Building on Love

by Kat Bellemore

  His silence must have said volumes, because Chloe gave a hesitant nod. “I understand. It’s been a bit of a rough first day, and I’m sure you need to unwind. I just… I’d rather if you waited until morning.”

  “What, you don’t like traversing the jungle at night? Afraid of the dark?” he said, attempting to tease her and help to lessen the unease he was starting to feel.

  Chloe didn’t even crack a smile. “Not when I might have to deal with a python. Or worse.”

  “There’s something worse out here than a python?” Davis tried to steady his voice, not wanting to seem as nervous as he suddenly was, but to no avail. He was used to being able to go out for night hikes near the beach or up to Starlight Ridge, the town’s namesake. There were the few odd critters out there, but this—this was turning out to be a completely different game. And one he didn’t feel like playing. But how to back out gracefully, without feeling as pathetic as he had all day?

  “Sure. You’ll get the occasional leopard and—”

  Anything else that Chloe said disappeared into the fog of Davis’s mind. All he needed to know was that he had just been about to venture out into the Thai jungle, without a light, not having the slightest clue that there were animals like pythons and leopards just waiting for someone to do something stupid. Davis would have been like fast food for these animals—the easiest kill they’d ever had.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he interrupted. Somehow Chloe had transitioned to talking about an elephant sanctuary that was a few hours north.

  She stopped. “Sorry?”

  “That should be the first thing you tell a new volunteer. Don’t go wandering around at night, because you might get eaten.”

  Chloe stared, like she didn’t know how to respond to that. He could admit that it had come out a bit harsher than he’d intended.

  “I’m…sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean… Well, I did, but not in the way it came out…”

  He trailed off, not knowing what else to say. So, instead, he took the headlamp off and held it out to Chloe. “Thank you, it was a nice offer. But I don’t think I’ll be needing it while here.” Davis wanted to spend more time with Will and Randy and his parents, but he wasn’t sure if he could do it like this. The constant noise, and people, and never knowing if a python was going to attack him while he slept. Davis didn’t know what he had expected when he’d come out here. But it hadn’t been this.

  Chloe, however, refused to take the headlamp from him, instead laying a hand over his, the lamp still enclosed in his fist. His hand shot back at her touch, and he could tell the action had surprised her. But no one touched him like that. No one since Bridgette.

  Chloe hesitated. “You’ll need it when you use the restroom after dark.”

  That’s right. The restroom that was more like a glorified outhouse that sat behind the tent. Next to the trees. Where the pythons lived.

  She continued, “And it’s me who should be apologizing, not you. I’ve gotten used to knowing about the creatures that live out here. I’ve never seen one. Heard a jaguar a few times, but that’s about it. When my parents first brought me to Thailand, though, out to a place like this, I couldn’t sleep through the night. I kept thinking about what might be out there, and it took me an entire year to adjust.

  “I include safety precautions in my training sessions with new volunteers, but because you’re here for such a short time, I didn’t think it necessary to go through the whole official process.” She paused, seeming a little embarrassed. “I figured your family would help you through learning how things work here, forgetting that they’ve been out here for over a year, and it’s become second nature to them as well. And that it’s my job, not theirs.”

  She paused and gave him a small smile. “You’ll be happy to know, though, that you arrived at just the right time. If we finish up with this village within the next week, the volunteers get a weeklong holiday to travel around the country and relax a little before moving on to the next location.”

  Oh, so that was why his mom had insisted he wait a few weeks before visiting. He had planned on leaving Starlight Ridge right after New Year’s, but his mom had told him that April was the best time to come. Apparently, that was when Thailand’s New Year was. Davis hadn’t known what that had to do with anything, but he’d trusted his mother’s judgment and had waited.

  Playing the tourist, though? That hadn’t been a part of Davis’s plans. The only reason he’d come to Thailand in the first place was knowing he wouldn’t have to do that, instead working side by side with his family. That was his kind of vacation.

  “Um…what if someone didn’t want to travel? Is there an option to go straight to the next site?”

  Chloe raised an eyebrow. “No, unfortunately there isn’t. I don’t usually have much notice before we move on to the next place. We have a tentative location, but I always wait to confirm until we’ve finished our current project. That’s one reason for the vacation for the volunteers—to give me time to settle things.”

  That made sense. The reason for rebuilding this village was because of a fire, after all. You can’t plan something like that. Or, at least, you shouldn’t.

  He supposed he could cut the visit short by a week. The film crew might not be cleared out of Starlight Ridge yet, but it would be better than playing tourist. His parents were the type to buy matching T-shirts so they could more easily find each other in a crowd, and they’d stop for pictures at every other corner. They would purchase ridiculous souvenirs that no one wanted but that helped prove they’d gone somewhere. And that had been when the furthest they’d ever traveled was to Disneyland. Davis hated to imagine what traveling around a completely different country would be like.

  “Well, my parents might be sick of me by then.” He laughed, hoping it was more convincing than it felt. “I should probably head to bed. Long day and all that.” He stepped around Chloe. “Thanks for stopping me from being eaten.”

