A Beauty Dark & Deadly (A Dark & Deadly Series Book 1) (5 page)

“What would you like to drink?” Emmy asked as she turned off the stove.

“Oh, milk is fine,” he said without looking up at her.

“I love milk too,” she said with a quiet smile.  Then, she abruptly shook her head, ridding all thought of similarities between her and Jason from her mind.

In a manner of minutes, the two were seated with plates of pancakes and glasses of milk.

Jason looked up at her and slipped both the crumpled paper and pen in his pocket.  “This smells…”  He let his voice trail off as he inhaled, and a peaceful smile took over his features.  “I haven’t had pancakes in a long time.”  Emmy already had quite a big bite of the flapjacks in her mouth so she didn’t reply, but she acknowledged his silent compliment with a nod.  “When you went into town,” Jason said as he doused his pancakes with syrup, “I’m sure the locals gave you some sort of hassle for being here, with me.”  He looked at her directly, in such a way that Emmy could not look away from him, even if she tried.

Emmy swallowed her thoroughly chewed bite of pancake, and took a long gulp of milk before answering.  “Yeah,” she said, and then licked her lip to rid it of any leftover milk residue.  “They wanted to warn me about you, I guess.”  She paused, and then took a deep breath, preparing for what she was about to say next.  “I said that you were nice.”  She quickly stuffed her mouth with another bite of food so she wouldn’t have to explain herself, and looked away.

If she had looked up at the man before her, she would have seen that breathtaking smile back on his face. 

Chapter 3

“I want to show you something,” Jason stated once he had finished his pancakes.  Emmy looked at him, unable to keep the obvious suspicion off of her face.  However, she remained silent and stood from the table, collecting both his and her dishes.  “There’s a small garden, off to the side of the house,” he continued, as she placed them in the sink.  “I want to teach you how to keep it.”

Emmy still kept quiet, but turned to face him, and nodded once.  He nodded in return, and stood as well, wiping his hands together a few times.  His eyes, for whatever reason, were focused on the wooden floor.  It was a simple place, on the floor; there was nothing special about it, and yet the way Jason was staring so intently at it that Emmy could not stop her eyes from following his.  It amazed her how well his focus was when it seemed to concern nothing too important.

“Come,” he said finally, flicking his wrist in a sloppy come-hither motion that lacked any and all sensuality that usually accompanied such a movement.  However, Emmy highly doubted that he even intended to add a double meaning to his gesture, but she was still wary about following him into the garden.  She hadn’t seen any sort of neighbors residing next to the man; no one would hear her if she screamed… But at least she would be outside.  If she needed to run, she would have a better chance of escaping than if she remained inside.

She followed him nonetheless, and he led her outside.  They walked around the frame of the house, and Emmy was surprised to see the sun so high despite the morning.  She took off her hoodie and hung it on her arm while she continued to follow the man around to the side of the house.  When Jason got to his intended destination, Emmy took a moment to observe her surroundings.  She could easily see the triangular-shaped window – her window – from where she was standing.  Her eyes scanned the garden itself; there were carrots, tomatoes, and corn.  The corn seemed to be a couple of feet from the pocket garden while the tomatoes and carrots coincided rather beautifully.  She pushed her brow, however.  Shouldn’t he have picked these vegetables by now? 

The young woman turned to ask the man just that, but he had disappeared.  She could not make him out through the forest.  Her heart clenched once, twice, before a trifle of fear wrapped its cold fingers around it and squeezed.  She gulped and spun wildly, hoping that maybe her eyes deceived her the first time around.  But no, he was not in the camouflaging greenery.  Maybe she could call out to him?  But what would that accomplish, exactly?  Maybe she should run, make a get away as quickly as possible.

Just before Emmy could follow through with her plan, Jason walked around the side of the house with a couple of trowels and a basket.  Upon seeing him, she wasn’t sure if she should continue with her thoughts or relax.  All he had were garden tools and a basket to collect the vegetables.  She let out a heavy, abrupt breath before she began to resume her breathing as normally as she could.  It took a moment before fear begrudgingly released her from its grasp, and Emmy was somewhat back to normal.  Her face was surely red, and she was certain her eyes were still ridden with the terrifying emotion (fear always left the eyes last), but she was safe, at least for now.

