Ready to Fall (4 page)

“No, I’m fine to drive. I had a pint of cider. I’m good.”

We said goodbye and I got in my truck, blasting the heat to defrost the windows as I kept an eye on Diane in Bessie. I followed her home like I said I would, musing over the little things she revealed about herself tonight. Handling Donnely topped the things I liked about Diane so far. My new neighbor was turning out to be more interesting than I first imagined.

A few days later I called Steve, an old high school friend and one of the best mechanics ever. Steve sold cars on the side and could be counted on for all of Diane’s requirements of inexpensive, sturdy, and reliable. After telling him Diane was driving Bessie in the winter, and after he finished cursing about British cars, he said he had a Jeep Cherokee that could work. If I’d help him change the oil, Diane could come see it over the weekend.

Despite Donnely’s joking about calling Diane, neither of us got her number that night, so I left her a note on the door telling her I’d found her a Jeep and my cell number.

Saturday morning found me on my back under the transmission of Diane’s potential car, changing the oil. I didn’t mind getting dirty. Hell, I preferred dirt to a suit any day.

Steve’s voice carried over the loud classic rock in his garage. The softer tones of a woman’s voice responded. Diane. She refused my offer to give her a lift to Steve’s, insisting she wanted to bring Bessie in for a tune up after driving her in the winter.

I could see Diane’s boots standing to the side of the car while Steve told her about it.

“You fall asleep under there, John?” Steve asked, kicking my work boot.

After securing the oil cap, I slid the creeper out from under the front bumper and gazed up, blinking under the brighter light. Diane stared, but not at my face. I tilted my head up to see the top of my boxers and happy trail exposed. My T-shirt had ridden up, exposing my stomach above my jeans, and I gave her a show.

Slowly drawing her eyes up to my face, I met her stare and raised an eyebrow in question. “Like what you see, sweetheart?”

Busted for checking me out, she quickly turned her head toward Steve and asked him about the tires. She didn’t turn her face quick enough, though. Her cheeks had reddened. Lady liked what she saw.

Standing up, I grabbed a rag to wipe the grease from my hands before turning down the music.

“What do you think?” I asked.

She glanced down and her eyes swept up my body. “About what?” she asked, sounding confused.

I gestured at the car. “The Jeep? The one right next to you? Sturdy, reliable, four wheel drive, and since you are a friend of mine, and get the discount, cheap.”

“It’s big. Do I need something that big?”

“It’s not that big. You need something with four wheel drive for the mud and ice. Not that we ever get much snow, but we could get a freak storm. Mud is a given. Want to take it for a ride?”

She nodded and Steve tossed the keys to her.

During our short drive, Diane admitted she was out of practice driving after living in New York so long. Car service and cabs had been her usual transportation. I teased her that driving was like sex. Didn’t matter how much time passed in between, you still remembered where everything went.

I expected her to laugh, but she stayed quiet and turned around to head back to Steve’s.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to insult you,” I apologized.

She nodded and then said, “You didn’t. You don’t know me well enough to know the intimate details of my sex life. Or lack thereof. It was a joke. I get it. No problem.”

Her words lacked conviction. Obviously it was a problem. I was used to keeping things light with women. A joke here, an innuendo there, flirting a must. Clearly Diane wasn’t the typical woman I met. It would be trickier to figure her out. Ogling my abs one minute, being chaste about a sex joke the next. Hot. Cold. Confusing. I backed out of friend territory and into neighborland.

“You think this will work for you? Steve’s giving you a good deal, and if anything goes wrong, he should be able to fix it.” I wanted to make things less awkward by focusing on the task at hand.

“It’s perfect. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. It’s what islanders do for each other.”

“Can I return the favor? I can cook dinner for you. Or buy pizza. I’m not the best cook, so you might want to opt for the pizza.”

“I eat pizza. Sure. You can buy me pizza as a thank you. Then we’re even. Got it?”

She nodded. “Say when and where. I can even drive us.” She smiled and patted the dash. “Same gray color as your truck. I need to name it. Any ideas?”

“Only Maggie names her cars, so I’m not going to be much help there. Let me know what you decide.”

We arrived back at Steve’s, and I left them to sort out the financials with a promise of pizza soon.

My phone pinged with a text message from Kelly when I got back into the truck cab.

*
Don’t forget Valentine’s Day is next weekend
.*

How could I forget? She’d been reminding me for what felt like forever. Chicks and Valentine’s Day. I didn’t get it. What’s the point in putting all this pressure onto a random day in February? To sell chocolates and flowers? Sure, I’d buy her something, but I’d rather skip the whole thing. Unless I bought her lingerie. That was a gift for me. Then again, she’d probably figure it out and get mad.

What was supposed to be fun and hot sex, evolved into the opposite of fun. What was the opposite of fun? Work. Kelly had become a lot of work.

D
IANE
LEFT
ME
a note a few days after Steve’s, suggesting a night for pizza. The night we chose ended up being bitterly cold, with winds threatening to pull down trees and the power lines connecting the south end of the island to the north. Instead of going out, I offered to pick up dinner and have her over to my house. If the power did go out, I at least had a generator unlike where Diane lived. Maggie always enjoyed “disconnecting” and would live by candlelight and the wood stove. She had all sorts of romantic notions of winter on Whidbey. I wondered how Diane would fair if we did lose power for the night. Or a couple of days. Not unusual if we had high winds or ice.

