SKYE SAYING “HE’S CUTE” ABOUT KIT WAS UNUSUAL ENOUGH, IN SKYE’S LIMITED COMMUNICATION LATELY, THAT IT made Livy think all week about how she probably should go find him and have coffee. After all, Skye seemed to think she should. So maybe, somehow, it would improve Skye’s well-being if she did—which made no sense. But the thought wouldn’t stop pestering Livy, and by the end of the week she’d decided to act on it.
Saturday she took the kayak out for a paddle again, and circled Crabapple Island as before. She knew he lived somewhere on it, though she wasn’t sure which house. But today she saw no one on the gray shore except a woman walking a golden retriever.
That afternoon Livy stopped by the drugstore, right across the street from the garage. Bellwater Auto, the old red-lettered sign shouted at her through the windows as she picked up deodorant, conditioner, and dental floss. The auto shop’s neighboring garden of chainsaw carvings drew her eye too: bears, Sasquatches, orcas, and gnomes all seeming to watch her.
After emerging from the drugstore, she set the bag of purchases in her trunk, then glanced up and down the two-lane street. No traffic coming. She shut the trunk and crossed the street. She paused at the edge of the sculpture garden, looking up at the wind chimes that hung from the high crossbars of the fence posts. On chains of all styles and colors swung miscellaneous bits of metal and plastic: silverware, switchplates, jar lids, gears, doorknobs, bottle openers, washers, rusty bells, oarlocks. They jingled with surprising musicality in the cold wind. She closed her fingers around the sparkly streamers fluttering off one wind chime, and identified them with a smile as strips of Mylar balloon.
When I pick this stuff up I swear at it and throw it away, she thought. He turns it into art.
“Car trouble?”
Kit strolled out of the garage, wiping his hands on a black-stained towel. He was dressed for work in zipped-up gray jacket, industrial-thickness jeans, and steel-toed boots.
Livy let go of the Mylar strips, suddenly feeling absurd for showing up like this. “Nope. I was just nearby, and got curious what you used the cedar stump for.”
“Ah.” He lifted his chin in invitation. “Come see.”
He beckoned her forward and she followed, as if they were old friends rather than quasi-neighbors who hardly ever spoke to one another. He led her through the tiny office with a cash register that, as far as she could tell, served both garage and art sales, then out the back door. They emerged into an open-air work space with a roof covering it. Cyclone fencing topped with barbed wire protected its sides. Sawdust coated the concrete floor, and heavy, sharp-edged tools and hunks of wood stood all around.
“Here she is so far.” Kit swept his hand toward the partially-carved driftwood stump. “What do you think she’s going to be?”
Livy skirted the teeth of the chainsaw lying dormant on the ground, and drew close to the sculpture. “A woman?” With her forefinger she touched the long waving hair of the figure, and found it still gritty with fine sawdust.
Kit stood rocking back on his heels, arms folded. “Sort of.”
Livy moved around it, studying the head and shoulders, which were all that had taken shape so far; the body melted back into its natural stump shape below that. “I can’t tell yet, but she’s nice-looking.”
“My plan is mermaid,” Kit said. “Cheesy, I know, but people dig mermaids. They buy stuff like that. And look.” He bent to point to a thick upward-curving section at the lower back of the stump. “This’ll make a perfect tail.”
Livy tilted her head. “You’re right. That’s so cool. How do you see things like that?”
“I spend a lot of time thinking up weird stuff, what can I say.”
Livy examined the serene face. “She kind of looks like my sister.”
“Yeah?”
“Skye. If you’ve bought coffee at Green Fox, you’ve probably seen her.” Livy heard the melancholy note in her own voice, though she hadn’t intended to let the emotion show.
Kit apparently noticed. He took a couple of seconds to answer. “Ah. Sure, I remember her from school, anyway. I don’t get down to Green Fox much. Carol next door keeps us fixed for coffee. She’d get jealous if we went anywhere else.”
Carol’s Diner had been Bellwater’s staple greasy-spoon for thirty years. Everyone knew Carol by sight. “I haven’t eaten there in a while,” Livy said. “We used to get milkshakes at Carol’s in high school.”
“As did we all. Hey, I still owe you coffee. Or milkshake, if you’d rather. I’ll treat you if you’ve got time.”
Given that was what she’d walked over here to claim, Livy felt silly for hesitating. She nodded after a moment. “Of course, yeah. Let’s.”
“Come on. I’ll tell Grady where we’re going.” He strode back into the office, and she followed. This time they veered off to the left, into the garage. It was small, probably fitting no more than three cars at a time. Today it only held one maroon SUV. Livy smelled motor oil and heard the repeated clang of a metal tool hitting some car part. “Grady!” Kit said.
The clanging stopped, and a few seconds later a young man’s head popped into view above the SUV. He had dark hair with bits sticking up here and there, protruding ears, cheerful eyes, and full lips. “Yeah?”
“Livy and I are going to grab some coffee.”
“Milkshake,” Livy corrected, on impulse.
Kit sent her a grin. “Right, milkshake. I owe her. She’s the one who didn’t bust me for picking up that cedar piece.”
Grady’s smile turned his face handsome. “You helped carry that? Dude, that thing was heavy. You must be strong.”
“I shove logs around now and then,” she said. “Part of the job.”
“Right on.” Grady lifted a wrench in farewell. “Have fun. Nice to meet you!” He vanished behind the SUV again.
“He seems nice,” Livy said as they walked out the front of the shop.
“He’s all right. Barely knows what he’s doing in the garage, but he’s learning.”
He glanced attentively at Livy as they turned toward Carol’s. “So is it just you and Skye? Any other siblings?”
