by Knupp, Amy
Lindsey couldn’t help wondering if the woman had really meant, “I know you can’t handle thinking about your mother’s death.” Which was true.
She finished the cookies, baked two kinds of quick bread and frosted the cake after it cooled. Finally, with the help of some good music and the busy work of baking, she didn’t feel compelled to knock the daylights out of anyone who so much as mentioned her mom.
As Claudia had said, everyone handled things differently, and this had been Lindsey’s way of handling it for the past twelve years. She was just fine the way she was, thank you.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OKAY, SO LINDSEY WASN’T quite “just fine.” She was lonely and avoiding going home. Doing her best not to think about the significance of March the twelfth.
Now that Claudia was back, her dad didn’t need her as much. He didn’t even complain very often about not being able to go into work full-time yet, now that he was in for half days.
After they’d debated for over an hour about the future of small-town newspapers and what effect the internet would have on them, he’d finally given up and gone to bed, back in his old bedroom upstairs. Claudia had checked in to her private suite early as well.
The house was too quiet. Lindsey did so well during the day, even when Zach had come sniffing around to see how she was holding up. Daytime was easier, when there was a lot to keep her busy. But now, she didn’t have the energy to do much of anything.
She’d thrown on a jacket and gravitated to her favorite place on the back porch. Something about the darkness and the night air, and even the crisp temperature, made her relax.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the light was on in Zach’s shop. Yeah. Right.
The blinds were open, and she remembered his revelation that he’d always kept them raised on her account. That he liked having her watch him.
Was he sending her a message? An invitation?
Attempting not to look at the lighted window was a joke. Her eyes were drawn there almost of their own accord.
He moved in and out of her line of sight. A chambray shirt hung from his shoulders, unbuttoned to reveal a plain white tee beneath. He wore his usual faded blue jeans. She was riveted to his movements around the room, getting tools out, searching through wood scraps.
She wasn’t close enough to see the look on his face, but he paused in what he was doing and ran his hand through his hair. He stared thoughtfully at the table in front of him. Then, as if he sensed her, he looked directly at her.
Surely he couldn’t see her from there. She tried to write it off as coincidence.
But she couldn’t sit there and wonder any longer. She checked inside to make sure her dad was sleeping, made obvious by the snoring she could hear from the top of the stairs.
Lindsey slipped out the back door. She shut it without a sound, hurried across the wooden porch floor and descended two steps to the crunchy, icy lawn.
What was she doing? The last time she’d snuck over to see Zach in the shop, she’d come away angry and embarrassed.
Things had changed since then, of course. She was no longer a naive high school girl. He’d made it clear she was welcome. And that was the bigger danger.
She pressed forward, telling herself it was because she couldn’t stand being alone tonight. She just wanted to get away from the silence.
The windowless door of the stone shop was on the opposite side from her dad’s house. As she reached the corner, she turned back to make sure no lights had come on inside. Nothing.
Blowing her breath out in a cloud of steam, she knocked gently. The door opened seconds later, as if he’d been waiting for her, and judging by the lack of surprise on his face when he saw her, he probably had been.
A slow smile crawled across his face. That smile did things to her it shouldn’t.
“Wondered if you’d be by,” he said.
The cocky jerk.
Raising her chin a notch, she played back. “I saw you looking for me.”
He stepped closer. “You did, huh? And you still came over?”
A spark of mischief in his eyes made her catch her breath, but she refused to back away. She wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid of herself.
Looking over his shoulder, she asked, “What are you working on?”
The room looked much the same as it had years ago. The far half was dedicated to woodworking, with different saws and other tools, as well as a large workbench. A hooded light loomed over the area but wasn’t turned on, leaving the room blanketed in the soft glow of a single lamp near the sofa and a fire in the fireplace.
An ugly blue-and-green-plaid couch stretched along the wall to her left. On the wall to her right hung an electronic dartboard she hadn’t noticed before. She hadn’t noticed much besides Zach the last time she’d been here.
“A surprise for Gram. A new hutch for all her collections of dishes. For a woman without a lot of money, she’s got a load of dishes. They’re stuffed away in her closet.”
She was touched, once again, by his thoughtfulness toward his grandmother.
“She’ll love it.” She moved around him toward the work table. “What’s it going to look like?”
He joined her at the table and his scent filled her nostrils. No cologne, just man. He picked up a pad of paper and showed her detailed sketches of a hutch.
“Did you design that yourself?”
He nodded and pointed out several features.
Lindsey didn’t want to show she was impressed. He’d just think it was grounds to kiss her or some other stupid thing.
“Care for a soda?” he asked.
This was too familiar. It was exactly how the evening had begun twelve years ago.
“No, thanks. I just had something at my dad’s.”
