“Sorry. I thought you might be hungry. You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
Teddy blinked as if trying to assimilate the meaning of his words. After a moment, she said, “I had a few granola bars and a couple of apples.”
Oscar looked at the discarded wrappings on the floor. And two brown cores. Some empty water bottles. “Oh. Good. Well, I won’t bother you, then.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She turned back to her computer and was clacking away before he even shut the door.
Well,hell.
Yesterday he’d been “brilliant” enough to warrant an enthusiastic hug and a sexy kiss…and now he was nothing more than a pesky gnat, buzzing around her head.
Oscar went back out to the dining/living room where all his equipment was spread out. He ignored it and went into the kitchen to scrounge for something to eat in the well-stocked refrigerator.
Apples and a couple granola bars? He shook his head and made an extra omelet. He had no idea if Teddy had any food issues, but unless she was vegan—and of course she wasn’t, because she’d had chicken the other night; and clearly greenery didn’t bother her, as she’d prepared the salad—the tomato and spinach dish should give her a little more boost than some honey-soaked oats.
When Oscar brought it into her makeshift office, he merely slid it onto the table next to her and left the room. The delicious smell would eventually penetrate her fog and she’d eat when she was ready.
At least, that was how it happened for him when he was in the throes of work.
Oscar busied himself cleaning up the kitchen and then took another look at his temporary lab. Maybe there was another place he could get a water sample, and compare it to the hot spring. The spiky, snowflake-like crystals could just be a unique microbe in the soil here. He hiked around the mainland area until he found a small creek that ran near the steaming pool. After carefully collecting four samples to test, he brought them back to the cottage. He had no idea why he was compelled to pick a small bouquet of wildflowers on the way, but he stuck them in the empty wine bottle from their first night and placed it on the kitchen table.
For dinner later, he made Teddy a tuna sandwich and added a handful of raw carrots, along with the bouquet-spiked wine bottle, to her tray. He smugly noticed the omelet plate was empty when he delivered them. She grunted, glanced at him with glassy eyes, and said, “Getting closer,” and went back to clicking. Without even a thank you.
That night, Oscar closed his window, stuffed in earplugs, and set up his laptop to play white noise all night in an effort to make sure he wouldn’t be able to hear the scream if it did occur. As a result, he slept fairly well, but his dreams were a wild mixture of Teddy Mack lecturing him about not getting his hair wet in the hot spring—what on earth was that about?—and then Teddy, Dina, andMarciesitting in the hot spring, drinking cocktails with fancy pink umbrellas…while he dug a hole.
For what, the dream didn’t deign to tell him.
Probably his grave after he went crazy, cohabiting with a neurotic writer.
The next morning, he did find a soggy tea bag that indicated Teddy had somehow found her way to the kitchen, along with an ajar cabinet door and an empty box that had once held granola bars. He made peanut butter toast and drizzled it with honey, then filled a small dish with blueberries. Wordlessly, he delivered them to her, then settled down with his computer and lab and, after putting on his reading glasses, began to work.
Later that evening, he grilled some chicken (his cooking repertoire was very limited). He made a salad and brought a portion of both to Teddy, who actually managed to focus her eyes enough to thank him this time.
Oscar settled on the covered porch, in the same chair he’d used the first night he and Teddy ate together (the only night, as it happened), and worked his way through the salad and grilled chicken. He felt strangely alone—though that was something he usually preferred. That preference was one thing that had caused some tension between him and Marcie.
Her complaints had begun after they were engaged—that Oscar didn’t spend enough time with her; that he was always in the lab or had his nose buried in a journal or the computer. He didn’t think anything had changed since they got engaged, for he’d always been someone who preferred silence to chatter, and solitude to houses bursting at the seams with noise, people, and things.
But tonight, as he watched the sun edge closer to the distant horizon, Oscar almost wished that Teddy was sitting in the chair next to him, as she’d done three nights ago.
He twisted the top off his B-Cubed IPA (apparently it was from a local brewery) and was just lifting the bottle to drink when he heard the sound of a vehicle. Curious, he stepped off the porch and walked around to the small gravel parking area on the southeast side of the lighthouse.
It was a large capped pickup that seemed to be filled with tools—including several long pieces of some kind of metal. Iron, maybe.
A well-built man with dark auburn hair climbed out. He was about Oscar’s age, and was wearing battered shorts and a close-fitting t-shirt that appeared to have seen better days. He was holding a paper bag that seemed to carry something heavy.
“Hello,” Oscar said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Declan Zyler. Who are you?” the man replied, looking around with a frown.
His brows lifting at the unexpected and unnecessarily blunt response, Oscar replied coolly, “The name is Oscar London.” He sized up the man. More muscular than he was, but Oscar was surprisingly quick on his feet and a little taller. He could take him if he had to. Probably. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Teddy Mack. Where is she?” Suspicion fairly rolled off the newcomer—as if he expected to learn that Oscar had stuffed a comatose Teddy into a closet somewhere. Or worse.
His spine stiffened a little. “She’s kind of busy. What do you want with her?”
“Look…” Declan’s jaw was a little tight, and then he relaxed a bit. “I’m her cousin. She’s supposed to be here, working on a project, but she didn’t mention anything about a—a roommate. So…” Now he gave Oscar a narrow-eyed look. “Where is she?”
“You’re her cousin. Ah. That makes sense. It’s just that Teddy’s been working on her book pretty much nonstop since yesterday”—when she grabbed me in the hot spring and kissed the hell out of me—“and I know she doesn’t want to be disturbed.” He shrugged, the last bit of tension easing away. “Sorry if I was a little abrupt, but, well—”
