Page 5 of Edge of Ruin
So he was that insufferable kind of man who made snap judgments about a woman solely based on a nose ring and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Though I had, in point of fact, been meaning to take the small, glittering nose ring out before meeting him, just to suss him out first. Military types were sometimes conservative, so I had every intention of stopping at a place with a bathroom, splashing my face, putting on some decent clothes, some deodorant, brushing my hair, maybe even applying a little makeup.
But I hadn’t wanted to get wet. Add yet another mistake to the list. Another wrong turn.
I held up my arm, displaying the tattoo of coiled barbed wire that circled my narrow wrist. “You’ve got a problem with me because of this? For real? In this day and age, when absolutely everyone has ink?”
Kendrick shrugged. “Just calling it how I see it.”
I was blushing again. It smarted, to be judged by him. I bit back a babbling flood of explanations that were none of his damn business. Explanations that I owed to nobody.
In truth, that tattoo wasn’t one that I had chosen myself. My mom’s boyfriend had taken me to his buddy’s tattoo parlor when I was ten, to spite my mom. As an attention-getting technique, it had bombed big-time, since my mom had been too focused organizing her next heroin fix to notice. I figured I was probably lucky I hadn’t gotten hepatitis or worse from that guy’s needle. Or that the boyfriend hadn’t decided to put the tattoo on my neck or my face. Talk about a life-defining look.
But I didn’t believe in playing the victim, so I’d flaunted that damned tattoo. I’d owned it, accepted it, and gotten plenty more on my own account. Nobody had forced me to get the Celtic knot tramp stamp tattoo over the crack of my ass, or the crescent moon and star on the top of my foot, or the smiling gothic sun face that adorned my shoulderblade, or the flower over my left breast. And Kendrick couldn’t even see those.
I’d never felt embarrassed about my funky, alternative fashion choices before. Usually, I kind of enjoyed getting into the faces of uptight people. I figured it was good for their health to have their assumptions challenged. But for some reason, the self-appointed task of challenging assumptions was no fun at all today.
I just didn’t have the juice for it. Not with this guy.
“Would you mind answering my original question?” I asked, my voice tight. “How far is it to your place?”
“By this road, two and a half miles. Cross-country, it’s a little over a mile and a half. Why didn’t you take the other road?”
“What other road?”
“I had another road put in, from the other side of the property. It’s shorter, and newer, and better kept. I texted the directions to Duncan. He should have passed them on to you.”
I shoved back my hair, wondering uncomfortably if I’d left a fresh streak of mud across my cheek. “These were the directions he gave me last week, before I took off. He must have forgotten. I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s been distracted lately. Love, and all.”
“I see,” he said.
“But just for the record, I’m not a teenager. I’m almost twenty-eight. Nor am I any kind of wild child. Nor am I in any way flaky. On the contrary.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and kept my chin up, since I couldn’t deny the itinerant or tattooed parts.
Not that I was even minimally embarrassed about them.
He raised an eyebrow, and just waited, silent. I willed myself not to drop my gaze. A raindrop rolled slowly down the sculpted contours of his jaw. I watched it, breathless.
“You don’t look twenty-eight,” he observed.
I shook myself loose of his spell, and steeled myself to do the grown-up, dignified thing. “Well, I am. But if you’ve drawn your conclusions about my intrinsic value as a person after just a couple minutes of conversation, then screw it. There’s nothing left to be said. I’ll just hike back to town and find a motel and someone who can help me pull my van out later on. After that, I’m out of here.”
He frowned at me, as if I were the unreasonable one. “That’s not necessary. We’ll talk logistics later. Get whatever you need out of your van for the time being. You can’t walk back to town now.”
I drew myself up to my full height, which was only about five foot-three, unfortunately. “I’ll do what I damn well please. I don’t need your help, or your judgments, or your attitude. I’ll just pack a bag to walk to town, and Edna and I will be on our way. I’m sorry about the van being stuck here, but there’s nothing I can do about that for the moment. I’ll solve that problem as soon as I possibly can.”
“You can’t do that,” he said, looking irritated. “This rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon, and it’s six miles back to town. You certainly aren’t going to find anybody to help you with that van today, and probably not for several days. Get your stuff and I’ll take you to my house.” He stared at my stiff, stony face and folded arms, sighed, and said, “Okay. I’m sorry. I apologize, already. I was rude and inappropriate. Let me rephrase. Please, get your things. Please, let me show you to the house. It would be my privilege.”
I was cautiously mollified, even though he was overdoing it a little. It was a good sign when a guy knew how to apologize. Whether he was sincere was another matter entirely, but just being able to manage the basic form was already promising.
I climbed into the van and shoved clothes into my duffel, too nervous to be methodical about it. I tossed cans of dog food into my backpack, attached my sleeping bag, and jumped out with both bags draped over my shoulder, and found him examining the lurid fantasy mural on the van while he waited. “What’s this? A dragon?” he asked.
“No, it’s a serpent,” I informed him, feeling ridiculously defensive.
He grunted under his breath. “Is that your work?”
I snorted. Asfuckingif. “No,” I said crisply. “That’s not my style. Actually, I don’t really paint at all. I’m a sculptor. An old friend of mine named Rafael painted that. I bought the van from him years ago.”
“Hmmm. Whatever. Let’s go, if you’re ready.” He grabbed the heavy duffel from my shoulder, flung it onto his back, and plunged straight into the thickest-looking part of the forest. Edna didn’t even wait for me, that bubble-headed so-and-so. She bounded cheerfully after him, thrilled to be released from the van.
I struggled after him with my backpack bouncing as he wove and ducked through evergreens, brambles, and clinging foliage and festoons of lichen with what seemed unearthly grace and ease. I felt so clumsy and heavy with every step, dragging my mud-covered high-tops out of the ground with a wet, squelching sound with every step. Fir boughs slapped my face and snagged my hair.