Grabbing the notebook with the plans, he crossed to the fridge and took out a Sprite. Then he lowered himself to the sofa. “Can I get your opinion on something?”
She started toward him but the open blinds beckoned to her. All her dad had to do was wake up and look out the window. “Mind if I close these first?”
He gave her a mischievous look and she rolled her eyes.
“My dad has a weak heart. It’s better if he doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Feel free.”
Oddly, his cockiness made her want to throw him off balance by kissing him instead of shying away, as he probably expected her to do. The thought tantalized her as she reached up to lower the blinds, then shrugged off her coat.
She walked to the couch but sat on the arm of it instead of next to him.
This could be fun. But also dangerous, she reminded herself. It’d be best just to give him the opinion he asked for and keep a safe distance.
“What kind of opinion do you need?”
Suddenly, he was all business. “Down here at the bottom, I could either leave the shelves open, put on glass doors, or use solid ones so the space is hidden. What do you think?”
“Solid doors so she can hide stuff.”
He chuckled. “You have a lot to hide, do you?”
Their eyes met and neither looked away. He was smiling.
“I’m an open book,” she told him. “But then, I don’t collect dishes.”
“I don’t think you’re as open as you like to pretend.” His tone became serious, his words pointed.
She stood and took a few steps away. “I think your grandmother would appreciate some covered storage space. It wouldn’t be good for displaying so close to the floor, anyway.” She turned to see him staring at her, and her temperature climbed by several degrees under the weight of his gaze.
Zach nodded and made a note on the plans before setting them aside. Lindsey scanned the room for the darts she knew lurked somewhere. When she turned
again, he stood inches away from her and she could feel his body heat.
“Why’d you come over tonight?” he asked in a low voice.
He was too close. She could see the individual threads in his shirt, the muscular chest below it.
“Darts,” she blurted.
“You came over for darts?”
Getting a hold of herself, she took a step back. “Yeah. Darts. Where are they?”
“In the cabinet,” he said, gesturing toward the dartboard. “You any good?”
“Not really,” she lied. “Wanna play?”
* * *
THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, the game was over. Lindsey flopped down on the sofa, disappointed that she’d lost, even if it was by a hair.
Zach sat a couple feet from her, shaking his head. “‘Not really good,’ yeah, right.” She’d led the whole game, but a lucky triple nineteen at the end had saved him.
“What are you complaining about? You won.”
“Barely. You would’ve nailed the three your next turn.”
“Probably.” She grinned.
He crossed his left ankle over his right knee. “You try to come across as such an open book, but that’s not the case at all, is it?”
Lindsey stiffened. “Why do you say that? Since I got here that’s your second reference to me being secretive.”
Zach debated silently whether to get into the topic that’d bothered him all day. The truth was he’d rather climb to her end of the sofa and kiss her senseless, but he suspected that’d be the easy way out. For both of them.
He wasn’t feeling particularly easy tonight.
“Your secret dart talent isn’t the only thing you’re keeping to yourself.”
“What else, Oh, Wise Guy?”
“I still don’t believe today doesn’t get to you.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Would you rather have me whimpering around all day? Why can’t I be okay?”
“I’m not okay today. I didn’t know her that well. She wasn’t my mom.” He leaned his head on the couch. “Lindsey, every year when this day comes around, I get knocked flat by memories of that night.”
“Just because you’re bothered, you think I should be, too?” Her voice wavered on the last word, just enough for him to know she wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted him to believe.
“It has nothing to do with me. I just think it doesn’t add up that you’re fine.”
She stared straight ahead in silence.
“That night changed my life, Linds.” She still didn’t look his way. “Up to then, I was out to cause trouble. People thought I was bad news, well, I’d show them bad news. Josh and I were alike that way.”
For a moment, he considered shutting up, but he suspected that was the problem. Everyone else had shut up about it, too. If she ended up hating him after tonight, well, then...nothing much had changed.
“I heard the crash even though I was inside the house with all the windows closed. It was that loud. The kind of sound you just know something horrible has happened.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“I knew right away it was Josh. Knew it like I knew my own name. I tore up the street and could see it from the corner. Saw his pickup. Couldn’t make out the other car yet. Didn’t even consider it much because I was just thinking about Josh. Then I got to the scene.”
He stopped talking, the lump in his throat swelling. Lindsey had drawn her knees up in front of her and hugged them. Tears streamed down her cheeks and Zach felt like the worst kind of jerk.
Sliding closer to her on the cushions, he resisted the urge to take her hand. He had a point to make. “One of the worst things is that I saw you, Lindsey. I saw you as you got out of the car. The horror in your eyes.... It rocked me to the core. In that one instant, I understood how much pain being ‘bad news’ could cause.”
He could no longer not pull her to him. Somewhere in his brain he registered surprise when she reached for him at the same time.
