Page 9

TO SAY I was out of practice when it came to dating was an understatement.

I’d never been in practice. I was thirty years old, and I’d never had a relationship.

I’d had hookups but never anyone I could call a boyfriend.

Part of the issue was living in a cabin in the woods—when the hell did I meet new people?

—but most of it, no question, was the fact that I didn’t put myself out there.

I didn’t want to put myself out there. My life was pretty great.

I had work that I loved, friends and family who meant the world to me, and a place of my own, when my sister wasn’t renting it out from underneath me.

I liked my life as it was, quiet and simple, drawn with small strokes.

Boring, probably. None of the guys I’d picked up on my infrequent trips away from Caldwell Crossing had ever seemed especially interested in the details.

Adam was different. He was delighted by my roses and my animals and my aliens, and he already knew exactly where I lived and what I did, and not once had he given the impression that he looked down on me for it.

That, combined with the attraction I felt for him and the undeniable chemistry between us, meant I was nervous as hell when I was getting ready for our date, even though it was literally just dinner at my cabin, at the exact same table I ate at every night when Rebecca hadn’t exiled me to my workshop.

In the afternoon I finished staining Mrs. Vickers’s Queen Anne coffee table.

The cat, which had been supervising, made herself scarce for that part.

She wasn’t a fan of the smell. I left the pieces to dry and cleaned up.

Tomorrow I’d attach the legs and deliver it.

Mrs. Vickers lived locally, unlike my next client who wanted custom bookshelves sent all the way to California.

The cost of delivery almost doubled the price, but I’d made furniture for him before, and he was willing to pay.

I couldn’t lie; it gave me a real sense of satisfaction that he knew my pieces would only appreciate in value and that they were worth the extra investment.

When it grew dark, I changed out of my work clothes into something that, honestly, wasn’t much different, only cleaner: a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a plaid overshirt.

I couldn’t even say it was because I was living out of my workshop and my decent clothes were over at the cabin.

These were my decent clothes. I didn’t usually feel self-conscious about that.

I didn’t usually notice it at all. Tonight though, there was a faint uneasy fluttering in my gut, and I worried that I didn’t look nice enough for a date.

I combed my fingers through my hair, then wet it and did it again.

I wasn’t sure it helped much. I reminded myself that I’d looked like this every time Adam had seen me—well, except for the time he’d seen a lot more of me than both of us had intended—and he’d asked me to dinner anyway.

I didn’t have anything to worry about. But the logic didn’t make much headway against my nerves.

It was getting dark when I finally mustered my courage and walked over to the cabin. The breeze was cool, and the stars were just beginning to appear. The air smelled fresh and clean, and in the distance a loon gave a mournful call. It was answered moments later.

The light on the cabin porch was on, and I climbed the steps and knocked on the door.

I heard footsteps, and then the door opened, and Adam stood there, wearing jeans, a blue Henley that brought out the matching color of his eyes, and a smile. His blond hair was neatly combed and a little damp, as though he’d only just gotten out of the shower.

“Hi,” he said, his smile growing. “You look really nice. Come in.” He stepped back to let me inside. “Is it weird that I’m inviting you into your own house? It feels weird.”

“A little bit, yeah.” I chuckled and then glanced around, as though the place might appear different. Apart from an unfamiliar coat tossed over the arm of the couch and a stack of notebooks and books on the coffee table beside a laptop, nothing had changed. “How are you finding it?”

“It’s gorgeous,” he said, leading me through to the small kitchen. “That view of the lake from the loft is to die for.”

“Yeah. When I bought the place, the family that owned it used to come out here for vacations and put the kids in the loft. There was just a ladder then. First thing I did was put the stairs in.”

“You built the stairs?” Adam raised his eyebrows.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah. And renovated the kitchen and the bathroom. Everything else was in pretty good shape, though, so there wasn’t too much work.”

His mouth twitched in a smile. “As though the kitchen and the bathroom aren’t the hardest part! Even I know that, and I’ve never picked up a hammer in my life. I’ve just watched a lot of shows about flipping houses.”

“Yeah, it took a while, but I liked doing it. I’ve done a lot of work for other people’s houses, but this was the first time I got to do it for myself.”

