FOUR
Eden
Thirteen days later
OUR LITTLE COTTAGE is quiet when I get up. I pull Emmy’s door shut on my way to the
bathroom. She sleeps like a rock unless she has a nightmare, but I like to keep
her cocoon as peaceful as I can until she wakes.
The hardwood
floors are chilly under my feet as I pad silently to the stove and grab the hot
water kettle. I love our place. For
whatever reason, be it the charming wraparound porch or the big oak in the
front yard, or the soothing beige walls and cozy old fireplace, this feels like
home. Already. And we haven’t even been here two full weeks
yet.
I glance up as
I pour water into the kettle. My stomach
flutters when I see him. He’s there. I
hoped he would be.
Every morning
since we moved in thirteen days ago, the man we saw building the sandcastle has
been working across the street at the cottage diagonal from mine. Rain or shine, he’s there. I don’t know who he is or why he draws me to
my window each day, but he does.
I find myself peeking
out at him often. More often than I
should, probably. But as hokey as it
sounds, something about him speaks to me. Calls to me almost. And I can’t shake
it.
I mean, he’s a
pleasure to watch, of course. And that’s saying a lot coming from someone like
me. Physically, he’s all that a woman
could ask for–tall, fit, ripped in all the right places. Most days he wears nothing but faded jeans,
work boots and a tool belt. Sometimes a
baseball hat. Rarely a shirt. And if ever there was a body made to go
around shirtless, it’s his. But that’s
not what pulls me to the window time after time, day after day. It’s not even the tattoos scrawled up his ribs–the
one on the left reading “always”, the one on the right reading “never”. No, there’s something else that brings me
here to watch him. Something…more.
I’ve noticed
that whether he’s hammering or scraping or carrying something through the door,
he has this intense solitude about him.
It’s as though the world has abandoned him. Or maybe that he’s abandoned the world. I
can’t put my finger on it. I only know that it’s decidedly incongruous with a
man who looks like he does.
I think about
him being on the beach that day. Building a sandcastle like it was the most
important thing in the world. It was
strangely haunting for a man who looks like he does to be so…alone.
Maybe that’s
what draws me–his isolation. I can’t be sure of course, but something tells me
that he doesn’t have much of a life outside his job. He arrives sometime before I get up, which is
early, and stays to work late, long after I give Emmy her bath. He eats lunch
on the lawn by himself and I’ve never seen him talking on a cell phone or
engaging the few people who pass by. He
just appears to be alone. All alone.
We’ve fallen
into a strange rhythm of sorts. It’s
just one small thing, but it seems significant somehow. Every day, at some point, he will catch me
watching him. Every day, he has. And every day he holds my gaze, even from so
far away. It gives me chills, the way he
stares back at me. But then he frowns,
just like he did at the beach that day, before he turns away. It’s like I make
him think of something he doesn’t want to think about. And my need to know what that is increases
with every day that passes. Need, not want.
I’m not sure if
brokenness is discernible with nothing more than our casual contact (if you can
even call what we have “contact”) or if this is all in my head, but for some
reason that’s the word that comes to mind when I see him–brokenness. Someone who’s broken.
From the
outside, he’s practically perfect. Well
not even practically perfect. He is
perfect. Flawless. Breathtaking.
But he’s too quiet, too withdrawn, too…solitary for someone as handsome
as he is. Maybe that’s why I think he’s
broken. Surely in a town this size,
every single woman within ten miles would be banging on his front door,
offering to help with whatever he might need.
Or want.
And yet, he
doesn’t seem to have anyone. I’ve
noticed that his ring finger is empty, too.
As empty as his life appears to be.
Maybe he’s got
dark secrets that keep the town at bay. A
scary skeleton in his closet, a maniacal monster under his bed. That’s probably reason number one, the only
one I should need, to stay far, far away from him. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Mostly because he stays away from me, never
offering to come over or speak when we go outside. He just keeps to himself and
I do the same.
But still, he
pulls me.
So here I am.
Watching. Waiting, it seems. On what, I don’t know. But I often get the feeling that something is
about to happen. Only it never does.
A loud banging
at my front door startles me and I spill coffee down the front of my
shirt. I grab a napkin and wipe at it as
I run, rushing to the door before whoever it is can wake up Emmy. She’s a late sleeper. Sometimes I think God made her that way to
protect her.
I peek through
the square of glass at the top of the plain wood door and find Jordan smiling
up at me. She looks surprisingly
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, considering how she most likely
spent her night.
I snap open the
dead bolt and unlock the knob. “Hi,
Jordan.”
“Hiya, sweetie,”
she says, pushing past me and carrying a brown cardboard box into the living
room. From that first morning when I met
her, she’s taken to me like her long lost best friend.
She’s never
come to my house before, but evidently she’s been inside it at some point prior
to my arrival. She plops the box down on
the coffee table and then perches on the end of the sofa like we do this every
day.
“I always loved
this material,” she says, rubbing her hand over the velvety cinnamon-colored upholstery.
“You’ve been here
before?”
