Steady (15 page)

“Female friends, huh?” he said, looking down at her as if she was a small mouse underneath his paw. “Careful, your green color is showing. As I recall, you wanted to be one of those female friends. But I won’t bring that up again.” He pausing, looking at her, speculation in his eyes. “So, getting back to your dare, say when and I’ll be there,” he said, standing close to her.

“Next Saturday, 6 a.m. Meet me at the entrance to the gardens.”

“What do I get if I satisfy . . . if I meet with your approval?” he asked.

“You get me as your assistant. No back talk, no extra lip, no questioning,” she promised.

“Could be worth it,” he said, backing away as the door to the kitchen swung open.

Lola and Oscar entered the kitchen before she could say anything further. Oscar, beer in hand, walked over to the table.

“You okay, Will, do you need another beer?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine,” Will answered, walking back to his chair.

“So, what were you and Katrina talking about?” Lola asked, looking over at Katrina, her eyebrows lifted, a question in her eyes.

“Nothing,” Katrina said, looking away.

Oscar sat next to Will and Lola took the seat opposite Oscar. Katrina remained standing, leaning with her back to the sink.

“Before you arrived, Katrina, Will was describing one of his favorite cycling trips. Where did you go again?” Lola asked.

“I’m sure Katrina doesn’t want to hear about me,” he said.

“Sure I do,” Katrina said quickly and stopped as his eyes swung over to hers, laughter in them again.

“Okay then, just remember you asked once boredom sets in,” he said, looking at her, his eyes then gliding away. “Anyway, I was telling Lola about my first cycling experience in Japan. I figured I needed a guide; I was new to the country, didn’t want to break any laws that I wasn’t aware existed. So after I finished work in Tokyo, I took some vacation time, two weeks, and signed up with a tour that started in Tokyo, first riding through bike paths and some of the back streets of the city.”

“Exploring and discovering,” Katrina said, remembering his explanation of his travels from her first conversation with him that night at the party. He smiled.

“Exactly,” he said, his smile growing. “Exploring and discovering. So from there, we cycled around the countryside, circumventing Mt. Fuji, and over into the northern Japanese Alps. I totally loved it. I’ve gone back several times since that initial trip.”

Katrina watched him as he talked. She didn’t think she could ever get enough of watching him. What she wouldn’t give for him to have finished what started at New Year’s, a desire that grew stronger the more time she’d spent with him.

“Have you ever cycled, Katrina?” he asked, pulling her thoughts away from her study of him. She was starting to do that a lot more lately, watching him, he thought, like he’d make a nice-sized meal. Maybe she had always watched him and he’d really been oblivious. He hadn’t begun to notice until he’d left her stretched out on her bed.

“Me? Nope. I’m a feet-planted-on-the-earth kind of girl.”

“You should try it, it’s both relaxing and challenging.”

“I want my relaxing to be strictly relaxing. I read somewhere that it was harmful to your health to mix the two,” she said.

“Is that so?” he said, laughing.

“Yes, sir. I wouldn’t lie about something that serious.”

“There are some beautiful places on this Earth, Katrina. You’ve never wanted to see, know what’s outside of here?”

“Nope, here works fine for me,” she said. Sorry, but she was a homebody. Hell, it had taken her forever to get a home, and with the exception of that one trip overseas, the source of her love for all things English, she stayed close to it.

She listened as Lola and Oscar peppered him with more travel-related questions. She wished otherwise, but knew he wouldn’t be interested in her, not outside of a little bit of interest in sex. She tried not to lie to herself much. His travel was another thing that separated his type from hers. She watched him continue to talk, answering Lola and Oscar’s questions. She could watch him endlessly, but had had enough for tonight; she was sleepy and starting to smell herself, and she still had that pile of dirt waiting for her in the morning.

“I’d better get going,” she said, pushing herself away from the counter, rinsing her beer bottle out, and dropping it in the recycle bin.

Will sat back in his chair, his eyes following her as she left, Lola trailing behind.

“What?” he said into Oscar’s questioning eyes. Oscar just smiled.

She was amusing, he’d give her that, and she
had
been in his backyard. The eyes don’t lie, and hers had said yes; funny, her trying to bluff her way around his questions. He didn’t understand why she dressed the way she did. He’d only known women who accentuated their assets, not hid them.

With the door closed, she was now out of his sight. He continued to ponder her. If she would just lose the nerdy black-rimmed glasses permanently and let her hair down out of that perpetual ponytail . . . he wanted to see more of her skin. He’d fallen in love with her skin, a rich, dark, sinfully creamy chocolate.

On the surface, outside of that one night, Katrina mostly reminded him of his sisters—reliable, consistent, hardworking women, maybe even a little on the lackluster side. Courtesy of the gardening competition, he was beginning to see the side she’d kept hidden. Or, he thought, maybe she hadn’t been hiding at all. She’d just finally gotten his attention.

***

Sunday morning had arrived faster than Katrina would have liked. Her muscles hurt, but as she regarded her pile for the second day, she knew that she was almost done. She pulled on her work gloves. A small pile of dirt remained; she could finish its distribution by lunch and spend the afternoon and evening spreading it over her lawn with her rake.
You can do this, Katrina
, she thought, giving herself another let’s-get-moving pep talk.

She popped her earphones in got to work. She had been working for about an hour when she looked up and saw Will walking down the sidewalk. He turned in at her yard, walked up to her, and stopped, watching her. He wore jeans that hung low on his hips, a T-shirt that was tight across his chest, and flip-flops on his feet. He walked over to stand in front of her and reached down and pulled the earplugs from her ears. She was frozen; she didn’t seem to be able to do much more than stare when she was around him these days.

