“Am I that obvious?” Paige asked pained.
“I’ve seen you two together only the one time, but I could tell there was something there. And based on what Grace told me, it’s mutual. Apparently Brendan’s just as obvious. Grace said he couldn’t take his eyes off you the entire time you guys were at the beach.”
It was suddenly very warm in the office. It must be the coffee. Yeah, the coffee was too warm.
Just as Paige was contemplating grabbing a folder off Tara’s desk and fanning herself with it, the front door opened and she turned to see a yeti in flannel standing in the doorway. He had a long light brown beard growing past his chin and stretching down his chest. His bushy beard and mustache covered the entire lower half of his face. His hair was the same color as his beard and almost just as long. His ponytail reached down to the middle of his back.
“Juris!” Tara said, standing up. “I’m so glad you got here in time,” she said excitedly. “Juris, this is Paige. Paige, this is my husband, Juris.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Paige said, sticking out her hand.
“You too.” He nodded. He let go of her hand, gave Tara a quick kiss on the lips, and walked down the hallway.
“He isn’t much of a talker,” Tara said with that dreamy look still in her eyes. “At least not with anyone but me.”
“Some people are just shy,” Paige said, trying to be polite.
“Yes, well, you have fun running around town today.”
“I will,” Paige said, grabbing her purse and walking outside.
* * *
Paige decided to start with the beach. She’d spotted some shots the day before that she knew would be perfect. There was a large pile of beach wood that had been stacked in front of a patch of grass, the tall feathery stalks swaying in the wind. She took a couple of pictures of the lighthouse, and then climbed the stairs to the top to take some more pictures. She switched filters and angles with every couple of shots. She caught a flock of seagulls as they landed on the beach and stayed around long enough to watch them take off again.
After about two hours on the beach, she drove to a park that sat on the water. There were oak trees covered in moss everywhere. The biggest one was isolated off to the side. The branches formed an odd pattern, making a crisscrossed heart on one side where they grew out of the trunk. The greenish-blue water of the ocean stretched out behind it.
It was stunning.
Paige got out of her Jeep and put the thick strap of her camera around her neck. She stared at the tree for a couple of minutes and tried to figure out how she wanted to capture it. She held the camera up to her eye, focusing in on the tree, and started snapping picture after picture. She stayed at it for almost thirty minutes, moving around the tree slowly. When she finished, she headed back to her car and noticed that the front right tire was flat.
* * *
“B.K., phone’s for you.”
Brendan turned his head to see a pair of dirty work boots appear next to the car.
“Can’t you see that I’m underneath a car?” Brendan asked, scooting out and looking up into Wallace’s face.
“Yes, I can. But she specifically asked for you.”
“She?” he asked, getting up so fast he almost banged his head on the bumper.
“She didn’t give me a name,” Wallace called out as Brendan practically sprinted into the office.
“This is Brendan,” he said, picking up the receiver.
The other end of the line was silent before he heard a shaky intake of breath.
“It’s Paige.”
“What’s up?” he asked, unable to control the smile that quickly spread across his face.
“I, uh, I have a flat tire.”
“Where are you?”
“Ocean Oak Park.”
“And you don’t know how to change a flat?” he asked, trying not to sound amused.
There was another moment of hesitation.
“No. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be of any good to me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I don’t have a spare.”
“I’ll be there in five,” he said and hung up the phone. He grabbed some sodas and a bag from the fridge. “Wallace, I’ll be back in an hour,” he said, walking out to his truck and throwing his stuff into the passenger seat. He jogged back to the shop and found a tire big enough to work for a spare for her Jeep and threw it into the bed of his truck.
Things had a funny way of working out sometimes. All morning Brendan had been going over reasons that he could stop by the funeral home and see Paige, each excuse lamer than the last. But he was at the point where he didn’t care how lame he was. He liked her and he wanted to see her.
* * *
When Brendan pulled into the shade of the park he saw Paige sitting on top of a picnic table. She was staring down at the screen of her camera, biting the corner of her lip. She looked up at the tree and then back down to her camera, shaking her head. Brendan pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, grabbed his loot, and got out of his truck. When he slammed the door shut she looked over at him. She turned her camera off and shoved it into a bag that was on the table.
“Hey,” she said, standing up and brushing the back of her orange dress down before she started walking toward him.
“Hi,” he said, walking past her and sitting down on top of the picnic table.
“What are you doing?” she asked, spinning around and looking at him. “My Jeep’s over there.”
“Yes,” he said, grabbing a Coke and popping the top. “But lunch is over here.”
“I thought you were going to change my flat,” she said, frowning.
“I am, after I eat lunch. Care to join me?” he asked, patting the empty space next to him.
“You’re serious?”
“Paige, it’s almost one o’clock, so I’m going to eat. You can either stand there and watch me, or you can split this Cajun turkey sandwich that my grandmother made,” he said, taking the sandwich out of the bag.
She shook her head and smiled.
“You, Brendan King, are a whole mess of trouble,” she said, walking over to the bench and sitting down next to him.
“Good choice,” he said handing her half. “What are you doing out here?” he asked, taking a bite of his half of the sandwich.
“Taking pictures.”
“For?”
“The tribute program that Mr. Adams wants to start using during the memorial services. He wants to use local pictures instead of the stock pictures that are already in the program.”
“That sounds like it’s right up your alley.”
