Retreat to Love Read online

  He released a slow breath. “You’re completely hilarious.”

  “Come on, drop trou. Maybe it'll seem funny to you tomorrow."

  "Right." He stood, carefully, and growled at me again when I tried to help him unbutton his khakis. Blue boxers, nice. "Stop staring."

  Cocking my head at him, I asked, "Was I staring?"

  "Damn, you're funny. I'm finding this a little embarrassing, if you want to know the truth."

  Smiling, I said, “I love the truth. Here's the bad news, speaking of the truth. This cut's deep. I don't think nature loves you as much as you love it. And your pants, well, they're kaput."

  "Just get me a wet washcloth," he said, sinking back to the couch. "Sorry. Please get me a wet washcloth."

  "That's fine for getting the dirt out, but you're going to have to abrade this, running water, the works."

  "What are you, Nurse Nell all the sudden?"

  "No, I'm just not an idiot. A deep wound, you have to clean it out, not just scrub at it. Can you make it into my bathroom?"

  "I get a sponge bath now?" His smile was less strained with pain.

  "I think you're enjoying this as much as I am. No, I just want you to hold it under the tap for a minute while I go get a bandage and antiseptic."

  Grumbling, Caleb let me help him up and into the tub. No way would he clean the thing without getting naked or getting the boxers wet, but I decided to let him deal with that problem on his own. As it was, I was collecting images of some damn fine legs to savor at a later time. Not trying to edge in on Wren or anything, but when providence throws damn fine legs your way, you have to pay attention.

  "Use soap on it," I commanded as I left him, half-crouched on the rim of the tub, a fresh towel beside him.

  Margie's first aid kit had every necessity. I stuck it on my mini-bar and tapped at the door. "You decent?"

  Growl. "Come in already." Poor Caleb was on his ass in the tub, leg sticking up by the window, attempting to get the wound close to the faucet. He’d left his shirt on, but shoved it under his armpits, and wrapped his hips in the towel, more’s the pity. He wasn’t looking happy.

  And probably I was looking too happy. I was getting an eyeful of slim muscled torso as he twisted to position his leg. His feet were bare and his thighs flexed strong and he was basically writhing half-naked in the tub I’d spent a little time writhing fully naked in myself. My next bath was going to be even more stimulating, I could tell.

  Caleb’s grumbling recalled me. “Fucking water hurts like hell."

  "So you didn't use the soap?"

  "If the water hurts this much, it's getting all the crap out on its own."

  "Nice try. You going to do it yourself, or do I have to lather up your leg for you?"

  His hand went back to covering his groin. "Just hand me the damn soap."

  I grinned. Clearly, he was going to be fine, so it was time for me to start having some real fun.

  "Fuck!" he hissed as the water ran over the wound.

  "Poor Caleb." I pat his shoulder and got another towel. "Now rinse it real good and let me help you up."

  "I can get myself up."

  “You’ve left me in no doubt about your ability to get yourself up, Caleb, dear. But just this once, okay? The tub's slippery and I wouldn't want your towel to fall askew."

  "Now I know you're enjoying this. And it’s all your fault. Stop enjoying my pain.”

  Did I deliberately put my arm around his body so my palm stroked his bare, warm side? Maybe. Was his quick indrawn breath because of my touch or because it hurt to stand on his wounded leg? Only the hardening erection he wasn’t managing to hide knew for sure. “Sure, as soon as possible. Come on, back to the other room. And you'd better let me put the ointment on."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Nope. But look what a wimp you were about the soap. The ointment is gonna hurt even more. You wouldn't do it right."

  He rearranged the towel carefully as he sat down. "I am not a wimp."

  "Course not.” I spread his knees so when I knelt between his thighs I could still see the wound. Maybe it was because he’d removed his work vest, but he certainly didn’t smell bad. “Now hold still. If you're a good boy I'll get you a sucker later."

  "Such wit. Fuck!"

  "Be still!" I trapped the cut leg between my ribs and my arm.

  "Ow, fuck! Ash!"

  "Almost done. There." I leaned forward to blow on the wound, the way Gran always did to take the sting away. I swear I didn't mean for my cheek to brush the towel. And I'm pretty sure Caleb's groan was one of pain.

