I smiled in spite of myself. "You don't need to do that."
"Maybe I want to."
"Are we talking about the naked stuff or the divorce stuff? I've lost track."
"Will it make you uncomfortable if I come in?" he repeated. "That's all I care about."
"Ms. Cleary?"
I stood, swung my bag over my shoulder. "I won't be uncomfortable."
Linden pushed to his feet and flattened his hand low on my back. "Then tell me if that changes."
I'd imagined doing this alone. Paging through the legal documents, signing my name a million times, handling it all with only myself to lean on—same as it always was. Never in my mental calculus did I see a flannel-shirted man with thighs like tree trunks doing any of it with me. It was tempting to rewrite my plans to include him but I'd learned that lesson the hardest way. Moments like these didn't add up the way I craved, they didn't lead to the permanence I wanted, and they didn't last.
I smiled up at him all the same.
He was polite enough to distract himself by studying the trees on the other side of the window while the legal assistant identified the documents waiting for me and pointed out the information I had to verify. It would only take a few minutes, she explained, unless I wanted to make changes to the agreement. That would require another round of review by the other party—Preston—and we'd have to reconvene to finalize our dissolution.
It was such an unlikely word. Dissolution. It made me think of ripping open a pouch of Jell-O mix and stirring it into boiling water. It was the wrong thing to think about. Divorce and Jell-O had nothing in common. This piece of me was falling apart and Jell-O only came together. It solidified. It even wiggled.
There was nothing solid in my life. Not even the house I called my home. Any day now, a good gust of wind was going to blow this little piggy's house right down. What would I do then? Where would I go?
Sign the papers, sell the bricks, sweep up the broken home. Keep moving. Don't look back.
I wouldn't need another round. There was nothing to change. Preston and I had nothing to divide up, nothing shared between us but a friendship that'd once functioned as the very best thing in our young lives. We didn't have joint bank accounts or property. I'd moved out of our apartment and into a smaller, more affordable place after he followed his boss to Northern Ireland. I didn't have a married name to erase from my driver's license and credit cards as I'd had no interest in the lengthy process of paperwork and filings to do away with my maiden name.
No, we'd dissolve this today and nothing would be different tomorrow.
The legal assistant left us alone, promising my attorney would be in shortly and offering us every variety of coffee and tea under the sun. There were also pastries and breakfast breads, if we pleased, and several brands of bottled water.
She only referred to Linden as my partner twice.
I only winced over it once.
After a pause, he asked, "You're sure you're not uncomfortable? I'll go. It's fine."
With my knees pinched together tight and a hand clutching the lapels of my blazer, I shook my head. "I'm beginning to think you're the uncomfortable one."
"I'll survive."
Because his presence, even as he gazed out the window with his back mostly turned away from me, was more reassuring than it was awkward, I replied, "Then I can survive too."
11
Linden
I couldn't explain why I took Jasper into the woods with me again.
I couldn't explain why I rearranged my plans for the day to escort her to the attorney's office either but I'd made up my mind last night.
All I knew was I couldn't drive her home after watching her sign those papers and leave her there. I couldn't let her retreat into that hard shell constructed of I can do it myself and contempt. It wasn't like I could go inside with her. I'd have her freshly freed ass bent over the nearest surface, those prim trousers around her knees, and my cock laying claim to her before the door closed behind us.
All that sounded outstanding but Jasper still looked like a deer in the headlights. I didn't know much about divorce or the realization your job was eating your soul, but I knew none of that was the right starting point for what I wanted with her. It wasn't tender or polite, or even considerate. I wanted to fuck her so thoroughly she forgot how to argue and then curled up beside me, sweet and sated.
Aside from the vibe being off, it didn't seem right. I knew Jasper could make decisions for herself but there was something wrong about making advances on a woman when she was climbing out of quicksand. Even if she said yes—and her body seemed to say yes—I didn't want it to be that way between us.
I could wait until the shadows were out of her eyes, until she slowed down long enough to catch her breath. Until she stopped running on adrenaline and crockpot biscuits. Until the forest air filled her lungs and the worst of this trouble was behind her. I could wait.
When Jasper emerged from the house in athletic gear, I motioned to a narrow split in the woods at the far edge of my property, saying, "There's a small trail. We'll start there."
She slipped her hands into the pockets of her zip-up jacket, and I was once again an idiot for putting her in such form-fitting clothing. Anything—even if it held me on the razor's edge of arousal all day—improved on the pantsuit that seemed to swallow her up and spit her out in some robotic, empty-eyed version of herself.
"This makes for a quick commute." She glanced up at the shock of orange, red, and yellow leaves on the maple branches. "I always liked this time of year. So pretty."
I slapped a hand to the trunk of the old tree. "It's good to see these maples holding on to their leaves this long. Too many of them are turning in early September and are fully bare by now."
"That's not how it should be?"
Her hair was looped in some kind of bun and her eyes seemed big and owlish today, as if she'd never really stopped to look at autumn leaves and couldn't believe what she was seeing. Perhaps she hadn't stopped to look in a terribly long time.
"No. Early aging and death in leaves is a product of tree stress. Drought, disease, extreme weather—those are the big factors."
