Page 16 of Little Bird
The girls all break out into laughter and I turn immediately and walk the other away. Jasmine can wait until after break to get her paper back. I don’t want to be involved in that conversation. Hell, I don’t even want them to be talking about me that way. If the college administration even suspected that my students had fantasies that included my fingers touching places that were in any way inappropriate...
I’d be fired, and no one would fight for me. Those girls can’t be older than nineteen. Twenty, at the oldest.
The same age as my stepdaughter. Or rather, ex-stepdaughter.
Twenty. Christ, she’s young. Just a baby, still. Not even legally allowed to drink. She’s been my daughter, for fuck’s sake.
And yet I spent most of last night thinking about the fact that she was in the bedroom next to mine, laying in her bed with her new curves and that fuckable mouth. I wonder if she still sleeps with it slightly open, the way she did when she was a kid. And if she still has those nightmares.
I spent all night hard as a rock at the memory of her eyes lighting up when they saw me and threatening myself with death and dismemberment if I dared to act on the fantasies rushing through my brain.
All of which made me even angrier with her for arriving at my house so changed.
Where is the little girl I missed for the last four years? When did she grow up, and who the fuck did she become that she now gets arrested and has to call for help in the middle of the night?
Her mouth and curves are none of my fucking business. I brought her here because she needed my help. That’s all. And if I’m lucky, she’ll figure out whatever she needs to figure out and be out of my hair and on her way back to New York City sooner rather than later. I don’t need the distraction of her in my house, and I sure as hell don’t need the trouble. I’ve had enough of troublesome women to last a lifetime.
And that’s starting to include Gabby. She was an easy person to date at first. Very few boundaries, that one, so if I didn’t want to be close, she didn’t argue with me. But lately, things are getting complicated.
Her midnight lecture last night about how I needed to send Taryn home didn’t help.
Neither did my reaction to her statement. Because my first and only thought was that Taryn had more right to be here than Gabby herself. That having Taryn home again feels very wrong... and also right enough that it makes me distinctly uncomfortable.
I grind my teeth and look for my car. I need to get back to the shop and start working on some new marketing ideas. The business is losing money so fast I can’t keep track of it, and we need more clients ordering pieces. We need the business to make more money. And with school out for Christmas and an interloper staying in my house, I’m hoping I can spend most of my break in the shop, figuring out how to make that happen.
Gabe
I swing the axe as hard as I can, putting all my anger and frustration into the action, and grin when the blade hits the wood, the reverberations running up my forearms and into my elbows.
God, that feels good.
Not good enough, though. I need more.
So I swing again. And again. And then again. And by the time I actually start feeling calm enough to think without wanting to punch someone, the tree is split in half and ready to be chopped into smaller, more manageable pieces.
And right now is when I need to stop and consider what I’m going to do with the wood, because I’m not out here chopping firewood. We have plenty of that in the woodshed up against the house. No, this tree is 100 percent gorgeous redwood. Old wood without any marks on it, and that means it’s perfect for the furniture we build. Redwood is soft, which makes it easy to work with, and when you add a clear finish over whatever you do with it...
“Yum,” I whisper, my mind already going to the finished project.
Is it weird to drool over what wood might become? To practically come at the thought of what you’re going to build with the wood you see?
Maybe.
But that’s never stopped me.
Besides, I’m in the middle of the fucking forest. It’s not like anyone is out here to see me grinning like a maniac at the tree I’m currently chopping up. Though the thought of someone coming out here and seeing me in my element does make me laugh.
I sober quickly, though, because I know the truth.
I’m in my element out here because no one can see me, which means I can actually be myself. The unmasked, unapologetic version, rather than the version most people get. That version of Gabe—the contained, sarcastic, and very charming one—is the guy I put on for everyone else.
Out here in the woods, with just me and the trees and birds and squirrels?
Out here, I’m allowed to do things like drool over trees without worrying that I might disappoint anyone.
I drop the axe and walk the length of the tree, letting my brain start to work on what I might do with it. My father and I might be descended from the founders of Hawke’s Wood, but that doesn’t mean we just sit back and live the easy life. We’re the head lumberjacks out here and are therefore in charge of clearing any deadwood in the forest. Making sure the living trees have space to grow and stretch. Keeping the forest as healthy as possible with controlled burns to mitigate the wildfires that like to come through.
We’re the keepers of the trees. Literally.