Jason pursed his lips and cocked his head to the side as he studied Emmy’s somewhat unstable appearance.  His eyes scanned every crevice of her skin, as though he was looking for some kind of cause of her reaction.  Upon finding absolutely nothing, his eyes reached back into hers, and for whatever reason, Emmy felt herself calm down substantially.  Despite the looming rumors that surrounded the secluded author, his eyes were incredibly warm.  When they rested on her, Emmy felt safe, which made absolutely no sense, since she was afraid of him.  This was a dangerous contradiction, one that could surely place her in a compromising position.  She had known from the moment she first looked into them she would have to be aware of them.  Now she wished she was still naïve concerning them because they could easily be her downfall.

“Are you all right?” he asked her softly, taking a step toward her.  He sounded so genuine that her previous silent accusations seemed ridiculous.  And yet, she had to make sure that she couldn’t let her guard down.  Not around him.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice still shaky.  There was a cool breeze that gently seemed to massage her hot face, hoping to calm her further.  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said, smiling.  There was something else she needed to be wary of.  That smile of his would be a deadly distraction while his eyes took advantage of her disoriented state.  What a death – to be killed by beauty.  She watched as he looked down at the tools in his hand before looking back up at her.  “I’m sure you know what these are,” he said with a tone that sounded as if he was teasing her, making some kind of joke.  “These are trowels.  You use them to dig a hole in the soil to put seeds in, or to dig a stubborn vegetable out.”  He handed her one, and as before, she took it, making sure she did not brush his fingers with hers.  “Today, I want to pick the ripe vegetables.”

“Isn’t it a little late to do this?” Emmy asked him before she could stop herself.  She paused, pressing her brows together.  Jason remained silent, as though he knew she was not yet finished with her question.  “What I mean is, shouldn’t you have already picked the vegetables?”

He smiled at her and nodded a couple of times, causing his messy, dark hair to fall in his face and his glasses to slide down the bridge of his nose.  Since he could not readjust both things at the same time, he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and then did the same to his hair.  “Yes, actually,” he said.  “But I prefer them to be picked a little later than usual.”  He then knelt down and began to inspect his tomatoes rather carefully.  After a moment, Jason glanced up at her for a moment.  For whatever reason, Emmy felt compelled to kneel down next to him, but as she did so, she made sure there was a safe distance between them.  “Now,” he continued in his soft-spoken voice, “you can never, ever plant corn and tomatoes together.  The combination just doesn’t work.  However, you can plant tomatoes and carrots together, which is why the maize is a good distance away from the tomatoes and carrots.”  He paused as his eyes followed the soil that held the roots of the vegetables in place.  “There are two types of ways to plant seeds; in flat beds and in raised beds.  Personally, I prefer raised beds because I feel that the outcome is much more superfluous than flat beds, but again, that’s just me.”

It took a moment for Emmy to realize he had stopped talking and instead, focused his attention back on the garden.  His voice was comparable to a haunting melody that one would not normally indulge, but could not yet help.  It was like a smooth glass of rich, velvet wine that one knew was bad for them, but just the scent caused temptation to win the fight.  It was the sole shining light in a dark web, bidding the helpless fly into its clutches before killing them softly.  Emmy had been distracted by his voice, and, therefore, did not really hear what he had told her, but let his voice temporarily mystify her senses.  This situation she was in was becoming more and more complicated; she was uncovering more and more alluring traits in this man that would surely fog her perception of him if she let them get the better of her.  Briefly, she went over her mental check-list of do nots- DO NOT look straight into his eyes, DO NOT become blinded by his smile, DO NOT listen to him speak.  This was going to be incredibly exhausting, and it had barely been her second day on the job.

It was then that she noticed that he was staring at her with a slight frown on his soft lips, and his brows were gently pushed together.  It was a look of helpless confusion, and with those eyes of his, he reminded Emmy of a lost puppy, simply looking for a home.  Emmy had to quickly clear her throat.  Why was he looking at her in such a way?  Had she caused him some sort of distress?  Maybe he thought that she wasn’t paying attention to what he had said, which wasn’t exactly off the mark…

“You have a lovely garden,” she said and offered him a weak smile.  His brows slowly relaxed, but the frown remained present on his face.  Emmy decided she didn’t much like his frown, not because it detracted from his face, but, in reality, added to it.  It was like looking at a painting from a different angle; beautiful, yet different at the same time.  “Why do you have one, if you don’t mind me asking?”  She had to ask him something.  Yes, she knew very well that it went against her own rule of engaging him in conversation, but she had to make that frown disappear at any cost.

