Page 16 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

Brian might have derailed my artistic career. He might have given me a whole, tedious closetful of stupid sexual complexes. But he also had never driven me out of my freaking mind with breath-stealing, toe-curling lust.

The tractor steadily chugged on until the van came into view. Dwayne and Jack attached the chain, and I got in the van and started the engine.

They pulled and pulled. The van shuddered and strained. Dwayne whooped in triumph when it rolled out of the deep ruts.

I howled in triumph when I felt those wheels turning, bumping over the ruts. I got out and strode over to the tractor with a huge smile of relief. “Thank you so much, Dwayne. How much do I owe you?”

“Ah, nah,” Dwayne said bashfully. “It’s all right. I’m just being neighborly.”

He pushed away the bills I held out, so I folded them back into my wallet, peeking at his hand to make sure he had a wedding ring. “Well, then bring your wife over one of these days to pick out a necklace or a pair of earrings,” I offered. “I’d love to meet her.”

Dwayne agreed to that plan, and Jack and I watched the tractor chug up the road and disappear around the bend.

I got into the driver’s seat. Jack climbed into the passenger’s seat. We sat in silence.

“So?” I said finally. “Where do we stand? I’m mobile again, so what does that mean for you? Do I need to get lost? I could be out of here in twenty minutes. Say the word.”

“Please don’t be defensive,” Jack said.

I made a derisive sound and put the van in gear. It lurched forward, bumping over deep ruts, but it crawled gamely up the hill. “That’s hard, under the circumstances,” I told him.

“I have an understanding with Duncan. You’re welcome to stay for as long as you have this security problem,” he said. “If you can stand it, that is. I doubt you’ll be staying that long anyway.”

“And why is that?”

“Your kind never do,” he said.

The van crested the hill. I stared out the windshield with hot eyes. “My kind,” I repeated.

“I don’t mean that the way you’re evidently taking it,” he said. “You’ve decided that I’m insulting you when I’m simply stating an objective fact without a value judgment. But I see from the kind of person you are that you won’t settle for long.”

The van lurched violently over another washed-out rut, making my teeth jar and rattle painfully in my head. “Is that a fact,” I said. “You look at me, and you see that.”

“It’s a valid lifestyle choice.”

“Not when you’re talking about it,” I said, as we crawled slowly up another steep hill.

“I am not trying to prove anything to you, so don’t take it that way, please.

But I am sick of moving around all the time.

Sick of living small, eating road food. I’m going into Pebble River after lunch.

I’m going to a furniture store. I’m buying a bed.

A table. A bookcase. And I’m going start looking for a place to open my shop. ”

“Shop?” He turned to her, frowning. “What’s this about a shop?”

“Exactly what I said. Pebble River is a perfect place for the kind of business I have in mind?—”

“Hold on. Wait a fucking minute. I thought you were in hiding. I thought these bastards were trying to kill you. I thought that was the whole point of being here. Now you’re talking about opening a shop?

Public records, databases, a Facebook page, some Instagram reels?

What the fuck are you thinking? You’re out of your mind! ”

I exhaled carefully. I’d been going back and forth about this issue into the wee hours every night. “How long can I huddle in a hole and shiver? I can’t afford this any longer! I have to support myself somehow, and this is the best?—”

“Are you trying to prove something to me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. This isn’t about you! I’m just going about my business!”

We had arrived at the house. I pulled the van in next to Jack’s truck, got out, and slapped the door shut. I glanced over the painting on the side and my eyes skittered away. Jack was looking at it … and judging me.

I had always been ambivalent about that painting, but Rafael would have been so hurt if I had painted over his masterpiece.

And Rafael had been so sweet and supportive after the Brian debacle, sharing his booth, showing me the crafts fair ropes.

The writhing serpent and muscle-bound warrior on my van was an homage to true friendship.

Jack was following me up the stairs. I glared back at him over my shoulder. “Excuse me? Where do you think you’re going?”

“I just want to see what you’ve done with the place,” he said blandly.

“I haven’t done much of anything, being as how I didn’t have a vehicle. It looks about the same. Please excuse me. I want to make myself lunch.”

Jack raised an eyebrow and waited. I sighed, fitting the key into the lock. “What the hell. Come on in. I imagine you want lunch, too?”

“Lunch would be nice,” he said.

The first thing he did was check the seedlings. I had been watering them, afraid to kill them by planting them incorrectly, but even more afraid of asking for help. But he just stroked the little plants with his fingertip. “We should set these out today,” he said.

