Dirty Dancing at Devil's Leap

by Julie Anne Long

  “It’s a house, Avalon,” he said patiently, very reasonably. “I’m going to use it exactly as if it’s a house. I’m going to live in it, put my feet up, read Malcolm Gladwell books and listen to NPR.”

  “Sure you are. Next you’ll be trying to sell me the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “Given how much you paid for this place, I like my chances of selling you the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  She heaved a world-weary sigh. “Mac,” she said slowly, with as much lofty condescension as she could muster. “Mac, Mac, Mac. What you are failing to understand is that I did get a bargain. It’s all about being able to see the potential.”

  She in truth didn’t actually think this was quite a bargain anymore, given that it didn’t include the swimming hole or the actual rock named Devil’s Leap, or the rumored hot springs she’d never seen. Unless they were going by San Francisco standards, in which case the price was practically on clearance.

  “Okay. I’ll bite, Harwood. You could buy property pretty much anywhere in Hellcat Canyon and build a bigger house from the ground up for half the cost. Why did you have to buy this particular house? What is your”—he made air quotes—“‘vision’ for it?”

  She contemplated hedging. It wasn’t any of his business, really. But the instinct to impress Mac Coltrane with her maturity and sophistication and cleverness overrode strategy.

  It was either that, or challenge him to a footrace to Devil’s Leap.

  “It’s simple, Mac. The house is big and utterly distinctive, there are gorgeous views from nearly every window, and the grounds and the land around it are spectacularly beautiful. All of which makes it an ideal location for a conference retreat and seminar center for Silicon Valley tech executives. The downstairs layout is perfect for workshops and breakout sessions, and the upstairs main rooms are large enough to partition into several additional rooms. Nature hikes and the Devil’s Leap swimming hole will be a huge lure. And there’s that private airfield nearby at the edge of town, which makes it all that much easier to reach, and adds just a touch more exclusivity to the whole thing. I’m going to do some updating and repairs, and then I’m going to sell it. I actually have a prospective buyer coming in tomorrow.”

  Mac took this in thoughtfully, nodding along, his eyes going abstracted as if he were watching all of these conferences take place in his mind’s eye.

  “Corporate retreats? Like . . . tech and gaming douches doing trust falls, and . . . and . . . shit like that? Former frat bros running around this property?”

  She opened her mouth. Then closed it again.

  Because frankly, despite herself, she thought that was a little funny.

  Mainly because it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. And Mac never was much of a word mincer.

  “Yes. Though”—and she made some air quotes of her own—“‘shit like that’ is quite a broad umbrella for a lot of other useful activities. And women will be involved, too, of course. CEOs of companies, like myself. It’ll be perfect for annual business planning, contract negotiations, takeover talks, seminars . . .”

  A faint little dent appeared between his eyes. Almost but not quite a frown. He held this expression in silence until:

  “Over my dead body.” But those words were strung like little beads on a filament of steel.

  Her jaw dropped.

  “What the . . . It’s not like you have any kind of say in it. IT’S MY HOUSE.”

  “Right.” He said that mildly enough, too. He smiled slightly.

  But he wasn’t blinking.

  He suddenly reminded her unnervingly of his dad. And to this day, Dixon Coltrane remained one of the scarier men she’d ever seen, including the guy who’d pointed a gun at her on Oak Street in San Francisco and demanded her money. Her one and only encounter with him on that fateful day lasted for only the time it took for her to ask where the bathroom was and for him to tell her. He’d told her, so politely it was only later she realized he’d dismissed her as of zero worth to him, the way it was said you barely notice it when a stiletto is first inserted.

  She forcibly reminded herself that Mac had gone on to confirm exactly those sentiments in that phone call she wasn’t supposed to overhear.

  This steely-eyed, coolly smiling man in front of her now made her uneasy. Despite the seductive glimpses of the boy she’d once known—the glinting, decisive wit, the suggestion of gentleness—she was reminded that she knew nothing about the adult Mac.

