Page 31 of Old Flames and New Fortunes (A Moonville Novel #1)

Chapter Thirty-One

PETUNIA:

I like you near me.

Your eyes are like raindrops.”

I continue walking.

“I would tightrope across an active volcano, just to fetch you a sandwich,” he calls from his truck, inching along. Dividing his attention between me and the road.

I wind a finger in circular motions. “Keep going.”

“You make my pants tight.”

“Is that the best you can do? My while is not being worthed.”

“For you, Romina Romina,” he tells me, as someone walking in the opposite direction slows to listen, “I would move to Moonville, just so I can look out my window and pinpoint exactly where the sun rises over your house. So that you’re never farther away from me than a few minutes. So that I might run into you in the grocery store, or get a glimpse of you circling the post office on your bicycle, or see someone walking by holding your magic flowers.”

Well, damn. I climb into the truck. “Fine. I will allow you the pleasure of my company.”

He floors it. I yell, grabbing his shoulder, and he slows to normal speed, laughing gleefully again.

“You’re on my last nerve.”

“Which one?” Without taking his eyes off the road, he starts poking me—my arm, ribs, thigh, stomach. I seize his hand in both of mine, waging a thumb war that I win by cheating. We drive to a gravel parking lot by Moonville Rail-Trail, a sixteen-mile path that spans from Zaleski to Mineral.

“Aw.” I grin at him. “You’re taking me for a bike ride.”

He climbs out of the truck and gets our bikes down. “Found your bike in the garden and gave it some more air. You’ve been going around on half-flat tires!”

I shrug.

“Need to keep up on that, lady.” He cuts into a figure eight. “Miles and I love biking at Lake Hope. I’ve got a tandem attachment I bring for long rides, otherwise he wants to give up at the first half-mile marker.”

“I got chased by a wild turkey at Lake Hope. Somebody on a horse saved me.”

“Yeah, they’ve got all those bridle trails, don’t they? I’d like to learn how to ride a horse.”

“Me, too. Take me along if you try it, will you? I want to make sure I’m better at it than you are.”

“Does it have to be a competition?” But he smiles, the hypocrite.

I nudge the kickstand. Straddle my seat. “You’re lucky my dress is a skort, or I’d be flashing my underwear on this thing.”

“I don’t think you know what ‘lucky’ means.” He flies past on his mountain bike, speeding ahead.

I pedal harder to catch up. “We’ll get ticks in here.”

“I’ll check you after.”

Moonville Rail-Trail is paved in most areas close to town, but bordered with heavy foliage. Loads of trees. About ten zillion bugs. “Ticks are sneaky. They can hide anywhere.”

“Then I’ll check you anywhere. This date gets better and better.” He pivots on his seat, squinting against a pocket of sunlight. “I don’t remember this concern when we were rolling in a field, by the way.”

I decide that I am going to make him eat my dust today, and also that I will hold him to his promise (“ Alex, you have to check under my bra, ticks looove bras ”). “So, we’re on a date?” I ask, rolling alongside him.

“Coming on awful strong there, Tempest.”

“Says the man who thinks he needs to know what the clouds over my house look like.”

“We’ve been on tons of dates, you just didn’t know it. Like the rehearsal dinner at Our Little Secret, when you refused to sit anywhere near me. That was a long-distance date. And the wedding was a date for sure, with all the dancing. Any time I’ve had you to myself? Honey, those were all top-secret dates. We had another one yesterday, did you know?”

I can’t remember what I did yesterday. “Was it good?”

“It was fantastic. I drove past while you were collecting your mail. Drive-by date.”

My mouth lifts into a smile. “What if somebody tried to flush a bag of cookies down the toilet in my store and I asked you to come plunge it? Would that be a date? Someone has done that before, by the way.”

“Oh, big time. I get to show off my handiness and save the day.” Figures. He still loves swooping in with heroics.

“What if I asked you to rob a casino with me?”

“The two of us making out on top of bags of stolen money? Full of adrenaline? That’s the kind of date that gets you to third base.”

I can visualize it. “Hot. What if... we ran into each other at the pharmacy where you were buying constipation suppositories and I was getting medicine for a pus-filled blister in my eyeball? Is that a date?”

A laugh bursts from him. “You’re coming up with such sensual ideas for what we’ll do after this.”

We barrel smoothly along the trail, sunshine dappling his arms with green and yellow flowers of light. I keep decelerating to let Alex cruise ahead so that I can observe him easier. He’s wearing a yellow and black windbreaker with long black drawstrings. Jeans. The red hat that I’m learning is essentially a permanent fixture. He periodically checks on me over his shoulder, slowing when I slow.

We speed over a bridge, creek burbling below, then under a trestle, past train tracks overgrown with weeds. I yell at him to stop and look both ways. He turns down a deer path.

“Where’re you going?” I skid to a stop.

“C’mon!”

“I don’t wanna get lost.”