“Fine. Let’s do that.” I got to work making the grilled cheese sandwiches, to have an excuse to keep my back to him.

He walked into the living room. I had been doing inventory, and my entire current stock was spread across the green velvet drapes on the floor: earrings; pendants; brooches; my compartmentalized boxes of beads; my stash of chunks of broken hand-blown glass, coils of silver and gold wire, hooks and clasps; my boxes of fun and colorful collected junk.

The walls were decorated with hangings, paintings, drawings.

“Did you do these pictures?” Jack asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve met lots of artists in the past few years, and I collected my favorite pieces. The ones I could afford, anyway. This is the first chance I’ve ever had to hang them up and look at them properly.”

Jack walked slowly around the room. “And your stuff?”

“There’s not a lot of my work here,” I said, feeling defensive.

“Just what’s on the floor on the green velvet.

My favorite mediums are bronze and blown glass, but you can’t do that kind of art in a camper van.

I got sidetracked by my jewelry sideline, but I want to get back to sculpture. On a bigger scale.”

Jack leaned over the cloth and picked up a fine lacework of antique beads and colored glass. “You sit on the floor to work?”

“I cannot wait to buy a table,” I said fervently.

He frowned. “I could have found you something.” He picked up a green bottle adorned with onyx beads and a filigree of silver foil. “These are beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I was uncommonly flustered by the compliment.

“So, you’re tired of making jewelry? That’s too bad. Do you get tired of things quickly?” Jack said.

There he went again, poking his stick between the bars of my cage. I suppressed a flare of savage irritation. “No,” I said tightly. “I love designing jewelry. What I’m sick of is mass-producing for crafts fairs. That’s just assembly-line work.”

“Ah,” he murmured. “I see.”

“I have a good feel for what will sell,” I went on. “I study the colors and styles online, and in the women’s magazines. I make pieces to match, and they go like hotcakes. It was fine for a while, but I’m burnt out.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said.

“Then stop jabbing at me!” I flared. “God, Jack! You’re pissing me off!”

He put the bottle down. “Sorry,” he murmured. “If you’re not a jewelry designer anymore, what exactly are you?”

“I think I’m a sculptor, but ask me again in six months.”

“Who knows where you’ll be in six months?” He held a pair of malachite earrings up to the light, letting them dangle from his fingers to see them from all sides.

I did not dignify that with a reply. I just stalked back into the kitchen. He was not to be reasoned with. He’d made up his mind about me, and that was that.

I stuck my head around the door when the sandwiches were sizzling in the pan. “Lunch is on. Come get it while the cheese is gooey.”

Jack sat opposite me on the kitchen floor. We ate our sandwiches, and then the usual tense, charged silence fell upon us.

I stared at the crumbs on my paper plate. “Would you like a cup of tea?” I asked, with rigid politeness.

“No, thanks,” he said.

“Then excuse me while I make one for myself.” I put the kettle on and stuffed napkins and paper plates into the garbage.

“You’ve been talking to Margaret, I take it?” he asked.

“That’s right. She’s got some good ideas for possible locations for me.”

“For your shop. To sell your own designs?”

“Among other things,” I said. “I know lots of excellent artisans, after all those years on the circuit. And there’s money around here to support a business like mine. A gallery of wearable, usable art.”

“And aside from the danger issue, you think that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I stuck out my chin, crossing my arms over my chest.

“It’s a big layout of money,” he said. “A big risk.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I hope you’re not being unrealistic.”

“Why?” I demanded. “Lots of people start businesses. Most of them fail. Sure, it’s risky. Life is risky. Why do you think it’s particularly unrealistic for me?”

I had to ask, even though I was afraid of the answer.

He was silent for a long moment, clearly hesitating. “I think you’ll regret it,” he said. “That kind of investment requires a huge time commitment. And a long attention span.”

I counted to ten, doing careful slow breathing to not react and fly off the handle. “I’m not going to play this game with you anymore, Jack. Cut that shit out.”

“It’s not a game, Vivi,” he said. “Any woman who sleeps in a sleeping bag, eats off paper plates on the floor, and cooks with aluminum campware doesn’t impress me with her readiness to put down roots.”

I grabbed up the last plate and stuffed it into the garbage. “I’ve been stranded here for five days with no vehicle,” I reminded him, between clenched teeth.