She parked, her hands still shaking, and, with keys in hand, headed for the front porch stairs, careful to avoid the broken one—
But there was no broken stair. She peered around in the weak moonlight, the streetlamp across the way shining yellow on the front porch. The sturdy, looked-like-new front porch. Had she accidentally come to the neighboring house? No, this was the last one before the cul-de-sac.
She turned back, to stare in complete amazement at the porch. The sagging, broken steps were all new. Straight. Even sanded. The railing had been fixed, and it, too, had been sanded. Only the porch boards were still warped, she discovered as she cautiously stepped up—but a start had been made on replacing them.
Who—how—
Her mind shot to Alejo, coming back every day through the garden. She had never asked what he was doing. She had assumed that incredible body of his came at the cost of running ten miles a day, or some such. But Godiva had once said he liked building things.
She ran her fingers along the smoothly sanded rail, imagining Alejo’s hands there, his smile as he worked. Because he would smile, she knew it instinctively. His smile was real. It warmed his gorgeous dark eyes that looked right at you. That appreciated you.
She sat down on the top step, gazing sightlessly out at the rippling ocean waves in their eternal splash and release, splash and release. Though her stomach still churned and her head panged whenever she encountered Bill, she had won the battle against tears. He could make her mad, or disgusted, or annoyed. He couldn’t make her cry. But a random act of kindness utterly broke her, and she put her head on her arms, and wept.
SEVEN
ALEJO
Alejo sensed Wendy passing Godiva’s house, then turning the corner. He sensed her troubled spirit, and ached to fly down there and comfort her. But she thought she was alone. He forced his stubborn spirit away, though the need to comfort her made him groan with frustration.
Somehow he got through the night without rushing to her, though the mate bond resonated with her sleeplessness and finally, broken, bad dreams.
He woke later than usual, due to falling asleep late. Almost nine! He’d better get cracking. He was just coming out of the shower when a horn blared impatiently right outside his window.
He heard Sam’s quick steps running, and the slam of a car door. “You got everything, Samuel?” a man shouted impatiently, loud enough to carry across three fields. “Whose truck is in the way? I nearly hit it… Who?... Speak up—speak like a man! How many times have I told you not to squeak like that. You sound like a five-year-old girl…” The car doors slammed again, reducing the loud voice to an angry WAH-WAH-WAH that was finally drowned by the purr of a BMW engine starting. Tires screeched, and the car drove away with a roar. That idiot was driving far too fast for a driveway.
FIRE, grumbled his serpent.
“No, buddy, unfortunately, we can’t let you chase him off with a few doses of green flame. Not that I blame you for wanting to give it a try.” That, Alejo guessed, had to be the ex. He hadn’t even met Bill and already he wanted to boot this guy’s sorry ass from here to planet Pluto. But as had become habit ever since he turned seventeen, the reminder that he literally had a monster inside him (actually, two) forced him to take a mental step back.
He went out to see what he could do to fix a day already jangling with bad vibes. Maybe he could rustle up some breakfast for Wendy, so she wouldn’t have to cook? But it was kind of late for that. He could still try! He didn’t know a lot of recipes, but he made killer fried potatoes with sausage, bacon, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and caramelized garlic, the secret ingredient.
But when he got to the kitchen, he found Wendy there, pulling a fluffy, golden waffle from the griddle. He could feel the effort she made to paste on a smile as she chirped in a semblance of cheer, “Breakfast is ready!”
Alejo looked at the two plates already on the table. From the looks of things, Sam had already eaten. Wendy’s plate was entirely clean—she’d been waiting for Alejo! His heart warmed.
Wendy put the last waffle on a stack. Alejo said as he put maple syrup on it, “Are Eve and Lily waffle lovers?”
“Lily is with her sister this weekend, and Eve took off early this morning, for some sort of music festival,” Wendy said. “Eat up!” Her anxious look was back. “I also wanted to ask. Is it you who did the work on my front porch?”
“Guilty as charged,” Alejo said as he sat down. Alejo took a big bite of his waffle. “Mmmm. Perfect!”
“I have plenty here. How much do I owe you for what even I can see is professional work?”
“Nada.”
“I can’t possibly take advantage…”
“Wendy, if Godiva thought I was taking money for what I do as a hobby, she’d pin my ears back with language blue enough to set fire to an iceberg. Dad, too! I enjoy fixing things. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to find something handsome coming back to life under my hands. That’s a pretty little house down there. With a bit of work, it’ll be even prettier.”
The color came and went in her face as her gaze flicked once to his face. He could feel her striving to suss out whether he meant what he said, but she still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know what to say, except to thank you, and I’m sorry to put you to so much trouble.”
“No trouble. Godiva knows how much I love such projects. At Dad’s ranch, I’ve refurbished everything within ten miles, and I was getting restless without a project, which is really why they suggested I come out here. When I finish a few little things at your house, I want to tackle the laundry room here. I don’t like that back wall. Someone was sloppy with the drywall, and the molding under the sink definitely needs work.”
As he hoped, the “few little things” cleared some of the tension from Wendy’s forehead, and the mention of Godiva’s laundry room won him the first smile of the day. He suppressed the urge to grin like a loon, but he promised himself he was going to win a lot more smiles before the sun set, or bust trying.
“I guess I can see that,” she admitted. “I feel that way about painting. Not artistic painting. I can’t even draw stick figures well. But walls and things. There’s something soothing in the slow stroke, and when you’re done, everything looks nice and new.”
“Exactly,” Alejo said. “Say, if you’d like to join me, the porch railing is all prepped and ready for primer. I was going to do that today. But if you’d like to tackle it, I can finish laying the porch deck.”
