Chapter 3

Weather!

So far that was Lindsey’s favorite thing about Kentucky, after the really nice people, the total lack of traffic, and the biscuits. Yesterday had been overcast and rainy, and she was stiff from falling asleep on the floor (which she blamed on the nap-inducing gloomy weather). Today was hot and sunny, like she was used to, but it was also humid, which she was not. Like, inside someone’s mouth humid. Her hair was a frizzy mess that no ponytail could contain, and she was afraid to get up from the plastic chair on her front porch, lest she leave half of the back of her thigh on it.

Even as she sweated—just from sitting! And it wasn’t even really that hot out!—she appreciated the variety. Arizona was hot and dry all the time. And even though her parents’ friends told her she would hate the humidity, Lindsey wasn’t there yet. Probably by the end of the summer, but for now, she was still loving it.

It was just the right amount of change, just what she’d been looking for. She didn’t want to climb mountains or shave her head. She just wanted something . . . different. Different from the life she’d always had: nice weather, great parents, lovely friends she’d known forever. It was all nice. Nothing to complain about.

But it wasn’t enough. And Lindsey thought that if she just shook things up a little, she’d get out of the rut she was feeling.

If that didn’t work, she’d shave her head.

That would solve the frizz problem, at least.

For now, she had to be satisfied with sitting on her porch, sticking to her chair and thinking about how, in a few months, she’d be shoveling snow. She’d never shoveled snow before. She propped her flip-flopped feet on the porch rail and sipped her iced tea.

She felt like a real Southerner, sipping tea on the porch. Not sweet tea, though—that had been a real surprise yesterday when she went to the diner for lunch. When they called it sweet tea, they really meant it. She’d had to chase it with about a gallon of water, it was so sugary. Now she was rocking her favorite decaf blend, brewed in the sun. Her fancy artisanal iced tea, at least, was one holdover from her old life she wasn’t going to get rid of any time soon. She was about to call her mom to tell her that, but then she remembered it was two hours earlier in Arizona and Mom never got up before nine on the weekend unless it was an emergency.

So Lindsey took a non-emergency selfie and sent it to her. Not murdered. Awaiting couch. Drinking tea. Much love.

“Tea that good?”

She dropped her phone, embarrassed, to see Josh McGuire from the junk store pull into the driveway with his van windows down. He slowed, and the van backfired, sending Lindsey’s tea all over the porch.

“Yup.” She smiled, wiping her hand on her shorts. “Want some?”

“Sure.” She ran inside to get him a glass, and when she came out, he’d taken up residence on the other plastic chair. “Nothing like tea on a hot day, huh?” he asked, taking the glass from her.

He took a sip. Then sputtered all over the porch.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I was expecting sweet tea.”

“I’m working up to it. This is just regular old perfect sun tea.”

He gamely took another sip. “Mmm.” He raised his glass to her, then set it on the porch. “Dad and I loaded the van last night. I’m just waiting for him so we can unload it. I don’t suppose you’ve seen his truck, have you?” Dad was Sam McGuire, who allegedly ran the junk store. From what Lindsey had seen, Josh did most of the running.

“No, although to be fair, I’m not sure I would recognize it.”

“It’s red with green flames on the side.”

“Ah. No, I haven’t seen that one.”

She saw, rather than heard, Josh curse under his breath. “Sorry. The couch will have to wait until I can track him down.” He pulled out his phone and started down the porch steps.

“Oh.” Lindsey pretended not to be disappointed. But tomorrow she started her first full week of work, and she was really looking forward to having some furniture before she did. She was really looking forward to the couch. “I can help you move it.”

Josh took in her flip-flops and shorts. He looked skeptical.

“I’m stronger than I look,” she said, which wasn’t saying much since she knew she didn’t look strong at all. But how bad could it be? There were about three steps from the van to the porch, then three steps up, then two steps to the living room. Nothing was so heavy that she couldn’t carry it for eight steps.

He shrugged and opened the back of the van.

And there it was, in all of its tacky, plush glory.

Lindsey had never considered herself the kind of gal to go for bold furniture choices. It was kind of a commitment, no matter how appealing the red floral armchair or bright yellow coffee table looked in the catalog.

Then she moved to Kentucky, where she was Doing Things Differently. She had a neutral-walled apartment, and lived across from a store that sold blue velvet couches in excellent condition for fifty bucks because no one else wanted them.

Sure, she’d have to give it a cleaning, and she was pretty committed to removing the gold tassel border—she was going for funky chic, not brothel chic. But as she admired it, even in the poor lighting of the delivery van, she knew she’d made the right choice.

Fifteen minutes later, after she and Josh finally got all four legs out of the truck, she started reconsidering.

 

Walker woke up to the sky falling.

He jumped off the couch, tripping over his discarded jeans and work boots, and cursed as he landed hard on his knee. Dammit, the sky had better be falling, he said to himself as he limped to the window, or I just broke my damn knee for nothing.

