Page 15 of Hero Next Door
So she didn’t want to talk about her time here. Right. No problem. I guess we’d also skip the fact that she and her best friend, Olivia, had always thought they were too good to bother talking to people like me and Connor.
Terrific.
I started walking again, taking her change of subject in stride, and nodded. “Piping, too, then. Painting for sure. And we’ll have to go through all the wood in the house, make sure it’s still structurally sound.”
By the time we’d gone around the house—no small hike, given how big the place was—we had a whole list of things we wanted to start with. Basics like painting and plumbing and structural issues. Making sure all the wood was sound and the walls still plumb. Though she’d been arguing about that last point for the last five minutes.
“I just don’t see how you can say the place isn’t structurally sound,” she said for the third time. “It looks fine to me.”
God, this girl. I’d known her five minutes—plus the week last year—and I’d already realized that if you told her something she didn’t agree with, she treated you like you were lying to her.
“Looking fine and being fine are two different ideas, Parker,” I told her. For the third time. “Everything is fine and dandy until one day you’re walking harder than usual and your foot goes right through the floor.”
“Right through the floor?” she asked, turning to me with a disbelieving sort of smile on her face. “Are you serious right now?”
Frustrated, I turned from her to the house itself... and saw the wraparound porch. That wood was outside, and had been exposed to more weather than anything on the inside. This house had to be what, thirty or forty years old? Unless Scarlett had redone the patio, that wood had seen some things.
I grabbed Parker’s hand, ignoring the spark that jumped through me at the touch of her skin, and headed for the patio, dragging her up the stairs and onto the old, weathered wood. If she wasn’t going to listen to reason, she obviously needed a practical presentation.
“This wood is at least thirty years old,” I told her. “And it’s been outside that whole time. In the sun, the wind, the rain. The snow. If you’re so confident that none of the wood in this entire place is rotted out, prove it.”
Another snort from her. “Sure thing, cowboy.” And she brought one foot down hard on the wood, then shrugged. “Feels pretty solid to me.”
Now it was my turn to snort. “What do you weigh, 110, 115, tops? You stomping isn’t going to test this wood. You weigh about as much as a butterfly.”
She cocked her head, having evidently found offense at this. “Last time I checked, butterflies don’t stomp.”
“And neither do you. Not enough to test the wood. Move.”
I moved her gently to the side, stepped onto the spot I’d marked as the most splintered and weathered part of the wood, and jumped.
The wood cracked, a jagged hole opening up right under my heel, and I stumbled. Then, with a shriek that sounded like it came from an entirely different world, the crack streaked along the porch, running more quickly than I could have imagined possible. The wood underneath Parker’s feet gave way, splintered and cracking, and she stumbled as well, one of her feet going clean through the wood as it disintegrated under her. She shouted in surprise, her hands going out in front of her to break her fall and releasing the mug she was still carrying, and I reacted without even thinking.
I jumped away from the wood breaking under my feet like I did this sort of thing all the time and landed next to her just in time to catch her before she went all the way through.
I wrapped her in my arms and backed quickly toward the base of the house, where the wood met the siding and would be most stable. Then, instincts taking over, I sidestepped along the porch in a shuffling dance that took us right to the steps that led up into the house.
There I turned and put her down as gently as possible on the step above mine... and started inspecting her for damage. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said, running my hands down her arms and then inspecting her legs. She was wearing shorts—typical big city girl, wearing shorts when we were going to be doing something where her legs should have been protected—and I saw a deep scratch along her calf. I put a gentle finger to it and she hissed, grabbing my shoulders and pulling at me.
“That hurts,” she said, a shake in her voice that hadn’t been there before.
I straightened, feeling guilty right down to my core, and met her eyes. The moment I did, the guilt changed to something else. Something that was warmer and a whole lot fuller than guilt. Something that was... Something that was...
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t think for one moment that the wood would crack like that. I thought...”
Her mouth quirked, though her eyes didn’t leave mine. “You were jumping on the wood with the intent that it would stand up to the beating?” she asked, laughing at me. “So you were expecting it to prove you wrong about that whole rotten wood thing?”
I had to press my lips together to keep from smiling. “Honestly, I thought it might break,” I admitted. “But I also thought it would break underneathme. You falling through was never part of the plan.”
Now she laughed outright. “Good to know you weren’t trying to sabotage me just to prove a point, I guess. I sure am lucky you were standing right there, just waiting to save me.”
She grew serious, then, and I realized that at some point, my fingers had gone to her cheek, caressing her skin gently, as if I was trying to make sure she was real. Her hands, meanwhile, had never left my shoulders. She must have been holding me when I was carrying her, and never let go.
And suddenly the stillness between us... My fingers on her skin and her fingers digging into the muscles of my shoulders... The look on her face as her eyes flitted down to my lips and she caught her own bottom lip between her teeth...
It was all way too much. Way too intense and way too serious, especially with the guilt I was already feeling. The weird but very serious need to protect her from the crack in the wood.
Way too much like that moment in the truck a year ago, when I’d jerked the wheel of the truck and she’d taken a spill.
