Secondary Colors (22 page)

He sits on the blanket, peeling the lids from the food containers.

“Why keep this place to yourself?”

“I like spending time with myself, just me, maybe read a book or sketch. I can be.”

“What made you come here in the first place?” he asks, placing a reusable plastic plate in front of me.

“You don’t want to hear more about my boring past,” I state, rationing out the chicken Meredith made this week, giving him the meatiest pieces.

“Of course I do.” He takes a generous serving of macaroni salad and plops it on my dish.

“Isn’t it—personal?” I hand him a napkin.

“Sex is personal.” He takes it from me and passes me a glass of tropical ice tea.

“I thought we wanted to keep this thing between us simple.”

“Thing? Are we a thing?”

I laugh.

“Don’t play dumb, Holt. I’m serious.”

“Whatever this
thing
is, we’re way past simple.”

“Yeah, but the less involved we are, the easier it’ll be to call it off when I leave.”

He considers my statement, the corners of his eyes creasing with serious thought.

“Things would have to end by then, I guess.”

“What do you expect?”

“Nothing,” he says, but there’s something. I hear it in his dulled voice. I see it in his drooping body.

“I figured we were on the same page about things.”

“We are,” he says distractedly.

With a shift in the mood, we eat our lunch, stuffing our mouths so we don’t have to talk. It’s a beautiful day. I’d hate to ruin it with awkward conversation.

He pulls out a book when we finish and lays on the blanket with an arm under his head. His eyes skim the lines at an impressive rate as he thumbs through page after page. I collect white and yellow flowers, picking the prettiest and fashioning them into a crown by carefully braiding the stems. I place it atop my head.

Rising, I remove my sneakers and step into the creek, the cool water washing over my feet. When Holt notices me over the pages of his book, one eye squinting out the sun, a smile cures the melancholy that’s plagued his lips since lunch.

“You look like a wood nymph,” he comments, setting his novel down beside him.

This is my opportunity to lift the mood. I kick cold water in his direction. He springs up when it soaks his clothes and tears off his shirt. He comes after me and snatches me up from behind, spinning us around. I scream gleefully, the world whirling about me in smears of blue and green. Max barks and splashes and dances around us in the water.

“Put me down,” I shout. “I’m dizzy!”

He stops and sets me on my feet, his hands steady about my waist. When I find my center, I step forward and slip on a mossy rock, falling ass first into the stream.

He reaches out a helping hand.

“Eye for an eye,” he mutters with a vindicated grin and hauls me up. “Now you’re all wet.”

His hands vanish under the skirt of my clingy dress, lifts it over my head, and chucks it onto the blanket.

“Is this where you kiss me?” I ask, hoping against hope that’s exactly what happens.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” I tilt my lips to his.

“Good.” He grants me what I want, bringing his scorching mouth onto mine. It’s one for the ages.

I part my lips, inviting him inside. He accepts, sinking his tongue into the warm breach. His hands travel to my face, intently memorizing my bare skin on their ascent, awakening every molecule, a sensation I’ve only felt under his touch. It’s exciting and new and frightening, wrapped into a single clouded emotion. Hidden down in the center, I’m petrified to let it go.

The grass sways with the sweeping wind, abating the late afternoon sun’s rays on our skin, raw in its most natural state. Our clothes drying on a flat rock nearby.

I lie on my stomach with the stem of a fallen daisy pinched between my thumb and forefinger, gently plucking the white petals from the yellow center. One by one, I watch them twirl to the wavy surface of the whispering brook. My mind drifts miles away, similar to the petals littering the leisurely-moving water.

Usually when I escape to the meadow, I think of Bailey, my parents, their divorce, the meaning of life—easy stuff. Holt occupies my thoughts now, visions of our love making swimming in my head.

“Tell me why you first came here.” Holt tickles my back with a long blade of grass.

“You really want to know, don’t you?”

“There’s a reason this place is special to you. I want to understand why.”

“There was a time I found it hard to be at home. I needed to disappear, so I spent most of that time wandering around our land. One day, while I was out riding Nightmare, I came across this place, my serene haven. The stream, the wind in the trees, the flowers, it gave me exactly what I needed, a sense of peace and security.” Since he wants me to open up, it’s only fair he does the same. “Alright, my turn. How long have you been on the road?”

“A long time.” A distance clouds his eyes, as if he sees something other than me and the sky and the field around him. He’s wherever his mind takes him when he disappears inside himself.

“Don’t you want to settle down somewhere?” I ask, hoping to snap him out of his trance. It does. His eyes seem to focus on me again.

“If there’s a reason worth staying for, yes.”

“Why did you come to Aurora?”

“I was passing through and hadn’t planned to stay more than a few days. I was going to camp out in the woods, but then I met your mom. She was really nice to me.” He turns onto his side and rests his head in his hand. His free hand roams my tan skin, his fingers discovering the contours of my body. “Ask me why I stayed.”