He cursed under his breath when he saw it was just Sam’s junk store pickup. Josh was climbing out, looking embarrassed as Lindsey approached him. They talked a while, Josh blushed, and they waved their hands and scratched their heads at whatever was in the back of the van.

Walker didn’t care. He stumbled back to the couch and closed his eyes.

God, he was tired.

That was because of yesterday. After he and Myron figured out the wooden racecar—and communicated the problems to Myron’s daughter—they’d gone out to lunch. Afterward, the rain had finally stopped and it was warmer than it had been when they had left. Myron was tired, so Walker took him home. “Put him down for a nap,” as Myron said. But Walker hadn’t been tired, and the warmth was creating a fog in the valley, so he drove up to the state forest and hiked. It was slow going because of the mud, but once he got to the top of his favorite trail, he knew it was worth it. Standing on the rocky outcrop, overlooking the green valley dotted with spots of fog, he let go of all the tension he’d been holding onto since Pollyanna had moved in next door.

The more he looked out over the valley, the more the vision for his next project solidified. He had the scrap metal, and he’d been trying to work it into a landscape, the way he’d been doing for the past year or so with other views. But standing there, free from the petty anxieties of his real life, he breathed in the humid Kentucky air and closed his eyes. When he opened them, his gaze automatically zeroed in on one tree growing out of a rocky outcrop several yards below. Well, the tree had been growing—it looked like it was dead now, with no leaves, unlike any of its neighbors.

He spent a good half hour on top of the rocks, studying the tree. Finally, he snapped a few pictures with his phone so he’d remember the shape and placement. Then he knew he needed a closer look at what bark was left, and what he could use to recreate it.

Instead of taking the safe approach, like a smart person would have done even though it involved hiking back down the trail for about half a mile, Walker decided to off-road it. Which meant he spent ninety percent of the journey down the hill on his ass. He ended up having to stop himself with his boots on the trunk of the tree—good thing it was not so dead that it was ready to fall out of the rock.

Elevation could play tricks with perspective, and up close, it was even better than he imagined. It looked like the tree had survived a fire, and died of barren old age. Its roots had split the rock, and snaked out over the edge like a claw. The branches ended in sharp fingers reaching to pinch the clouds. There were more textures on the trunk—half-dead moss, sharp bits of bark, and bare patches where an animal had taken a bite. An animal or Mother Nature. Either way, he leaned in to get a picture . . . only to find that he had cracked the screen on his phone and it wouldn’t work.

He had to fight really hard to keep all of the outside crap from rushing back in then.

Instead, he took a deep breath and spent some time in front of the tree, running his hands over its shape, pocketing a piece of bark. Before he knew it, the sun was going down, and Walker knew he had to head back home. He was more careful on the way back to the trail. He didn’t have a working phone—not that he got any reception in the woods. He jogged most of the way back to the truck and scrambled for the sketchpad he kept under the seat. With a few frantic swipes of his pencil, he had the rough shape of the tree down, then made some quick close-up sketches of the trunk. Satisfied that he wouldn’t totally forget everything when he got home, he tossed a towel on the driver’s seat to keep the mud off and headed home.

The problem with being struck by inspiration was that it totally interfered with Walker’s sleep, which was not a great thing when working with welding tools and industrial epoxy. Still, it was the wee hours of the morning before Walker stumbled inside and kicked off his muddy clothes and collapsed in a heap on the couch. His eyes were bleary from experimenting with detailed texturing, but his brain was still wired.

So Walker turned to the only thing that consistently worked to cure his insomnia, a trick he’d picked up in fourth grade, his first time in foster care. He was staying with the Garcias, a big, raucous Cuban family in North Carolina. He would come home after school and sit with Abuelo Hector while he watched his stories. There was something about the rhythm of the fight music and the love music and the happy music and the sad music that never failed to lull him to sleep. So that night—that morning—he turned on the one Spanish channel in Willow Springs, and before he could say buenas noches, he was asleep.

Until, a sad few hours later, Josh’s damn truck backfired and woke him up.

This neighbor was trouble.

And it sounded like she and Josh were trying to knock down the damn house. Walker was just drifting off to sleep again when he heard Josh curse and Pollyanna scream, and a loud thump and more cursing, and dammit, Walker was awake now.

 

First, some of the gold fringe ripped off when they were maneuvering the couch out of the truck. That was no big deal, since Lindsey had planned to remove the fringe anyway. The couch was from the sixties or seventies, and, as Sam had pointed out to her, they didn’t make furniture like that anymore. With proper care, it would last another thirty or forty years. It was made of sturdy stuff.

Also: heavy stuff.

Lindsey started behind the dolly, standing on the metal bridge thing that Josh had pulled out and run across to the porch. When it became clear that this would mean Lindsey would be, essentially, catching the couch, they switched places. Lindsey leaned into it, it hit the dolly, and Josh muscled it over the bridge to the porch. He maneuvered like a pro, and Lindsey was duly impressed. When she told him so, he blushed, which she thought was sweet. Of course, it was possible the blush was just heatstroke.

From here on out it was smooth sailing, Josh panted. Just over the lip in the doorway, then just put ’er inside, then set on the porch and have some more of Lindsey’s weird tea.

