“Fine. Pick me up when you’re done?” Skye said. She seemed to realize how forward she sounded and shrugged. “It’d be silly to drive two cars into town.”
“Actually, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll cook. I have a meal in mind.” He smiled, catching sight of the mammoth tree in the center of the farm. “And a place. If . . . if it’s okay with you. I figure, why not toast to good memories? Because . . . we did have them, don’t you think?”
A questioning microexpression formed as her lips tilted, and she slowly followed his gaze over her shoulder.
He saw the merest twinkle come to her eyes.
He exhaled, truly exhaled, for the first time in years.
“Time?” Skye inquired.
He glanced to the sun melting into the trees, ran through the movements and motions that would need to take place in the next few hours. “Seven thirty.”
“Dress?” she said, her brow raised.
He chuckled good-naturedly. “What else for a fine meal by a fine chef under the stars? Semiformal.”
Skye looked into his eyes for one long moment before taking his shovel. “How could I have doubted you’d have it any other way?”
Chapter 12
Skye
Of course the man wanted semiformal.
Skye rummaged through her closet, each hanger scraping across the metal bar as she swiftly rejected every item. A white blouse she donned back in Seattle for gallery events. A sunflower dress at least a decade old. A pink number she bought half a dozen years ago and never wore.
The dress options were crammed between baggy sweaters and tank tops in the small closet barely larger than a coffin. Nothing fit for anything resembling the word semiformal.
Because she didn’t do semiformal.
Back in Seattle, her favorite places to eat were local, hipster. Her favorite meal consisted of a vegan macro bowl coupled with a light brew. She could get away with wearing anything at those restaurants—anything except semiformal.
Skye pushed another hanger across the rack and stopped.
Touched the forest-green silk, trouser-leg jumpsuit.
Perfect.
She grabbed the hanger off the rack and threw the outfit on her bed before moving to the bathroom. She walked past the mirror and pushed open the curtain. Her face was worse than she’d imagined. The mascara she’d applied that morning had run far, far away from her eyelashes. And her hair . . . Skye frowned as she reached for a dirt clod clinging to the elastic band of her off-kilter ponytail. She looked like a wild, mud-covered minion.
Terrrrrific.
Theo had worn an orange flannel as conspicuous as an orange cone and managed to out-style her. He sported his share of dirt and sweat, but the effect was the opposite. While she went downhill by the hour, he became more masculine. Wiping the sweat off his forehead. Smiling with those ultrawhite teeth as they caught up on the past fourteen years. And that moment when he picked her up and ran like a wild man away from that snake . . .
A wild, ridiculous, very debonair man indeed.
Skye yanked the ponytail holder out of her hair. She gave herself a long look. Watched as her mud-crusty hair fell to her shoulders. Glanced down at her pathetic array of makeup options and irons, at the dried-up hairspray can in the bottom of the drawer.
She pressed her lips together.
Felt the childish impulse well within her.
Fifteen minutes later, her freshly showered hair dripped onto her robe as she shut the door of her house and crossed the road to her parents’, the green silk jumpsuit draped over one arm.
* * *
An hour later, Skye glanced at the window as her eyes caught the headlights of Theo’s Tesla passing on the road. She pulled the barrel out of her hair and let the last curl drift off the roll. Her mother stood in the doorway of the small bathroom, watching Skye with eyes bright as a baby doe’s.
“I’m about to have to go, Mom. Thanks for this.”
“Oh, honey, anytime. An-y-time.”
Skye felt like she was getting ready for prom.
Her mother didn’t have to say it. It was as clear as the spotless glass on the bathroom window that she was pleased as punch about exactly everything that was happening in that moment. Her daughter going on a date with Theo. Her daughter walking across the road to ask to borrow her irons and makeup. Her daughter even living across the road so she could walk across it and ask for irons and makeup.
The smile on her mother’s face was one of pure happiness. As it had been every day since her daughter had stepped off that plane three months ago.
It was moments like this that reminded Skye she’d made the right decision to move back. Not just to ensure her family was going to be okay financially, but to see her mother so happy.
Skye put the cap on her mother’s lipstick tube and set it back in the neat row within the medicine cabinet.
“I think I know what I’ll be getting you for Christmas,” her mother said, nodding at the curling iron cooling off on the vanity. “And look at you. You look just radiant.”
“You should’ve seen me an hour ago,” Skye said, deflecting the compliment but still smiling. “Where’s Dad? You guys have anything going on tonight?”
Her mother shifted in the doorway. “Oh. He went out an hour or so ago to run some errands. He said he’d be back soon.”
“I thought he wasn’t supposed to be driving with his shoulder.”
“Yes, well,” her mother said, her smile tightening as she smoothed down her robe, “you know your father. He’s as stubborn as an ox.”
“But you’re more,” Skye said, shutting the medicine cabinet and turning to her. “I have no doubt you could take the keys from him. You always win.”
“But first one must know which battles to fight.”
Skye saw the fiery twinkle in her mother’s eyes. A moment later she patted her daughter’s hand. “Now, you go off and enjoy your evening. I look forward to hearing all about it when you can.”
“Right.” Skye took a breath. Moved a curly lock out of her eyes. Glanced back to her mother. She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t ask the question about her father and Theo she’d been dying to ask since that day. So she said, “You really think this is a good idea?”
Her mother took Skye’s hand. Squeezed it. “Honey, I’ve been waiting since the two of you toddled down the gravel road together at four years old, you holding his hand and tugging him through the fields to pick out your favorite Christmas tree, for precisely this moment.”
Chapter 13
Theo
A frothy seascape in the paintings across the room watched over him as he cooked. Tie flipped over one shoulder, Theo stirred the pot and lifted a spoonful of the concoction to his nose. The savory scent filled his senses. He dipped a silver spoon in the pot and tasted. Sublime.
He turned to the kitchen sink, his back to the row of Seattle-coastline paintings.
It was remarkable how the day had transformed his emotions.
What had started that morning as a coffee mug full of nervous anticipation had become an uncontainable energy. It leaked out in the lightness of his step as he moved from stainless steel refrigerator to oven range. In the swiftness of his hands as he bounced from replying to a client’s email to ripping open a bag. He was almost sure what he needed to do.