Chapter 10
Wine. That was Lindsey’s first thought when she woke up. The next was that the sun was way too bright. She had gone to bed without closing the blinds, and her gauzy curtains were doing nothing to keep the room dark. She wanted it dark. She was off today, and she wanted to stay in a cocoon until next spring.
But when she sat up, she realized that her headache was really not so bad. And if she just wore her sunglasses around the house for a little bit, she was sure she’d get back to normal.
That was her professional opinion, anyway.
That and aspirin. And a soda.
And probably a greasy egg sandwich from the diner. It was obviously a nice day. She should walk.
Ugh, exercise.
First, aspirin, then coffee. Too early for soda. Then shower. Then, instead of walking, she could drive to the diner and afterward burn the greasy egg sandwich calories in the garden. She had great plans for the tomato vines, and there were still so many weeds that she was pretty sure pulling them would count as squats.
She settled for coffee and a shower, and then, on account of the nice day, some time in the garden. She couldn’t wait for the summer, when she could just step outside and pick herself some dinner. Tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant—the possibilities had her throwing on some shorts and heading out the back door.
But when she got there, she nearly dropped her coffee mug.
Her garden.
Her garden had been completely destroyed.
She had never seen so many roots in her life, probably because she was getting used to them being underground. And her vegetables. They had only just started growing, but they were large enough for her to recognize the remnants of a zucchini plant, a chewed-up squash blossom, her Little Eggplant That Could, torn up into little pieces. And her tomatoes! It was bad enough that the fruit was ripped from the plants, but the plants were torn out of the ground, too.
How had this happened? Who would do such a thing?
Then she thought of the police lights and the loud music and the grumpy guy next door. But he was just grumpy, not mean. Surely he wouldn’t . . .
Maybe he would. He had been pretty upset about last night. But he didn’t seem to need quiet, and hadn’t asked her to keep it down.
Maybe he didn’t want her quiet. Maybe he wanted her gone.
If he wanted to get rid of her, he would have to do a lot more than pull up her garden. The garden that she had pinned so many hopes and dreams on. He probably wouldn’t have to do too much more, she thought with a sigh. She was pretty devastated.
She could cry, or she could get revenge.
As she took a slow turn around the yard, she stopped at the door to the garage, and noticed it was open a crack.
She chose revenge.
She pushed the door open, her anger mixing with guilt and fear and anticipation. She really, really didn’t want to be surprised with a meth lab. But Walker didn’t have that desperate, starving meth look. And he had all of his teeth.
If those were his real teeth.
Shaking her head, she felt along the wall for a light switch. She flicked it up. And her heart stopped.
Because of the windows, she had assumed there was an empty apartment above the garage, but there was no second floor. The high, high ceiling and the concrete floor gave the space the look of a warehouse. There was a small space heater in the corner, and Lindsey thought there was no way that could warm the place in the winter. She imagined Walker in here, blowing on his hands, determined to get back to work.
In the middle of the cold, concrete floor, there was a tree.
It was tall. Lindsey thought it was twice as tall as she was, but that wasn’t saying much. She stepped closer so she was standing near the trunk, under some of the branches. Most of the tree looked like it was just a frame, metal pipes welded together to give them shape. But at the bottom, tiny squares of metal were covering the roots and moving up the trunk. Would the whole tree be covered? She looked up through the branches and squinted into the overhead light. It was amazing. Cold and hard and beautiful.
“What are you doing?”
Lindsey spun around, guilt immediately heating her face. Walker stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, or maybe he was reaching for one of the metal bars leaning against the wall. She must have woken him up. His hair was a disheveled mess and his boots were untied, but he had managed to throw on his uniform of jeans and ratty T-shirt.
“I didn’t touch anything,” she said, throwing up her hands.
He didn’t look mad, exactly. But he didn’t look pleased.
“I’m sorry, I—I wanted to make sure you weren’t cooking meth.”
He cocked his eyebrow at her.
“Meth is very dangerous,” she pointed out.
He shook his head. “I’m not cooking meth.”
“No, I see that,” she said, turning toward the tree. She had so many questions for him. How much of this did he plan before he started welding? How did he capture that look of bark with something so completely un-bark-y? How did he make something so . . . moving?
But her brain jumbled the questions, and she was a little intimidated by his skill, and maybe a little embarrassed that she had underestimated him. The only question she could get out was, “How will you get this out of here?”
“It comes apart,” he said. “And then I’ll solder the pieces back together when I install it.”
“Walker, it’s . . . I had no idea.”
“No idea of what?”
Lindsey jumped and turned to find Walker right behind her, crowding her into the tree. “No idea what you were doing in here. That you were so talented. Walker, this is . . . incredible.” The last word came out on a whisper as his eyes darkened and his head tipped closer to hers. She didn’t think about the potential weirdness, she just thought about how much she wanted it. She stood up on her toes and leaned a hand against his chest and he leaned down to close the gap between their mouths and he was kissing her.
