Tin

by K. S. Thomas

  “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad he chose me.” I smile. Once upon a time, my Jazz had chosen me, too.

  Sidney’s still standing a bit closer than necessary after our little hug, when something catches her eye and she sidesteps me on her way to something, or someone else.

  When I turn around, I see her holding tight to Riker, and he’s returning the hug. And it’s not at all awkward. Although, I suddenly really wish it was.

  “He’s going to be alright,” she tells him, wiping her eyes and leaving dirt smears across her cheek from the sand and dust on her face and hands.

  “I told you she’d be able to help him.” His eyes cut straight to mine. And that thing happens. That thing where two people can suddenly have entire conversations by exchanging a mere glance. And it freaks me the fuck out. Because those word filled glances don’t happen to just anyone. They happen between people who know each other. Intimately. And not physically. Emotionally.

  “Um, I’m going to go ahead and take off.” I start walking toward the large barn doors. It suddenly got really crowded in here.

  “Thanks again, Quinn.” Sidney reaches out and squeeze my arm as I go by. She’s really touchy feely, that one. I’m kind of surprised Riker doesn’t seem to mind it.

  I’m all the way to the parking lot and to Kirsten’s car when I hear footsteps running up behind me. “Hey. Wait a sec.”

  I turn around and lean back against the Beemer. “What’s up, Cowboy?”

  He smirks and his eyes narrow briefly. “You tell me, Boots.”

  “Just trying to get out of your way so you and Sidney can handle your business.” I mean for it to sound casual. It doesn’t. It sounds like I’m jealous. And catty.

  He takes a step closer and rests his hands loosely on my hips. He’s dressed unusually nicely today. No suit or tie or anything, but these jeans don’t have any dirt stains on them, and the fitted shirt he’s wearing, is tucked in. With buttons. And it’s not made out of flannel. And now that he’s standing so annoyingly close, I can smell him. It’s not the usual straight from the shower soap scent. He’s wearing cologne. And Oh my GOD! He smells good enough to eat.

  “What’s going on in that twisted brain of yours now? Huh?” He’s tugging at my belt loops, bringing my hips in to meet his. Like I really need to get any closer to him right now.

  “I don’t know. It seems like things are...overlapping. And I don’t like it.” I turn my head to keep from having to maintain eye contact because I’ll be completely at his mercy if I let those teal blue eyes of his bore into me a second longer. I’m already not doing so hot in that department as it is.

  He takes advantage of my face being turned away and moves in close beside my ear to whisper, “Getting confused, are we? Having...feelings?”

  I press the side of my head into his and lower my face into the crook of his neck. “Just one.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I mold the rest of my body to him and let his arms take me in. “Hope.” And it’s both the best and most frightening thing I’ve experienced in a long time.

  “Hope,” he repeats it quietly. “I think hope is going to go a long way for us.”

  “It might never go anywhere other than here.” I start to step out of his embrace, but he stops me.

  “Or it could take us to death do us part. That’s the thing about hope, Quinn. It comes with possibilities. And I like that. Whatever they are. I like knowing they exist.” He bends down and kisses the top of my head. Then he reaches for my door handle with one hand, while still holding me to him with the other.

  “I’m going to finish up here, help Sid with the night feeding and then I’ll be home. You gonna be there?”

  I unravel my way out of his arm and the safety of his broad frame and slide into the front seat of Kirsten’s car. “I’ll be there. Now that I don’t have to fake going for a run, I might even show up wearing something nice and girly like.”

  “And yet another thing to hope for.” He winks and flashes me a mischievous grin, making me blush like a teenager. We’re flirting. And not dirty flirting, but cutesy flirting. It’s a whole new side of him. And it’s freaking adorable.

  “Okay, you need to stop that right now.” My stern tone goes entirely to waste since I’m smiling from ear to ear. “Don’t get all sweet and charming with me now, mister. It won’t work. I already know you’re an anti-social asshole, so just stick with that. It makes me less wobbly in the knees and pink in the cheeks.”

