Chapter 21
Something had happened in there, Mac knew. And not just spectacular sex.
It felt very like some kind of decision had been reached that neither of them had voiced.
Or maybe it was an ultimatum.
He didnotlike being pushed. Or maneuvered.
His mood was rather dark and his temper was on a low simmer. His mind traced the confines of the issue but it did not want to dive into the dark heart of it, which might have been a failure of nerve, and the idea that there was something left in the world that scared him, pissed him off, too.
He lost himself in work instead. One of the final tasks remaining on the project spreadsheet was the hideously stuck window frame on the lower level. He absorbed himself in the brutal yet delicate scraping and scraping of old paint to free it into motion, the meticulous sanding, the solvents, the paint.
For the first time in about a decade, hours later, the damn thing moved freely.
And that afternoon, as arranged, Avalon and Eden had brought a dozen little Hummingbirds to meet his goats.
He and Avalon managed to play off each other like a well-rehearsed comedy team, effortlessly. They even did the goat voices, which practically crippled the Hummingbirds with laughter. He explained about how scientists thought goats’ funny pupils helped them maintain a wider field of vision so they could stay aware of predators. He told them how it was good for the environment to let goats help keep the grass short. He told them about goat fur and goat cheese; he let them hand out snacks.
He’d learned every damn thing about goats when he acquired those goats, because he wanted to know them from the ground up. And there was something satisfying in imparting the knowledge he’d so carefully gathered, which was, in its way, teaching someone else from the ground up.
But when all the Hummingbirds had gone home, Avalon went back up to the house without saying good night to him.
And if he’d only surmised that something had actually happened in his cottage this morning... well, he damn well knew for certain.
He was impatient with ambiguity; too often it felt like dread. Or manipulation. He’d always done what he could to transmute it into manageable parts as fast as he could.
He was tempted to stalk over there to get a conversation going.
It was the prospect of not liking what he learned when he stalked over there that kept him from doing that.
He readZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenanceinstead, in the hopes that it would put him to sleep. Because he did, in fact, have it on his Kindle, and he’d never read it.
But that night, his huge bed, once perfect for him, suddenly felt like a sea that wanted to drown him. Much too vast.
The pillow next to his smelled a little like coconut. And he knew this was because Avalon had rested her hair there. He spent a moment being nonspecifically angry about this.
And then he leaned over, dragged it across his chest and gently folded his arms around it. As if it were both life raft and lover. As if he could smother that uncertain ache in his chest with it.
Then he finally got up to get a drink of water around quarter after two in the morning.
He stood at the sink, thinking of Avalon in her freshly painted turret. Wondering if she’d disappeared all those years ago because even if hewasthe equivalent of a wounded squirrel, he was bound to destroy her heart one of these days. Even if she couldn’t articulate that in so many words.
Suddenly a stray beam from what he was certain was a headlight swiped across his window.
He was instantly on alert. They were in the middle of nowhere, even for Hellcat Canyon. Cars just didnotaccidentally make that turn into Devil’s Leap.
He flung open the door and craned his head. A car was turning up the long drive to the house. This wasn’t New York. It’s not like she could get any kind of food delivered at this time of night. But if someone wanted to attempt a home invasion, well... it was a long way off for the sheriff.
Good thing Avalon had a half-deaf fluff-ball of a dog to protect her.
He didn’t bother getting dressed. He shoved his feet into his shoes, grabbed his shotgun off the rack and jogged up the road, swiftly, on the balls of his feet, matching his breathing to the fall of his feet, heedless of being bare-chested and boxer-shorted.
He ducked low and crept around the side of the house from the back, flattening against the wall, inching toward the front.
He froze when heard the unmistakable sound: a twig cracked.
Crunched with the kind of force only a human foot could apply.