Like Arrows (Cedar Tree #6) (14 page)

"What are those?" I point out the almost black raisin-like kernel in the mixture.

"Those are dried juniper-berries. The Navajo used them both for medicinal and cooking purposes. Smell them." He indicates a small cheesecloth bag on the counter.

It's full of the little dried berries and smells woodsy—a bit earthy, but fresh.

"When cooked with meat, it seems to enhance the flavors. I put it in because it makes me think of home. The days when everything was simple."

A dark look settles on his face and I can easily detect the presence of not so good memories. Liking the companionable mood in the kitchen, I try to distract him.

"What is a sam...sama—"

"
Amá sáni?
She was my grandmother. My mom's mother. She died when I was ten."

Shit. Afraid I'd only made it worse I watch his face from the corner of my eye, but it would appear memories of his grandmother are happy ones.

"Sorry," I mutter.

"Can you flip the squash over? I think they're cool enough."

He takes a step to the side so I can reach. When I flip the squash over I notice it's seeded and a caramelized layer has formed on the cut side. With deft fingers Mal fills the halves pressing the filling down in the hollow space.

"Are there cloves too?" I ask, sniffing the amazing fragrant blend wafting up.

"Ground cloves, nutmeg, fresh ginger root, and juniper berries. You'll have to wait ten more minutes while I quick bake it in the oven, but wait until you taste it." He smiles at me and I realize he seems to be doing an increasing amount of that. Just like talking, something he barely did at first, but doesn't seem to have a problem with now.

"I'll set the table," I offer, and not once do I think about my usual anxiety over eating in front of someone.

Not even fifteen minutes later, when we sit down at the table, a beer in front of each of us and an entire half squash on his plate, and half of one on mine. Not a thought as I put fork after fork of the most interesting food I've ever tasted in my mouth, while Mal tells me small anecdotes of his
aná sáni.

It isn't until much later, after I'm in bed, exhausted from the roller-coaster ride this day has been, that I realize I've broken two of my firm rules for self-protection. One being that I don't eat in front of someone, anyone, so they can't use it against me. Second is to let no one close enough to where they can hurt me.

The kiss may not have felt like a mistake, but I know it was. I know because the feel of his mouth on me, his tongue stroking mine, after this many hours, still tastes like hope—and hope is dangerous.

M
al

"Hand me that Phillips screwdriver, would you?"

I locate the tool and slap it in Neil's hand.

He got here this morning just after cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Breakfast that Kim had insisted on making me.

Good thing he came when he did, because watching Kim all morning, covered in her signature oversized clothing, but all ruffled and rosy from sleep, was becoming a temptation I had a hard time resisting. I wanted nothing more than to grab her the moment I walked in the kitchen and saw her barefoot and with her hair piled on top of her head in some kind of bun thing, a pencil sticking through. My gut told me to go slow with this one. Rather than trying to bulldoze those walls down, I think removing them brick by brick might be the way to go.

Ironically, it would seem she's doing some wall breaking of her own. I'm a quiet guy, but around her I seem to feel the need to talk. Telling her about my grandmother was out of the blue, but felt natural. It's been a long time since I've allowed those good memories, the happy ones, to surface. They were usually fast replaced by the not so great ones, and there are a huge number of those. That's one of the reasons I want to find out why she's seeing Doc again on Monday. I don't like medical surprises. They don't invoke good memories. Actually thought about calling Naomi myself, but aside from being out of line, it would piss Naomi off.

It's pitch black in this part of the basement now that Neil's turned off all the power. The only light we have is from a small penlight that I'm trying to keep aimed at what he's doing. Which is disconnecting the old alarm system from the main feed and installing a brand new one that runs through a PSU which has it's own battery resource should the power be interrupted. The old system didn't have that, so if someone managed to cut the power from outside the house, they'd effectively disarm the alarm too. A very out-dated system that was in need of upgrading anyway. It'll be state of the art when Neil is done.

-

"Y
ou guys want more coffee?" Kim shouts down the stairs.

"Would love some, but you may find it easier to brew once we have the power back on," Neil shouts up, making me chuckle.

"Right!" Is the answer, but I can hear her berating herself for not thinking of that herself.

"Give me five minutes and you'll have it back."

"Thank you!"

"She's really cute," Neil says, raising my hackles a bit. "But I thought Kendra was more your type?"

The question is loaded, I can feel it, and suddenly a few things become clear to me as to why Neil had seemed more than a little antagonistic with me.

"Kendra looks like the type I’ve always banged."

The air temperature dropped by ten degrees. Even if I couldn't really see him well, I could feel the angry tension radiating off him.
Bingo.

"You better have a good explanation for what you just said," he says through clenched teeth.

" She and I went out a few times and nothing happened because we both realized we were better friends than lovers. But, aside from that, I have recently discovered that I likely have been wasting my time looking at the wrong types of women."

"Is that so?" There is still an edge to his voice but a lot of the tension seems to have left him.

"Yup. And for your information, had I known you we're interested, I wouldn't have made a move on her."

His answering silence tells me he’s mulling over my words. "I'm not interested," he bluffs, "but that doesn't mean I wouldn't lay down for her if she was being badly treated. She's a friend. Besides, she's gotta be eight or nine years older than I am."

Right. I'm not gonna push it. Not my place, but apparently Neil doesn't live by that conviction.

"So Kim?"

I growl in response, making him chuckle and that serves to clear any remaining tension from the air. I'm glad. It'd been awkward working along side each other, knowing something was off but never being able to put my finger on it. Now I know. Our little boy wonder, who would shoot me on the spot if he knew I called him that behind his back, has eyes for our local new PT. Well, well, well.