  “No problem,” she said. “It tends to freak the volunteers out when one of their friends disappears, so it’s more of a morale thing. Some people bring donuts to the office. I keep the pythons away,” she said. “Whatever it takes to keep people working.”

  Her response caught Davis off guard, and he belted out a laugh. It hadn’t been like the polite ones of earlier. It was a full-body one that sounded like a foghorn, but it was also one-hundred percent genuine. A laugh like that hadn’t happened in a very long time.

  When Davis glanced back, he saw that Chloe seemed to have noticed the difference, her entire demeanor lightening.

  Davis studied her for another moment before turning with an amused shake of his head. When he returned to the tent, his brothers were sitting at a table between the bunk beds, playing what looked an awful lot like poker with a couple of college-age guys. On closer inspection, Davis saw they were playing for M&Ms rather than money, and apparently Will was quite good at it, because he had nearly the entire stash sitting in front of him. Hopefully it didn’t give him any ideas that involved more than a few pieces of candy.

  Davis moved to grab his pajamas out of his duffel bag and saw his parents cuddled on one of the lower beds and speaking in hushed tones. When his dad spotted Davis, he smiled and gave a little wave, but his attention quickly returned to Davis’s mother.

  Davis wondered if he should be offended that his family hadn’t been more concerned about where he had been and what he’d been doing. He had just arrived that day, after all. And apparently there were jaguars on the loose. But Davis was instead comforted. He saw that his family was in exactly the place they needed to be, and that as much as they loved having him there, they also knew him well enough to allow him the space he needed. And that was one of the best things about family. You could go halfway around the world and feel like you were home.

  Chloe walked into the tent just then. She caught his gaze and held it briefly before making the rounds and talking with the various volunteers that Davis had yet to meet. He loo
ked down at the headlamp that hung from his fingers.

  He could think of a few reasons to stay the full two weeks.

  But he could think of even more reasons to leave.

  8

  Chloe walked among the huts, doing quality control. Well, it was supposed to look that way. In reality, she was checking up on two volunteers. For these two young college kids, friendship had turned into romance—which was against the rules, but there really wasn’t any way to stop that kind of thing—and their work had gone downhill ever since. Chloe doubted they did any work at all anymore.

  She walked up to the hut where they were supposedly doing a final walk-through. Chloe felt the strange urge to knock on the front door, just in case she was interrupting anything. Instead, she burst through the door, hoping to catch them slacking off. At least then she’d be able to discipline them.

  Chloe pounced into the one-room hut…and scared the life out of Pii Beun, her husband, and their children. They jumped, the children screamed, and Chloe froze.

  “Kho thode,” she said, feeling heat rush into her face.

  Pii Beun waved her off, like her apology wasn’t necessary. That was when Chloe noticed that the family wasn’t alone. Davis stood at the back of the hut next to his tools, working on some final touches. He wore protective headphones, even though there were no loud noises at the moment. Davis appeared to be in his own world, not having even realized she had arrived.

  It had been a few days since Chloe had spoken to Davis. Not since his first day on-site. Ever since then, he’d thrown himself into his work, not needing direction, just working where he noticed he was needed. It was nice to not have to hover over him like Chloe had to with the younger volunteers.

  She wondered what he could be working on here, though, considering everything appeared to have been finished. If it hadn’t, Pii Beun and her family would still be working. Chloe pointed to Davis and asked Pii Beun, “Tham aray, na ka?”

  Beun didn’t know either. She said Davis had been inspecting the hut when they arrived and had been working for the past hour on things that already seemed complete.

  Davis didn’t seem the type who would work for the sake of working, without actually accomplishing anything. Chloe walked up to Davis and tapped him on the shoulder. He started and spun to face her, his expression holding the same panic that the rest of the hut’s occupants had several moments earlier. When he saw it was her, his body visibly relaxed. Davis pulled off the headphones and rested them around his neck. “Hello, Ms. Rodgers. Can I do anything for you?”

  Wow, that was the most formal anyone had been with her…ever. Even for Davis, it was extreme.

  “I was checking to see how things are coming along here. Looks like you’ve finished up, which is fantastic. That means we have only two huts left to complete, and with how quickly everyone is working, I think they’ll be done tomorrow. Amazing what concentrated effort can accomplish, huh?” She smiled in a way that was friendly but was also intended to let him know his job there was done and he should join the others.

  “That’s wonderful news,” Davis said, though a bit more stiffly this time. “There was some shoddy work done in this hut, though, and I wouldn’t feel right leaving until it’s up to standard.”

  That wouldn’t surprise Chloe, considering who she had had working on it. Where were they, anyway? “Did you see the young man and woman who were working in here? I was surprised to find you here instead of them.”

  Davis seemed amused in spite of himself, an eyebrow raised and a corner of his lips lifting with it. “You mean the volunteers that were making out in here. I sent them away, told them if they weren’t going to at least pretend to work, that I’d do it myself. They seemed both embarrassed and relieved to be able to leave.”

  Just as Chloe had expected. But even so, she didn’t like the way Davis was acting as if he were the one in charge. Maybe it had been a mistake to be so informal with him his first day. Even if he was Kara and Rick’s son and had been puking his guts out.

