Page 45 of Out on a Limb
Oh yeah. They were definitely angry.
I dropped the shirt into place and glanced up to find Andrew watching me. His eyes jumped away the second I caught him, going down to the skillet where he was cooking some combination of garlic and a whole line of dried herbs in olive oil. Whatever it was, it smelled amazing.
It would figure he’d be everything I could dream up all shoved into one big, meaty package.
“Fuck my life.” I leaned forward, catching my head in my hands.
“You’ll feel better in the morning.” Andrew dropped a handful of pasta into a pot of boiling water. “Get some food in your stomach, drink some water, and sleep it off and it will all be fine.”
“It won’t be fine.” I wiped across my burning eyes, wishing I could tell someone my concerns. Wishing I had someone to share my fear.
Maybe help me figure out what in the hell to do about it.
“What makes you say that?” Andrew’s voice was soft and calm. Like he really cared.
Like he really wanted to know what was bothering me.
It was tempting.
I couldn’t talk to Julia about it. She was a doer with a whole tribe of worldly women ready to even out the wrongs of the universe. If I told Julia everything I thought was going on we would have been blowing up the property behind us, trying to obliterate it from the face of the earth in retaliation.
“I’m worried the garden isn’t doing well.” I swallowed down the bite of fear trying to keep me from putting it out into the universe.
“Me too.”
It was something I already knew. Andrew didn’t plant the seed, but he sure as hell watered it when he asked me about Alan. “Alan hasn’t been in all week.”
“I know.” Andrew added a pile of thinly-sliced chicken to the pot with the oil and garlic and herbs, stirring it around for a few seconds before he used the tongs in his hand to reach into the pot of pasta. He pulled out the noodles and dropped them into the pan, piling them up on top of everything else before tossing it all together. “That’s why I was at the garden tonight.”
The revelation surprised me into silence.
“I was going to go into Alan’s office to see what I could find out.” Andrew went to the fridge where he dug through my cheese drawer for a second before coming back with a wedge of parmesan. He pulled open one of the utensil drawers.
I pointed to one a few over from where he was, not wanting him to get distracted. “What did you find?”
He snagged the hand grater he was looking for and went to the pan where he grated a healthy dose of cheese across the top of the pasta. “Nothing.” His eyes came to me. “I had to rescue you from a tree.”
I pursed my lips, trying to keep them together. Unsuccessfully.
“We dropped a bunch of chickens into the construction trailer.” I clamped my mouth shut, but it was already too late.
Andrew stared at me across the pan of pasta. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head.
He looked mad.
Maybe it was shock.
Hell. I didn’t know. The man was impossible to read. His happy face looked a whole lot like every other expression he had.
His brows slowly crept up his forehead as he grabbed the handle of the skillet with one hand and a dishtowel with the other before coming my way. “That is not what I was expecting.” He dropped the towel onto the table before setting the hot pan on top of it. He grabbed two forks from the flatware organizer, passing one off to me.
“What were you expecting?” I stabbed the fork into the pasta, spinning it as I waited for his answer.
Andrew twisted up a large bite of his own, stuffing the whole thing in his mouth.
He was taking too long so I repeated the question. “What were you expecting?”
