He stared at her offered hand, but didn’t
bother to shake it. “Yeah.” He raised his mallet and crashed it
down into the floor again. The loud bang made Kyra jump and giggle
nervously.
“Well…” she fumbled, blushing with
embarrassment as he ripped up another section of flooring. “It’s
really great to meet you. I look forward to your work on my house.”
Kyra grimaced; she had no clue what she was saying. “Or
whatever.”
Hale sighed heavily as if she was annoying
him. He raised his brows and made a point of looking her up and
down. “Do you really want to be down here in your underwear when my
crew gets here?”
“Oh, well, you just surprised me is all. I
normally wear clothes when I meet people for the first time.”
“Sure.”
He reached over and cranked the radio back
up, effectively dismissing her. Before he could raise his mallet
for another swing, Kyra walked around him and gathered her
groceries up in her arms.
“If your crew is anything like you, I guess
I don’t have much to worry about,” she muttered under her
breath.
She sensed Hale’s narrowed eyes on her as
she walked out of the kitchen, toting her bat and groceries. She
probably looked like an idiot, but that bothered her even less than
Hale Cooper seeing her in her underwear the first day she met him.
She knew she shouldn’t be too quick to judge since Cade had
explained his brother was a little different, so Kyra tried to keep
her less than favorable first opinion of Hale from forming in her
mind on her way back to her bedroom.
Not that she’d been around many guys in her
underwear before, but she would’ve expected Hale to be a little
more…
interested
.
She changed upstairs quickly. When she came
back downstairs, she wore her favorite board shirt and bikini
bottoms. Her long blond hair was loose and wavy around her
shoulders. Without sparing a glance into the kitchen, she walked to
the back of the house.
She grabbed her board and started for the
water. The waves were stronger this morning, and she enjoyed
herself. By the time she came in an hour later, her muscles were
loose, and she was ready to face the day. She wrung out her hair
and headed for her porch.
In her garden, she caught sight of a
disheveled Stevie watching her from across the fence line. She had
a large glass of coffee and looked like she’d just woken up. Even
from this distance, Kyra saw Stevie roll her eyes.
“Overachiever!” Stevie shouted and flipped
Kyra off before she went back inside.
Kyra waved, laughing. Feeling light as bird
bones, she put up her board and headed inside. She was still
chuckling when she saw Hale had stopped working to watch her, his
eyes flicking between her and Stevie’s house. Humming to herself,
she smiled at him and headed upstairs for a bath since her little
bathroom didn’t have a real shower yet.
When she got out, the sounds of hammers and
demolition had amplified tenfold. It sounded like Hale’s crew had
arrived, and they were wasting no time in tearing her house apart.
Kyra sighed and sat down at her computer.
“Guess I won’t be starting a new video
today,” she said under her breath.
Instead, she spent the morning editing a few
makeup tutorials and jamming to the music that flooded through her
headphones. She checked all her social media sites and posted some
more pictures. Logging onto her blog, she responded to comments and
scheduled a few posts for the week. The website made up the main
source of her income, since she could advertise or position certain
products that she liked, while her videos just supplemented her
brand.
Around lunchtime, her stomach began to
gurgle with hunger pains. Sitting back against the mattress she’d
stacked on the floor, she thought about texting Cade. She hadn’t
had much time to explore the island yet, and it would be cool to
have a native show her some of the non-touristy spots. Pulling out
her phone, she sent him a text, to which he quickly replied.
Cade:
Sure! Be there in 30.
Thirty minutes later, Kyra turned her
computer off and headed downstairs in a pair of hot pink shorts and
a white baggy tank top she’d picked up at a surfing competition.
She pulled her hair into a ponytail as she walked down the stairs,
tucking the loose strands of hair behind a stretchy teal
headband.
There were more people in her house than
she’d expected. Without knowing it, her house had apparently become
a warzone, with hazardous swinging hammers and shards of plaster
flying through the air. Fifteen men stopped what they were doing,
which mostly consisted of hardcore demolition, and looked up at
her. “Hey y’all!” Kyra waved, smiling to ease the awkwardness. It
didn’t help. “I’m Kyra.”
“Nice to meet you, Kyra,” an older gentleman
said. He came forward, setting aside his hammer, to shake her hand.
