Screwdrivered (Cocktail #3) (16 page)

“Yeah. Ride,” he echoed, nodding toward the barn. “When you come back in town? I’ll take you out for a ride. Think you can handle it bareback?”

Sweet merciful God.

I never really understood what it meant when I read the term “my knees buckled.” I now know. Luckily there was a cowboy to catch me. His skin burned when he wrapped his fingers around my biceps, literally holding me up in midair as I struggled to find my footing. I breathed in, his scent filling my nostrils. Sweat. Sweet hay. Heat. Could a man smell like heat? He did.

I took another hit—and sneezed. But this time at least I managed to do it a little more daintily.

He chuckled as he set me back on my feet, turned me clockwise, and with a tiny push sent me back toward the house. “Hey, Clark,” I heard Hank say with a self-satisfied voice behind me. I floated on a puffy white cloud of dazed hormones to the back door, where Clark was now waiting for me with a frown.

“Hey, Clark,” I echoed, as he held the door open for me and I hovered inside, still a few feet off the ground.

Still in a trance, I drifted over to the kitchen table, where I finally came to rest in a chair. My brain was scrambled, everything south of my navel was clenching a phantom dick, and my ears kept repeating a word that I never knew could be so sensual, so sexual, so full of promise. I repeated it in my head, over and over again, trying it out in different ways.

Bareback.

Bare
back
.

Bare
back.

“Horseshit.”

“What?” I asked, ripped from my fluffy sex cloud.

“Horseshit,” Clark said again, pointing toward my shoe. In my trance, I’d stepped right in it.

“Dammit.” I sighed, lifting it immediately and seeing the tracks I’d made on the clean floor. I started to hop toward the door, but on my second hop I stumbled and pitched forward. I would have gone through the screen door but for Clark, who caught me tight around the waist.

Crushed against his chest, my nose was filled with the scent of Irish Spring soap and paperback books. Immediately I was brought back to the scent of the library back home, that homey scent of sun-touched book spines and thick yellowed paper, a quiet afternoon in the stacks.

He set me down before I could think on it too long, however, and helped me back outside. Hank’s truck was thundering away in the distance, and I set to wiping my shoe off in the gravel. After dragging it around a few times I looked up to the porch where Clark was standing, studying me. I got it mostly clean, but still took my shoes off before starting back for the porch.

“Gross, huh?”

“I’ll say,” he muttered, then looked like he was going to say something else. He didn’t though, and when I came back up the stairs he just held the door open for me.

“There’s bleach under the counter,” he said, going to get a roll of paper towels from the pantry. “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

“Oh, God, Clark, you don’t have to clean this up, it’s my mess. I’ll take care of it.” I took the paper towels from his hands and grabbed the bleach. It was right where he said it was. He really had been here a lot in the last few weeks. “I got the bid from the last contractor, you want to get it? It’s on the mantel. Could we look through it together?” I asked, bending down to spray some bleach. “That way instead of sending me texts about things you don’t want done you can just tell me to my face, and then I’ll yell back at you in person. Sound good?” I wiped up the last bit of shoe mess and threw everything into a plastic bag, tying it off to go out to the trash.

When I turned around though, he was still standing there. Looking at me. With an indecipherable expression on his face.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Hmm?”

“You look like you’ve got something to say. What’s up?” I asked, washing my hands, then turning to lean against the sink. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

“You look like a goldfish, Clark, out with it,” I teased, and he turned bright red.

“Just forget it,” he said, walking toward the door.

“Hey, wait, where are you going? Aren’t you going to look at the bid?” I asked, reaching out to stop him. I grabbed his arm, and he glanced down at my hand.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to ride bareback, Vivian?”

“Huh?”

“Bareback. On a horse. Ring any bells?” he asked, frowning now.

“Oh! Bareback! Right. Um, well, I’m sure we won’t actually—”

“Because it’s
very
dangerous. Especially for someone who hasn’t done any riding in a while. Things like that should be taken slow. And steady. And not rushed.”

I could hear the old grandfather clock ticking in the dining room. I could smell the briny ocean air. I could feel the nubby texture of the tweed in Clark’s jacket, rough yet soft under my fingertips. And I could see his eyes behind those eyeglasses, dark chocolate swirled through with gold and green. Patient. Kind. Waiting?

