the publisher followed by more editing and promotions. Gah, marketing. Blogging. Interviewing.
While You Were Writing: Watkin's Pond, Book 2 Page 11