"Okay but we still like it when the leaves change colors, right? Just not at the wrong times?"
"Yes. Fall foliage is the result of chlorophyll—the compound that makes plant life green—breaking down when the summer growing season slows and the sun is positioned farther away from the earth. Less daylight and cooler air temperature signal the start of autumn which then kicks off a chemical response and, in some trees, pigments are released which drive the changes in colors."
She regarded me with an odd smile. "That was such a scientific answer."
"Were you expecting something else?"
Jasper continued down the trail without responding which was fine since it gave me time to study her without her watching while I did it.
I wanted to solve all of her problems for her. More than once, I'd picked up the phone to call the plumber who'd overhauled my system and get him working on Jasper's house as soon as possible. There was one time when I'd almost called my sister in for backup. As a landscape architect specializing in historic homes, Magnolia worked with contractors and designers accustomed to wonky old houses. She'd have the situation in hand before we hung up. I didn't care if I had to foot the bill, I just wanted this resolved.
I held back every time. It was one thing to insert myself into small, inconsequential matters such as the basement boxes, but hiring a plumber was another. There weren't enough crockpot biscuits in the world and Jasper would probably launch them at my head for interfering in such an unwelcome manner.
I couldn't take the reins and do it for her any more than I could solve her career crises. She had to do this for herself, and as much as it pained me to sit by and watch, I knew she'd freeze me out if I took a few problems off her plate.
I didn't want her to freeze me out—though I could explain that no better than I could explain the inner workings of Jasp
er-Anne Cleary. That was to say I had some loose ideas but I was no authority on anything save for the trees around us.
"So, what's this?" she asked, pointing at an old cedar.
"That's a White American cedar. Between a hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty years old, if I had to guess."
She turned in the opposite direction, pointing blindly. "And that?"
"Shag bark hickory." I gestured to a great tree in the clearing ahead. "Chestnut oak. The species diversity is one of my favorite things about this area."
"What about all this stuff?" She motioned toward the forest floor. "What's this?"
I crossed toward her, taking her hand in mine and leading her deeper down the trail. "Let's see what we find. We have a good amount of American holly. You can see the berries on that one. Some of the last blooms of the season are still hanging on to that hardy geranium over there. It's probably too late for any lady's slipper but we'd find them over here, on a mossy slope. They like to hang out with the fiddlehead ferns and swamp azalea, though they don't all grow at the same times."
She leaned into me as we walked, her shoulder against my bicep, our joined hands brushing her thigh. "And you know this from looking at it? You don't have to examine it more closely or anything?"
"All these trees and plants have characteristics you can pick out from a distance. I don't need to examine the holly because I know its shape and its dark, glossy leaves. Nothing else in this area is exactly like it."
"That's wild to me," she said softly. "I just…I don't know. I can't imagine knowing something so well I can name it and explain it from twenty feet away." She tipped her head to the side, resting on my shoulder. I stared at her birthmark a moment longer than necessary. It was so cute. Like a splash of creamy coffee, if that could be cute. Whatever. I thought it was cute. "Not something new anyway. Not something I learned from the start."
"Who says you have to start over?"
"Um, you did. Yesterday. In a different forest that somehow looked exactly like this one. Are you sure they aren't the same? Is this a prank?"
"Different parks, I swear." I shifted to press a quick kiss to her forehead. "Just because your last job was wrong for you doesn't mean everything about it was wrong."
"You say that," she started with a laugh thick in her words, "but I was making some lists last night—"
"I told you to sleep last night, Peach."
Surprising the ever-loving shit out of me, Jasper dropped my hand to loop her arm around my waist, slide her hand under my shirt, and brush her fingers down my back. It wasn't the gesture itself. An arm around the waist was nothing, considering I came this close to dry humping her against the kitchen sink last night. Not to mention the tree yesterday afternoon. It was that she initiated. As far as I could remember, she'd never been the one to reach out. I'd assumed it was part of her aloof vibe.
As Jasper had mentioned once before, my assumptions were wrong.
In this case, it was good to be wrong.
"You did but I had to think," she replied.
I gathered her close, my arm tightening around her shoulder. "I'm sure you did. What did you come up with?"
She snickered. "I promise you, it's not even close to interesting."
"You were up all night instead of sleeping like you needed, so you better believe I want to hear what came from all that stressing."
A sweet grumble sounded in her throat. "I didn't come up with anything good. Just the same stuff—writing a book, consulting, think tanks. Then I made some lists of things that could be promising, like teaching government or public policy."
"I bet you'd be good at that. You know government the way I know these woods."
"Maybe. I don't know. I'd probably have to go back to school for that. Working in the Senate doesn't automatically qualify me to teach anyone unless I want to start a YouTube channel and that sounds terrible."
"What do you think about going back to school, then?"
"Not my favorite idea. Grad school is expensive. It takes a long time. There's also a load of busywork involved. Writing papers a certain way, researching things that don't matter anymore, debating odd bits of constitutional history. That's not how government works and I don't have any patience for people who think they know how it works based off their in-depth analysis of tweets and The West Wing. I'd end up yelling at people every day. I'd get a reputation real quick."
