Agreeing to stay in Declan’s bungalow the other night might just be the second worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.
16
JUDE
Knockingon Woody’s workshop door, I pause, making sure he’s not inside before I enter.
Everything is too still and quiet without him inside. I inhale the scent of salty driftwood that’s heavy in the air.
I wander around with my arms folded, not wanting to touch anything, figuring that if I only snoop with my eyes, then it doesn’t really count as breaching his trust. I haven’t seen him since yesterday when I followed him to the beach showers. I knew something was different about him the night he went down on me, but I didn’t know what.
Yesterday, it came to me.
He had blue eyes. He held mine the entire time he had his head between my thighs, so I know I wasn’t imagining it.
At the showers, they were brown.
He lied to me about it, and I intend to find out why.
He said he wants us to be nothing to each other, a fact I was fine with before. But I’ve been lied to too much recently. I’m not sitting by and being made to feel like a fool again.
Ihaveto know.
I tilt my head, reading a piece of paper sitting on top of a small stack. It’s an order form. Thirty thousand rand for a glass and driftwood coffee table. That’s over fifteen hundred dollars. His finished pieces must be good if he can charge so much.
Beside the pile of invoices is a diary, open on a double-paged calendar for the month. I squint at his writing. It’s not messy, but there’s so much of it. Order after order written down, details about commissioned pieces—some large, some small.
When the hell does he sleep?
And where does he sleep?
I still haven’t figured out where he goes each night once the lights in our camp go out. Even Emmy, the yoga instructor, who’s known him for a couple of years didn’t know. She started looking at me funny this morning when I was asking questions about him, so I had to quit. If they’re friends, then I don’t want to risk her telling him I’ve been asking after him. Although I’m not sure I can see the grumpy cowboy having many friends besides Declan.
A small case on a shelf catches my eye, and I break my no touching rule in my excitement as I swoop on it.
“Knew it,” I murmur, unscrewing the small contact lenses case and finding it empty. “But which is the real you? Blue or brown?”
The door closes, and I jump, dropping the case to the floor where it scatters, coming to rest at a pair of leather sandaled feet with bright pink toenails.
“Here you go, bokkie.”
I stare at the elderly lady as she bends to pick up the case, pressing a handkerchief to her mouth and letting out a wheezy cough before she holds out the case to me.
“Thank you.” I take it, quickly putting it back where I found it. “Um, if you’re looking for Woody, I’m not sure where he is.”
The lady stuffs her handkerchief into the pocket of her housekeeping uniform and waves a hand in the air.
“He’ll be around. Probably better he isn’t here, anyway, he’ll only try arguing with me, stubborn boy.” She chuckles.
She shuffles over to the workbench, scanning the surface like she’s looking for something.
“This’ll do.” She picks up something, before turning back to me. “If you see that boy before I do, you tell him Nandi’s not happy with him. He needs this just as much as I do.”
She shakes her head with a smile and pulls a wad of cash out of her pocket, placing it on the workbench.
“He thinks because I’m old, I won’t know what he’s up to. But you don’t get to my age without recognizing a trick or two. Not a bad bone in his body, despite what he might think about himself,” she mumbles.
She places a tool on top of the cash to weigh it down, and my cheeks heat. It’s the chisel Woody used to destroy my panties.
