04

« You can’t go this way, » she said as he drove forward, moving at a faster pace than he’d maintained while searching for her. « The road’s flooded just ahead, at the stream. » His house was in the opposite direction anyway. Or did he plan to drive her to her new place ?

He ignored her.

« The road—« 

« Your car. I’m gonna see how stuck it really is. »

A minute later, they stopped a few yards from where the stream had swollen up over the road. Donovan abandoned the cab to inspect her vehicle, wading through water so high it threatened to swallow the tops of his boots.

« It’s stuck all right. I’ll have a truck tow it to my garage. »

« The house doesn’t have a garage. »

He shook his head as he turned the truck around. « My garage in town. You want me to turn the heat on ? »

« Yes. » Maybe then her nipples would stop poking through the front of her sopping sweater like thorns.

Or maybe not. Donovan still looked as obscenely hot as before in his pointless shirt, and enclosed in the cab, she could smell him, soap and a hint of sweat mixed with rainwater.

« Are you going to tell me about the garage you apparently have in town ? »

« You know the one – it used to be Gerrity’s Auto. Now it’s mine. »

« You own your own repair garage ? » Her gaze drifted automatically to his hands, tanned brown and roped with sinew. How many times had she watched him fix a car, or some neighborhood kid’s dirt bike ? She’d spent countless hours camped out beneath a maple tree, a can of Dr. Pepper in hand as she hid in the shade, watching him work. The memories came back to her, made real by the phantom smells of motor oil and soda, the memory of grease stains on his skin.

He’d always been good with vehicles – had always been good with his hands.

« I do general repairs. Body work. And I’ve got a guy who paints now. »

« All that in six months ? »

He shrugged. « Yeah. »

Well, that solved the mystery of how he was existing in Willow Heights, if not the why.

« At least I know the mechanic won’t try to rip me off with bullshit charges just because I’m a woman. » Her joke came out flat.

Donovan looked away from the road, his dark brows plunging. « There won’t be any charges. »

« You don’t have to—« 

« No charges. »

So much for coming back to Willow Heights as an independent woman ready to take on the real world, ready to take care of herself. Burying an eyetooth in her inner lip, she studied Donovan’s profile in her peripheral vision.

« You’ve needed new tires for a while. » His deep voice cracked the silence. « Yours are worn down to practically nothing – that’s why you hydroplaned. »

« The fact that we’re in the middle of a flood might’ve had something to do with it. » She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to argue with him, but she did, even though he was right about the tires. Maybe because not arguing would’ve been tantamount to accepting the reality of her situation, to admitting to herself that he was not only alive, but back in the flesh, less than three feet from her.

What then ? She couldn’t begin to think, could hardly begin to process the unlikelihood of it all. She would’ve bet on being hit by a falling star or attacked by a shark on dry land before she would’ve bet on running into Donovan at her grandmother’s old place.

« Just don’t let it happen again. There’s no reason for that kind of neglect. You’re lucky you didn’t hit a tree head on, or drown in that floodwater. »

She laughed. « Drown ? »

« Ruby lips above the waaater… » He shocked her into silence by bursting into song. « Blowing bubbles, soft and fine… But alas, I was—« 

« Oh, God ! That song. » She wheezed, doing her best to pass off the shock he’d given her as a fit of hilarity. « Don’t. Don’t torture me. »

Torture was the right word for it, and not because she’d gotten used to being called CeCe instead of Clementine, a name she shared with her long-departed great-grandmother. He might as well have plunged a knife into her solar plexus and twisted. The sick thing was, she sort of liked the stab of nostalgia, the ache for yesteryear she so rarely let herself feel anymore. And he wasn’t a bad singer, either. She’d always liked the sound of his voice. It deepened when he sang, and seemed made for sad melodies.

« You want me to change the words so it doesn’t embarrass you ? » He kept a straight face as he stared ahead at the road, but sang just as loudly as before. « Oh my darling, Clem… Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. »

« Stop it, Donovan. You know I hate that song. »

She didn’t. She loved it. At least when he sang it, anyway.

« Dreadful soooo-rry, Clementine. » He sang his apology.

She forced another laugh as they rolled up in front of the house, turning into the driveway.

They walked inside together, bodies beaten by the driven rain. Inside, she dripped on the kitchen tile, her chest tightening as she looked around.

Some of the furniture was gone, as were all the pictures, but otherwise, it was just like she remembered it. Even the smell was the same, a part of the house. « Thanks for letting me wait out the rain here, » she said when a not-so-small puddle had formed at her feet.

It felt weird to say, even to Donovan. Her heart didn’t recognize deeds or closing papers any more than the house itself did. It was her grandmother’s place – always would be – no matter who owned it. Everything surrounding her was familiar, from the old hand-carved crown molding to the wide arch that separated the kitchen from the hallway. The cherry wood cabinets were ones her grandmother had chosen during a kitchen remodel a decade ago, and the oven was the same one she’d used. The kitchen fixtures sent dual pangs of nostalgia and guilt sailing through Clementine.

Donovan wasn’t the only person she’d missed after leaving Willow Heights, or the only person she’d shortchanged.