“Can I help?” he asked, reaching for her shovel.

Not if you want me to finish
, she thought. “Sure, if you want to. It’s boring work, though. You sure you don’t mind?” she asked.

“No, I don’t mind,” he said.

“What, no hills to climb or rivers to cross?” she asked.

“Nope, not today. What else do you have to do here?” he asked, looking around at the small piles on her grass. “Do you have to spread those piles you’ve made?” he asked before she could answer his first question.

“Yes.”

“Do you want the rest of this dirt there?” he asked, pointing to the other part of the yard, which was devoid of small piles.

“Yes,” she said.

“Why don’t you start distributing the piles while I finish up here?” he said, reaching for the shovel and kicking off his flip-flops, leaving his feet bare. Nice feet, she thought, staring at them. Now that he’d started to be around her more, up close even, she found that she liked looking at him more and more.

“Katrina,” he said, watching her face until her eyes returned to his. “You have to stop doing that, you’re giving me a complex.”

“Stop doing what?”

“Staring at me,” he said, with a smile that professed his confidence in his looks and charm. What does one say to that? She hadn’t realized that she had been that obvious.

“I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all.”

“Whatever,” he said, brushing aside her reply. “Give me the shovel,” he said, reaching to take it from her. He effortlessly pushed it into the pile. She picked up the rake she’d pulled from the garage yesterday and headed toward one of her small piles. She began spreading it, but her eyes returned to him. She watched his arms lift the shovel, muscles playing beneath his skin, and watched his chest move as he scooped dirt and deposited it into the wheelbarrow. She watched his ass as he turned and pushed the loaded wheelbarrow away from her, giving her his back. He emptied the contents and started back over to the pile.

“You’re watching again.”

“Am not,” she said, feeling like a five-year-old, making him laugh.

“Are too.” And they both laughed.

They worked through the morning, skipping lunch, not wanting to stop when only a small amount remained. Will had spread most of the dirt over her yard, then took her rake from her hands to finish her area. She went inside to get him a bottle of water, surprised to see him putting the tools onto her front porch when she returned.

“You’re done,” he said matter-of-factly, placing the last of her tools at her feet.

“Thank you,” she said, handing him a cold bottle of water.

“Thank you,” he said, removing the top from the bottle and taking a huge drink. Almost half of his water was gone when he stopped. “I’d better get home; work comes early in the morning and I have my own chores to do. See you next Saturday, bright and early,” he said, taking another swallow of water, handing the now-empty bottle back to her. “Don’t be late,” he added, tugging at the brim of her cap, his knuckle moving down to rap on one of the lenses of her glasses.

“I’ll be there; you just take care of yourself,” she said as he turned and left, giving her a final wave as he walked past her home. Of course, her eyes tracked him to his door. She couldn’t touch, but last time she’d checked, looking was still free.

***

Later that evening, after a much-needed shower, Katrina was preparing for the much-dreaded evening she’d agreed to spend at Amber and Claudia’s entrepreneurship meeting. Nope, no way she could get out of attending, but she had given a lot of thought to calling and cancelling. She would have, could have, told them she was too tired from all that yard work, but she decided against that as that was her normal operating procedure. She also didn’t want any grief from Amber at work.

She put the finishing touches to her hair. She hadn’t done much to it really, just twisted it into a bun instead of her usual ponytail. She fished around in a drawer for a pair of her old glasses. Yes, the red ones would do; they were way outdated, the prescription a little off, but just the right touch to give her the stumbling, bumbling look. They would work nicely when added to tonight’s outfit, a dress-to-not-impress look always necessary to waylay any plans made by Amber and Claudia to play matchmaker. It was her ace in the hole should the get-together be more of a fix-her-up than an entrepreneurship meeting.

She found her plainest black slacks and a plain black blouse tied at the neck in a bow, something that could be found in one’s granny’s closet. Black flats and stud earrings completed the look. She was ready. Nothing she wore would show off her assets, and that was the way she wanted it. The best defense was always a good offense.

Amber and Claudia didn’t live that far away, so she pulled up to their home in less than fifteen minutes. Medium-sized and quaint, the house was in one of the older neighborhoods in the city. The gardens here were small, reflecting the neighborhood’s aging population. She volunteered here once last year; others did, too, filling in, helping out with gardens in places where the population was in flux. She got out of her car and walked to the door, looking around. Their home was nicely kept, with maintenance-free evergreen shrubs the plant of choice. Amber and Claudia were not yard people.

Claudia opened the door, well dressed and beautifully coiffed as always. Claudia was also African-American, shorter than Amber, but not as short as Katrina. Long curly hair framed a heart-shaped face. Claudia gave Katrina’s outfit the once-over and smiled.

“Katrina, Katrina, you are something else,” she said, shaking her head from side to side; she knew Katrina’s game. “Come on in.”

There looked to be about fifteen to twenty people present, standing around and talking in small groups. Amber walked over to her, a cup of what looked like punch in her hand.

“Katrina, you’ve surprised me; I didn’t think you would show. I expected you to call me sometime today with some reason or other for not attending tonight,” she said, trying not to show her disapproval of Katrina’s clothing choices.

“Nope, here I am, just as I said I would be.”

“Well, then, let me introduce you around. There are a few people here I’d like you to meet,” she said, grabbing Katrina’s hand and pulling her toward a tall, handsome African-American man holding a cup and standing next to a table lined with finger foods and red punch in a bowl. A shorter Hispanic man standing next to him was filling his glass with a drink.

“Darius Williams,” Amber said to her, looking her in the eye, and then turning to face the two men. “This is the person I was telling you about, the one who can do wonders with plants. Katrina, meet Darius and Javier.” Darius put down his cup to shake Katrina’s hand.