  He comes down into the car and kisses me square on the lips. Right there. In broad daylight. “Bye, Quinn.”

  “Bye, jackass.”

  He closes my door, still smirking, then taps the roof before he steps away from the car, giving me the final go ahead, and I take off, but not without watching him in the side mirror the entire drive down the driveway until I turn off on the main drag. And he stands there the whole time, watching me too.

  When I get back to the house, Kirsten is in full on dinner making mode and Sophie is busy playing with her dolls in the family room just off the kitchen.

  “Save the horse?” She’s staring at me expectantly over a pot of boiling spaghetti.

  “Yep.” I plop down in one of the barstools across from her.

  “Then why are you so mopey?” She sets down the wooden spoon she’s holding and comes to take a seat beside me. As soon as she reaches me, her nose crinkles in disgust. “You stink by the way. Is that what’s depressing you? Because it’s definitely having an effect on my mood right now, I can tell you that.”

  I lift my shirt up to my face and inhale. I smell fabulous. Like horses and fresh hay. “You’re crazy. This scent is amazing.”

  “Quinn.”

  “I don’t want to lose him.” I bury my face in my hands to avoid having to see whatever expression will show up on her following those words.

  “Why do you think you’re going to lose him?” she asks calmly and I venture a peek in her direction. She’s not mocking me, or looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. She’s seriously asking.

  “Because.” I let my hands fall down into my lap. “We’re not together. But we’re something. And I think maybe he wants the something to become a together thing, only I don’t know if I can do together. I just know I don’t want to do apart. You know?”

  Kirsten laughs. “Do I know? Jesus, Quinn. You don’t even know.”

  “Thanks. That’s helpful. I’m really glad I opened up to you about this.” I go to get up when I feel her hand on my elbow.

  “You really want to know what I think?”

  I turn around to look at her again. “Kind of. Tell me what it is first and then I’ll decide.”

  She grimaces, but tells me anyway. “I think that you want to have your Riker cake and eat it, too. You’re used to having him all to yourself without having to invest any feelings or offer any kind of commitment, and that suits you just fine. And maybe it suits him, too. Except now...now you’re having some sort of tingling sensation in the hollow hole in the pit of your chest that used to house your heart, and you’re starting to remember what it means to have feelings and you don’t like it. And now you don’t know which is worse. Leaving the man you want, dangling out there for someone else to come along and snatch right out from under you, literally, given what the two of you do with your time, or take a trip down memory lane and retrieve what’s left of yourself in hopes of someday handing it over to him.” She clicks her tongue at me. “I don’t know, Quinn. Tricky shit, this falling in love crap, when you claim you’ve no longer got a heart to do it with.”

  “No.”

  Her brow raises curiously. “No, what?”

  I press my bottom lip out into a pout. “No, I don’t want to know what you think.”

  She shrugs. “Too late.” Then she has the audacity to laugh again as she climbs out of the bar stool and returns to her pasta.

  “I think I liked it better when you thought he was a redneck loser I needed to stay away from,” I g
rumble as I get up and start to stalk off.

  “Oh, I see. You want to have your Kirsten cake and eat that too. Man, that’s like your thing now.”

  I turn around before I reach the stairs. “Stop talking about cake. You’re going to ruin pastries for me altogether if you keep it up. And then what joys will there be left for me in this life?”

  She giggles. “There’s always sausage. You do seem to be rather fond of that these days.”

  “You’re disgusting. And stop comparing Riker to food. It’s making me hungry.” I’m halfway through my door when I call back, “And not for your damn pasta!”

  Harley greets me as soon as I walk in and together we stroll out through the back, straight down to the sand where he spends the next twenty minutes chasing waves to his heart’s content. Days like today I watch him extra close and I wonder how often he thinks of that night that changed us both. People like to remind me how time will heal me. How it will somehow mend all that is broken within, just by passing me by. But then I look at Harley. I see his missing limb and I think, no amount of time will ever bring it back. He will bear the scars and the loss of that night for the rest of his life. Why would I be any different? Why would time return what that night took from me? It wouldn’t.