Burying her face in his chest, she wept into his T-shirt. He held on to her tightly, suspecting this would do her good but wishing now he’d kept his mouth shut. “Let it out,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure she could hear him between her gasps for breath.
She fought for control—he could see it on her face. “You don’t understand.”
Taking her with him, he lay back on the couch, settling her alongside him. She let him do it. Rested her head on his chest where her tears had soaked him.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
Her breathing deepened and she didn’t respond.
“Why can’t you talk about it?” He understood what it was like to avoid talking, but that’s not what this was. She could normally keep up with the best.
She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. “I begged my mom to go to a movie that night,” she said hoarsely. “She didn’t want to go at all, didn’t want to get out in the cold, didn’t want to see the movie I did, didn’t feel like going, period. I talked her into it.”
“Sounds like you two were close.”
Her eyes popped open and she glared at him. “You don’t get it. I forced her to go when she wanted to stay home and watch TV with my dad.”
His throat tightened as he realized belatedly where she was going with this. “You didn’t force her, Lindsey. She made up her own mind.”
He felt her shake her head against him. “That’s not the only thing.” She paused, and the seconds stretched out. “I was driving the car, Zach.” Her voice was oddly hollow, barely familiar to his ears.
“I know,” he said quietly.
She plastered her face into his shirt again. “I was driving.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “No. Lindsey, no. Don’t do this. The accident was not your fault.”
Her silence told him she wasn’t convinced.
“My brother was tanked. He ran a stop sign and broadsided the passenger side of your car. Open and shut case.”
She sat up and hugged her knees again, facing away from him. “Easy for you to say.”
This was far beyond anything he knew how to help. Who was he kidding? He didn’t know how to help at all. Shouldn’t have ever brought up the subject in the first place. But the need to get it out in the open between them, to tell her his part of the story, how he’d been affected, had driven him.
The more she talked, though, the more he understood—the way the accident had changed him...was nothing.
“A drunk driver hit you, Lindsey. He broke a laundry list of laws.”
“I don’t expect you to understand, Zach. I hear you, and in my head, you make sense. But it’s not getting through any farther. Inside here, I regret every second of that night.” She clenched her fist to her chest.
Lindsey felt like she exhaled for the first time in an hour. Zach tugged her back down against him, and she acquiesced, sure she’d never felt so wiped out. There was a reason—okay, a host of reasons—she didn’t let herself think too hard about the night her mother was killed. Number one, she couldn’t bear the crushing pain.
“Lindsey—”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
He studied her, looked as if he was about to lay into her, but then he didn’t. She needed silence and, wisely, he gave in. The only sound in the room was the faint ticking of an alarm clock.
Beneath her head, his chest rose and fell, and she allowed her hand to rest on it. His hand was on her waist, and his thumb caressed her, back and forth, in a soothing motion.
Lindsey closed her eyes and shut out the pain. She simply listened to Zach’s breathing. Felt the sturdiness of his body. Took in his smell, the familiar masculinity with a hint of detergent lingering in his T-shirt. If she concentrated only on the man beside her, everything was okay.
<
br /> Zach wasn’t usually one for lying still, doing nothing, but he couldn’t remember when he’d been as content as he was now, with Lindsey stretched out against him. She’d seemed to cry some of her sadness out. Not that he expected miracles.
With each minute that ticked by, Zach lost more ground in the battle not to notice the silkiness of her hair draping over his arm and shoulder. The inward curve of her waist under his fingers. The faint floral scent that teased his senses.
Her breathing became slow and even as she dozed off. He reached up to the lamp on the end table by his head and switched it off, leaving only the flickering glow of the fire.
That Lindsey trusted him enough to lower her guard and fall asleep struck him somewhere deep inside. He was a jerk for putting her through the torture of remembering. She’d have been much better off if she’d run away.
Several minutes later, she stirred, running her hand over his chest and crossing her leg over both of his. The sigh that escaped her as she shifted made his blood pound in his ears.
Just as he thought she was going back to sleep, she raised her head and opened her eyes to look at him. A half smile pulled at her lips.
“Have a nice nap?” His voice sounded strained.
“Mmm.” Her contented response curled around him.
His smile was forced, as he was no longer sure he could control the urge to kiss those lips.
Thank goodness, he didn’t have to.
She moved until their mouths were even. When she gazed into his eyes for a long beat, he could tell she was second-guessing herself and he held his breath. In the next moment, her lips were on his, light and tentative.
Lindsey knew she should probably slow down, back off...think about what she was doing. But that was the point. She didn’t want to think, anymore. She wanted to forget the memories that had been dredged up, escape the vulnerability that came with the pain.
Forgetting the past was easy when she was with Zach. At this moment, she didn’t care what her dad would say if he found out. She didn’t care about history. All she cared about was Zach.