His hand reached up to cover mine, then lifted it from his arm. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

He picked up his briefcase and his scones, and pushed open the door.

“Wait! Clark!” He turned around. “Don’t you want to, you know, um . . . see the bid?”

The right corner of his mouth lifted in a secretive smile. “I trust you’ll pick the right one.” He left.

As I packed, the house felt really big for some reason.

The next morning, I left for Philadelphia.

chapter eleven

The five-hour plane ride gave me a lot of time to think, to read, and then think some more. Excited as I was to see my family, I missed Mendocino within five minutes of putt-putting around that last bend in the road and leaving it behind.

I did not
at
all
miss the tiniest rental car in America, turning it in at SFO. With any luck, when I got back to Mendocino I’d have the Blue Bomber 2.0 to toot about town in.

I read through the proposal my father had sent while I was on the plane, it was a good offer. I’d saved my own money over the last few years, sure, but this would really set me up for a while. I’d called the last contractor before I’d left, accepted his bid, and he’d be able to start working soon after I returned.

I was still puzzling over why Clark didn’t go through the bid with me. I imagined that once the work began he’d start back up with his fussing and mussing, but until then, I was going to focus on what I did have control over. The sale of my company, the packing of my apartment, the selling of my car.

I settled back, reclining my seat as far as it would go.

M
y mom and dad picked me up at the airport, showered me with hugs and kisses, and then immediately took me home to feed me. I wasn’t even allowed to go to my apartment first. It was to my mother’s dining room table, where all my favorite foods were on display. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, and a huge bowl of peas. “Peas for color” my mother always used to say, a phrase she’d appropriated from my grandmother, who always felt there should always be a little green on each place.

I enjoyed it all, and was tucking into my second piece of big, luscious double-chocolate cake with cocoa buttercream frosting when my father poured me a cup of coffee and sat down beside me, sweeping away crumbs with his fingertips. This signaled the serious conversation portion of our dinner.

“So, you read the proposal, I take it?” he asked, and I nodded through a mouthful of chocolate.

“And?”

“And,” I said, pausing to swallow, “everything looks really good. A few things here and there that I’d like to tweak, but essentially? You’ve got yourself a deal.”

My mother burst into tears at her end of the table. “It’s so silly to cry. It’s not like I didn’t know this was going to happen, it just . . . seems so final now. You’re really moving.” She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin.

“Mom, it’s gonna be okay, you’ll see. Give me some time to get the house in order and then you can come out and play, okay?”

“But you’ll be so far away!” she wailed.

“Gee, if only there was a way you could fly out there—like, on a plane? To visit?” I said, making a show of puzzling over this predicament. Was I teasing her? Oh my yes, it was the only way to get her to stop crying. And sure enough . . .

“Don’t sass your mother, Vivvie, I know very well that I can come out for a visit. But it isn’t the same, and you know it.” She was pointing at me now, and when that finger went out, a lecture was sure to follow.

“I know you said that you have a friend who will help you with the decorating, but there’s no reason at all why you should be spending that kind of money when I can come out to help you. You’ll see, I’ll have that place shipshape in no time.”

Right on schedule with the lecture . . .

“And another thing, this Clark character. I don’t like him giving you so much trouble. It’s your home and you should do with it as you please. The idea that he would—”

“Ma.”

“—have the nerve to tell you what you can and can’t—”

“Ma! Clark is under control. You don’t think I can handle a librarian?”

“He’s a librarian?”

“He’s the town librarian, he’s an archivist, and he’s the head of the local historical society. He knows a lot about the town, a lot about the house too. He even helped Aunt Maude get it listed on the historical register. That’s the only reason he’s so involved with this project—he needs to make sure that the changes that we make are within the time period of the home.”

“Hmmm.”

“He’s a total pain in the ass, but kind of—I don’t know, in a good way? I hate to admit it, but he’s had some good ideas.” God, he would just looooove to know I was saying such good things about him. “Oh, and you should see what we came up with for the front porch! Remember how I told you the floor was all rotted, how I went through it the first night? And then again another night?”

“You went through the front porch twice?” my father asked, looking surprised as he shot a glance toward my mother. She shushed him and waved for me to go on.