"You would terrify them. I'd pay to watch."
"You know, at least six men have told me I've appeared in their nightmares."
"Not that you're bragging."
She smiled up at me. "I would never."
"All right, so, teaching doesn't stay on the list. Cross that off. What else? There had to be something you liked about working for the senator. Something that got you out of bed in the morning."
"Blind panic usually got me out of bed in the morning. Like pimples, problems developed overnight. Mornings were about damage control."
"You can't say things like that to me, Jas. You just can't. It makes me want to wrap you in blankets and tuck you into my bed for a very long time. At least until I'm finished strangling that boss of yours."
At that, Jasper buried her face in my chest. "Don't be nice to me. It's confusing."
"You'll have to suffer, then." I kissed her hair again because she was right there and I couldn't have her right there without kissing her. I could not. "Back on topic. What did you like about your job, and for fuck's sake, don't give me another reason to swaddle you because I'll do it."
For a moment, she didn't respond, didn't move a muscle. Then, she tipped her head back, casting an unfocused gaze on the woods behind me. "I liked the purpose. Even when the actual work was tedious or nothing more than creating diversions. I felt like I was doing something that mattered. That it was bigger than me. Timbrooks has always been an imperfect candidate but he voted the right way when it mattered. That was enough for me. That justified it. I could forgive and excuse everything else when we were advancing the right issues."
"That's the piece to hold on to," I said. "Advance the right issues. Do something that matters—to you."
"As great as that sounds," she started, still watching the trees, "no one working on those issues wants anything to do with me. My bridges are burnt and all my boats too."
I tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears. "Everything looks like a dead end right now and that's why you need to give yourself a break."
"I don't have time for any breaks. I'm already several weeks into this break and I can't waste any more time with"—she flapped a hand at the hardy geraniums—"wandering in the woods and exploring the depths of my soul."
"Nothing blooms in every season," I said. "You shouldn't expect that of yourself when it doesn't occur in nature."
"That's a charming sentiment but I've been figuring out how to bloom nonstop since primary school. Not going to kick back now just because my life went to hell in a handbasket overnight."
I scooped her up, my arms cradling her backside and her spine against a tree trunk, because I didn't want to hear any more of this bullshit. "I'll find the time for you. We'll start by eliminating the baking from your day."
"Ahhhhh. There's the rude bear I've come to expect."
I watched the humor drift over her lovely face. She was beautiful in a painful sort of way, the kind that tightened your chest a bit too much. "Did you like being nightmarish?"
"What?"
"You said you'd been featured in nightmares and we had a laugh about it but I want to know if you liked that."
"I…I liked being taken seriously."
Nodding, I gave her ass a thorough squeeze, seeing as it was tremendously squeezable. Every time I laid eyes on her, I just wanted to dig my fingers in and squeeze. One more perversion where this woman was concerned but this was as far as I'd let it go right now. There was no fun in taking a bewildered, emotionally exhausted woman to bed, not for anyone. Especially not her. If we were going to do this, we were going
to start it up the right way.
And that meant waiting until she didn't look like a breeze would blow her over.
"Sometimes," she continued, "people look at me and…they think I'm not intelligent or I can't do anything—"
"First time I saw you, I was positive you could crack open the earth to discard the bodies of those who got in your way."
"And yet you still came over and got in my way," she mused. "Put me down. I feel like a doll."
"What's the trouble in that?"
"Dolls aren't in charge. They have to wait to be taken off the shelf to play and even then, it's someone else's game."
I set her down, purposeful in running the length of her body against mine. "It's your game, Jas. There's no question about that. But you will sleep tonight. If you can't, call me. I'll bore you to sleep with stories about fungi."
She gave me a tart look. "Do you have many fungi stories?"
"Everyone has some good fungi stories but to someone who doesn't find that sort of thing intriguing, it could be the difference between sitting up and making a ton of lists and sleeping a solid eight or nine hours."
"Now I'm curious about this. What kind of fungi stories are we talking about?"
I pointed to a decaying conifer several yards away. "That's a Purplepore Bracket. It only lives on dying trees. Same with the False Turkey Tail, although we don't see that in this species of tree. And that, near the trunk of that red oak, is Bitter Oyster. It starts out small and knobby like that, but when it's fully developed it becomes bioluminescent. Since glowing mushrooms are not what anyone would expect to find and the whole thing is rather disarming on moonless nights, the glow they give off used to be known as fairy fire. There was a load of Native folklore around it but that's just how saprophytic fungi behave—unexpectedly."
"You really do have fungi stories."
"Look, mushrooms are wild. They exist in their own kingdom, neither plant nor animal even though they possess many qualities of both. And they hate being classified. Every time it seems like we have it all worked out, someone finds a new mushroom somewhere and the whole thing gets fucked up again. All we know is some of them are poisonous, some of them are edible, some of them are medicinal. Some will kill you with a single touch. Some will activate portions of your brain that rarely pop. Others are bioremediative and others might be immortal. We don't know for sure. We just don't know. It's very complex."
The Belle and the Beard Page 14