Page 7 of Fighting Words

She smiles and nods her head toward the window. “I’m a little sad you didn’t have a hand in these floral drapes.”

I raise a taunting eyebrow. “Who says I didn’t?”

She laughs out loud, and the sound of it could lift me off the ground. Laughter like that—light and melodic—doesn’t happen often around here. At the pub where I spend a few nights a week, there are a lot of grunts and snorts, y’know, your standard guffaws and chuffs from the old-timers who come in for supper and a pint.

“You didn’t want to get rid of anything when the last person left?” she asks.

“I didn’t even think about it. Take that armoire for instance. It seems like it belongs there, no? More a part of the house than I am.”

She nods in agreement. “And the books? Were those left here too?”

I smile, proud. “Those are mine.”

I finish up in the kitchen and bring her a second helping. I’m being nicer to her than I have been to the other editors from InkWell, but I’ve never been able to turn away a stray, and now here she is, eating my food and wrapped in my clothes, curled up in my chair. In some ways, she’s no different than Cat or Dog or Chicken. I should call her Girl.

Tomorrow, I’ll figure out some way to get rid of her, but tonight I can be pleasant, right? I haven’t forgotten how to make polite conversation. I take my glass of wine and sit on the loveseat across from her. It’s not as comfortable as the chair, which is why I don’t ever sit here.

“I like your soap,” she tells me, a little timid as she points up. “The bar you had in the shower.”

I can smell traces of it in the air. “A farmer’s wife makes it for me out of honey and orange blossom. Maybe some vanilla, too.” I can’t remember exactly what she said the last combination was. “She switches her recipe up and every few months she’ll leave me a couple of bars if I leave out some books for her to borrow.”

Summer smiles at this simple arrangement as I take a long sip of wine. I don’t mean to keep looking at her, and I shouldn’t be studying her so intently. It’s just, she’s the nicest thing I’ve had to look at in a long time. It’s been cold and drizzly here for a while, and now with the holidays over and the decorations all put away, we’ve entered the bleak part of winter, the rough bone-chilling months that eat away at you until you throw your hands up one day in mid-March and declare that you will never, ever, over-your-dead-body spend another winter here. You hover your mouse over one-way flights to Bora Bora or Cancun just as spring finally appears and you forget all about how much you hate it.

Summer is a spring flower come early.

The more her hair dries by the fire, the more it looks like fire itself.

“What?” she asks, batting at her face.

I shake my head. “Nothing. Jam.”

“Here?” she asks, pointing to the side of her mouth.

It’s perfectly clean, but I let her wipe it and nod as if she got something.

She sets her empty plate on the side table besideThe Sound and the Fury. “So, it seems a little silly not to speak to you now, while I have your undivided attention…”

And like that, my somewhat pleasant evening goes up in smoke.

I down the rest of my wine then stand up to get more. “You should save your breath. It’s not worth trying to go down this road with me.”

Her brows furrow before I turn away completely. “I don’t think I understand. InkWell sent me here to do a job, and I’m eager to get started. If my late arrival tonight offended you, I really do apologize. That wasn’t my plan at all—”

I squeeze my eyes closed and try to swallow as much annoyance as I can. I don’t want to unintentionally offload everything onto Summer and then regret it in the morning.

“It has nothing to do with your arrival and nothing to do withyouat all.” I bite the words out then turn around to face her. “Did InkWell tell you about the people they sent here before you?”

She frowns. “Noel? Yes…”

“And Kent? Suzanne?”

She blinks quickly as if trying to think fast. “I’m sure. Yes.” Then her voice falters. “Do we even have aSuzanne?”

I ignore her question and trudge on as I pour more wine, needing to get this out. “Three editors have arrived here on my doorstep with various grand plans to get me back on track to cross the finish line, but I refused to work with them and you’ll be no different.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

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