  She folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “You know, that’s my call. You should have come and talked to me if things seemed out of sorts.”

  Davis studied Chloe for a moment. “You weren’t at all surprised when I said I caught your volunteers making out in here.”

  Chloe didn’t need to defend herself to someone who had just arrived at the site and thought he knew everything about how to run a project as large as this one.

  “We’re done here,” Chloe said. “As you can see, this family is all ready to move their things in, and we’re supposed to have rain tonight. Grab your tools. I want you working on the hut next door.”

  “But—”

  Chloe didn’t give Davis the chance to argue, instead spinning on one heel and leaving as quickly as she had arrived.

  Travis was waiting outside when Chloe burst out of the hut. She was fuming, and it must have been obvious, because Travis instinctively took a step back.

  “Everything…all right in there?” he asked, hesitant, like he was unsure if he should be speaking to Chloe at the moment.

  She released a long sigh. “Yeah. Fine. Just have a volunteer who thinks he knows more than the director, even though I’m certain he’s never built a bamboo hut in his life. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  “Aw,” Travis said, nodding in understanding. “The new guy, huh?”

  Chloe glanced back toward the hut just in time to see Davis leaving, his toolbelt thrown over one shoulder. Even though he wore a loose shirt, she could see his muscles showing through. She was sure Davis was very capable and did know what he was doing—in Starlight Ridge. But he was in a completely different world now, and now that he’d been there a few days, he was treating it as if he owned it.

  Davis met her gaze and gave a curt nod, then walked toward where his parents were working on an unfinished hut. For someone who had traveled halfway across the world to see his family, he sure didn’t seem to spend much time with them. There were the rare moments, like the evenings when she’d seen him wrestling with his brothers, when they seemed like the perfect family, and Davis seemed like a normal, attractive guy. But those moments seemed few and far between.

  “Hey, when everything’s finished and we head down into the city, why don’t you let me buy you dinner?” Travis said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. As if he didn’t ask her the same thing every time they finished a project. “It will help get your mind off of things.”

  “I have a responsibility to my volunteers, and these projects,” she responded, as she always did.

  Travis frowned. “They go off on their own, exploring the country, and meet up with you a week later. As for the projects, since when do you arrange anything in the evenings? When securing donations, the philanthropists you talk to are the type that work their boring nine to five jobs. What is preventing you from going out on a two-hour dinner with me?” Travis didn’t give Chloe time to answer, instead marching away, a clipboard in hand. He was obviously frustrated with her, but that was his own fault for being so relentless. When would he learn that she wasn’t dating material? Her life was her organization, and the people in it.

  Everything else was just static.

  * * *

  It was when everyone began to gather for dinner that Chloe realized she hadn’t seen Davis since she’d kicked him out of Pii Beun’s hut earlier. When she asked around, everyone remembered seeing him, but always at a different location.

  “Last I saw, he was on the roof of the hut on the end,” Kara told her. “Said he just had one last thing he needed to do.”

  “But that hut was finished last week,” Chloe said, unable to hide her exasperation. She could really use his help on the unfinished projects, and he was going back to things that had already been completed.

  Kara laid a hand on Chloe’s arm and looked at her in the motherly way that Chloe had become accustomed to. It was nice having someone like that around. Kara tended to keep Chloe grounded when no o
ne else could.

  “I trust Davis completely. He always has a reason, even if no one else can figure out what it is.”

  Chloe released a long sigh. “Okay.” She glanced up at the darkening sky. The storm clouds were beginning to roll in. “But if he’s still up there in twenty minutes, I will pull him down himself.”

  There was no need, thank goodness, because Davis walked up a moment later, his tool belt slung across his shoulder, as usual, but he wore a troubled look as he glanced toward the last hut he’d been working on.

  “Everything all right?” Kara asked, immediately sensing her son’s mood.

  Davis glanced at Chloe, like he knew he had been doing things she wouldn’t approve of. He looked back toward the darkening shapes of the huts. “It got too dark, and I wasn’t able to finish the last one. Who’s sleeping in the one on the end?”

  Chloe spoke up. “A woman named Preaw and her husband Sunan. She’s pregnant with their first child. We got them set up in their hut several days ago.”

  “Get them out,” Davis said. “Just for tonight. I’ll make sure it’s ready for them tomorrow.”

  Chloe stared. This was going too far. “Look, I’ve given you more leeway than I generally do. But this is too much. There is a pregnant woman in that hut, and I am not telling her that she needs to leave and sleep in a tent, not when there is going to be a storm tonight.”

  Davis looked to the sky, his features seeming paler than they had been a few moments before. “All the more reason to get them out.”

  Chloe crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Our storms—they happen without warning, no thunder to announce its presence. And I’d bet anything tonight is going to be a big one. You live here long enough, you get a sixth sense about these things. So, no, I’m not going to tell Preaw that she and Sunan need to leave the comfort of their new home.”

  Davis’s gaze returned to Chloe. “I’m serious. You have to get them out of there. The hut looked complete, but when I was doing an inspection of—”