“A time or
two. I dated the guy who lived here
before you.”
“Dated?” Jason
says from behind me as he walks in carrying another box. “You don’t date.”
“Why the hell
don’t I date?”
“You’re like
the town bicycle. You give rides. You don’t date.”
“Uh!” Jordan squeaks,
insulted. “Are you hearing this?” She seems incensed, but then, just as quickly
as she got riled, she waves him off and her smile returns, feathers no longer
ruffled. I can’t decide if their mean
banter is all teasing or if they have a love/hate relationship. “So, your
landlord had some things ordered. Wanted
us to bring them over when they arrived.”
“Landlord?” I
ask in confusion. “I thought Jason was
the landlord.”
“Nah, he’s just
a lackey.”
“I’m a property
manager, not a lackey,” Jason replies sharply.
Then he turns to me. “The owner was
going to replace a few things before you moved in, but there was no time. Better late than never, though, right?”
I nod, a little
uncomfortable with my space being so abruptly and unexpectedly invaded. “What kinds of things are we talking about?”
“New
microwave,” he says, indicating the heavier box he was carrying, “new blinds
for the kitchen and a new coffee maker.”
I perk up at
the mention of the coffee maker. “That’s
nice. I’ve been boiling water every morning.”
“Well, not
anymore,” Jason says with a smile.
Jordan gets up
and wanders to the kitchen, stopping to stare out the window as I so often do.
I wonder if she sees the sandcastle guy. Then I wonder if she knows him.
“Damn,” she
says on a sigh. “It’s a shame to cover that view with new blinds,” she
says. That’s how I know she sees
him. There’s nothing spectacular about
the view except him. She turns her big
smile back toward me. “Unless that’s why
he sent the new blinds.”
“Why who sent
the new blinds?”
“The owner,” she answers emphatically. “Cole Danzer.
He must’ve noticed they were missing.”
I join her in
the kitchen, glancing out to where the gorgeous handyman is measuring a piece
of wood.
“How would he
know?”
“Well, I guess
Cole’s not blind and can see from a hundred feet away,” she declares with a
laugh, tipping her head toward the window.
“Wait, so he is the owner?” I ask, admiring the
way the muscles in his shoulders shift as he works.
“Yep. Cole
Danzer.” There’s a dreamy sigh in her
voice that matches her expression.
“Crazy Cole is
what we call him,” Jason says as he reaches between us to lay the blinds across
the sink.
Jordan
gasps. “We?”
“Yes we,” Jason confirms with a frown. “You’re the one who started it.”
“No, I call him Crazy Hot Cole. But you’ve never called
him crazy at all.”
“That’s because
I work for him.”
“So what, you
don’t work for him today?” To this, Jason
says nothing, but I can see his nostrils flare.
“Ohhh, or is it because you like our lovely little miss Eden? And you don’t want her getting any ideas
about the beautiful hunk o’ man across the street?”
“Jordan, just
shut up. You don’t even make any sense,” her brother replies petulantly.
When Jason bends
slightly to apply himself to removing the blinds from their box, Jordan points
down at him and mouths behind his back “He likes you!”
“Jordan, go
open the store. Come back for me in an hour,” Jason snaps.
“Fine,” she
huffs. “Walk me out, Edie.”
Edie?
That’s a new one, I think.
Jordan reaches
for my arm and loops hers through it, practically dragging me to the front
door. She pulls me out onto the small
wraparound porch, but doesn’t stop there.
When she keeps walking, I start to resist.
“This is far
enough, Jordan. I’m a mess!”
I think about
my straight black hair in a ponytail, my oval face and hazel-gray eyes devoid
of makeup, my coffee-stained T-shirt and pink shorts that say “Juicy” on the
butt. I feel my face heat with embarrassment.
She stops and
stares at me. “You’re gorgeous. Now come with me.”
Before I can
argue, she tugs me into the yard.
Automatically, my eyes find their way to Cole the instant he comes into
view. He’s still in the yard, but now he’s moving his ladder.
“Hi, Cole,”
Jordan bellows, causing my stomach to drop to my bare toes. The grass is covered in a chilly, early fall
dew that coats my feet. I catch my
breath when Cole glances up at us, his brow drawing immediately into a
frown. He doesn’t respond. He just holds
perfectly still, his long fingers curled around the ladder, forearms straining
and biceps bulging. “Have you met Eden
yet?”
As Jordan drags
me across the pseudo-cul-de-sac, I can feel his eyes on me, the startling blue
penetrating all the way through my clothes to my skin underneath. Goosebumps break out on my legs and arms and,
to my utter humiliation, my nipples pucker.
The heat of his gaze and the cool of the morning is too stark a contrast
for my body not to notice.
When we stop
within a foot of him, I see his hooded eyes rake me from head to toe. My nipples strain against my T-shirt,
catching his attention on the way back up. I cross my arms over my chest,
praying for this moment to just be over.
He’s silent for
a long time. Long enough to be rude, but
I don’t get the impression that he is. I
get the impression that he’s just thinking.