“I’m Hale’s foreman, Chevy.”
“Your name is Chevy?” she asked, her grin
spreading.
“It’s a long story,” he replied, looking
sheepish.
Just then, Hale walked in. He’d put on a
faded t-shirt and his jeans, weighed down by his tool belt, hung
low on his hips. Saliva pooled in Kyra’s mouth before she
remembered to swallow.
“What the hell is everyone doing? Get back
to work!”
With that, the men jerked back into action
and the cacophony started up again. Kyra cringed and hurried to the
front door, sparing a quick glance over her shoulder. Hale had his
back to her and was hammering a large hole in one of the walls.
Outside, the day was beautiful with a nice
sea breeze. Kyra took a deep, cleansing breath and looked up just
in time to see a herd of her neighbors making their way down her
overgrown path in the front garden. Nerves fluttered in her
stomach, just like they did whenever she was surrounded by a large
group of women. She always felt as if she was being judged, and by
the disgusted looks on the women’s faces and their whispered
tittering, Kyra knew that was exactly what was happening.
“Morning, y’all!” Kyra said brightly—too
brightly. Her voice cracked slightly.
The women all looked up and plastered huge
smiles on their faces. The leader, who wore a bright yellow dress
and orthopedic white shoes, spoke first. “You must be Kyra
Aberdeen! My name is Betsy Harrison. I live just there.” She
pointed over her pudgy shoulder to a traditional Victorian across
the street. She looked back at Kyra and smoothed her tightly curled
hair down.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Harrison! You
have a beautiful house. I apologize for my garden being
so…um…prickly.” Kyra giggled nervously. “I haven’t had time to work
on it any.”
“We understand, dear.” Another woman stepped
forward wearing a billowing sundress that made her hips look ten
times larger than they actually were. “I’m Marla Walker. My house
is on the other side of Stevie Andrews.” The way Mrs. Walker said
Stevie’s name left little to the imagination. Apparently these were
the neighbors Stevie had said would try and convince Kyra that she
was crazy.
Mrs. Harrison wrinkled her nose. “That girl
is trouble. You would do good to steer clear of her. We have to
complain to the police at least once a week about her loud,
devil-worshipping music. Of course, with parents like hers, it’s no
wonder the girl never learned any proper manners.”
“Oh…” Kyra nodded, feeling like an ass for
not defending Stevie. She didn’t know what else to say, so she
asked the most obvious question, even though she already knew the
answer. “Who are her parents?”
“Some reality show stars out in California,”
Mrs. Walker said, waving her hand in front of her nose as if she’d
smelled something foul. “And you know how those Californians
are.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Kyra murmured, not
revealing she was actually from California. She felt about a foot
tall in front of these women, and shrinking by the second.
Inwardly, she cringed at being such a pushover.
“Very much so, bless her heart.” Mrs.
Harrison’s kind words did nothing for the mean tone she spoke them
in. “Well, we just wanted to come by and welcome you to the
neighborhood. I made you my special chicken casserole. Marla here
made you some of her orange-filled éclairs.”
Mrs. Walker stepped forward and deposited a
Tupperware container on top of the one Mrs. Harrison had already
laid in Kyra’s outstretched arms. “Oh, thanks!” Kyra exclaimed,
shifting under the hot weight of the food. She was a vegan, which
meant she couldn’t eat the chicken meat and likely whatever dairy
was in the gooey, calorie-ridden mess of the éclairs.
“Now, Kyra,” Mrs. Harrison said. She stepped
forward and put her arm around Kyra’s shoulders. Together, they and
the other women of the neighborhood surveyed her garden. “Our local
garden club chapter will be by next week to take pictures of our
gardens. For years now, we’ve had to crop out this particular…area.
Mrs. Walker and I believe this eyesore is the very reason we
haven’t won the state’s first place prize in all these years.
So…”
Kyra caught the meaning clearly, but Mrs.
Walker interjected with her honey-dipped voice, “So, sweetie, it
would just mean the world to us if you could get this mess cleaned
up soon.”
“Oh, sure.” Kyra blushed. The heat from the
containers scalded her arms, but she gritted her teeth and tried to
move them to lesser fried flesh spots. “I’ll do that as soon as
possible.”