“Well,” he began, and his brow re-furrowed.  While the frown did not completely vanish, as Emmy was hoping, it turned into a pensive pursing of the lips rather than of confusion.  “It was originally my wife’s.”  His brows now pushed together, and Emmy was certain that if she looked directly into his eyes, she would see moving silhouettes reflecting whatever memory seemed to have taken a hold of him.  This was crucial for her to study; did he feel guilty at his wife’s death, as though he knew what happened to her?  Was he angry at her?  At himself?  But what she found was sadness.  And she couldn’t really interpret sadness in any way to claim his guilt or innocence.  Maybe he missed her, whether he was the cause of her death or not.  He attempted a smile right then, the right side of his face cocking up into a small grin, but he wasn’t looking at Emmy; he seemed far away from his garden.  “She never liked Tahoe.  She rather would have stayed in Seattle; she absolutely adored the rain.  It was hard for her to find a job, and Stacey always had to do something with her time, so she decided to take up gardening – she had always wanted to.  And she got really passionate about it and taught me.  So I’ve been keeping it up ever since…”

He didn’t finish, and he didn’t need to.  His voice just trailed off, as though trying to merge with his unspoken thoughts.

Emmy had no idea what to say.  She had never been all that great at reassuring her friends and believed that silence was usually a better statement than words could ever be.  At the same time, however, Emmy felt compelled to rid Jason of the new look of sorrow that had taken over his delicate facial features, especially considering she had indirectly caused him to look so forlorn.

“Well, she taught you well,” Emmy said, staring intently at the vegetables that occupied his small garden.  “They all look very delicious.”

From the corner of her eyes, Emmy saw the man smile, albeit lightly, and his eyes were like a pool of blue that were attempting in vain to drown his painful memories, but, at least, he was trying to smile.  Emmy wasn’t exactly sure at that point if she preferred the frown over the smile.  She didn’t like either of them, really, because his eyes expressed all that he could not say.  In fact, she was surprised he had revealed so much about his wife, and in turn, himself to her, a mere stranger.  Maybe he needed to speak to someone.  Maybe he needed a lifeline.

But Emmy couldn’t be that for him.

“So how do you like Tahoe?” he asked her as he began to pick certain vegetables with a tool Emmy hadn’t noticed before.  The vegetables he did choose to remove, he placed in the basket he brought.

Emmy wasn’t sure if she should be helping him, so she pretended to look carefully at each vegetable, but despite how juicy they looked, she refrained from picking them.  Jason seemed attached to his garden, and she did not want to upset him if she picked the wrong vegetable in the wrong way.  Her eyes studied each one, and she began to play a game that would help her learn more about the art of gardening; she tried guessing which vegetables he would pick.

“It’s quiet,” Emmy said, and before she realized it, she felt a very small smile gently touch her lips.  He stopped what he was doing and glanced at her, the same kind of smile adorned on his face.  She dared to raise her eyes in order to meet his, but she couldn’t hold his stare and had to look away.  “I’m from Newport Beach – Southern California.  I moved up here after I graduated high school to be with my grandfather in San Francisco.  I really like the suburbs, the city; the noise lets me know that there are other people around me, and I feel safe.”

“Are you afraid of being alone?” Jason asked her, peering at her.  He took the round tomato and gently placed it in the basket so it would not bruise, but instead of continuing to remove the ready vegetables, he placed his hand in the soil and pushed his weight on it so that he was looking at her fully now.

“No,” Emmy said, shook her head, keenly avoiding his eyes.  “I mean, I don’t think so.  I would be fine living in an apartment by myself if I knew there were people around.  As long as I heard cars driving by, day or night, I’d be fine.”

He chuckled and shook his head.  “You’re odd,” he murmured, his eyes glancing at the soil that surrounded his hand.  Emmy could not help the surprised outburst of laughter that flew past her lips if she tried.  No one had called her odd since middle school, maybe high school.  It sounded so weird coming from this man.  Jason watched her and started laughing with her.  It was a sound unlike anything Emmy had ever heard before; light and crisp, like the wings of a butterfly.  And when merged with hers, it sounded like a song too long unsung.  Abruptly she stopped; it was too much to take right now.  He soon followed suit, but he was still smiling.