After texting about our likes and “never on my pizza”, I had a Hawaiian pizza with jalapeños keeping warm in the oven when Diane appeared at my door. She was dressed for the Arctic in a black parka down to her knees with fur around the hood.

Stepping aside, I let her into the house where she shook off her coat and stamped her feet on the mat. The porch light illuminated the rain pouring down sideways with the wind. If the temperatures dropped a few degrees, we could get snow. Or ice.

“Where are your sled dogs?” I couldn’t help but tease her.

She blinked up at me and ran her other hand through her hair, tousling the waves before they fell around her shoulders. Shrugging off her big coat, I could see she wore that baggy gray sweater of hers and tight jeans showing off the curve of her thighs. Unfortunately, the ugly sweater covered her ass. Pity.

“Sled dogs?” she asked, leaning down to scratch Babe’s ears, who sniffed around her boots.

“Yeah, with your parka I thought you might have sled dogs.” My joke fell flat.

“Oh, no. No sled dogs. That’s my city winter jacket. It gets much colder back east, and in the city you walk everywhere, you need the big coat,” she said, explaining what didn’t need explaining. Awkward silence settled between us.

“Pizza’s in the oven. Hot Hawaiian like we decided,” I said, filling the space.

“I brought wine.” Her voice rose as if this could be the salvation we needed. She pulled a bottle of red out of the pocket of her coat from where I hung it on the hooks by the door. “I had no idea what you liked or if you even like wine. I bought a Pinot Noir. Figured everyone likes that. Do you drink wine? Should I have brought beer?”

Her nervousness was charming, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Pinot’s fine. Three things we do well up here in the land of gray are: coffee, beer, and wine. All necessary supplies to get through a long winter.”

“I like that list. What about chocolate? Man, or woman, has to eat.”

“Yes, the fourth category for survival is chocolate. Maybe following fish.”

I walked into the L-shaped kitchen to grab a couple of wine glasses. She pulled up a bar stool at the counter and surveyed the space.

“I like your house. It’s, um …” She paused, clearly searching for the right word. “… Masculine.”

I chuckled in response. Masculine was a good way to describe my cabin. I’d taken it over from my aunt and uncle who still lived on the island but built a larger home in the woods. I tried to observe the room from her point of view. Knotty pine walls, fishing photos, and a mounted king salmon above the couch my grandfather caught definitely gave the room a “masculine” feel. The furniture wasn’t fancy, or as Kelly said “current,” but it was sturdy and more importantly, comfortable. My aunt had sewn denim covers for the sofa facing the flat screen over the fireplace. A pair of leather chairs flanked the sofa and my collection of old soccer trophies along with old photos lined some shelves.

“Well, I’m a man and I live here alone, so masculine works for me.” I watched her nod while taking in the details of the room.

“I like it. It’s cozy.” She gave me a genuine smile, her first of the night.

“Cozy it is. Ready to eat, or do you want to hang out a while?”

“Let’s eat. I’m starved. Can I help?”

“Nope. I can manage the pizza. As you probably noted, I don’t have a dining table. It’s eat here at the bar or on the coffee table. Up to you.”

Her eyes crinkled and she seemed delighted by the idea of sitting around the coffee table. “Coffee table. My ex wouldn’t approve and it feels rebellious. Do you mind?”

“Wow, he sounds like a fun guy.”

“You don’t even want to know. Definitely a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Or in his case, a suit.”

I grabbed the pizza box and plates, and asked her to bring over the wine and glasses. She settled in on the sofa and I took one of the leather chairs. I had a fire going in the small fireplace and it gave the room a warm glow. Diane was right about the cozy.

“I can’t believe I found another person who loves jalapeño and pineapple together. Lauren, my best friend, hated it.”

“This Lauren clearly doesn’t know what she’s missing. New York friend?”

“Best friend from college. She’s a teacher. Our lifestyles were so different when I was married, but after the divorce she was the one person I could count on. I miss her.”

“Sounds like a great friend, other than the whole bad taste in food part. How did you and the wolf meet? If you don’t mind me asking.” Curious about her past, and since we were neighbors, getting to know her felt like the thing to do.

“Do you really want to know the whole sorry tale?”

“Sure.”

“If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?”

“My what?” I asked. “Sorry tale? I have a long list of them. You’d be bored or go running for the hills with all my woes.”

“I doubt that. You seem like a nice guy.” She meant it. What she didn’t know was I was a wolf in flannel.

“I can be a nice guy. Very nice. But I can also be an asshole,” I admitted.

Her eyes wandered my face, searching for something. “Okay, so the brief history is I married right out of college. Whirlwind romance. Wealthy, ambitious, good looking—the whole family was like the Kennedys. Only they summered in the Hamptons and not Hyannis.”

She said these places as if I knew what they meant.

“It was a fairy tale. After the perfect wedding, life fell into place. I quit my entry level PR job and became ‘the wife’.” She frowned and picked a pepper off of her slice of pizza. “Being ‘the wife’ was a full time job of making sure everything about us and our homes were perfectly presentable to the outside world.”

“I’m going out on a limb here and guessing things weren’t so perfect with Mr. Perfect.”

“At first, yes. Then his career took over.”

“What does Mr. Perfect do?”

“Hedge fund. Big money. Taking money from the wealthy and making more money for the wealthy. Our lives became about money. How much we had, if we had more than so-and-so. We weren’t keeping up with the Joneses, we were the Joneses. And what was once perfect began to feel like a brilliant trap.”