“Girl, do you think I do anything by accident?”

I grumble, heading after him. “High-handed, cocky know-it-all. You make mistakes all the time. Like, the other day, I saw you driving the wrong way down a one-way street.”

“Prove it.”

“I bet you still call the hardware store Perry’s, like all the boomers do.”

“What else would I call it?”

“Newsom’s Goods. It hasn’t been called Perry’s in ten years.”

“Damn. Really?” He points. “Careful here, it gets bumpy for a minute.”

“You’re lost.”

“You insult me. Listen, you hear that?”

I pay attention. “Hear what?”

“That’s a tufted titmouse. Should’ve brought my binoculars.”

I stare at him, bemused. Alex is a talented, intelligent man, but this is beyond the pale. “How can you hear a mouse ? Do you have bionic eardrums?”

Alex almost falls off his bike. “A tufted titmouse isn’t a mouse , it’s a bird.”

“How would I know that? Here’s another bird for you.” I make a rude gesture with my hand.

“Stop making me laugh, I have a stitch in my side.” He clutches his ribs, accidentally kicking his bike chain instead of the pedal.

Another bird twitters nearby, see-wee, see-wee . “What’s that one called?” I mutter. “A fluffy dickrabbit?”

“That,” he tells me imperiously, “is a house finch.”

I make him stop so that I can look it up on my phone. He watches in dismay.

I play a video for him. “That’s not a house finch. This is a house finch. Totally different sound.”

A muscle in his cheek jumps. “I meant to say eastern phoebe .”

“You meant to say I don’t know , but you’re physically incapable of doing so.”

“I can’t hear you.” He rides in circles.

“Did you know that if a bluebird lands on your windowsill, it means someone you miss is thinking about you?”

“Yes.”

“A bald-faced lie. I just made that up.”

He laughs. “Did you know you’re in a YouTube video somebody from town posted? It’s an eight-hour loop of one of the creeks. One of those nature videos people like listening to while sleeping or studying. Every twelve minutes, you flash by, walking across a bridge. Must’ve been from a while ago, because you had long brown hair.”

“I had no idea. When did you find this?”

“Last year, probably. I’d been so careful to not google you, didn’t want to know if you were happier without me. But I like listening to those videos, sometimes, to relax, and when I saw one called ‘Moonville, Ohio’ I couldn’t resist. It’d been so long since I’d seen my home. Turned it on and after a couple hours, happened to glance at the screen and there you were. It was like being punched by the universe.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Then, first day I’m back in Moonville, you appear right in front of me.” He thumps his chest. “KO’d.”

“Me, too. I never looked you up online, and I never tried any dating apps, either, just in case you’d pop up. I’m too sensitive. I didn’t want to see you out there living the ladies’ man life.”

“Ha! Ladies’ man, my ass. I spend my Saturday nights building LEGO sets with a four-year-old. Oh, look! Here we are.”

We taper to a halt at the foot of a broad blue lake, visible through a gap in the leaves. It flows endlessly, hundreds of thousands of love-in-a-mist flowers raising their faces to wide-open sky, the distant ring of trees a thick, dark smudge.

I abandon my bike with a squeal, rushing the field. “It’s gorgeous !”

Alex grins. “I hoped you’d like it.”

“How’d you find this place?” Sky like this is in short supply in town; everywhere you look up, you see leaves. “Are we allowed to be here? It’s probably private property.”

“This land belongs to a guy I did a job for. I’ve received all the proper permissions, no worries.” He reaches for my hand. “There’s supposed to be a strawberry patch somewhere, and a water pump to wash them with.”

We wander through the meadow. “What sort of job?”

“I reroofed a barn.” He points to a red blob nestled in a valley, the property a series of gentle swells.

I shade my eyes to see the roof clearly. “Is that a W?”

“Yeah, for Weyman. That’s his last name. I like interesting projects like that, where I get to make designs. More of a challenge.”

“Aren’t you scared you’ll fall off?”

“Nah. It was intimidating when I first got into it, but the height doesn’t faze me as much as structural integrity. Sometimes I work on roofs that are badly damaged, so I have to be super careful.”

I imagine him plummeting through the roof of an ancient house, landing on somebody’s kitchen table. A woman who lives there licks her lips and says: Is this feast all for me? “Oh my lord.”

“I don’t mind those situations, because I get to come in and make them safe. I get to bring stability, eliminate the danger so that no one gets hurt.”

“I hope you wear protective gear. Helmet, kneepads, gloves, all that.”

He tousles my hair. “Absolutely. Safety goggles, too. My hard hat is full of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse stickers, to make it fashion.”

We locate the strawberry patch, where we brush bugs off fat, bright red berries then rinse them under a water pump. Alex spreads his jacket in the meadow. We flop down, strawberries cradled in my pinafore. As we eat, he watches the clouds and I watch his face, evening sunlight gilding the shape of his nose, lips, shoulders. The weave of his shirt is thinner where it strains across the back, tiny holes from constant motion. I touch it, warmth seeping into my fingertips.