“Didn’t I tell you about the second time? Yeah—after Clark had to pull me up through the floorboards, he agreed that we needed to start with the porch. And he suggested restoring the old porch swing. Remember that, Mom?” I asked, grabbing for my phone.

“I think so, off to the left?” she asked, watching me carefully.

“Yep. Aunt Maude seemed to have used an entire roll of duct tape to hold it together. I’ve got a picture here somewhere,” I said, scrolling through my camera roll on my phone. “Yes, here we go! Can you believe how wretched this thing looks? But Clark knows a carpenter who does a lot of restoration work. He thinks that—”

“Clark again? Who is this guy?” my father asked, looking between the two of us.

“I have a pretty good idea,” my mom said, looking at the picture I was showing her. “Is that him?” she asked me.

“Huh? Oh yeah, that’s him.” The porch swing was in the center of the picture, but without realizing it I’d included Clark in the shot. Standing next to it, elbow patches large and in charge, hands on his hips as he wore an assured half grin. He’d thought he’d just won an argument about the status of the baluhwhozit. Little did he know that the longer I was in the house, the more inclined I was to keep it as original as I could. But what would be the fun in letting him know that?

I smiled in spite of myself, noticing the way the late-afternoon sun caught the planes of his face, how strong the jaw, how tousled the tie. Clark let loose a bit later in the day, literally loosening his tie as the day crept on.

“He’s a good-looking man,” my mom said, bringing me back from the little town of Mendocino, where the late-afternoon sun could be very illuminating.

“Yeah, I suppose he is. So annoying, but a pretty good guy.”

She nodded and patted my father’s hand. “Let’s let Vivvie worry about what’s happening with the house. Sounds like she’s got a pretty good handle on it.”

“If you need some help, Peanut, just let us know. Or maybe we should just plan on coming out there—don’t you think this is a lot to take on?” my father said, looking to my mother for support.

I braced myself, knowing I was going to have to fend them both off, but she surprised me when she shook her head.

“Vivvie’s got this. We’ll come out when everything is how you want it,” she told me with a wink.

“Wow. Okay, sounds good,” I said, eyes wide and disbelieving.

“Now, let’s talk about helping you pack up and move out of that apartment. If you don’t think you’re going to take much of your furniture, I was thinking that we could donate some of your things to the church. They need a couch for the Sunday school downstairs, and the women’s shelter is always looking for kitchenware. How about we start sorting through those things tomorrow?” My mom had that look on her face whenever she was starting a new project. That look always made me nervous.

“Sure. Let’s start tomorrow.” I nodded, sipping my coffee and looking at my father. He knew that look also, and to not mess with her. So a packing we will go . . .

M
y phone rang at 1:17 in the morning. One guess who was on the other end . . .

“Explain to me why no one in California can tell time. Is it the laid-back attitude? The sun shining too brightly to see your watch?” I growled.

“Vivian?”

“You called me, Clark. You don’t know who you’re talking to?”

“Let’s see . . . aggressive, sarcastic, an all-around pleasure to be with . . . Yeah, I know exactly who I called,” he said with a low chuckle.

“I’m sound asleep and you’re picking apart my delivery?” I yawned, sinking back and scrunching up my pillow under my head.

“Impossible woman,” he said, almost under his breath. “I was calling about the Legless Knight.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

“To be fair, I’ve never heard you kidding. Who knows what you sound like?”

“You’ve never heard me do a number of things, Vivian. You have no idea what I might sound like.”

Ah. Nighttime Clark. I curled onto my side, cuddling the blanket a little tighter. “Okay, I’ll bite. What in the world is so important about the Legless Knight that you had to call me after one in the morning?”

“You’ll bite?” he asked.

I clutched at the pillow a little more. “Clark . . .” I warned.

I got another chuckle. “I was thinking that perhaps we were a little too quick to get rid of him. After all, he’d been the man around the house for quite some time. Perhaps he should stay around a little longer?”

“You were the one that said that not everything was worth keeping. Which was impressive by the way, and correct. There was entirely too much house packed into that house.” But I had to admit I’d been a little sad to see the knight go. “Besides, who knows where he even is now, since John took him to the antiques store?”

