While standing in the middle of the empty room, admiring the way the light filters in through the window, I wonder for a moment about painting it a fun color. Maybe a soft pink? Quickly, I scribble that note out.
If this is going to be a rental, it will make more sense to stick to neutral colors. Another bedroom. Increase the number of people who can stay. Maybe I should even do a room with a queen bedandbunk beds. I’ve seen that before, so parents and kids can stay in the same room.
By the time I’ve finished walking through the cabin and making a list of things I’ll need to upgrade, re-paint, furnish, or fix, I’m itching to get something done.
It’s like at work, when we talk about projects for too long. I always have to sit down andactuallysketch up a character, or do some coding, or I start to feel a little crazy. Then I notice, right next to the front door, a wall sconce half out of the package. Jasper must have planned to put it up and not got around to it.
Maybe he was even thinking I might need something like that, a light to take out with me into the dark.
In the little shed out behind the cabin, I find a drill in a thick canvas bag and grab it, hauling it inside. Feeling empowered, I grab the wall sconce and turn it over in my hands; it’s a battery-powered one that you can remove like a flashlight. A good idea to keep by the front door.
I hold it up against the wall, moving it around until I find a spot that looks just right. Plus, it’s near the outlet, so it will be easy to recharge it.
Then I pull out the drill and start screwing in the light’s mount.
CHAPTER 8
MAX
About an hour after I get up, the sun comes out and the road outside my place dries up. The air is thick with the moisture from the rain before, but I head out and hook my Jeep up to Lacey’s car, pulling it out easily.
Then, though I try my best not to, I watch out the window for her coming down the road. From Jasper’s cabin to mine would be around a twenty to thirty minute walk.
As I go through the motions of the morning — feeding Dona, making and cleaning up breakfast, checking the gutters and the rain barrels — I wonder about making some sort of path through the woods from my cabin to hers. It would be much safer than walking on the road.
Then I remember first that Lacey isn’t staying, second that it’s not like she would be coming down to my cabin, and third that the absolute last thing I would want is a path from a rental to my place.
Last night, she’d assured me she would come first thing in the morning to get her car. Morning turns to mid-morning, thencreeps closer to noon, and I check out the front window each time I hear a noise.
“First thing in the morning,” I grumble, finally deciding to head out to my shop. “Yeah, right. Some of us have stuff to do.”
Dona meows, weaving around my feet as we walk together to the shop. When we get inside, she jumps into her bed by the window, curling up to sleep.
I try to focus on the other leg for that aspen chair.
But, for some reason, I’m thinking about Lacey wandering out into the forest. Or messing with the wood stove and somehow managing to start a fire.
Grunting, I put down my tools and walk outside, shielding my eyes and tipping my head, looking up the mountain in the direction of Jasper’s cabin. I don’t see smoke.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I mutter, scooping Donatello up and ignoring her mewls of protest as I carry her back to the cabin, setting her inside and giving her a sheepish look when she glares at me.
She’s just as tied to our routine as I am — breakfast and some morning chores, then out to the wood shop. But today is different, and I’m not going to leave her out there when I’m not around to keep an eye on her.
A second later, I’m hopping in my Jeep and driving up the road, muttering to myself the whole way. It’s not like Lacey could have gone anywhere without her car; she said herself that she doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift.
When I pull up outside the cabin, I’m struck again by how good a job Jasper did on it. Situated right up against the pond, a deckoffers a full view of the water, with the mountain reflecting in it. A couple of birds skate around on it, clucking and shaking their feathers.
The trees rustle in a gentle breeze, and for early August, it’s not nearly as hot as it could be. The magic of living far above sea level.
Outside the cabin is quiet, and for the briefest moment, I think about reversing, driving straight back down the mountain to my cabin, where I should be anyway. It’s not like sheaskedme to come up here. I never would have done this if it was Jasper here.
But Jasper never seemed like the kind of guy who would wander into the woods without bear spray. He wouldn’t have gotten stuck on the road in his 4Runner, anyway.
I’m just about to do it — go back home and mind my own business, which is what I moved up to the mountains to do — when I catch a glimpse of her through the front window. Feeling like a creep and also shocked at her obliviousness to a vehicle being out in front of her cabin, I watch in stunned silence as she raises a drill and pushes into the wall.
Well, shit, she wasn’t lying. She really is going to fix up the place. Maybe I underestimated her.
Then, she seems to jolt, and a spark arcs across the room. Lacey stumbles back, then falls to the floor.