“It is actually,” she said, reaching for the other can of soda and popping the top.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Why? That I could actually fit in around here? It does surprise me.”
“Why?”
“I’m not used to this whole small-town thing, where everybody knows everybody and their business.”
“Yeah, that’s one of the things about small towns that sucks,” he said, opening a bag of chips and holding it out for her.
“You can say that again,” she said, reaching for a chip. “Why don’t you have oil stains on your hands? I thought all mechanics had oil stains.”
“I wear gloves,” he said, grabbing a few chips for himself and popping them into his mouth.
“Right.” She glanced down and frowned, reaching out for his arm.
“The tree,” she whispered, grabbing his elbow and pushing up the sleeve of his shirt.
Her soft, delicate fingers lightly traced the lines of his tattoo. It took only one simple touch from her for him to completely lose his mind again.
“I knew I’d seen it somewhere.” She looked up to the oak tree in front of them and then back down to his arm. “Why do you have that tree tattooed on your arm?” she asked, looking up at him.
She must have seen the heated look in his eyes because she let go of him and started blushing.
“Sorry, I just…yesterday when I’d been looking at your tattoo, it just sort of fascinated me, and…and it’s that tree,” she said, pointing to the tree in front of them.
“It is.” He cleared his throat and finished his sandwich. He grabbed an orange from the bag on the table and started peeling it. “My mom loved that tree,” he said, looking up at it for a second. “She would bring me and Grace here all the time.”
“Loved?” Paige asked.
“She died,” he said, turning to look at her. “Twelve years ago from breast cancer.”
“Oh God, Brendan. I’m so sorry.”
“I am too. She was a great woman. Grams still can’t talk about her without losing it.”
“Wait, your mom was Lula Mae and Oliver’s daughter?” she asked, confused.
“Yeah,” he said, looking over at her. “I know a little bit about being the center of town talk too. My dad walked out on us before I was born, and Grace’s dad, well, no one knows who Grace’s dad is. My mom wouldn’t tell anybody. That was a source of gossip for years,” he said, handing her half of the peeled orange.
The orange was still cold from being in the refrigerator. Brendan stuck a slice in his mouth, the juice bursting across his tongue. Paige sat next to him in silence, eating her half.
“How do you do it?” she asked, looking at him.
“Do what?”
“Accept stuff like that? Move on? I lost my job, my apartment, and my boyfriend all within a span of a few months and I thought that everything was falling down around me. But you? God, Brendan, you had a girlfriend run off with another man, your dad abandoned you, and your mom she…” Paige trailed off. She looked down at her empty hands shaking her head. “You make my problems look trivial.”
“Paige,” he said, edging closer to her and pressing his thigh against hers.
She looked at him, her hair falling in her eyes. He reached out and pushed it behind her ear, letting his fingers trail down to her chin.
“That stuff happened over a long span of time, and I’ve had years to deal with it. You had to deal with a lot over a very
short
amount of time, and it didn’t happen so long ago. It isn’t trivial,” he said, rubbing his thumb across her jaw. “One day, you’ll wake up and it won’t hurt as bad. You’ll be able to move on.”
“I think I had that breakthrough a week ago,” she whispered, her eyes dipping to his mouth before they came back up to his eyes.
“Really?” He smiled, moving in closer. “And what was the catalyst for that development?” he asked, moving his hand to the back of her head, his fingers tunneling in her hair.
“A cracked radiator,” she said, putting her palms on his chest.
He brought her mouth to his. She parted her lips and when his tongue touched hers he lost himself. She tasted like oranges, like the sweetest freaking oranges that he’d ever eaten. He wrapped his free arm around her back, pulling her into his chest as he slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss. One of her hands was in his hair, her nails racking the back of his head.
Brendan pulled back and looked at her, both of them breathing hard. He was still holding her face in one of his hands as he ran his thumb across her lower lip.
“That was…” He couldn’t even find the words to describe exactly what it was.
“Yeah.” She looked at him, dazed as she fisted her hand tighter in his shirt and pulled him back to her. And then they were off again and neither of them had any desire to come back up for air for a long time.
* * *
Sometime later, Brendan was searching through the back of Paige’s Jeep. She was lightheaded from all of the kissing, and the skin around her mouth felt a little raw from Brendan’s scruff. But that was a small price to pay because, dear God, she’d never been kissed like that.
“You don’t even have the right stuff to change a tire,” he said, exasperated. “What happened to all of the tools it came with?” he asked, turning around.
Paige bit her lip. “Um, they’re probably in the same place as the spare.”
“Which is?” he asked
“I have no idea.”
He just smiled and shook his head at her.
“What?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“You’re helpless,” he said, walking over to his truck.
“Or maybe this is all part of the plan,” she said, following him.
“What plan?” he asked, releasing the hitch and pulling it down. He climbed into the back of his truck and unlocked the big metal box that ran along the back of the cab.
“If I knew how to change a tire, and had all of the things to do it, you wouldn’t be
here
right
now
.”
He looked up as he pulled a bag out of the box. “You make a valid point,” he conceded.
“That’s what I thought.”
“But that’s an awful lot of effort just to get me to kiss you,” Brendan said, pulling out a jack. He walked to the back and put both items down by the edge before he hopped down in front of her. “I was going to kiss you anyways,” he said, stepping into her and kissing the corner of her mouth.
“You were taking an awfully long time to get there,” she said and then lightly bit down on his lower lip.