Alex turns his head, looks down at me. Considers for a moment, before gently pushing me down into the grass.

Drops a long, slow kiss to my mouth.

It’s decadent. Rich, torturous, the thump of my heart so intense it beats into the ground. His mouth on mine has an explosive effect, my senses casting wide for a moment—picking up the wings of a bee settling onto a flower, each rustling blade of grass in a quarter mile radius—before narrowing tightly on every exposed inch of Alex’s skin, to the texture of his clothes and the way his irises contract when they’re above me. One corner of his mouth tugs as he watches thoughts rolling behind my eyes, but for once there isn’t any playfulness in the expression, only a quiet adoration he doesn’t try to hide. Emotion combusts in me without warning—my hand slides around the back of his neck to hold him to me, enjoying the slight weight of him that he allows to press down, a breeze stirring his scent through my hair. I think it’s possible that we’ve tumbled off the earth into heaven, to a distant somewhere in which I don’t have fears or insecurities; somewhere everything about this can be easy, and I can simply trust, let go. Before I get the chance to explore our heaven more thoroughly, however, he breaks away, fiddling with a lump in my pocket. “What’s this?”

“My charm bag.”

He drops it into his hand and stretches out beside me. “This doesn’t look like the ones you sell.”

“The ones I sell are more generic, one-size-fits-all. Tumbled red jasper for protection, gingerroot for prosperity, crushed rose geranium for calm, a quarter stick of cinnamon for luck. That sort of thing.”

Alex empties the contents of my charm bag. “What are these?” He rolls a handful of round black seeds.

“Oh. Uh. Dicentra King of Hearts.”

A slow grin spreads. “King of Hearts, hm?”

“I know what you’re thinking, and no way. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Sure, sure.”

I sneak another glance at him, which is a mistake. He’s glowing . He notices another item in the bag. “Is this...?”

I cover my face. “No.”

“It is !” An alexandrite gemstone flashes with sunlight as he throws it up in the air, catching it in his other fist. “I want a charm bag, too. Full of nothing but King of Hearts and alexandrite, so that I can think about myself all day long.”

“You would .”

Alex pauses, deep in thought. He plays with my hair and I admire his profile, every perfect feature. Birds are twittering, sunbeams dreamlike gold-dust swirls. I would like to slip into this moment and keep the door locked forever. “I like how driven you are in your career,” he says. “Like me. But you’re still family oriented, too. Tight-knit with your sisters. I’ve always wished I had a little more family around.” He meets my gaze. I can tell this is a topic he’s been thinking about a great deal. He’s foraging for information in light, sensitive steps.

“Me, too. I have my sisters and niece, of course, but I’ve always wanted a house of my own that’s full to bursting with family. Happy family.”

My sisters and I don’t enjoy a close relationship with our parents. Our dad is go-with-the-flow, happy so long as no one bothers him with wanting anything, a hippie with long Willie Nelson hair who likes weed and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. A total mismatch with our high strung, no-nonsense mom. It was opposites attract for them, and sometimes that dynamic works, sometimes it doesn’t. At first, Mom found Dad’s side of the family fun and refreshing, vastly different from her own. She thought it was interesting to have a practicing witch for a mother-in-law. For a while, Mom kind of wished she were the witchy type, too, and tried to fit herself into that mold, emulating Grandma Dottie until she decided one day that she was tired of Dad, tired of Grandma, tired of anything related to magic, which never worked for her anyway. The truth is that my parents are good, nice people, on their own, individually, but they were not good, nice people together, and neither of them are the nurturing type. I’ve known from a young age that I want to be the exact opposite as a parent. I’m going to call my kids every week, no matter how old they get, just to tell them I love them.

“Exactly,” he says with a nod, letting out a long, slow breath. I think he’d been holding it while awaiting my response. “Lots of noise. Laughter.”

“Everywhere you look, somebody to hug. And pets.”

“Oh, definitely. You like dogs?”

“I love all animals.” I tear the leaves from my last strawberry and pocket them. “I’ll start your charm bag with these.”

“They have any meaning?”

“Things that come in threes are lucky.” I lay a palm to his jaw, feeling the muscle beneath loosen. “Strawberry leaves mean a romantic rendezvous .”

His gaze flickers from my eyes to my lips, then away into the sky. “A rendezvous,” he repeats quietly, turning the definition of that word over in his mind. A meeting, a date . Which technically is what we’re engaging in right now—but the word also evokes brevity. Having fun for a while, before it ends.

I have the sinking worry that I might be self-sabotaging, letting my fears dictate the future. But I don’t know how to stop. All I know is that whenever I catch myself basking in how good this life is beginning to feel, a cold voice slips between my ears, hissing It’ll all be snatched away. Alex and Miles are the family, and I am the outsider, easy to dispose of after a while. After it ends.