Right.
Maybe I should check out the outside now. Be good to get the lay of the land before I settle in to work. I grab my coat from the peg where Ihung it last night and hurry out the door.
Outside is blindingly white, the ground covered with snow and bare trees and evergreens for miles set off starkly against it. It’s frigid, but apparently not cold enough to snow. Instead, a sort of freezing drizzle falls from the sky. I pull my coat (light wool and totally inappropriate for the weather) tighter around me.
Around the side of the cabin, I find a mound covered in a blue tarp. Pulling this back, I discover that Owen has left me enough wood to get me through three winters. Or at least I assume so, not really knowing how much wood one needs for such things.
Did Owen chop this wood himself? Visions of my elusive dream lumberjack float back to consciousness, this time with particularly well-defined biceps and lush, thick hair the color of Zoe’s.
Okay, yes, I’m probably overdue for a hookup—just to take the edge off. But I doubt I’m going to find much action up herein the middle of nowhere, and besides, Iamsupposed to be working. Meanwhile, where truly is the harm in indulging in a little lumberjack fantas?—
A mournful howl cuts the silence of the surrounding woods. Probably just a dog. Definitely, I tell myself, definitely a dog. But just to be sure, I’m already halfway through the nearest door.
It’s the side entrance to the detached garage, which isn’t a garage at all.
It’s a large, open room, lined with shelving along two sides, racks full of lumber along the third, and a workbench along the front, against the roll-up door, which is presumably no longer in use. There’s an impressive collection of power tools, but my eyesgoto the shelves, the floor, the workbench, every last corner, all of which are filled with every kind of wooden creation imaginable. There are furniture pieces being crafted from scratch, an antique table that appears to be in the process of restoration, a whimsical sculpture of an elephant and a mouse that fit together in interlocking pieces, a couple of birdhouses, a picture frame engraved with an intricate pattern, a collection of sanded pieces that I recognize as the parts to another puzzle box similar to the one Ifound inside, and innumerable other projects in various stages of progress. It’s like walking into my own mind, if my mind were filled with cedar and saws instead of paragraphs and plots.
Owen is an artist.
Zoe’s ringtone jangles into the silence, and I vaguely remember shoving my phone into my coat pocket on the way out the door, just in case something terrible happenedand I needed a St. Bernard to dig me out of the snow or something.
“Hello?” I say, bringing the phone to my ear, still half mesmerized by my discovery.
“Hey, I hope I’m not interrupting you at some crucial writing moment,” Zoe says. I can hear her typing in the background. Probably finishing up another holiday listicle for FlashPop.
“No, no,” I say dryly. “I’ve already finished the manuscript, and I’m halfway through the next one. I’m thinking of calling itSteele Magnoliasor maybeSteele-y Dan.”
There is a brief but loaded silence. Her fingers have evidently paused on the keyboard.
“Youareworking on the book, George, right?”
I’m gearing up to think about working on the book. That’s close. Ish.
“Of course I’m working on the book, Zo. That was the whole point of this little arrangement, wasn’t it?”
“Okay, good.” The tension melts out of her voice, and she resumes typing. “I was just calling to make sure you got yourself settled after last night.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You didn’t have trouble locating the toilet, or anything, did you? Or the kitchen sink? They do have sinks in Vermont, you know. Just in case you were wondering.” Mirth laces her words. Okay, enough of this.
“I’d love to stay and let you make fun of me some more, but I really should get back to my draft.”
“Okay, babe, don’t let me stop you! Kiss kiss.”
“Give my regards to the big city.”
“Will do.”
And then she’s gone, and I’m alone in the silence of the workshop. I really do need to get down to work. I can only justify procrastinating for so long.
Although. I haven’t eaten yet. And it doesn’t make much sense to start writing on an empty stomach…
CHAPTER 12
OWEN
I graba towel and wrap it around my waist. It feels about as luxurious as the nine-billion-count sheets on George Knight’s bed, reminding me again how out of my element I am.