“Nope, just the two of us.”
Kit opened the glass door of the diner for her. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. Always wished I did. Someone to share the load.”
“What’s this, Sylvain, now you’re bringing dates?” Carol’s voice boomed. “Hoo boy, and a Darwen girl, too, you lucky stiff.” She strolled over to them, a purple apron stretched around her wide form, and ensnared them in town gossip for a few minutes.
Carol settled them into a window booth and took their milkshake order: French vanilla for Livy, salted caramel for Kit. A minute later she brought them the shakes, then strolled back to the kitchen.
Kit pulled the long spoon from his shake and sucked it clean. “So you work mostly out of town?”
Livy nodded, stirring the whipped cream with her red straw. “The office is in Quilcene. But I’m only there about half the time. I do a lot of driving around to forests, checking out one problem or another.”
He laid the spoon on a napkin. “Not much time spent here in town, then?”
“Well, more lately.”
He lifted his brown eyes to her in curiosity, and she realized she had to explain after saying that.
She pulled out her spoon too, watching it drip onto the mound of whipped cream. “My sister’s been sort of sick lately. Well. Not sick exactly, but…depressed, I guess.”
“That counts as sick.” Kit sounded sympathetic.
“I don’t want to leave her by herself too much, just because…I don’t know. She hasn’t been herself. We’re still trying to figure it out. Mom lives with her boyfriend in Portland now, so she’s down there, even though she comes to see us when she can. So, anyway, it’s mostly fallen to me, looking after Skye.” She pulled in a breath and forced a smile at him. “Jeez, sorry. T.M.I.”
He looked thoughtful, brushing the scruff on his cheek with one knuckle. “Nah, believe me, I get it. Do they think it’s seasonal affective disorder, or…”
“Could be. I mean, it’s winter, and it’s only been going on for a few weeks. It’s just…this is so not like her. Winter never bothered her before. Still, she’s getting to the point of finding a serious career, and I think maybe it’s hitting her hard, becoming a grown-up and all that. She’s an artist, so, moody temperament.”
“Oh yeah. We’re practically unstable.” He smiled.
She laughed, abashed. “I forgot you’re one too. Sorry again.”
He shrugged, rolling the remark away with a casual wrinkle of his nose. “Well, then you’ve got your hands full.”
“Yeah.” She sucked up a sip of vanilla shake. “Hoping one of the medications will finally work. And she’s seeing a therapist, but that’s not a lot of use either when she’ll hardly talk. Or maybe when spring approaches she’ll get better. I don’t know.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who knows her best.”
“I suppose. Probably.”
“Then I bet you’ll get her through it. Whatever it is.”
He didn’t say it in a fake encouraging tone, the way too many people did when trying to make Livy believe everything was going to be fine. Even their mother used that tone; she was still in denial. Instead Kit sounded grave but sincere. She lifted her gaze to him. His eyes were a tea-brown with depth and clarity to them, shaded by thick brown eyebrows, the same shade as his facial hair, which in turn was a tint lighter than his hair…
Yep, he was cute, but he was only treating her to milkshakes out of obligation, and he surely wouldn’t be interested in her now that she’d spewed her family mental health problems onto the table. Nor was she in the best place in life to start dating someone.
She averted her eyes to the counter, watching Carol’s back as she moved around and fetched plates. “Thanks. I hope so.” She looked at him with the brightest smile she could manage. “So, what’s Grady going to do around here? Is he looking to become a mechanic?”
Kit smirked. “No way. He only does it because I can pay him some, and there’s not a lot else to do in this town. Really, though, he wants to be a chef.”
“A chef?”
“For real. He’s taken community college classes and worked in restaurants and everything, just not, you know, the serious certification the fancy restaurants in Seattle would want.”
“Does he cook for you, then?”
He nodded, swallowing a sip of shake. “All the time. Oh my God, he makes crazy shit. I never in my life thought I would like kale chips or—what the hell was it last week?—coconut curry soup, that was it. With broccoli in it, I’m serious. But he actually made it good.” Kit’s eyes widened, as if he were still not over the shock.
Livy laughed. “Wow. Those sound awesome. I’ll be happy to take the leftovers if you have any.”
“For sure. Come out to the island and try them sometime.” The low, lazy way he said it, and the way his gaze held hers—suddenly her face grew hot with a blush.
All that un-sexy talk about Skye’s problems, and her own general awkwardness, and he was still hitting on her? The guy was a pro. Or not very particular. Or both.
She took another slurp of shake through the straw. “So how did you get into chainsaw carving?”
He told her about picking up the skill from an old guy who used to live on the island, with whom he used to do side jobs cutting down loose branches or slicing up trees that had fallen on roads. But Kit didn’t like climbing up in the trees like that, so he stuck to making art with the wood and being a mechanic like his late dad instead. Those topics carried them until they’d finished their shakes, plus another ten or fifteen minutes beyond.
Finally, Livy pulled out her phone to check the time, and declared she’d better get back home—though truthfully she was liking it a hell of a lot, sitting here in a bacon-scented diner with steam on the windows, riding a sugar rush and talking with a handsome guy. Imagine that.
Outside, on the weedy gravel between the diner and the sculpture garden, she stuck her hand out to him. “This was fun. Thanks.”
Rather than shake her hand, Kit took it, bent over it, and kissed it. He didn’t make it cheesy; no lingering or smacking. He pulled it off with perfect courtier grace. She felt only a tickle of lips and beard, then he let go and slipped his hands in his jeans pockets, smiling. “I enjoyed it. Stop by again. Or hey, I’ll track you down if Grady makes something awesome to share.”
“You’d better.” She smiled too, and turned toward her car.