This Time Around

by Denise Hunter

  Strips of moonlight passed through the overhanging trees and glinted off the new windows. A dozen hanging flower baskets cluttered the awning. A couple of old easels stood propped against one wall.

  He took a step toward it. His eyes lingered on empty paint bottles on their sides by the door.

  Protectively, Skye took a step toward it. “It’s my greenhouse. And . . . studio.”

  His eyes lit up at the word. “May I see?”

  For only a moment, Skye wavered.

  She looked at him standing there with both hands in his trouser pockets as he gazed at the greenhouse. His skin nearly melted into the dark forest behind him. He was only a sliver of a silhouette as he took in her new and greatest treasure, his expression clear. He wanted to see it. Part of her, the old part of her, wanted to show it off to him.

  She turned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Before Skye closed the door, she watched his shadowy figure move into the forest with the small beam of light guiding the way.

  She wouldn’t let him get to her. He could try to cozy up all he wanted, reminisce about old times, but she wasn’t going to forget—not what happened then. Not what was happening now.

  But as the flashlight blinked and flashed as it moved deeper into the forest, she couldn’t help calling out, “Oh, and watch out for the brown recluses! There was just an infestation of them at the greenhouse.”

  The flashlight’s beam shook and sputtered toward the sky just as Skye grinned and shut the door.

  Chapter 5

  Theo

  There were a hundred things to do. But first, a shower.

  Theo all but tore off his clothes as he entered the code into the cabin’s security system and entered the two-story foyer. He slid out of his shoes and his jacket as he moved up the stairs. As he entered the hallway he unbuttoned his top collar. The house was still on the cold side, the thermostat showing a slowly rising fifty-four degrees. Honestly, how had Skye’s mother known he was going to stay, and when in those twelve minutes he was at their house had she snuck away to turn on the heat? He went directly to the master bedroom.

  Must. Get. Into. Shower. Immediately.

  Theo dropped his dirt-encrusted cufflinks onto the porcelain trivet and flicked on the bathroom light. His feet were cold as he stepped onto the tile, but chilled feet were the last thing on his mind at the present moment. No, the most pressing matter was the spiderwebs. The dozens of spiderwebs he had encountered as he trod through Skye’s forested backyard to get here.

  All for the sake of a conversation.

  A tickle crept along his neck and he slapped at it before turning the shower knob.

  So, he still had a little problem with spiders.

  Any sane person aware of the three thousand species of spiders in the United States, most particularly the two fatal ones local to the area, would have a problem with spiders. He hastily worked the buttons on his shirt, and with increasingly concerning tickles covering at least five areas on his chest and back, he gave in and finally yanked it off. The two remaining fastened buttons made a distinct snap. They pinged as they bounced and then scattered across the tile floor.

  He was not arachnophobic.

  Everybody else in the world was just, in his mind, absolutely insane.

  He stepped into the still-icy shower, well aware of all he’d been called since he was a child. Everything from a simple “scaredy-cat” and “chicken” to the diagnosis at one point given by the child psychologist: “entomophobic.”

  But what befuddled him was that there was no name for those who voluntarily put their lives on the line by making sleeping outside a sport. Boy Scouts. Campers. Those absolutely out-of-their-minds hikers who walked through the town every year with their fiddles and tin cans in their six-month-long, 2,200-mile trek of the Appalachian Trail.

  Insane.

  Who would choose to cocoon themselves into sleeping bags like saucy enchiladas for every Lyme disease–bearing tick, leg-amputating brown recluse, rattlesnake, mountain lion, bear, or serial-killing maniac to discover?

  Somebody needed to write that condition in the book of psychological disorders.

  In truth, Skye had been right to question him when he volunteered to help out over the next few days. She was right to doubt his interest in turning tractors and clearing land and planting seedlings in a minefield of undesirable experiences. But she wasn’t right to doubt his interest in turning tractors and clearing land and planting seedlings with her. When you find yourself suddenly face-to-face with your life’s greatest regret, you don’t walk away. Even with the threat of spiders.

  So yes, in a moment of bravado, he walked through those woods and hiked between rows of firs beneath a dewdrop sky.

  Yes, he had regretted every moment since the first blind slap of the spiderweb hit his face.

  Yes, every square inch of his body had begun to itch by the time he emerged from the woods.

  Yes, he was very aware that after he dressed he was going to have to walk the length of the farm again, this time via the safe, wide berth of the long gravel driveway, to pick up his car from the Fullers’ driveway and make the forty-five-minute drive to Abingdon for some belongings.

  But in exchange for real conversation, he had cracked Skye’s concrete demeanor with the topic of his own weakness. Was it worth it?

  Absolutely.

  Whatever it took.

  * * *

  Theo’s headlights followed the zigzagging road that clung to the side of Whitetop Mountain. The second he hit the halfway spot down the mountain and was back in service, his phone started beeping with notifications. Glancing at the screen, Theo caught one name repeated several times. He wasn’t surprised.

  He took a breath, then pressed the Bluetooth button on his steering wheel. “Call Ashleigh.”