“Actually, the knight stayed with him. He thought he might want it for the restaurant. I think his exact words were ‘might add a touch of class to the patio.’ ”

“Not really sure a medieval theme is the right message you want on a restaurant patio.” I laughed.

“Exactly what I told him when I went to bring it back.”

“Wait, so you already went and got him?”

“I did.”

“You were sure I’d say yes to bringing him back to the house?”

“I was.”

“You’re a little full of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“So what the hell did you call me for? Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out already, Clark,” I said, rolling over on my back. “You sure that’s the only reason you called?”

It was silent on the other end of the phone. Except for the almost imperceptible sound of him taking a sip of what I assumed was Scotch. Water. Neat. An image rose in my mind: Clark, sitting low in a leather armchair, one hand on the phone, the other on his glass. Hair, unparted and messy. Eyeglasses, abandoned for the evening next to a book on the side table. Jeans. White button-down, untucked and the top two buttons undone. Blue tie, loosened but not untied. A five o’clock shadow that had progressed to scruffy goodness.

I pulled my pillow from behind my head and covered my face to muffle my giggle. What in the world had gotten into me?

Then I heard him take a breath. Deep, prolonged, and almost . . . shaky? Almost a . . . shudder?

My own breath? Caught. Held hostage by a librarian three thousand miles away who called me in the middle of the night to ask me about a bisected suit of armor.

I held so very tight to my pillow.

“You want to know if that’s the only reason I called, Vivian?” he asked finally, his voice octaves and octaves lower than Daytime Clark. Raspy, gruff, rough-and-tumble.

“Uh-huh?” I squeaked.

“That’s the only reason,” he said. “Have a good night. Sweet dreams.”

He hung up.

I buried my head into the pillow, kicking my legs into the air.

Eventually, I slept.

But sweet dreams? Not in the slightest. Salty? Hell, yes.

O
ver the next week, my activities mirrored what I’d been doing on the West Coast. Except instead of packing up someone else’s things, now they were mine. My things, my clothes, my pictures, my knickknacks and paddywacks and everything I owned. It was easier and harder than I thought it would be. Harder, because I was hanging my hat in a new state, and new state of mind. I was leaving my family and my brothers’ families.

Yet it was also easier, because I was ready to sink my teeth into the renovation and get started on whatever was coming next. Easier because I missed waking up to the sound of the waves crashing, missed the fresh sea air and rocking in my old lady rocking chair on the back porch while the sun set on the ocean, Scotch in hand.

Mendocino was on my mind, but Philadelphia would always have a piece of my heart. And part of that piece of my heart was currently in the kitchen, packing up my collection of refrigerator magnets. My mother insisted on wrapping each one of them in tissue paper, even though there was nothing remotely fragile or breakable about a magnet that said “I got crabs in Key West, Florida.” Stone crabs, to be clear. Good eating. My magnet collection was my one spot of tacky chaos in my chaos-free apartment.

“Ma, you really don’t have to do that, seriously. Just throw them in a box, it’s all good,” I said, walking past her on the way to the living room, where the fort of boxes was getting higher and higher. Clothes, personal items, artwork—both mine and some I’d purchased over the years. My furniture was either going into storage (read: my parents’ basement), being donated, or being appropriated by a brother. My mountain bikes were bound for Cali, same for my kayaks. I couldn’t wait to get out on the trails and into the water out there.

“Since when do you just throw anything into a box?” my mother asked.

“What does that mean?” I asked her, grabbing for the tape roll that she held just out of reach.

“The daughter I know likes everything neat and orderly.”

“I still do. I’m just thinking that they’ll be going back up all messy and random, so it’s not necessary to make it perfect inside the box, right?” I shrugged.

Perhaps a little touch of California had already made its way into my sensibilities. Wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Clark continued to call me while I was back east, not every night and not always at the same time. But late enough and with enough regularity that I went to bed each night wondering whether Nighttime Clark would be making an appearance. And more often than not, he did.

“Wait a minute, just wait a damn minute. Chess team? Please tell me you’re joking,” I said during one phone call. I was lying in my bed, eating Sour Patch Kids and asking Clark about his high school days. A few nights ago we’d started chatting about grade school, progressed on to everyone’s least-favorite and most-awkward junior high years, and had finally made it to high school.