Unfortunately, in addition to being sturdy, the couch was also huge. When she’d discovered it, Lindsey felt its size was only secondary in wonderfulness to its style. She could just picture it: come home after a long shift, stretch out on the couch, and slowly get back to life. Or, more likely, fall asleep watching a reality TV marathon. Either way, there would be wine involved, and the amazing comfort of an oversized blue velvet couch.

She had not really considered getting the couch through the front door.

Josh gamely checked to see if maybe, somehow, they had overlooked that this couch came in pieces, or if the back door was wider than the front. But Lindsey’s dad had measured. Both doors were the same size, which was just about the width of the couch. They were going to have to muscle it in. Hopefully the plushness would give enough so they could push it inside, Josh suggested. He looked worried, then he looked for detachable pieces. The feet came off, which gave them a few inches.

Unfortunately, this was just enough space to trick them into thinking they would make it.

“Maybe the arms come off?” Josh started fiddling with the upholstery.

Lindsey was seriously regretting her impulsive purchase—maybe inflatable furniture would come back in style. Was it ever in style? It was hard to think about those things when she was busting a vein trying to maneuver her dream couch inside the front door. Stupid dreams.

Josh was out on the porch, wiping his sweat on his T-shirt, while Lindsey grabbed an arm and leaned her entire body weight back.

The couch remained unmoved.

Rather than risk a hernia, she thought if she and Josh switched places, that might work. He helped her climb over and between, then hoisted himself over and assumed the position. He gave the word, and she threw her weight against the couch . . . which still didn’t move.

“Hold on, we need to come in at an angle.”

“How is there an angle that can make this work?” Lindsey didn’t mean to sound petulant, but with every gut-busting shove, she felt her dream couch slip away.

Which at this point would have been a nice change from the way it was now stuck in the doorway.

“Okay, I got it. You go this way and I’ll go that way. Go!”

Lindsey pulled, getting down low into a squat to get her legs more involved. She grunted and squealed and it moved, just a little, but she didn’t hear Josh stop pushing and her squat went all wonky and before she knew it, she was going down in one of those slow motion disasters that you experience with enough clarity to realize what is going on, even though it’s happening too fast to stop it. So she landed, butt on the porch, then gravity tipped her back and then her legs were over her head and she tumbled down the steps, landing on her back with a stunned huff.

“Holy crap! Lindsey!” Then Josh was in her face, looking ready to do CPR.

She waved him away. “I’m fine.” She coughed, and started to stand. He grabbed her under the elbow and started to help her up while she righted her clothes, causing even more of a tangle, and taking Josh down with her. She laughed, then looked sadly at her new front door/dream couch.

Before she could despair completely, though, there was a bang. And then: whoa.

Walker—she assumed it was Walker, since the man emerged from the apartment next door—looked pissed. Also, ripped. Two sides of her brain fought for attention. The first was wondering what kind of man sat around in just his boxer shorts in the middle of the day. The second, and the one that was frankly winning the fight, was admiring those boxer-clad thighs, and was just starting to move on to the perfect ratio of chest hair to muscle definition. But as quickly as the Angry Adonis had appeared, he was gone, leaving just the echo of a door slam in his wake.

Lindsey finished her scramble, realizing that gawping with her legs askew was probably not the most favorable first impression to make on a guy. By the time she was upright, Angry Adonis was back. This time he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt (boo, said her brain) (and other parts of her body), and she was just about to introduce herself and apologize for disturbing him when he glared at Josh, who apparently understood angry-man looks because he scrambled up and over the couch. Walker proceeded to lift the end of the couch that had so recently bested her, and with a series of grunts that apparently only men could understand, he and Josh had turned the couch sideways, then up, then down, then at more complicated angles that Lindsey could not keep up with (he was wearing a shirt, but she could still admire the muscles in his back—distracting!), and the couch was inside.

There was a “thank you” on the tip of her tongue, and an offer of coffee or tea or me, but Walker just looked at her, shook his head, and slammed back into his house.

This was going to be interesting, she thought as she climbed up the steps and into her living room. So much for a pleasant landlord /tenant relationship. First she woke him from apparent hibernation, then she ogled him, then she pressed him into manual labor.

Then she looked at the couch, which was the perfect touch of decadence and whimsy in her otherwise sensible living room, and she thought, forget it. She could deal with a hostile neighbor. She wasn’t moving.

Too much work.

 

The noise woke him up from his nap, but that was okay. He shouldn’t have been sleeping anyway. He thought about coming out from under the porch, barking and announcing his intentions, which were to receive love and snacks. But then there was another noise, and it reminded him of the place he’d left, where doors slammed and, if he wasn’t fast, his tail got caught. But he was still curious, so he snuck out to the front where he watched the people fight with something big and soft that he wanted to sleep on. They looked like they were having fun, and he wanted to join in, especially when the lady tumbled on the ground. She was so close to him! He wanted to run over and lick her face!

But then the door slammed again and he didn’t stick around to hear what it was.