Wendy glanced toward the table in the other room where she usually set up her computer. The tightness was back, and he knew he’d guessed right. Something had gone wrong at the writers’ group.
She gave her head a little shake, and then said briskly, “I think I’d like to do that, thanks. I won’t feel nearly as guilty, either, what with all that you’re doing. But I do have to get laundry started. Would an hour be all right? I could pack a lunch, so you don’t have to go out to eat. The beach is right there, and it won’t be too hot today.”
“Excellent idea,” Alejo said, rubbing his hands. “I’ll get cracking. Meet you down there!”
Yes! He won another real smile from her. He paused halfway up from his chair, startled by how luminous that smile was. She was so beautiful.
MATE, his serpent rumbled, with satisfaction. And the lion purred, NEST.
“One step at a time, one step at a time,” he said under his breath as he carried his empty plate to be rinsed and put in the dishwasher.
Then he went out, with a full hour to use. There were two things he’d wanted to accomplish—besides courting Wendy. One was to work on the house, but the second was to take a closer look at the garden. Specifically for the “pests.” That woman had been around before. It was possible the ex had something to do with it, which was none of Alejo’s business. Nor did he have any way to find out. But at least he could take a look in the garden, and make sure any wildlife really was not sick.
He headed up the winding path, seeing healthy plants everywhere. The farther he went, the more tended the garden seemed. It was the kind of garden he liked most, appearing to grow naturally, rather than clipped into geometric precision. He knew from what Godiva said that she didn’t have a gardener. “I don’t need one,” she’d told him and his dad. “Lily likes to deadhead the roses, and as for the rest, it looks great the way it is—natural. I do get someone in to trim dead branches and the like, every year or so. I was told it was better for the trees.”
Alejo had seen that Sam was out in the garden every afternoon, for at least an hour or two. He found the little nook with the child sized seat strewn with cushions, and the crate-bookshelf full of comic books.
Alejo bent to look, and discovered that, instead of action comics, these were all about animals. A few were more naturalistic, but most of them featured animals with human attributes like coats and hats, living in warrens or little huts hidden in foliage. And a greater proportion of them included magic.
Alejo backed out without touching anything, not wanting to disturb Sam’s sanctuary. He looked up and around for squirrels, or anything else that might live in such an environment, but he saw nothing except leaves stirring gently in the sea breeze. He didn’t even hear birds, it was so quiet.
Too quiet. Human senses were dull compared to various animals. As he walked along the path, he let his serpent rise to the point of shifting—but not getting there—as the world began to transform. A thousand scents reached his nose: oh, yes, this garden was full of life.
His serpent looked around with the mythic shifter sense, and yes. There. And there, clusters of the tiny glowing sparks that meant life forms. Non-human life-forms.
He almost shifted all the way, except that the path was really an avenue, trees and shrubs overreaching on all sides. If he shifted fully, even keeping his wings folded, he would break numerous branches.
He moved cautiously, and found little feeding stations, with Sam’s small boy scent all over them. He looked into one and saw a variety of nuts still in their shells. So Sam was a conscientious guardian. Somehow that did not surprise Alejo in a son of Wendy’s.
Smiling at the inner image of Sam faithfully seeing to it that the water and food stations were tended, he moved into a small space between the clusters of trees. The shrubs and flowers had formed a natural sort of glade.
Godiva had made reference to Sam’s pet squirrels. He knew that she bought bags of nuts. She’d asked him to check on them.
What did Sam know? Alejo would not press him about it the way Ms. Nobett had. He would wait until Sam learned to trust him.
He was turning over ideas in his mind as he ran down the palisade path to the beachfront. Wendy was just pulling up in her car. Alejo’s heart leaped at the sight of her, and the warmth extended to points south when he saw that she had changed to sturdy jeans that fit her delightful curves. She wore what was obviously a threadbare shirt, tied at the waist below her generous breasts. Strands of her silver-touched blonde hair lay against her cheek as she opened the trunk of that godawful beater she was forced to drive—he remembered the supercharged purr of that expensive Beamer the ex raced down Godiva’s driveway as if his ass was on fire—and he forced a smile to his lips. “Here, let me carry that picnic basket. Will I get in trouble if I take a look inside?”
Wendy uttered a small laugh. “In that ceramic dish is just last night’s leftovers, zapped hot. It’ll continue to simmer in the crock. There’s rice to pour it over, and some carrot sticks, and the last of the peach pie.”
“Sounds delicious,” he said.
His reward was a brighter smile. That made three glorious Wendy smiles, and the morning was still young. He carried the hamper over to the grassy area well out of the way of any paint splashes or wood shavings, as Wendy said, “Ah, what should I do first?”
The worry was back, and he wondered what would cause that anxious reaction. At a guess, the ex, whose impatience with his son hadn’t even included a ‘good morning’ to the kid, much less ‘how are you?’
“People have different ways of getting into a chore,” he said. “My rule is—no rules, other than prep your area, and then have fun. I got a really good buy on the primer over there. I found a store with an overstock. So if we make a mistake, there’s plenty more.”
Wendy had stood looking irresolute, but at this he could feel her anxiety melting like clouds before the sun. He suppressed the wish to do it all for her, but held back in case she saw it as being crowded. Leaving her to poke among the supplies and proceed at her own pace, he pulled on his work gloves, brought a stack of planks to the portable saw he’d set up, and got to work.
He’d hammered in one plank when he saw out of the corner of his eye that she had set up shop at the far end of the porch, where he’d already finished the planking. She was no stranger to paint, he saw. She spread the drop cloth, carefully pried the lid off, then used the mixing stick to give the paint a good stir. She loaded her brush, and began painting in even streaks, careful not to drip, even though she had the drop cloth.
Another peek. He shouldn’t be sneaking looks at her like this. It was okay when you’re fifteen, but much older and you’re a creeper. It’s just that he couldn’t get enough of her sweet curves, the tender line of her neck—oh, how he wanted to press his lips right behind the pretty shell of her ear—the shadow of a dimple in each cheek.
He forced himself to turn back to his task. Within a few long strokes of the saw, he fell into the rhythm. He guided the wood along the edges, gauging the line of the cut, then reached for the sander and vigorously stroked the long length of wood to supple smoothness ... dammit, why did everything right now remind him of sex?
He knew why.
He went for another stack of planks, and stood out of sight of the porch, breathing in the cool brine air. That’s right, down boy. He hauled an extra load of planks up to his shoulder and marched firmly back around the corner to the saw.