  The phone made it through one full ring before she picked up. “Theo. I’m sorry—I know it’s late. You just had to leave so quickly—”

  “No, I’m the one who needs to apologize. Believe me, that’s not customary for me. I’ve never walked out in the middle of a date.”

  “Well, I’ve never had anyone walk out on me in the middle of a date, so we’re even.”

  Theo heard the shy smile in her tone and felt the corners of his lips turn up.

  But then he remembered where he was, and where he was about to return.

  His headlights shone on another deep turn in the road, and Theo turned the wheel. “I would’ve called back sooner but I just got down the mountain enough to get service.”

  “You’re still up there? With your employee?” The surprise in Ashleigh’s voice was understandable, but Theo frowned slightly at the almost imperceptible tone of disapproval. But then, when he’d explained the situation as he broke off their date and dashed out the door, the barrage of questions revealed she hadn’t quite understood then either. “You’re driving up to Whitetop to visit someone who takes care of the farm? At his home? Tonight? Now?”

  “I was. It’s going to take longer than expected to deal with the situation up here. I need to gather some supplies back in town before heading back.”

  “You’re staying?” This time the disapproval was clear as crystal. “Why?”

  He recalled the image of Skye in her slouchy sweater opening the door. The millisecond of shock in her deep brown eyes. The emotions that swirled in her irises the moment before she blinked and the concrete mask dropped into place. He saw no hate or bitterness. Neither did he see blankness, as though she had removed him from her life and forgotten him.

  Quite the opposite.

  The look—a momentary, millisecond look—suggested she had seen someone she cared for in the deepest, most secret parts of her soul.

  If he was wrong, if he had only seen the reflection of his own desire in her shining eyes, then, well, it didn’t change a thing.

  “Theo? You still—there?”

  “Sorry,” Theo said, “I’m about to hit another dead spot.”

  “W
hy are you going to stay at the Christmas tree farm?” The threat of a lost connection heightened her urgency.

  He knew his answer.

  But here, now, with the voice of the woman who’d been a constant source of companionship these past few weeks filling the car, he found himself pushing the brakes on the words that had formed in his head. Felt himself turning in another direction to answer her question in another true, if indirect, way.

  Theo grinned. “Why, to return to my heritage. To be a farmer,” he said, just as the line went dead.

  Chapter 6

  Skye

  Someone was on her porch.

  It was six fifteen in the morning, and someone was on her porch.

  The sky was only just starting to break through the linen curtains over her window when she wrapped her robe around her and followed the sound of the creaking porch swing to her front door. When she opened it, there was Theo, clad in what appeared to be knockoff Carhartt pants, still crisply creased in that hadn’t-been-washed-yet way, holding two cups of steaming coffee. He wore an ill-fitting orange flannel as his shirt of choice, the crisscrossing plaid of blue and orange so bright it would no doubt glow in the dark.

  He was just breaking off a sip of his coffee, looking toward the creek with one ankle resting on the other knee, when he heard the sound of the door opening.

  Seeing her figure in the doorway, he dropped his boot to the ground. The porch swing creaked. “I realized last night we never set a time.”

  “Honestly, I’m surprised you made it out of the woods alive.” Skye’s voice was hoarse, making her wonder what shape the rest of her was in at that precise moment. She wrapped her robe around her tighter. “But good grief, Theo, I would’ve gone up and gotten you.”

  “Would you have?” A somewhat challenging smile lifted the corner of his mouth. He returned his gaze to the babbling brook. “Anyway, I don’t mind the wait. It’s nice sitting out here. I have my coffee. I made you some if you’d like it. Very peaceful.” But even as he spoke the last word, a branch snapped in the distance, and she could see his neck tense.

  Her eyes almost missed the black sedan sitting in the grass beside her Prius.

  “C’mon in,” Skye said, opening the door wide as she moved into the living room. “We don’t want you to get mauled by the blood-hungry bears following the scent of your organic Peruvian-roasted coffee beans.”

  Theo followed her without further prompting.

  “I see you brought the car today. Didn’t feel like a poetic stroll this morning?”

  He laid one hand casually along the mantel. “Oh, I got a refreshing stroll in much earlier. Went through the woods a good two or three more times. Communed with the bears.”

  “Yeah?” Skye said, taking the second cup from his hand. She raised a brow at the mantel. “There’s a spider crawling toward your hand.”

  She smiled as he snatched his hand up so quickly the daddy longlegs skittered in the opposite direction. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

  Though she acted cool and collected, she found the coffee cup tremoring slightly as she shut the bathroom door. But then, in three minutes she’d gone from a dead sleep to drinking coffee with the ghost of her past. Her heart hadn’t adjusted quite yet.

  “I can hardly believe it,” Theo called from the living room. “This house is unrecognizable.”

  “Believe it,” Skye called back, her heartbeat slowing enough to allow her to take a sip of coffee and turn on the water. “This renovation took me every bit of the past three months.”

  “You did all this yourself?”

  The question was both infuriating and complimentary. It was the same fiery comment of his last night that made her want to dunk his head in the creek. She splashed some water on her face and called through the door, “You don’t think I could?”

  “Given how it was before, I didn’t think anyone could, not single-handedly.”

  Her annoyance eased as she splashed her face a second time.