  Back inside, I finally decide to part with the scent I’ve thoroughly enjoyed these last few hours and I jump in the shower. I pay an unusual amount of attention to detail today, and then scold myself for acting as if tonight will be the first time he’s ever seen me naked. Considering the circumstances surrounding our first time together, now is really a ridiculous time to start worrying about whether or not I missed a spot on my knee caps while shaving my legs.

  But, I’m on a roll. So, after I dry off, I decide to dig through the old makeup case Kirsten passed down to me when I moved in here. I locate some hot pink nail polish and have a go at my previously neglected toe nails. For a split second, I consider doing my fingers as well, and then I remember whose hands they’re attached to and don’t bother. In twenty-two years the only times I’ve ever had a fancy manicure were when Kirsten insisted on giving me one. So even if my efforts went unnoticed or wound up being deemed as insignificant by Riker, my sister would definitely see the unnatural aspect of my behavior and bust me for it.

  However, since I did sort of mention looking more like a girl than a sweaty gym towel when I arrive tonight, I allow myself one last moment of vanity and put on a skirt. Nothing fancy. Just a denim cut-off mini with a long-sleeved T and my boots. Still, it’s about as dressed up as I get, so I do kind of hope he appreciates it. Just as long as he doesn’t read anything into it. I’m sure he won’t. Just as sure as I am that I will. Because I’m a fucking wreck. And I nearly change my clothes seven times before I’m back in outfit number one and force myself out through the front door and borrow Kirsten’s car for the second time today.

  Parking in his driveway feels weird, and part of me is tempted to drive back home and then walk back along the beach. But that would take forever. And I would definitely chicken out of wearing a skirt. So I stay. Because that way I can make the skirt stay. At least until I get inside and Riker chooses otherwise.

  I’m bending over inside the passenger seat retrieving some items that fell out of my purse, yet another aspect of this evening that’s new and unfamiliar given the fact that a purse doesn’t tend to go with running shorts, when I hear a loud whistle from behind and stand up straight, nearly bumping my head on the car roof as I do.

  “I like this look on you.” His hands are gliding smoothly down my hips and reaching around to the front of my thighs as he comes up right behind me. “I like this look on you a lot.”

  “Well, don’t get too used to it. At least not until I get my own car. Kirsten’s not going to let me hijack hers every night, so there will still be plenty of occasions I show up in my sweats.”

  He turns me around to face him and greets me with a kiss. “I’m pretty sure you already know how fond I am of the way you look in your sweats.”

  I smirk. “Can’t like ‘em too much. You pretty much rip them off of me the second I walk through the door.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he murmurs eyeing me up and down, this time from the front. “And don’t think for one second this little number will fare any better.”

  And he’s not kidding. I’m barely through the door before I’m wondering why I bothered stressing so much about an outfit I literally only wore for the drive over here. Well, that, and his reaction, which honestly, was totally worth the anxiety.

  An hour later and I’m wearing one of his t-shirts and sitting perched up on his kitchen counter watching him cook for the second night in a row. It’s just scrambled eggs, but still. I can’t not appreciate the effort.

  “Can I ask you something? Something personal?” He’s stirring the eggs, making sure the cheese he just added doesn’t burn and get all brown and crusty.

  “Since when do you ask my permission to ask me something personal? And while we’re on that, when have you ever asked me for permission period?” I rip off a piece of the tortilla he was planning to load my scrambled eggs into and shove it into my mouth.

  “Good point. Forget I asked and just answer. What the hell do you do all day?” He’s turned toward me now, flinging his wooden spoon at me as part of his interrogation technique. It’s lacking and I want to laugh at him, but I hold it in as best I can.

  “What do you mean, what do I do? I spend all day staring at the clock and counting down the seconds until I can race over here and see you again.”

  His lips are tightly pursed and I know he’s not nearly as amused as I am. Although he’s also not nearly as put off by my sense of humor as he’d like me to believe. “I’m being serious. You know what I do. I want to know how you fill your time. And why you don’t need a car.” He cocks his brow on the second half of his statement. I guess anyone would wonder. It’s not like I never had a car. Just haven’t had a need for one in a while.

