Page 4 of Gourd Enough To Eat
“I’m your neighbor. Upstairs,” I added helpfully, darting my eyes sideways since I couldn’t move, didn’t dare breathe, and hoped that he wouldn't get a case of the jitters any time real soon. “I own the Bare Bear Travelling salon.”
He bared his teeth in what might have been a smile, but came off as only a little terrifying. “I noticed, glitter girl. I saw your van at the Off-Duty ranch earlier. Why the hell are you out here at this time of night?"
I put on my prettiest, best, most sparkly emergency smile. “Someone impaled my tire. I hoped you might help me change it before work tomorrow.”
“What?”
I took a deep breath, and ran into the edge of his blade. “Help, please.” I pressed my hand to his forearm, tracing corded tendons strung tight over hard musculature beneath.
His gaze flicked downward, and the blade retracted. “Fuck. I didn’t—” He raked the scarred, whitened knuckles of the hand still gripping the serrated blade through his hair, leaving the ends in a haphazard mess. Sugar dusted his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Ca—” His teeth snapped together like a bear trap had been set off.
I would have winced, if I hadn’t been invested in catching that little slip. “You know my name?”
He ignored me, sheathing the knife at his back and reached out. His hands brushed my skin in the lightest touch, then he drew back. “May I?”
I barked out a laugh, disturbing the night on the silent street a second time. “It’s a bit late now, isn’t it?” and far too late for me, the shivers set in, a delayed reaction of what had just happened.
“I’m sorry.” One arm braced against the bricked shop wall behind my head as he dipped his head and studied the damage he’d created.
I held back tears—just—as he swiped a fingertip across my throat. I swore that imprint would come up bloodied, but when he showed me proof, all I saw was skin the same as the rest of his hand: scarred from a lifetime doing who knew what, if aknife large enough to take on the proverbial bear was his first thought, coated with residual sugar from tonight's activities. The two actions were so at odds with each other, a dichotomy in this man, that for a moment, all I could do was stare.
“You’re okay,” he coaxed, shifting his bulk as he eased closer. “Cadance,” —all facades were dropped there about knowing who I was— “I’m sorry I scared you. I thought— Well, it doesn't matter what I thought. I shouldn’t have reacted like that, not on a street. Not here, and not with someone… Not with you,” he finished, keeping his voice soft, regular. His thumb brushed back and forth across my throat in a smooth motion I didn’t want to break, but his words slammed into my mind like a fresh trauma slap.
I peered up at him through slitted eyes.
“What’s so wrong about someonelike me?” I asked, my own voice far from calm as the edges of panic set in. “I just needed a tire changed, that’s all.”
“And you couldn't come in and ask like a normal person?” The corner of his mouth flickered up.
“No, Elijah. I couldn’t,” I sassed him.
It wasn’t until the hand still stroking back and forth across my throat where his blade had been breaths before that I realized how much I’d screwed up.
Oh, fuckity.
I rallied my best fake ass smile again.
“Apparently, I know your name, too.”
CHAPTER THREE
ELIJAH
Istared at the knife embedded in the back tire of Cadance’s glitter van parked behind my black RAM 3500. When I’d discovered that the naked bear had taken up residence outside the shop I moonlighted as both carver and baker, I took the opportunity to get to know my new neighbor.
Cadance Webster appeared in Forest Grove a little less than a week ago with exactly zero history to her created name. Ask me how I recognized that little non-existent trail. I had one that matched for the first few years of my return to the country after my deployments overseas with the military. Once I came home, I couldn’t keep my feet still. Sold up everything I had, packed what I actually needed into the back of my truck, and hit the road.
For three years, I didn’t stop running. Not until I hit Montana a while back, and worked a few seasons up north at a place called Red Hart Ranch. The quiet spread of the land and towering mountain backdrop there reminded me of how small I was, and returned something to me that I’d lost a long time back in another country:
Perspective.
And so when my seasons there were up, I said goodbye to the ranch owners, Eve and Travis, a pair of twins who ran their land on loyalty and damn good food. When I hit the road again, it was with a fresh set of eyes, and the sort of pace I could maintain for a whole lot longer.
And when I met Declan in town, then started working at the Off Duty ranch, I knew my feet would be able to stay still for a while longer. That it might be time to risk putting down roots again.
All that to say, when I stared at the knife embedded in Cadance’s tire, the glitter truck she’d designed around her pell-mell style life that never seemed to stop and the risks she took without any consideration of consequences, I wondered just how long the woman who waited at my back had been running, and from who.