  "Do you want me to tape down the bandage, or?" I was a little hot in the face. "Or, you could do it, and I'll try to sew up your pants."

  Caleb wasn't looking at me. I think it was the injury. "You'd do that?"

  "Sure," I shrugged. "I have needle, I have thread, it's a natural."

  He cleared his throat. Twice. “Um, yeah. That’d be great. Thanks."

  So I took his pants into the studio, leaving him on the love seat with the gauze. The gash was actually a little large, I'd need to put a patch on it.

  "So you think you'll walk again?" I called over the low wall between us.

  "One day very soon," he confirmed. "Though I guess you do win the turf war—no way I'm hunkering down for photos tonight."

  Mentioning his territorial aggression was his tactical error. I shuffled past the muted calico I'd landed on and chose a left-over scrap from a baby quilt. Lavender, with duckies. A nice orange thread to accentuate their little beaks, and the pants were better than new.

  He was sporting about it, at least. He quacked when he saw them. I cursorily inspected his bandage, patted him on the knee, and promised I'd stay in my room while he got dressed.

  Whew.

  I had to flop on my bed hugging on my pillow a little. The man had a mouth on him, in addition to the damn fine legs, on top of the moment in the clearing when his eyes said clear as day, "You, I'll trust.” And the heat. His arm across my neck as I’d helped him to the tub had branded me. And the quack.

  Timing, humor, communion.

  Snap the hell out of it, Ash, he's taken. Or, kinda. He's staked out. Whatever the situation, I needed to snap the hell out of it.

  "Ash?" The liquid timbre of his voice did not help me snap. "Ashlyn?”

  "Yeah, I'm here. You decent now?"

  "Rarely, but my fly's done at least."

  He edged himself over on the love seat, so I sat beside him. "Caleb, listen, I'm sorry if I was flippant."

  "Flippant? I don't think they've invented a word to describe how you were. ‘Antagonizing’ comes close."

  "Was I so bad?" Come to think of it, his eyes weren't pure chocolate; there were some bronze flecks in there.

  Little smile. "Nah, you were perfect. I have to admit it was funny."

  "Can you walk?"

  "You kicking me out?"

  "No.” Because his staying wasn’t in the least a dangerously appealing idea. “Just asking."

  "Yes, you are. I can tell." His tone said he could tell a lot of things, maybe some things I wasn’t telling myself yet.

  A couple of different replies jockeyed for position, but I reminded myself about snapping out of it. The moral she-was-there-first ground was definitely the easier path. “Okay, a little, yeah, I am kicking you out. I need to work on my drawings a little, before dinner."

  "You know what? I think you owe me for laughing at me so much. Tell me what this big dyed-cloth project is all about." He didn’t act like a man about to vacate the premises.

  I shook my head. "It's not that easy, sorry. I have to work it out more myself."

  "Come on, maybe talking about it will help."

  Why did guys keep trying to force me to discuss my vision? I had a process that worked best in isolation. “Nope."

  "Right." He stood up, gimpily. Was he actually offended? "See ya at dinner, then."

  And off he limped. Through the studio windows, I watched him find the r
ight path to his cabin, stopping to rip the offending branch off the tree. He took it with him.

  The sun shone through the indigo cloth like sea glass in a tide pool. Instead of taking the sketchpad, I started to speak to the view about the project. Talking to yourself isn't supposed to be a good sign, but when you're as alone as I am, it comes naturally.

  "Okay, Chains is about love, it's about Pappa and Gran and how the parts, the elements, the links in their lives all came together. Even though they both started in Ireland, he was a man on his own deliberately coming here from Liverpool, and she was a child in the middle of a family that didn’t mean to wash up in Houston. But they went from being two to being one and from being one to being a family. The three children, and Zach and I, Ireland and Texas and the Atlantic between them." I was pacing, I was gesticulating, I was mumbling. Must have been quite a sight.