  And it was probably best to keep it that way.

  “Well, thanks for the ice, Mac. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to wrap up your farewell tour of my property right now. I’ve got a lot of emails to answer and I need to track down the owner of the Devil’s Leap tract and make him the proverbial offer he can’t refuse.”

  “Avalon . . .” he said gently. With just the faintest whiff of exasperated pity. “You’re talking to him.”

  Her silence was almost a tribute to his exquisite timing. She was absolutely certain he’d planned this revelation for this very moment.

  For the second time that day she was reminded of who his dad was.

  And as she stared at Mac, who appeared calm, and nearly bored, waiting out her next move so he could get the process of vanquishing her over with, a suspicion plinked into her mind like a quarter flipped into a plastic cup: maybe, just maybe, her mom was right: she’d been virtually inebriated by fury and shock, and maybe, just maybe, it had resulted in a little madness like any bender. Maybe she was indeed in over her head.

  “Well played, Mac. If I hadn’t been banged in the head by a metal gate I would have seen that coming a mile off.”

  The corners of his eyes creased ever so slightly in amusement. Those gold flecks seemed to spark as though they were struck from an anvil.

  “Would you have?” All soft sympathy and grave, grave doubt.

  Bastard.

  “Well, then, Mac, let’s discuss the sale of your property. To me. I’ll make you a fair offer.”

  “A fair offer, huh? That’s mighty big of you. And you know, I’d be happy to let you use the Devil’s Leap property any time you’d like.”

  “You would?” It was easier than she’d thought.

  “. . . As long as you sell the house to me.”

  She heaved a sigh. She’d walked right into that, too. Boy, she needed to get a good night’s sleep.

  “Mac,” she said with great, great, exaggeratedly tender, entirely feigned patience. “That’s not going to happen. And ironically, you’re kind of trespassing on private property right now. So . . .”

  “About that.” Mac leaned toward her chummily, as if confiding something he’d overheard at the water cooler. “This is funny, Avalon. You’re going to like this.”

  Which of course meant she wouldn’t.

  “I have a contract that says I’m allowed to be on this property.”

  “Why would you have a . . .”She clued in just before he said it out loud.

  “Because I’m the groundskeeper.”

  Chapter 6

  “You’re the groundskeeper?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the groundskeeper.”

  “Funny coincidence, huh?” He smiled at her happily.

  The cognitive dissonance was profound. Coltrane and groundskeeper weren’t words anyone had ever included in a sentence, possibly ever.

  “So . . . you mow the lawn and trim the hedges and rake and . . . and things?”

  “Excellent grasp of the job,” he said somberly. “And I’m not only the groundskeeper.” He pointed down the road to that little box of a house. It was about as modest as a Craftsman cottage could get. She supposed she’d seen that before, but she’d thought it was a charming toolshed, or some kind of pump house, maybe. “I’m also your neighbor.”

  He turned back to study her for the impact of this statement.

  A teeny part of her couldn’t help but think this was funny.

  She was speechless, though. About fourteen of those little cottages c
ould have fit into any of the Coltranes’ previous homes.

  Her first thought was: my teenage self would never have slept a wink if I knew Mac Coltrane was sleeping nearby. Her hormones and her every cell would have been permanently set to “vibrate.”

  Good thing this was not going to be her permanent residence.

  “Is that what you, um . . . do? For work? Groundskeeping?”

  “Mainly.”

  Mainly? It was another way of saying no. She wondered if his side business involved hookers and blow and rappers. Maybe it involved helicopters. The money he’d bid on this house must come from somewhere and nobody got rich mowing lawns.

  “I keep hearing farm animals,” she said suddenly. “Sounds like sheep or goats.”

  “Those would be my goats.”

  “You have goats?” She rubbed at her hairline. Right about now she would love to be able to blame the blow to her head for the surreal nature of this conversation.