His frown deepens and for a second it appears he’s going to just turn
away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he props the ladder against one shoulder and
sticks out his hand.
“Cole
Danzer.”
His voice. God! It
makes me want to groan. It’s like a silk
sheet draped over jagged gravel. It
belongs in a bedroom. A dark, warm
bedroom. Where pleasure and pain
peacefully coexist, heightening the senses and curling the toes. It would be sexy in any circumstance, even if
he were reading the encyclopedia aloud or explaining an insurance plan.
Reluctantly, I
straighten my right arm and slip my hand into his. His palm is calloused, his
fingers rough, just like I knew they would be. From the moment I saw them
expertly crafting a sandcastle almost two weeks ago, I suspected they’d feel
this way. They rasp against my sensitive
skin, setting the walls of my stomach into a flurry of rippling activity.
“Eden Taylor,”
I reply.
Despite his
cool exterior and his less-than-friendly expression, his touch is warm and
somehow reassuring, like he could fix or heal or bring back to life whatever he
set these hands to.
Which is
ridiculous and the first indication that I’m probably losing my mind.
I’m not this
girl. I’m not the kind of woman who melts over a man. Any man. But this one does something to me. I get the feeling that, if the circumstances
were right, I’d melt for him. Or with him.
He nods once
and quickly releases me. I wonder if he
felt something, too.
“Jordan,” he
says abruptly, nodding once before adjusting his grip on the ladder and
resuming his work as if we weren’t standing in the yard.
Jordan, still
smiling, takes my arm again and leads me back the way we came, as if that was a
perfectly normal greeting from this mysterious man. When we pass ear-shot distance, Jordan saves
me the trouble of having to bring up Cole.
“Why do all the
hot ones have to be so damn crazy?” she asks, sounding exasperated.
“Why do you say
that? I mean that he’s crazy?”
Without looking
at me, she answers. “Because he definitely is. He’s, like, talks-to-dead-people crazy. One-flew-over-the-cuckoo’s-nest crazy. Twelve-monkeys crazy.” She stops in the middle of the road and looks
me in the eye. “Not that it makes him
any less attractive. I mean, God, what I
wouldn’t give to get that man naked. I’d do him six ways from Sunday.”
She smiles
wistfully and continues walking, half-dragging me along behind her. My mind is spinning with a million questions.
“Does he really
talk to dead people?”
“Yep,” she
replies. “Well, supposedly. I’ve never
heard him, but it’s pretty common knowledge.”
Holy shit!
That’s pretty crazy!
“Who does he
talk to?”
She doesn’t
answer me until we are back in my yard, and even then she lowers her
voice. “His daughter. At least that’s the only one I know of.”
His daughter is dead?
I close my
eyes, resisting the urge to bend over and put my head between my knees. Oh
sweet God! I feel like someone
punched me in the chest, all the air whizzing out of my lungs in a harsh
hiss.
“Hi-his daughter?”
Jordan
nods. “Yep. I think she might’ve died in
a car accident. Nobody seems to know
much about it, though. That or they just
don’t talk about it. You know, out of respect.”
I want to ask
more questions, but I can’t. The words
won’t come past my lips. All I can think
about is my Emmy and what I would do…how I would feel if she…
No. I can’t
think that way. I couldn’t live without
her. I just couldn’t.
“I guess in a lot of ways, his life ended that
day. Had the world in the palm of his hand.
Rich, hot, successful football player, beautiful wife, adorable daughter
and then bam! Gone. Everything.”
“How did it–”
My question is
interrupted by Jason. “Jordan, I told
you to go open the store. Strom Tuggle
just called. He’s been waiting in the
parking lot for fifteen minutes.”
“Oh screw
Strom! He’s just there for his daily
glance at my ass. He can wait.” Jordan
gives me an apologetic look and twirls her keys on her finger. “Stop by the grill sometime. I’ll buy you a
drink and a chicken sandwich.”
“I can’t
really…not with Emmy…” I hike my thumb back toward the cottage, my heart aching
as I think of my little girl, my whole world, sleeping peacefully inside. Alive
and well.
“Oh, right
right. Well, I’ll come to you then. I need a new girlfriend. This town’s in dire need of some not bitches,” she declares with a grin.
“Jordaaan,”
Jason prompts warningly.
“I’m going, I’m
going.”
As Jordan
saunters to the truck, I stand staring after her, wishing she’d come back and
answer my million questions.
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New York Times and USA Today bestselling author M. Leighton is a native of Ohio. She relocated to the warmer climates of the South, where she can be near the water all summer and miss the snow all winter. Possessed of an overactive imagination from early in her childhood, Michelle finally found an acceptable outlet for her fantastical visions: literary fiction. Having written over a dozen novels, these days Michelle enjoys letting her mind wander to more romantic settings with sexy Southern guys, much like the one she married and the ones you'll find in her latest books. When her thoughts aren't roaming in that direction, she'll be riding horses, swimming in ponds and experiencing life on a ranch, all without leaving the cozy comfort of her office.