  "It's about them, about how they're the consummate love story, about how they completed each other and made a new life—not just Dermot and Bernadette and Matthew, but a reality of life, a lifestyle, together. Ups and downs, babies lost and stories told and learning to grow crops and picnics by the creek and sleeping on the train to their honeymoon. So, it's a chain, there will be links. A link for me, a link for Matthew, a link for Pad Maguire. Broken links for Berneen and Albert. Broken links for Pappa's family back home. A big link, central, holding them both—or two links, intertwined? Sketch it. I don't know. So, each link is a story, each link is the thing itself but in relation to Pappa and Gran, but there needs to be a consistent style to them all. More traditional? No, yes?" I stopped a moment. "Not traditional. New. They left the old country, moved to a new land, found a new life together. So, new style."

  Now I had to stop pacing, had to go sketch. Barely made it to dinner—Caleb had changed into shorts—took down the cloth and fell exhausted into bed, too wiped to even brush my teeth.

  Next morning, I was up early what would become the base for the quit top, and doe was back in the clearing working the salt lick. I suspected she’d eaten the corn the prior evening. When she started and ran off towards the stream, I wasn’t surprised to see Caleb emerge from the path, putting a lens cap on his telephoto attachment. I waved.

  “Hungry?” he asked when I came to the porch to let him in.

  “No. Give me a sec and I’ll grab my shoes.”

  “Well, I got some good shots before you scared her off today, thanks.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Do you think Zach’ll mind driving us around town a little? I want to get some of the buildings.”

  “Did you not notice the size of this place when you came in? We park on the far side of the square and walk two minutes to John Henry’s and that’s all the town there is.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s just as well. Suits the idea, anyway.”

  On the way to the Main House he told me about it. Wildlife inhabiting human habitations—he was snapping all the animal life he could find in a place, then the structures of the area, and digitally processing buildings with deer and raccoons and whatnot. He bragged on his manipulation skills, on all he did to convey meaningful, elevated messages.

  In between ordering me around the kitchen, he waxed what he must have considered lyrical about the destruction of natural habitats, the lack of concern in most municipalities for the ecosystems that had been the basis for their town’s founding in the first place, the ways various animals had adapted to civilization. I told him Frank and Bernadette would have been riveted, which made him laugh. Apparently back at Berkeley, he and Zach had bonded over being misfits in their families. His Silicon Valley folks thought he was still studying computer engineering, and mine thought Zach was still the star of the ecology program. “Though I must say I’m glad we weren’t switched at birth,” Caleb added with what might have been a leer if I’d taken the time to decipher it properly, instead of determinedly ignoring it.

  Our first breakfast was a success. Rafael even came in at the end, acrylic-smeared and blurry-eyed, and smiled at the pecan roll we had left out. He didn’t say anything, but we were all too startled by the sight of him to try and open a conversation, so perhaps it was more of a matter of him feeling frozen out. Then he yawned, drank some cranberry juice, and left.

  “At least he’s learned to stack away his dishes,” Wren said. “If I accomplish nothing else here, I can go home with that.”

  “Do yous all think he’s just nocturnal?” asked Lizzy, when she turned back from watching him walk down the path to WestWind, which suitably enough was the most remote of the cabins, the only one on the far side of the lake.

  “If so, I’m in trouble again when it comes to making lunch next week,” Wren moped.

  “We’ll have him well sorted by then,” Caleb assured her. “Margie’s strict conscious won’t allow her to let one of the artists bear an unjust burden due to the non-cooperation of another.”

  Wren cheered, but I was thinking Caleb’s frequent Margie imitations were revealing a secret dictatorial side of him. The bossiness in the kitchen didn’t help. It was the same at lunchtime, even though all we made was egg and tempeh salad sandwiches with German fries on the side. When I told Liz and Wren about it later on, as we were waiting for Zach to pull up, Wren just thought it was wonderful to have such a helpful food partner, and Lizzy told me any successful meal had to have someone in charge with as many attentive assistants as the kitchen space allowed.

  “As Brandon is about to find out, I can be very attentive. ‘Tis a shame you’ll miss the first group meal I’ll ever prepare by standing back. I did make sure there’s nothing poisonous on the menu.”

  “Can you just make a couple of people nauseous? If I have to watch Theo and Angelica sneak past my cabin to each other any more I’ll be sick myself,” Wren said.

