Lizbeth hummed while she worked.
As she sorted through paperwork and muttered curses to Mark under her breath, she intermittently slipped into different tunes. Most of them I didn’t recognize, but some were clear classics. Vivaldi’s Les Quatre Saisons among them. She tended to prefer spring, like she was humming a wedding march.
Knowing her, she probably was.
Her second day was far less frazzled than her first. She’d eased into the paperwork, found a way to categorize most of it, and waded through the first half of what Mark had ready for her. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I sipped my morning coffee, utterly intrigued by the way she pushed her lips to one side of her face when she was deep in thought.
Overall, no rampant fatigue showed on her face. She hadn’t used the radio last night, so she must not have needed anything. Hopefully she’d slept okay. It had taken me an hour and a half to dig the best cot and mattress out of a storage cabin nearly buried by snow.
“Lizbeth, I need my desk,” Mark said as he descended the ladder minutes before lunch was ready.
“Too bad,” she replied.
He stopped, then blinked. “What?”
“I said too bad.”
“But I need to work.”
“Then work in the attic.” She shuffled through a few more papers without looking up. “I have been working nonstop on this ridiculous pile of papers all day, and am about to finish. I will not stop.”
I cracked a grin. Mark stumped by a beautiful woman—delightful.
“But I need to work,” he said.
She finally looked at him. “Why?”
“Because my computer is there.”
She used a folder to gesture to the folding table. “You can work there.”
His eyes almost bugged out. “You’re kidding.”
Her less-than-amused stare suggested otherwise. I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing. Maybe love was real. Watching her defeat Mark in a verbal battle—this was positively twitterpation.
“But . . .”
“You contracted me to do a job, and you initiated that job by putting all this paperwork right here. If you didn’t want me to work here, you shouldn’t have put it here. Because you gave me no other expectations, timelines, or milestones, I took over the job, created the rubric, and am proceeding as I see fit. That means you will defer to me. If you need your computer, I will happily reassemble it for you.” She jabbed a finger at the folding desk. “Over there.”
Mark blinked. I snorted burning-hot coffee, then hacked as it scalded my throat. Neither of them looked at me. Finally, Mark held up two hands.
“Right. Got it. I can probably figure it out later in the attic.”
Her megawatt smile returned in a flash. “Great! I should be finished with this part by Friday.”
“Lunch!” I called.
Mark waved me off as he shoved his wallet into his pocket and grabbed the Zombie Mobile keys. “Have a meeting in town, but thanks, JJ. Save it for me, and I’ll eat it for dinner.”
“Thought he had to work on his computer,” Lizbeth muttered.
It was a struggle to contain my utter validation and amusement. “Buckwheat waffles with real maple syrup, a berry reduction, and fresh butter await you.”
Lizbeth’s head popped up. She appeared in the kitchenette seconds later, eyes closed, taking a deep inhale.
“That smells . . .”
“Amazing?”
“Yes.”
“Have a seat, and it’s yours.”
It didn’t escape me that Mark had left us alone in the office at least until lunchtime, and I felt relief. Lizbeth was far tenser when Mark was flittering around, throwing ideas left and right. She’d get used to it, eventually, but in the meantime, less Mark meant a smoother ride.
“So.” I reached for the pure maple syrup I’d bought in Vermont. “How are you feeling?”
“Overwhelmed, but okay. Mark saves everything.”
“I meant after the fire, but that too.”
Surprise registered on her face. “Oh, that.” Her expression fell. “Yeah . . . I haven’t been thinking about it, to be honest.”
“Don’t want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“No problem. I’ve also been thinking about what you said about romance. Care to spar on that?”
One fine eyebrow lifted in her porcelain, freckled face. “Oh? Do tell.”
“Do you think romance is a cover for something else?”
Her forehead furrowed in silent question.
“Like security,” I clarified as I grabbed my fork. “A relationship with romance is likely a more certain bet, right? Romance equates with effort and security. Maybe you look forward to the security romance brings.”
“So, are we talking about security, certainty, or effort?”
“Security.”
She chewed a bite of waffle, deep in thought. “You say it like they’re two different things. Can you separate security from romance?”
“Can you?”
Her eyes tapered. “No. I don’t think so. Security is an aspect of romance. As you pointed out yourself, there are other facets too. Certainty. Security. Effort. Romance is like a diamond.”
I had pointed that out, hadn’t I? Which wasn’t at all what I expected to do.
“Back to my original point,” I said as she dug into her waffle, then closed her eyes and moaned at the first bite. “Maybe it’s security you want more than romance.”
“If I wanted security, I’d buy a home security system.”
I cracked a smile. “Good try, but it’s different.”
“How?”
She was baiting me—I could feel it in the languid drawl of the question. But I had to rise to the occasion now, because I’d put the question out there.
“Romance comes from a person,” I said, “not a thing.”
“Disagree.”
“Really?”
“Romance comes from a book. From a movie. From someone cleaning a cabin really, really well and making sure there aren’t any spiders or mice. Things can be just as romantic as people. It’s like religion.” She sent me a vague look that I swore hid a smile as she forked another bite into her mouth.
My jaw dropped. “You have to be kidding. Cleaning your cabin and setting it up for you is not romantic.”
“Was to me.”
“But I didn’t mean it that way.”
She shrugged. “Still seemed romantic.”
My head whirled in a thousand directions. The greatest of which revolved around the question: Is Lizbeth looking for romance with me?
No, that was too ridiculous. We hardly knew each other. Regardless, somehow, I’d thoroughly flummoxed myself here. I’d have to come better prepared next time.
“But if you assign romance to any random gesture, then what is it?” I asked in exasperation.
Why did it feel like we were talking in circles?
“Romance?”
“Yes.”
“Good question.” She blinked several times. “Not sure how to define it yet, honestly. But I’m working on that.”
“If you can’t define it, it’s not real.”
She snorted and leaned forward. “Maybe romance isn’t real to you, JJ, but it is to me. Maybe it’s like . . . God. Some people acknowledge God exists and others don’t. But that doesn’t make God any less real to those who do believe, right?”
“Your comparison is based on the assumption that God is real. Both romance and God are beliefs, regardless of what someone else perceives as truth. Therefore, your beliefs and expectations are pushed onto others when you hold a standard of romance onto them.”
The fire that had built in her eyes ebbed into confusion.
“We weren’t talking about me pushing my beliefs or expectations of romance onto anybody. We were talking about it being real to me, but not you. And that’s okay.”
I gulped. Right. I had introduced that out of nowhere. Why had I said that?
“Right,” I said.
An awkward silence filled the space for a couple of heartbeats. How to backpedal out of this? She spared me the pain of salvaging my pride by putting a hand on my arm.
“It’s not that I’d want to push my expectations onto anyone,” she said quietly. “If a man I dated didn’t believe in romance, that’d be fine. But I expect my belief to be respected. If that person wanted to keep me, I would expect certain romantic gestures. Is that fair?”
Unable to speak with her warm hand sending fire up my arm, I nodded. She smiled, dissolving the strangeness between us.
“What are they?” I asked in a poor attempt to recover some ground. “Your expectations, I mean.”
The rogue question slipped out of me before I could stop it. I cleared my throat. She grinned like a Cheshire cat, gathered her empty plate and fork, and stood up.
“Wouldn’t you love to know?”
I would love to know.
That was precisely the problem.
Thankfully, my phone rang. I grabbed it out of my pocket, saw the name on the screen, and quickly picked it up. Lizbeth waved me off before I could apologize, and I gratefully slipped outside without a jacket. No need for her to overhear this.
Not yet, anyway.