“Perhaps today, dear?” Mrs. Harrison
suggested.
“Today?” Kyra caught the looks of the women,
and quickly changed her answer. “I mean, sure! I can do that
today.”
“Wonderful! Now about the outside of the
house…we want to run a few neutral colors by you. See, we don’t
want your house to clash with ours.”
“Oh…” Kyra looked down the road, desperately
hoping Cade would pull up.
“Morning, ladies!”
Kyra jumped, rattling the food in the
containers. Hale swooped down the steps and barged into the middle
of the group. Mrs. Harrison released her viselike grip on Kyra’s
shoulder and quickly stepped away from Hale, like he was the devil
himself. As if he knew her discomfort, he took the containers from
Kyra, who quickly hid the red burns behind her back.
“Hello, Mr. Cooper. We were just welcoming
Kyra to the neighborhood,” Mrs. Harrison said primly. She sniffed
and smoothed her hair again. Even from her distance, Kyra smelled
the loads of hairspray the woman had coated her brittle hair
with.
“Is that what you were doing? Cause it kinda
looked like a railroadin’ to me.”
“Excuse us?” Mrs. Walker said, her mouth
gaping open.
Hale went on as if he hadn’t heard her.
“Kyra can’t do much in her garden until we get the foundation
fixed. Guess your first prize in the Petunia Patrol will have to
wait another year.”
Mrs. Harrison sniffed. “Mr. Cooper, I’ve
never in all my life—”
Hale laughed. “I highly doubt whatever was
about to come out of your mouth.”
Just then, Cade pulled into the drive, and
from the worried look on his face as he jumped out, he already knew
what was going on. “Morning, Mrs. Harrison! Looking good, Mrs.
Walker!” he called as he rushed through the garden’s gate. “Hale,”
he said, nodding to his brother as he came up to the group.
“Funny seeing you here.” Hale shot a
meaningful look at Kyra as if he knew exactly why Cade was
here.
“Not all that funny,” Cade said patiently.
“Just taking Kyra for a tour of the island. Oh, Mrs. Harrison! Did
you make some of that delicious chicken casserole?”
Cade redirected the ladies’ attention to him
as he fawned over their cooking abilities. They’d completely
forgotten about Hale after a moment. Kyra turned to him and
whispered, “Can you let your crew know they can eat that for lunch?
It’ll go bad without a refrigerator.”
He shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
She watched him walk back into the house.
She didn’t know if he’d rescued her or ruined her reputation with
her neighbors. When she looked back at Cade, the ladies were all
leaving and Cade let out a sigh of relief.
“Mrs. Harrison has terrified me since I was
a child,” he muttered under his breath. “And I am pretty sure Mrs.
Walker used to be a man.”
“Cade!” Kyra hissed, but she still
laughed.
“Are you ready for your tour?” he asked,
changing the subject.
“Sure! But can we be back earlier? I want to
work on this garden some.” Kyra looked at the weeds and overgrown
vines in dismay.
“Do not let them bother you. All they care
about is their stupid garden club.”
They started toward his truck. She wasn’t
surprised to see everything clean and orderly inside. Cade struck
her as the kind of guy who wanted everything neat and in its place.
As they pulled out of the drive, she said, “I don’t think I’ve made
a good impression on your brother…”
Cade shot her a worried glance. “He has not
yelled at you or anything?”
“Uh, no. Does he yell a lot?”
“Well…” He clearly recalled some instances,
but he skimmed over it. “He is just not much of a people
person.”
Kyra looked at the perfect houses with
perfect gardens as they drove down the street. Weeping willows and
blooming magnolia trees were dotted along the freshly paved road.
Mrs. Walker was just entering her house, and Kyra didn’t miss the
nasty look Mrs. Harrison gave the car as they went by. Clearly,
Kyra’s new house had been the bane of Gardenia Street’s perfect
existence.
“I can tell,” she said.
“Do not let the stuff with the neighbors
bother you,” Cade said quickly. He turned off Kyra’s street and
made his way toward town. “I know it looked like Hale was being an
ass, pardon my language, but that was him just sticking up for you.
He has always hated bullies.”
She noticed the uneasy way he chewed on his
lip. “Was he bullied when he was younger?” she asked, instantly
feeling sorry for Hale.