  “Well, the goats are my subcontractors. They eat some of the taller grass around this property and mine. And contribute ingredients to some pretty great cheese. I rent out their services locally, too, before fire season.”

  She was quiet, because what she really wanted to say was “What the hell?”

  She suspected she now knew how he’d felt when she’d told him she didn’t have any pets. As if she was no longer certain this was Mac Coltrane and not an imposter or a hallucination.

  As if this were an actual dream, she decided to play along.

  “So . . . um. How . . . how did you become the groundskeeper?” It was pretty hard to say that sentence without sounding like Lady Chatterley.

  “There was an opening here. I applied. Really, the goats were already here, and they were the selling point.”

  He was clearly enjoying her discomfiture a little too much. It was pretty apparent there was a lot he was leaving out, and he was doing it just to watch her squirm.

  Back in the day, she’d thought he’d told her everything. She’d certainly spilled her heart to him.

  But back in the day she’d loved without question because why would anyone do otherwise? She’d thought that if it felt like love, then it was. She’d thought that if it seemed like someone loved you, that if someone kissed as though their whole soul was in it, that if they touched you as if it were a privilege and also as if you were beautiful and precious, then they must in fact love you.

  Discovering that just because she felt something powerfully didn’t make it true was one of the most brutal—and probably useful—lessons of her life.

  She supposed he’d taken her innocence that way.

  Livestock farming, weed-pulling . . . who’s the hick now, Mac?

  But that wasn’t what she actually felt. She felt no triumph or vindication.

  From all reports, the bones of the Coltrane family fortune had been picked clean and the marrow sucked out. Every single thing in every one of five grand homes was dismantled, carted away, sold to strangers, the proceeds dispersed to the victims of his father’s financial crimes. The houses had gradually been sold off. This was the last one.

  She wondered if his Ritchey P-29 was sold off, too.

  Something ferocious reared up in her at the thought. As if she could put herself between him and anything that might hurt him. It wasn’t rational. She wondered if that made her weak.

  “Well. Um. You’re doing a great job.” Her voice had gone a little hoarse. “The grounds look so clean and pretty.”

  His eyes went wide with amazement.

  Then some emotion she couldn’t decipher, something so soft and so fierce her breath hitched, flickered across his features.

  And then he pressed his lips together in what looked very like stifled hilarity.

  He tugged his forelock sardonically. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Avalon. Guess I’ll see you around.”

  When he bent to scoop up his cooler and turned to walk away, she knew a wayward, surprising stab of panic. As if she were an astronaut out for a spacewalk and her tether had just been cut.

  That was how it was with Mac, she realized: together they’d somehow created an atmosphere of their own that felt both more real and more intoxicating than the mundane one here on earth.

  His shoulder muscles moving beneath his T-shirt as he walked away were a poignant poetry. New, yet familiar. She fancied she could still see the outline of the boy he used to be beneath that big man. And she could still remember vividly how it felt to hold his body against hers.

  And then he turned around and walked backward for a few seconds. Even from where she stood she fancied she could see that dimple, and for an odd moment, it seemed as significant as the first star in the night sky. Something you could wish on.

  “Every two hours,” he called, and pointed to his head.

  Mac stopped just short of his cottage door and stared at it with some surprise.

  He barely remembered walking the hundred-some-odd yards up the road back home.

  He dropped the cooler. He headed for his coffee pot and dumped the lukewarm brew he found there in a cup and slammed it into the microwave like he was wrestling a prisoner into a cell. The days when he was a snob about coffee were long gone.

  Then he retrieved the cup and took a gulp. He literally felt as if he needed sobering after a bender.

  And as he held on to it, he realized his hand was actually shaking a little.

  He gave a short, half-astounded, half-scornful laugh at his own expense. But it wasn’t every day a guy time-traveled. That moment when realization kicked in his mind had felt scrambled like a satellite transmission at the mercy of a solar flare. No thoughts could get through, only a swarm of emotions, and he’d all but forgotten what to do with most emotions.

