He was just breaking off a sip of his coffee, looking toward the creek with one ankle resting on the other knee, when he heard the sound of the door opening.
Seeing her figure in the doorway, he dropped his boot to the ground. The porch swing creaked. “I realized last night we never set a time.”
“Honestly, I’m surprised you made it out of the woods alive.” Skye’s voice was hoarse, making her wonder what shape the rest of her was in at that precise moment. She wrapped her robe around her tighter. “But good grief, Theo, I would’ve gone up and gotten you.”
“Would you have?” A somewhat challenging smile lifted the corner of his mouth. He returned his gaze to the babbling brook. “Anyway, I don’t mind the wait. It’s nice sitting out here. I have my coffee. I made you some if you’d like it. Very peaceful.” But even as he spoke the last word, a branch snapped in the distance, and she could see his neck tense.
Her eyes almost missed the black sedan sitting in the grass beside her Prius.
“C’mon in,” Skye said, opening the door wide as she moved into the living room. “We don’t want you to get mauled by the blood-hungry bears following the scent of your organic Peruvian-roasted coffee beans.”
Theo followed her without further prompting.
“I see you brought the car today. Didn’t feel like a poetic stroll this morning?”
He laid one hand casually along the mantel. “Oh, I got a refreshing stroll in much earlier. Went through the woods a good two or three more times. Communed with the bears.”
“Yeah?” Skye said, taking the second cup from his hand. She raised a brow at the mantel. “There’s a spider crawling toward your hand.”
She smiled as he snatched his hand up so quickly the daddy longlegs skittered in the opposite direction. “I’ll be a few minutes.”
Though she acted cool and collected, she found the coffee cup tremoring slightly as she shut the bathroom door. But then, in three minutes she’d gone from a dead sleep to drinking coffee with the ghost of her past. Her heart hadn’t adjusted quite yet.
“I can hardly believe it,” Theo called from the living room. “This house is unrecognizable.”
“Believe it,” Skye called back, her heartbeat slowing enough to allow her to take a sip of coffee and turn on the water. “This renovation took me every bit of the past three months.”
“You did all this yourself?”
The question was both infuriating and complimentary. It was the same fiery comment of his last night that made her want to dunk his head in the creek. She splashed some water on her face and called through the door, “You don’t think I could?”
“Given how it was before, I didn’t think anyone could, not single-handedly.”
Her annoyance eased as she splashed her face a second time.
The floorboards creaked as Theo moved from room to room.
Skye rubbed face wash into her cheeks.
It had taken quite some time, but she’d determined last night how to handle him—more specifically, how to handle herself around him. She was not going to be rude. She didn’t hate Theo. Well, when she’d watched her mother at Food City scraping pennies at checkout last weekend, hate had crossed her mind. But she was not going to let hate lie there useless. No, what she was going to do was use that particular experience to fuel her behavior over the next few days.
There was nothing to gain by acting furious at Theo, and there was potentially everything to gain by treating him exactly like he wanted: as an old friend. So she would do that. She would remember the good ol’ days. For the sake of her father she would help Theo, because left to his own devices, he’d plant the seedlings sideways and drive the tractor into the creek. And when the opportunity came, she would act like the mature adult she was and communicate with him about her dad’s pay. Not overtly, of course, but in a subtle way, so that when the time was right, she would bring up a point that would make him pause and rethink the course of his actions. That would make him realize how unjust he was being.
How had the mother said it in My Big Fat Greek Wedding? She would let him think he was the head of his own decisions, but all the while she would be the neck that turned his head in any direction she wanted.
This wasn’t going to be about what happened fourteen years ago. This wasn’t going to be about them. It was just going to be about ensuring her parents got what they deserved.
Honestly, this was a golden opportunity.
All she had to do was avoid hating the parts she hated about him, appreciate the parts she had at one time truly appreciated about him, and to be sure, above all, not to let her heart get in the way.
“How’s your dad doing?” Theo called.
She cracked the door open an inch and peeked at the man standing in her dining room. Running his fingers down the length of the dining room table, one hand resting in his pants pocket. The same jawline. The same broad, if not broader, shoulders filling out his shirt.
He had taken the best features of his youth and improved on them.
Frankly, it was irritating to see.
Skye closed the door and rummaged through her makeup bag for something to cover up the dark circles beneath her eyes. “Broken collarbone and some bumps and bruises all around,” she called back.
“Will he need surgery?”
“They don’t think so. He’s just going to have to take it easy awhile.”
“I’m sure that’s killing him.”
Skye opened the foundation case. “Mom caught him trying to sneak out to the tractor at 3:00 a.m. You have no idea.”
A few moments went by in silence.
“You don’t keep any paintings for yourself?” Theo called.
Skye stilled. She’d been an artist for twelve years. For the last six she’d done well enough that it supplied her whole income, but still, his words surprised her. A small secret revealed: he kept up with her life. Even though she hadn’t been around, he knew about her art. Did he want to know? Did he seek out information about her, keep tabs on her all these years?
Skye shook her head. Of course her parents would mention her life from time to time. Of course it would come up on occasion.
“I can’t stand it actually. I just have the itch to take them down and keep working on them.” Skye clicked the foundation case shut as she thought she heard him murmur, “How unfortunate.”
“Come again?” she said, raising her voice as she leaned against the sink toward the mirror and pulled out the mascara wand.
“Do you feel the same when you see your own work around town?”
“Like where? I’ve never had a chance to find out.”
“Surely the Martha would. You’re a local fine artist. You’re a newly returned regional treasure.”
Skye laughed. It was a childhood dream of hers to be featured at the Martha Washington Inn one day, but the dream held no value now. She was better known on the West Coast—and pleasant enough, in a few regions of English-speaking Europe—than here. “The Martha doesn’t know my name from Adam. No, I dropped that dream a decade ago.”
“This kitchen is stunning,” Theo called, his voice more distant. “I never would’ve imagined these bold colors would work so well together, and yet—” His voice ticked up a notch with renewed admiration. “Where did you find this island?”