  “First of all, I only sort of know what you do. For example, I’m still not clear on where you were today that it took you three hours to get back.” I’m stalling, but I also really want to know.

  He takes the pan from the stove and starts fixing two plates for us. “You don’t sort of know what I do. You know exactly what I do. I help out Sid at the ranch and I take care of the rental properties. The Shepherdson Reality Group owns properties all up and down this coastline. Some are even out of state. Sometimes that means I have to drive a ways to check on things.”

  “You have to take care of all of them?” For some stupid reason I’d thought it was just this one.

  “Yep.” He places the empty pan in the sink and lets water run over it before he comes back and hands me my dinner. He doesn’t sit down himself, just leans against the counter beside me. “Okay. Your turn.”

  I tip my head back and forth between each shoulder a few times, debating on how detailed I want my answer to be. “Well, the reason I don’t need a car, is because I work out of the house. I help run this website. I’m responsible for everything from answering emails, to writing content, to dealing directly with the public and offering them whatever assistance they require depending on their situation.”

  He stares at me for a second, unimpressed, his tongue sort of stuck in the corner of his mouth while he’s having his slow motion reaction to my answer. “That was vague.” He shakes his head, stabs a piece of egg with his fork and then points it at me before he takes a bite. “Now try that again. And this time, tell it like you want me to actually know what you do.”

  I can feel half of my face give way to a smile. The other half is still perturbed by his need to override every single emotional barrier I’ve tried to put in his path since meeting him.

  “Fine. I work with a non-profit organization called Warriors for Women. We help women and children who deal with varying degrees of domestic abuse. We offer them everything from legal advice to counseling, and a few other services I won’t go into detail about. E
verything is online and it’s all anonymous.” I don’t repeat what part I play in all of it, because I already covered it before.

  This time, he genuinely is impressed. “Wow, Quinn. That’s amazing. Is that something you always wanted to do? Or did your personal experience lead you there?” He’s asking a question to which he already knows the answer. He’s doing it because it would almost be awkward to assume. And even more awkward to say, ‘Well, Quinn, that’s really admirable, but what did you really want to do with your life?’, so I skip answering the first one and go right to the real question.

  “When I was younger I was really into the rodeo circuit. My mare and I were steadily working our way up to the big leagues in barrels. Horses. Rodeos. That was my life from the time I was five. Kind of always thought I’d do it until I was ready to settle down, have a ranch of my own and raise a few babies and foals.” I shrug. “Then, when that didn’t pan out, I switched gears completely. Got my bachelor's degree in social work and wound up working for Warriors.”

  Riker’s watching me intently, curiously hanging on every word I say. “So do you eventually want to be a social worker and be more hands on?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t choose the degree to learn the job. I chose it to learn the system. So I could work around it. Not with it.” I shrug. “But I do want to eventually be more involved in something. My own thing.”

  He sets his plate down and smiles. “You already know what it is, don’t you?”

  I nod. I haven’t told anyone. I can’t believe I’m going to tell Riker. “I’m working on putting together a program that would match up dogs in need of adopting with women in need of saving.”

  “I’m intrigued. Let’s hear it.” And because his blue eyes are so damn beautiful and so damn focused on me, I tell him.

  “It’s no secret that most women who are in abusive relationships tend to struggle with breaking the cycle. Even if they do muster up the courage to leave once, nine out of ten times, they go back. The reasons are endless, and often seem just as minor and illogical to those on the outside as they seem life and death major and completely logical to those on the inside.” I’m tempted to expound on this. I really, really want him to understand why the inside looks so different, but I don’t. Because I don’t want him to ask me why I know what the inside looks like. “What I would like to do, is work directly with women’s shelters. Bring in dogs that have gone through the shelter system and have been to the death chamber’s door and back and connect them with women who are just as desperate to stay alive as they are. So that if they go back, or, when they go back...they don’t go back alone. They go back with a friend. The most loyal friend they’ll ever have. A friend, who will fight for them when no one else is around to hear them cry for help.”