  “You think you’ve got it bad,” I said, “try living next door to him. If he’s working it’s all mega-industrial music out of there, and if she’s there I hear even more than I’d like to. If I’m outside it’s actually decipherable—‘Theo, my God, my deity, my Zeus and Jove!’ Don’t laugh—I’m not making it up. I swear to Theo, I’m not!”

  We’d managed to stop making fun of the other retreaters by the time Caleb came to my cabin. And when Lizzy nudged me as he crossed my threshold, I knew it made three of us who noticed he cleaned up pretty good. It was a simple outfit: khakis and a white button-down, but against his gold-brown skin and dark hair, it worked especially well. And he knew how to buy classy shoes, or knew someone who knew, which was almost as good.

  My version of dress-up clothes wasn’t as well chosen as Wren’s fawn-colored jumpsuit, which made her even lither and more soft-focus than usual (or, as Lizzy put it, ‘Tres femme, mon cherie’). I figured I pulled off the fitted scoop-neck tee with maxi skirt well enough to eat out at what passed for fine dining in a small Hill Country town.

  And if I opted to go by the way Caleb’s gaze lingered on my curves before he directed his crinkly eyes and dimpled chin in Wren and Lizzy’s direction, I looked as good, if not better, as I needed to.

  Chapter 4

  Lizzy gave up her spot on the love seat for Caleb, who was shoulder to shoulder with Wren by the time I’d walked Lizzy to the door. But he was asking me for details about Zach’s break up with his Berkeley girlfriend, Eva, who had stomped my brother’s heart the second she got into grad school. Maybe it was more nuanced than that, but Zach was one of the essential support beams of my life, and I hadn’t taken it well, back when I was in high school and so soon after Pappa’s death, when that beam had crumbled.

  Tires crunched on the shell road. Caleb stood, stretched, walked to the door. Wren wasn’t alone in noting the muscle tone in his chest. She grinned at me behind his back. Or maybe she was grinning about his butt, which also deserved a smile.

  “That’s him, anyway,” Caleb said, turning back to pick up his bag. Wren mouthed, “Be right back,” at me vamoosed to the bathroom.

  Zach did the Zeke / Ned chest
bump with Caleb before he turned to me for my semi-hug. “Show me what you’ve been up to,” he said, and, arm around my shoulders, steered me into the studio.

  I unfolded my dyed fabric and went to the table to open my sketchbook. Zach leaned in like he of all people was engaged by my artistic vision, muttering, “So we want the two of them together?”

  “It’s her idea,” I whispered back. “Apparently he’s her dream man. Something about the way he smiles.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it always turned me on.”

  “You’re supposed to slip me some dirt about what he was like at Berkeley, too. Who he dated and for how long and is he some sort of deviant in disguise.”

  “I’ll have to think on that one,” he said, looking around as Wren emerged from powdering her nose. “Hi. How’re you?”

  “Good. Hungry; I get to eat something tonight I didn’t cook, and I’m very excited about it.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Caleb said from the doorway.

  We hit the town.

  Wimberley’s not quite typical for small-town Texas. It’s a bit more scrutinized, thanks to being in the midst of the hill country, with all the amenities: ground rolling off in all directions, bunnies and does leaping about, roads like someone real tall poured an oversize bottle of dark molasses across green fields, cool streams reflecting canopies of Spanish moss.

  Plus it’s just easy enough to get to from Austin and San Antonio that it’s cache of B&Bs stay busy most of the year. So along with the small-town stuff like ice cream parlors and a dearth of national chain stores, you get dusty antique and craft stores stuffed with traditional quilts, extra-high gas prices at full-service only stations, and quirky semi-gourmet dining spots. The place we’d chosen was called John Henry’s. As I’d promised Caleb, who took a couple dozen shots of town on film, and ten more on his digital, the Square was small enough to see John Henry’s from Millie’s Hat Shop at the catty-corner end. We paid a few extra dollars at the door for temporary membership. Anyone could eat in the restaurant, but if you wanted bar service, you had to join the club. They fixed us up with some good Texas beer and we crossed the back lawn to Cypress Creek while we waited on our table.