“Drip coffee. That’s the best. You look like you could use some, Mr. Delaney.”
“Nathan. I’ll give you a hundred dollars for a real pot of coffee.”
Giff gave a chuckling laugh, slapped Nathan smartly on the back. “You need it that bad, it’s free. Let’s go fix you up.”
“You always start work at dawn?” Nathan asked as he shuffled up the steps behind Giff.
“Get an early start, you enjoy more of the day.” He headed directly to the stove, filled the kettle at the sink. “Got any filters?”
“No.”
“Well, we’ll jury-rig her, then.” Giff tore off some paper towels, folded them cleverly, and slipped them into the plastic cone. “You’re an architect, right?”
“Yeah.”
Nathan ran his tongue over his teeth, thought fleetingly about brushing them. After coffee. Worlds could be conquered, oceans could be crossed, women could be seduced. After coffee. Life would be worth living again. After coffee.
“I used to think I’d be one.”
“Used to think you’d be one what?” Nathan prompted as Giff dug into the cabinet over the stove for coffee.
“An architect. I could always see these places in my head, houses mostly, windows, rooflines, shades of brick and siding. Right down to the fancy work.” Giff scooped coffee out of the can and into the cone with the careless precision of habit. “I could even walk myself inside, go through the layout. Sometimes I’d shift things around. That stairway doesn’t belong over there, it’s better over here.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Well, I could never afford the schooling or the time to go off and study, so I build instead.”
In anticipation, Nate got out two mugs. “You’re a builder?”
“Well, now, I don’t know if I’d say that. Nothing that fancy, really. I do add-ons, fix things up.” He patted the tool belt cocked with gunslinger swagger on his hip. “Swing a hammer. Always something needs to be done around here, so I keep busy. Maybe one of these days I’ll take one of the houses in my head and build it from the ground up.”
Nathan leaned back against the counter and tried not to drool as Giff poured boiling water into the cone. “Have you done any work at Sanctuary?”
“Sure. This and that. I worked on the crew that remodeled the kitchen for Brian over there. Miz Pendleton’s got in her mind to add on a little bathhouse. A solarium, like. Something where she can put a Jacuzzi tub and maybe an exercise room. People look for that kind of thing now when they’re on vacation. I’m putting together a design for her.”
“The south side,” Nathan said to himself. “The light would be right, and it could be worked right into the gardens.”
“Yep, just what I was figuring.” Giff’s smile widened. “I guess I’m on the right track there if you thought the same.”
“I’d like to see your drawings for it.”
“Yeah?” Surprise and pleasure zipped through him. “Great. I’ll bring them by sometime when I got them a little more complete. Better payment than a hundred bucks for the coffee. Drip takes time,” he added, noting the way Nathan was eyeing the slowly filling pot. “The best things do.”
When Nathan was in the shower, sipping his second cup while hot water pounded the back of his neck, he had to agree that Giff was right. Some things were worth the wait. His mind was clear again, his system all but singing with caffeine. By the time he was dressed and had downed cup number three, he was primed for the hike to Sanctuary and set for an enormous breakfast.
Both the pickup and Giff were gone when Nathan walked down the steps again. Off to fix up something else, Nathan decided. He knew Giff had been amused when he’d asked him to write down the instructions for brewing drip coffee, step by step. But Nathan dealt better with a clear outline.
He caught himself whistling “I Walk the Line.” Back to Johnny Cash, he thought, with a shake of his head. And he didn’t even like country music.
When he stepped into the forest, dim and green, he deliberately slowed his steps and followed the gentle bend of the river under the arching sway of limbs and moss. Because it always struck him as entering a church, he stopped whistling.
A flutter of color caught his eye, and he stopped to watch a sunny yellow butterfly flit along the path. To the left, the lances of palmettos, tangled vines, and twisted trunks formed a wall that reached up and up, giving him glimpses of scarlet from the flowering vine, snatches of vivid blue sky through the forks of branches.
Though it was a detour, he kept to the river path a bit longer, knowing that the water would widen and lead him deeper into the cool stillness.
Then he saw her, crouched beside a fallen log. Her baggy jacket was pushed up past her elbows, her hair was pulled back into a stubby tail. She had one knee on the damp ground, the other foot planted for balance.
He couldn’t have said why he found that so attractive. Why he found her so ... interesting.
