“I brought extra,” she said. “It’s just still in the car in a few different cases because I wasn’t sure how you were going to store it. But I’m glad that I did.”
“Thanks,” he replied.
“You are out... Working?”
He nodded in the affirmative, but didn’t offer any details.
“It must be lonely up here,” she said.
“I live here by choice,” he said. “It’s quiet up here. Not lonely. That’s the difference between enforced solitude and chosen solitude, I would imagine.”
“Oh. I guess so.” She shifted uncomfortably, then rose up off the ground. “I’m finished with the floor. I... Do you have extra blankets?”
“Yeah,” he said. “One set.”
“Could you direct me to them? I will... I’ll bring these home, and wash them at my place. Then I can bring them back to you.”
He lifted a shoulder. “No need. The creek works just fine when I get around to washing.”
“No,” she said. “I will take them, and I will give them a legitimate wash. That’s what we are trading for. And I’m showing you what kind of worker I am. And what kind of quality customers can expect from me. If I cut corners with you, then what would I be showing you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I have a feeling it matters more to you than it does to me.”
“Well, I’m used to that,” she said, the comment cryptic enough. And maybe some people would have been curious about what she meant by it. About the underlying truth in it. But he wasn’t. He didn’t much care.
With industrious movements she crossed the room and went toward his bed, yanking the sheets off, and the blanket.
“The extras are under the bed,” he said. She paused, the handful of bedding in her arms, then looked down skeptically.
“I’m half afraid I might find a live weasel under there.”
“I call him Frank,” he said. “But he only eats every other day. And even then, he doesn’t eat brunettes.”
He thought he might have even seen amusement glittering in those green brown eyes, and it surprised him. Mostly because he hadn’t remembered that he could be amusing. Hadn’t felt the desire to be in so long it was like a lost art.
But at one time, Griffin Chance had been known for being entertaining. Had commanded whole rooms at parties, and had conducted business meetings with authority. Had spoken at any number of charity events. People were easy. They always had been.
Until they weren’t.
“Seriously,” she said, walking to the door and dumping the blankets by it. “No weasels?”
“Not a one.”
She got down onto the floor again, and reached beneath the bed, looking at him the entire time, as if he was going to pay if she encountered a small mammal or creepy crawly of some kind.
“I’ve learned to live with the nature,” he said.
“How so?”
“There are spiders in here,” he said. “Nothing you can do about it. Ants. Lizards. The occasional scorpion.” She leaped back from the bed. “Why don’t I get that?”
He crossed the space and reached down for the blankets, grabbed them and shook them out, finding nary a scorpion, before setting them onto the mattress.
“And you just...live with all of it.”
“Hey, I chose to move to the woods. They didn’t choose to have me here. So yes, I live with it. I live with it because it’s the most tolerable place I’ve found to live. So, a few spiders don’t really bother me.”
“I live on a ranch,” she said.
That simple statement made something in his chest turn.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I’m not really... It’s not really my thing. But you know, I grew up in ranching. I live with my brother and his wife.” She frowned. “Sorry. You didn’t ask.”
But he found he was suddenly curious. And she was in his domain, so if he wanted to know, why couldn’t he just know? “Go on. I like to know a little something about the people who are in my house. Which in this case is just you. And has only ever been you. So you might as well go ahead.”
“I want to open the bakery because I spent all of my life taking care of my siblings. Being part of a big family is like that.” She bit her lip like she was holding something back. “Anyway. They’re all married now. My brother is running the ranch, and he’s married and they have a baby. My sister—the one who isn’t a police officer—loves ranching. It’s in her blood. And she and her fiancé also live on the property and do the rest of the work. I used to cook and clean, but now my sister-in-law does that. And now it feels so much like her house. It’s just all different than it was. And I don’t really have a place. But anyway. There are a lot of spiders on a ranch, believe me. And I never got used to them.”
“There’s an apartment above the bakery,” he said. He had just been going over the specs of that particular building, because he actually did have a file on it, chucked under the couch, which would make Lucinda crazy. But his business manager had accepted the fact that if she wanted him to keep information, it was going to have to be analog, because up here he didn’t have internet of any kind.
Another thing the Griffin Chance he’d once been would never have believed he might not care about.
But he didn’t. Didn’t miss it. Didn’t want it.
But that meant he had files. Actual physical files about his various interests.
“Really?”
“I imagine I could rent it out separate to the bakery, to someone else. You’re basically robbing me blind, Iris. But, that sounds like a lot of extra work. If you need a place to stay...”
“I... I hadn’t even considered that.”
She looked completely bowled over by the thought. By the offer. And it gratified him. He really didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he should want to offer it to her. Why he should care. It was just that she had spoken of the way that she no longer fit with her family, and there was something familiar about that to him.
He knew what it was like to simply not fit anymore. To walk the same streets he had always walked, going to the same halls that he’d gone into for years, and they were the same, but he was different. And it was just too painful.
Too much of a reminder.
Sometimes new scenery was the best and most important thing you could have.
“That seems awfully nice of you. You’re not a serial killer, are you?”