  He supposed there was a certain poetry in Avalon Harwood of all people buying that house out from under him.

  He’d never been a big fan of poetry.

  Well, sure, there were the ones about the Man from Nantucket that he and his brother had sniggered over when they were adolescents. But poetry often went hand in hand with that shell game people liked to call “romance.” It purported to illuminate, and in his estimation it often obscured instead. He was deeply suspicious these days of anything and anyone that didn’t come right out and say whatever the fuck they actually meant.

  He took another hit of coffee. And winced.

  In that article he’d found via Google, her boyfriend, that Tech Doofus who’d gone to Dartmouth, had said things like “The only thing I’m allergic to is the mundane,” and she’d said things like “I love working all the time.” Mac had muttered, “You have got to be kidding me,” when he’d read that. It was nearly impossible to imagine this was the Avalon he’d known, who’d reveled in her freedom and who had once slaughtered him in a burping contest and had once collapsed, crippled with laughter, when her brother Jude had accidentally farted in the middle of pontificating about some scientific principle.

  But there was money in that game she’d helped invent if she could buy this house out from under him, so he had to hand her and the Tech Doofus as much.

  She’d wanted to be a teacher because she loved kids and she loved telling people what she knew, and she’d loved animals and running around in the wild outdoors. But as it turned out she wasn’t a teacher and she had no pets and she was going to turn this beautiful place into a refuge for the kind of people most of the world needed a refuge from.

  So he’d laid that “I’m the groundskeeper” on her as a sort of little test. Because he was crafty that way. It was true, of course: he was the groundskeeper. But it wasn’t the only truth about him.

  She could have shoved a snarky dagger right in if she’d wanted to. Her eyes could have registered shock at how far the mighty had fallen.

  But no. She’d been kind instead.

  He closed his eyes and gave a short laugh. He didn’t know what to call that feeling that had been growing in his chest since he’d seen her, like something in him was expanding,
the way the universe was said to during the Big Bang. He might have called it happiness except that he’d thought he was pretty happy already. Or, all he’d needed to get all the way to happy was the house.

  She’d been tough and dazzling and hilarious back then, but even all of that was fed by a compassion he’d wanted to wade into like a warm sea. It was the lens through which she saw the world.

  But he still wasn’t going to let her overrun this property with corporate schmucks.

  If he’d been brave enough, if he’d really wanted to throw her off her game a few minutes ago, he could have said: I remember exactly what it felt like to pull that soft, soft lower lip of yours between mine, very gently. How we turned kissing into an art form, because it was all we had or, more accurately, all we dared, and like a couple of maestros we found infinite little variations and pleasures in it. But mainly it was pleasurable because we were kissing each other, because the yearning had been like nothing I’ve ever known since. And I liked you so much. And how you smelled a little like strawberries, and laughed so easily, and cried without shame when your squirrel, Trixie, died but never any other time, and never backed down from an opinion when it was something you cared about. And how badly, badly I wanted to have sex with you, so badly I spent a lot of summer nights staring at my ceiling tortured by my imagination, because those were the days long before internet porn. And how I didn’t dare press you or me, because I guess I knew all along how easily you gave your heart away to things bound to crush it. Like a squirrel. Or like me.

  Because I didn’t believe in anything.

  And I thought back then that, in the end, I couldn’t have you.

  He couldn’t have pulled that off with any bravado. He wasn’t the sort who said that kind of thing out loud. Avalon was the only person who had crept past every single one of his defenses, and judging from how he was indulging in hand-trembling navel-contemplation right now, apparently she still could.

  There was also the fact that she was just so damn pretty.

  So maybe the free and funny and kind Avalon he knew was still in there, layered over with corporate bullshit the way the walls in his parents’ bedroom had been layered over with that hideous black-and-gold wallpaper.