-

F
resh coffee in hand, I sit at the dining room table and fire up my laptop. The installation is almost done, except for some outside floodlights. Neil wants to make them dual purpose so that they have a sensor, but they're also wired into the alarm, so that when it goes off, every damn light on the house will flicker on and off. He wants to make the whole house light up like a Christmas tree. I like the way that kid thinks. So he's off to Cortez to pick up the odds and ends he needs, including the lights. Kim is on the couch, curled up with her electronic reader, and Boo is cuddled up beside her, his massive head in her lap, effectively pinning her down. Right now she's not reading, though, her body completely still.

I can feel her eyes on me as I log into my computer. Just minutes ago I set down a fresh cup beside her on the side table and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. She froze in her seat. I ignored it, grabbed my own cup from the kitchen counter and sat down here.

"Why are you being so nice?"

My eyes come up from the screen to land on her still shocked face. "Nice? I'm not being anything specific. I'm just...just being me. Why do you ask?"

"I'm...I don't know. You confuse me." Her eyes lower to Boo's head which she is absently stroking with her hand.

"Don't think so hard," I tell her. "Things are not as complicated as you think they are. Quite simple actually."

"Whatever," she mumbles, flicking her eyes to me briefly before resolutely picking up her e-reader and pretending to be engrossed in her book. I turn back to my emails with the hint of a smile on my face, pretending not to notice the way her eyes keep wandering to me.

The next two hours or so are spent just like that, only interrupted by Neil's return with his supplies and a giant bag of take-out from Tequila's—a favorite Mexican restaurant on Main Street in Cortez. He just bought half the menu instead of calling for preferences. When Kim makes a comment about the mass amounts of waste in doing that, Neil calmly states, "It's not a waste when there's enough leftovers for dinner." Spoken like a true man.

I notice Kim barely eats while Neil is around, carefully cutting a burrito and only putting half on her plate. When Neil is done stuffing his face and heads out to hang floodlights, Kim gathers up the plates and takes them to the kitchen. When I walk in a few minutes later to grab a beer for Neil and myself before joining him outside, I catch her with the remaining half of the burrito half-eaten in her hand. A dark blush steals over her face and she immediately drops the remainder back in the container.

"I'm...I was..." she mumbles around her mouthful.

"Hungry?" I finish for her. Seeing the struggle she wages to swallow down the bite in her mouth, and the way she seems to be fighting tears. I decide it's time to try and knock a couple of bricks off this particular wall.

"Look at me?" I wait for her eyes to lift up, take both her hands in mine, and entwine my fingers with hers before continuing. "I don't know what happened to you to make you scared to eat in public. What makes you starve yourself half the time.”—she opens her mouth to protest, but I shut that down right away—“Just let me get this out. Please. I don't know, but I'd like to. I have a feeling that no matter how much I tell you there is
nothing
wrong with you and your gorgeous curves, I won't get through to you until we tackle what is at the root of this obsession with eating. Or rather, not eating."

Her eyes fill with tears at the same time her head shakes in denial. Of course Neil picks that time to walk in the backdoor.

"Can I grab a beer? I'm parched. All that spicy food has me thirstier than a camel after a month-long trek through the desert." Totally oblivious to the emotions swirling around the kitchen, he dives into the fridge and comes up with one, waving it in my face. "Want one?" he asks, before finally appearing to clue in that something is going on. "Right," he mumbles, looking briefly at Kim before coming back to me. "I should know better than to walk blindly into a kitchen. I have a knack for hitting it at precisely the wrong time. I'll just take this outside." And with that he disappears out the door.

Kim jumps on the opportunity to try and make it past me out the kitchen, undoubtedly to run up to her room where she can block me out, but my arm is faster. I wrap it around her waist and pull her back to my front.

"Don't run," I mumble, my lips pressed against her ear. "I'm not gonna let you."

Whatever struggle she had in her disappears in an instant, as she sags back against me. Keeping my arm loosely around her waist, I use the other hand on her shoulder to turn her around, before lifting her up on the counter.

"Wait! I'm too—"

"Don't say it." I interrupt her, sliding my hand along her jaw to lift her face to mine. "I bench press nearly three-hundred pounds. Picking you up barely strains me. So don't go there."

"I’m still too heavy," she whispers. “At least according to the scale in the clinic."

"And?"

"It's a lot. Too much."

"Says who?" I lean in, my eyes scanning the emotions clear on her face. "I'm two-hundred and twenty pounds."

I watch her mouth fall open in surprise. "You don't look it," she says incredulously.

"No, I don't. But I'm tall and heavy-boned. That's not my point, though. I'm just trying to illustrate how deceiving it is to let yourself be defined by a set of numbers on a scale. By charts made up by some 'genius' to show what is acceptable as a weight in an average person of a certain height, when you and I both know there is not a single average person out there. The numbers are not a concern, but what is, is the fact that you feel the need to hide consuming the barest of sustenance, because you are somehow ashamed your body needs it.
That
, is not okay, Kimeo."

"I can't help it." I can barely hear her voice when she buries her face in my shirt. "It's all I know."

That hits me in my gut. Telling me that this is much deeper than her own hang ups about size.

"Tell me," I prompt her.

After a few minutes of silence that leave me to think she's never gonna talk about it, she takes a deep breath and starts.

"My dad married the prom queen, but he was not the king. He was a gentle, kind and sweetly attractive five foot seven portly guy. My mom towered over him at five foot nine and outshone him with her beauty, and he—he adored her. Had her on a pedestal. He adored all of his girls like that."