“Why did you stay?”

“It’s the closest place I’ve had to a home.”

“What felt like home?”

He leans into my ear.

“You.”

I sit up and stare down at him.

“You stayed because of me?” Unintended tenderness softens my voice.

“Yes.”

It’s probably the sweetest and scariest thing anyone’s ever said to me. A part of me wants to get up and run, but my body betrays me without even a muscle spasm when I note the sentiment in his eyes. I’ve never been stared at the way he’s staring at me now. My legs may want to flee, but his eyes keep me rooted.

“You’d already been here months before I came home,” I point out.

“I saw your picture. Every time I’d head up or down the stairs, there you were, staring me in the face. Something about it comforted me, made me not so lost.”

Whether I recognized it before or not, I don’t feel abandoned anymore. I haven’t since him. I’m understood, which probably terrifies me more than anything. My barriers are disintegrating. I’ve been imprisoned behind them for so long, I wouldn’t know how to survive without.

“We should leave before it gets dark.” This isn’t what he wants to hear, but I’m lost for words.

“Yeah.”

We pack up and head back to the truck before dusk casts a lavender haze over everything. While he drives through the darkening woods toward home, I process our conversation in the meadow. We’re on the cusp of more. I’m just not sure how much more.

illusion of depth by change of tone between fore and background, blurred, with less

intense hues

Another July gone.

The days fell away like pages of a calendar in a classic movie, expressing the passing of time. I want to slow it down.

When I was a kid, days were endless and summers eternal. You actually anticipated school to break the monotony. Once you’re an adult, you realize how precious days are, how twenty-four hours never seems like enough, and that years disappear in the blink of an eye. These thoughts plague me on my drive home after a shift at the shelter one late afternoon in early August. That and Holt. More specifically, the way Holt and I spent July. Things have become intimate between us, beyond the intimacy of our bodies.

At first, it was physical attraction. Well, annoyance and physical attraction. That’s changed. It’s become something else. He’s become something else. It isn’t love or anything like it. But there’s more there than there was before. I enjoy spending time with him, and I miss him when I can’t.

When we aren’t reading on the sofa in the attic, or swimming naked in the lake, or cooking dinner in the kitchen together, a sensual act in itself when it’s with him, we kiss and touch and screw around every chance we get. My body can’t get enough of him, and his of mine. He takes me whenever he wants, and I let him.

After our bodies communicate between the sheets, we talk late into the night, our eyes fighting to stay open. We talk about where we’ve been and where we want to go. I love listening to his stories about nomadic life on the open road. He listens to me talk about my art and passions. We leave out certain details about ourselves, his scar and my heart for example. These topics we avoid at all costs.

I’m so absorbed in my thoughts, I don’t spot the man in his rental town car until I park. He watches me get out of my car before struggling from his. I thrust my hand into my purse to locate the canister of pepper spray I bought after the night my car broke down.

He’s a tall, overweight man with a brown suit that fits his large frame poorly. He has a permanent rigid grimace stamped on his face, a real ball buster type.

“Evie Hathaway?”

“Who wants to know?” I answer with a question, suspicion in my voice, my hand on the blinding spray in my bag.

“Do you know a Holt Turner?” He disregards my legitimate question.

“Again, who wants to know?”

“My name is Fred,” he says flatly, as if that’s a sufficient response for his prying. “Does Mr. Turner reside here?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss my purpose here, Miss. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you know if he’ll be back?”

“I’m not telling you anything until you explain what you’re doing on my property asking me things I’m frankly uncomfortable answering.”

“I’m here on behalf of another party who needs to get into contact with Mr. Turner as soon as possible. Are you someone who has regular contact with him?”

“Yes,” I admit, giving in slightly to get him off my land a little faster.

“If you could give this to him and ask him to call me immediately, I’d be grateful.”

He hands me a card.

Seems simple enough.

“I’m sure I can manage.”

With a tip of his head, he turns back to his car, starting it up and driving off. I watch him disappear into the trees before I give the card a onceover. There’s nothing extraordinary about it at first glance, his name, Fred Kelley, and a phone number in square black font. It’s the job title under his name that catches my eye.

Private Investigator?

Why is a P.I. tracking down Holt?

I walk into the house and drop my purse by the front door on the way to the kitchen. I set the card on the dining table and grab the orange juice from the refrigerator. I lean against the counter and sip on my drink straight from the carton while I stare down the taunting card. I’m not normally this snoopy. I have boundaries, and I respect others.

Practically scaring me out of my skin, the door swings open and Holt walks in and over to the sink to wash his hands.

Wiping them off and turning to me, he asks, “What are we doing tonight?” He wraps his arms around my waist. “I was thinking we could bring dinner in, read to each other, get naked.” When he sees the grief on my face, his expression changes. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s for you.”