  The floorboards creaked as Theo moved from room to room.

  Skye rubbed face wash into her cheeks.

  It had taken quite some time, but she’d determined last night how to handle him—more specifically, how to handle herself around him. She was not going to be rude. She didn’t hate Theo. Well, when she’d watched her mother at Food City scraping pennies at checkout last weekend, hate had crossed her mind. But she was not going to let hate lie there useless. No, what she was going to do was use that particular experience to fuel her behavior over the next few days.

  There was nothing to gain by acting furious at Theo, and there was potentially everything to gain by treating him exactly like he wanted: as an old friend. So she would do that. She would remember the good ol’ days. For the sake of her father she would help Theo, because left to his own devices, he’d plant the seedlings sideways and drive the tractor into the creek. And when the opportunity came, she would act like the mature adult she was and communicate with him about her dad’s pay. Not overtly, of course, but in a subtle way, so that when the time was right, she would bring up a point that would make him pause and rethink the course of his actions. That would make him realize how unjust he was being.

  How had the mother said it in My Big Fat Greek Wedding? She would let him think he was the head of his own decisions, but all the while she would be the neck that turned his head in any direction she wanted.

  This wasn’t going to be about what happened fourteen years ago. This wasn’t going to be about them. It was just going to be about ensuring her parents got what they deserved.

  Honestly, this was a golden opportunity.

  All she had to do was avoid hating the parts she hated about him, appreciate the parts she had at one time truly appreciated about him, and to be sure, above all, not to let her heart get in the way.

  “How’s your dad doing?” Theo called.

  She cracked the door open an inch and peeked at the man standing in her dining room. Running his fingers down the length of the dining room table, one hand resting in his pants pocket. The same jawline. The same broad, if not broader, shoulders filling out his shirt.

  He had taken the best features of his youth and improved on them.

  Frankly, it was irritating to see.

  Skye closed the door and rummaged through her makeup bag for something to cover up the dark circles beneath her eyes. “Broken collarbone and some bumps and bruises all around,” she called back.

  “Will he need surgery?”

  “They don’t think so. He’s just going to have to take it easy awhile.”

  “I’m sure that’s killing him.”

  Skye opened the foundation case. “Mom caught him trying to sneak out to the tractor at 3:00 a.m. You have no idea.”

  A few moments went by in silence.

  “You don’t keep any paintings for yourself?” Theo called.

  Skye stilled. She’d been an artist for twelve years. For the last six she’d done well enough that it supplied her whole income, but still, his words surprised her. A small secret revealed: he kept up with her life. Even though she hadn’t been around, he knew about her art. Did he want to know? Did he seek out information about her, keep tabs on her all these years?

  Skye shook her head. Of course her parents would mention her life from time to time. Of course it would come up on occasion.

  “I can’t stand it actually. I just have the itch to take them down and keep working on them.” Skye clicked the foundation case shut as she thought she heard him murmur, “How unfortunate.”

  “Come again?” she said, raising her voice as she leaned against the sink toward the mirror and pulled out the mascara wand.

  “Do you feel the same when you see your own work around town?”

  “Like where? I’ve never had a chance to find out.”

  “Surely the Martha would. You’re a local fine artist. You’re a newly returned regional treasure.”

  Skye laughed. It was a childhood dream of hers to be featured a
t the Martha Washington Inn one day, but the dream held no value now. She was better known on the West Coast—and pleasant enough, in a few regions of English-speaking Europe—than here. “The Martha doesn’t know my name from Adam. No, I dropped that dream a decade ago.”

  “This kitchen is stunning,” Theo called, his voice more distant. “I never would’ve imagined these bold colors would work so well together, and yet—” His voice ticked up a notch with renewed admiration. “Where did you find this island?”

  She smiled as she ran the mascara brush through her lashes. Of course he thought it was stunning. Her own father had walked through the house, grunted, and said, “An orange kitchen. Never seen one o’ those before,” before focusing on the more pressing point—why was there no TV? But no, this was Theo. “It’s a dresser I found at a yard sale,” Skye said, moving on to the other eye. “I just did a little rehab on it and—”

  “And put butcher block on top. So clever,” Theo said. “You could go into business as a designer.”

  She imagined him running his fingers over the butcher block of her deep-teal dresser island, analyzing, processing. In fact, she would bet anyone a hundred dollars he was actually doing that right at that moment.

  “Are you touching my butcher block?” Skye called out.

  There was a guilty pause. “Did you not want me to?”

  Skye smiled to herself as she dropped the mascara into the bag and gave one last look in the mirror. Well, she was no anti-aging Theo, but her brown eyes looked larger and rounder now, and the blue-tinted bags beneath them were concealed. Her cheeks carried a subtle pink pop, and with a few brushes through yesterday’s untamed curls, she looked as presentable as she was going to get next to Idris Elba out there. Two minutes and a paint-clad pair of pants, sweatshirt, and ponytail later, she was slipping into her work boots at the back door. Meanwhile Theo stood at the copper farmhouse sink, looking like a kid in a candy store.

  “Want a banana or something before we go?” Skye said, ripping off one for herself from the bunch on the counter.