Nobody came into his garage when he was working. That was a hard and fast rule. Even Myron stayed out until he was invited.
But it was hard for Walker to think about Myron when he was holding onto Lindsey like he was a drowning man looking for a metaphor. He didn’t want to take her to bed. He just wanted to throttle her, then change the locks on the garage.
But then she pressed up closer and opened her mouth, and his tongue seized the opportunity.
God, she felt good. It was like her wholesomeness was rubbing off on him, or maybe it was just her leg. Either way, he was so glad that he had decided to stop blaming her for his problems and to try to be nice. This was nice. A handful of those shorts was definitely nice.
She must have felt it, too, because her hands snaked up his shoulders and wound their way into his hair. He hitched her up closer and she made a little sound. He hoped it was a good sound, and then he knew it was a good sound because she wrapped her legs around him and he did a mental scan of his garage for the safest place to put her so he could press her even closer.
He took half a step toward his workbench with a vague thought of sweeping hundreds of dollars of tools to the ground. But that half a step must have broken the spell because suddenly Lindsey pulled back and was squirming, which at first he liked. But then he realized she was squirming to get down. So he eased her gently down his body, holding onto her hips until her feet touched the ground.
Then he saw her face.
Mother Teresa was not happy.
“What the hell?” she said as she swiped a hand across her mouth.
Walker instantly had that old feeling in his gut, the one that felt like he had swallowed a rock and it was bringing him down, guts first. His palms started to sweat. He opened his mouth to apologize. Really, what had he been thinking, grabbing her like that? And he’d thought she had responded to his kiss, but maybe that was wrong too. Maybe that was what he’d felt because that was what he wanted to feel. His panicked thoughts tripped over each other, tying his tongue so all he could do was stupidly stare.
“I’m sorry,” Lindsey said, finally.
His head shot up. She was sorry? For him mauling her?
“I shouldn’t have come in here. And I know it’s not much of an apology, but I was so angry. I wanted revenge.”
He opened his mouth, but Lindsey beat him to it.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
He couldn’t believe it either. Sure, he’d been wanting to do that ever since he’d seen her scolding the garden into growing in those cute little shorts. But that didn’t mean . . . he suddenly realized that she was not talking about the kiss.
“If you didn’t want me to have people over, you could have just said something.”
Have people over? He wasn’t upset about that. No, he thought, his shame slowly morphing into indignation, he didn’t care about her social life, not anymore. He just didn’t want her trespassing in his locked studio.
“Did you have to tear up the entire garden?”
Wha?
“That was Myron’s garden. Or is it because you said it was mine now, so it doesn’t mean anything?”
He watched her lips quiver and her eyes blinking fast. Oh god, he thought. I kissed Mother Teresa and then I made her cry.
“I knew you were rude. I had no idea you were cruel.”
“What are you—?” he started, reaching for her.
She jerked her arm away. “Don’t touch me. I can’t believe you!” she screeched.
He held his hands up, surrendering. “What do you mean about the garden?”
She froze for a second, and Walker felt the daggers of her stare go right through his heart. Then she tore the door open and stomped out.
He followed her out. He wanted to defend himself. She wasn’t mad at him for the reason he thought. She was mad at him for something else entirely, something that she would not explain. But she wouldn’t slow down and talk, and now he was starting to get mad.
It was a hell of a way to end a kiss.
She stopped halfway up the path that led to the house. She stood there, hands on her hips, looking out over the garden.
It was a crazy torn up mess. He’d vaguely registered this on the way to the garage, but what did he know about gardening?
She flung her arm out over the mess. “You’re telling me you didn’t do this in some midnight rampage?”
Was that what she thought of him? Mother Teresa had some funny ideas about how to be a good landlord. “Why would I destroy my own yard?”
“Because you hate me for having fun and making friends and trying to be nice to you!”
He watched her take a deep breath and gaze up at the sky as if she was looking for help or answers or lightning to strike him.
“So you didn’t destroy the garden?” she asked.
“No,” he said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“So someone broke in in the middle of the night while you were out in your garage working and destroyed the garden.”
“I guess so.”
“Maybe because you were blasting bad heavy metal all night?”
“Hey, it’s not bad. It’s Iron Maiden.”
She waved her hand. “Whatever. Your golden oldies.”
“Maybe,” he said, letting the oldies go.
“So, either you did it, or someone did it because of you. Either way, your fault.”
That was a funny kind of logic. But she looked so angry, he didn’t push her.
He just stared her down.
“You are a ridiculous human being,” she said, and stomped into the house.
Well, he wasn’t going to argue with her on that.
He stomped into his side of the house.
Oops.