I nod to the card on the table. He releases me, walks over to the table, and picks it up to read.

“Where did you get this?”

“He was here. He gave it to me a few minutes before you walked in.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“No. He handed it to me and asked that I tell you to contact him ASAP.”

He examines it once more, as if he’ll find more information on the tiny rectangular slip of cardboard, then leaves the room. I hear him pick up the phone in the hall and punch in the numbers. It’s quiet for a second and then I hear, “You wanted to talk with me?”

I walk out of the kitchen and lean against the wall. It might be intrusive, but I want to know what’s going on. Holt turns and watches me as he listens to the man on the other end. His face falls and his lips part.

“Um, thank you,” he says before hanging up.

“What was that about?” I ask, even though it’s really none of my bee’s wax.

“I need to leave for a few days,” he informs me, turning and walking up the stairs. I follow a few steps behind. When we get up to the attic, he starts cramming clothes into an old army duffle bag he most likely picked up on the road at some army surplus store.

“I need you to watch after Max while I’m gone. Will you do that for me?”

A rush of relief sedates my concern. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if this was him trying to bail out. But he would never leave Max behind.

“I’d love to watch him.”

I pet his head as he lies beside me on the bed, his big brown eyes locked on Holt as he moves about the attic grabbing random things and packing them carelessly.

“And you said it isn’t more than a few days?”

“Maybe a week at the most.”

One week. One less we have before I leave. One less I have with him. One less.

I put on a sugary sweet smile. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Max and I get along real well.”

Max’s head tilts to the side when I say his name. I give his head a good scratch.

“
He’s
very fond of you,” Holt says.

I look up into his eyes, planted on mine, when I note the softness in his voice, as if he weren’t really talking about Max.

“I’m very fond of
him
,” I admit, my voice soft and my eyes magnetized to Holt’s face, waiting for him to make a move.

He doesn’t.

“I am coming back,” he assures me.

“I know.”

I feign indifference, as if it isn’t a worry in the back of my mind. It worries me he won’t tell me where he’s going or why. It worries me simply because Meredith would insist my concerns stem from my father and abandonment issues. She’d be right. But I’ve never been this way before. Even with Aidan.

He bends over and leans his weight on the mattress with both hands on either side of my legs. “Do you?” he asks, his eyes scrutinizing mine.

Does he see what I’m thinking?

“Y-Yes,” I stutter.

Do I even believe that?

He doesn’t buy my bullshit, I’m sure, but he nods, kisses me, and then returns to packing.

Once he’s finished, I escort him out to the garden and wish him safe travels before he hops into his rusty old stead and drives off. Max sits at my feet as we watch his master disappear into the trees. I wonder if he’s hoping the same thing I am.

Please come back.

By the fifth day, I begin to worry.

I keep my mind and time occupied with work, chores, caring for Max, and painting. I paint with any free time I steal for myself. I paint until my fingers and wrists hurt. But it keeps me from thinking about him. It wasn’t until after he left I realized I have no way of contacting him. This doesn’t appease my nervousness or make the waiting easier.

By the twelfth, I’m freaking out.

I’m in the shower after a day lost in paint, washing it off my arms, face, and anywhere that isn’t covered by my ruined clothes. It rinses and streaks down my skin, the colorful water swirling around the drain. I wipe off, my cell rings. I wrap a towel around myself and walk into the bedroom. I pick the phone up off my bed, checking the screen. I don’t recognize the number. Normally, I’d let unknown numbers go to voicemail, but something tells me to answer in case it’s Holt.

“Hello?” I answer with tension in my voice.

“Violet Hathaway?” a female asks.

“Yes, this is her.” I sit on my bed, water dripping from my hair and down my back.

“This is Sonya.”

Sonya?

Sonya.

Sonya.

Oh, Sonya, the director of the gallery and my possible future boss.

“Yes.” I perk up.

“I know this isn’t usual,” she says, probably noting my surprised tone, “however, I’m in Vermont visiting with a local artist, and I thought I might stop by for our face-to-face if you’re available tomorrow.”

This is my future we’re talking about, the reason I’ve sacrificed everything. I’d be an idiot to pass up this opportunity. But there’s a nagging feeling in the back of my head and heart. I chalk it up to nerves.

“I’ll free my entire day if need be.”

“Wonderful.” I hear the smile in her voice. “I’ll be traveling back to the city in the morning, you should expect me before noon.”

I give her directions to my house and thank her before hanging up and doing a happy dance.

The following day, I wake early and make sure the house is in order. I make a snack and drinks to serve then pick out a proper outfit and do my hair and makeup.

At two, my future knocks on the front door. A tall, slender woman wearing entirely black clothes and over-sized sunglasses stands on the other side, her red hair pinned into a slick, high fashion bun. She is head to toe New York.