Adam trailed his fingers along the maple butcher block countertop. “Well, it looks amazing.”

“Thanks.” A lot of the countertop was covered in meal prep stuff, including what looked like a half-made Caesar salad, carrots sliced into slivers, and a bunch of asparagus. A pair of steaks were sitting on a plate near the stove, waiting to go in the pan. “Do you need a hand with anything?”

“No, it’s all under control,” Adam said with a smile. “Go and sit down and make yourself comfortable.” Then he laughed. “In your own house. Yeah, that’s weird.”

It was a little.

I went and sat on the couch in the living room, listening to Adam move around my kitchen, opening and closing the cabinets and drawers as he looked for whatever he needed.

I was tempted to get up and help—it wouldn’t take me three tries to find the tongs—but he was my host, and he’d already said he was fine.

I smiled at the little wooden alien who’d migrated from the shelf onto the coffee table and was currently exploring a strange new world made up of notebooks and pens and a laptop.

The sizzle of the steaks in the pan told me Adam had found everything he needed, and his question confirmed it: “How do you like your steak?”

“Medium rare, but I’m not fussy.”

“That’s lucky, because I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.”

I laughed and picked the alien up. He was one of my earliest attempts at whittling, and rougher around the edges than the others.

He was the first alien I’d whittled, after starting on the simple animals that Mr. Carver had recommended, like doves and fish.

Well, he was the first I’d successfully whittled; there were more than a few misshapen wooden bodies buried in the yard of Mom’s old house in town that would be sure to confuse the people who lived there now if they ever dug them up.

I rubbed my thumb over the alien’s tiny smile, my mouth twitching.

I hadn’t known about saints when I was a kid—a side-effect of being raised by non-religious parents—but I’d still ended up with my own shrine, hadn’t I?

Not that I believed in magical aliens who’d whisk me away from all my problems anymore, and hadn’t for over half my life now, but I still felt like I owed them something, whether they existed or not.

“Oh,” Adam said, pulling me from my thoughts as he rounded the corner from the kitchen.

“Dinner’s ready! If you’re reading my notebooks, please feel free to rewrite every single one of my plot points, because they’re all terrible.

Also, if you could tell me who the murderer is, that would be great. ”

“Uh,” I said, and held up the alien. “Sorry, I was just chilling with this guy.”

“Oh, he’s been helping me write,” Adam said with a grin.

“Or helping me not write, which seems to be what’s really happening.

You know how software engineers solve problems by explaining them to a rubber duck?

Well, I’m explaining my outline to this little alien.

It’s not really working, but I’m willing to give him another chance just to avoid actually putting words in a document.

” His grin grew wry. “I’m a hell of a procrastinator. ”

“Sorry he’s not more helpful,” I said, setting the alien back down on the coffee table as I stood. I nodded at the shelf. “Maybe you should try one of the foxes. They might be sneaky enough to plot a murder.”

Adam laughed, his eyes dancing. “Maybe I should.”

The table in the kitchen was small. If there had been any more of us, we would have been knocking elbows as we ate, but it was just right for two people.

Usually when I had guests, we sat at the fire pit outside or on the couch, but it was rare that I invited people for a sit-down dinner.

I wasn’t an overly sociable person, but I liked to eat out for a bit of variety.

If it was just me, I’d be living off sandwiches.

“So tell me about you, Ryan,” Adam said as we began to eat.

“I know you live in an amazing lakeside cabin, usually, and you have a sister called Rebecca and a bunch of fun friends and that you make amazing things—wait, no, I’m not going to say ‘wood.’ That seems like an awkward word to say on our first date. ”

“But you just said it anyway,” I pointed out, a tiny thrill running through me at hearing him call this our first date, implying he wanted at least a second one. “I got over the wood jokes in high school, trust me.”

“Oh, you heard a lot of them?”

“There isn’t a variation of ‘Ryan loves playing with his wood’ that I haven’t heard, yeah.”

Adam snorted.

“But that’s all about there is to me,” I said. “The stuff you already know. I don’t have an exciting life. I’m actually pretty boring.”

“You say that like I’m supposed to think it’s a bad thing,” he said.

“It is for most people.”

“Oh, I’m not most people. Sorry if I gave that impression.”