Page 37 of Bitter Spirits

Caught in his little queen’s spell, there was no room for games, only truth. “Because it fits.”

He wasn’t expecting the flash of insecurity that wiped away her last vestiges of sleep. It didn’t last long. Familiar emotional walls rose fast and hard even as she pulled back, lashes lowering as she started to fumble with her seat belt.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Going along with her ploy, he let her go. For now. “Just after two.”

Her seat belt zipped back, and she reached for the door. “I’m going to need to pick up my car from Wonderland by eight.”

Sighing, he got out and waited for her by the back door as she came around the hood. “Is there a curfew I need to know about?”

“What?” Isa played with the beaded bracelet on her wrist, her brow furrowed. “No, it’s just that parking enforcement does their rounds at eight, and I don’t need another parking ticket.”

He disarmed the security ward, opened the door, and waved her inside. “After you.”

He followed her into the laundry room, where the washer and dryer sat next to a deep sink on one side and a bench with cubbies on the other. A couple of lightweight jackets hung on the hooks above. She didn’t go far and instead stopped in the middle, the glow of the floor-level recessed lighting pooling at her feet. He stepped around her and hit the main switch. The soft lights blinked off, replaced by the brighter illumination of canned lights above.

“Welcome to my never-ending DIY project.”

“DIY project?” She peered out the door and down the shadowed hallway.

“Yeah.” He moved into the hall, hitting light switches as he went. “I’ve been working on rehabbing this place.”

“By yourself?” Her question was accompanied by the click of her bootheels on the wide planks.

“Except for where I need a second set of hands, yeah.”

“Huh.” She followed him into his most recently finished project, the kitchen. “Oh wow.”

She gazed at the deep-blue cabinets topped by gray-veined quartz that ran down the left side and jutted into a short breakfast bar. Under more canned lights, the upper white cabinets and stainless-steel appliances gleamed.

He tossed his keys on the pub-style table to their right and headed to the refrigerator. “Did you want something to drink? Water? Tea? Coke?”

“Water works,” she said as she ran a hand over the countertop. “This is beautiful, Locke.”

“Thanks.” He pulled a glass out of the cabinet. “Ice?”

“Please.” She moved through the kitchen and into the great room.

“Light switch is to the right. Just watch where you step.”

She flicked it on, revealing a large room stripped down to cement flooring, drywall, and framing. Incongruously, a deep-seated coppery-brown sofa sat off to one side, facing a flat-screen TV perched on a wood-topped worktable that served as a makeshift console table.

When the ice dispenser was finished, she asked, “How big is this place?”

He pulled the water pitcher out of the fridge and poured. “It’s a two-bedroom, two-bath, just over seventeen hundred square feet. The main bath, my bedroom and bathroom, and the second bedroom that’s currently holding all my tools are all down that hall.”

“Wow,” she repeated, stopping in front of a half-framed wall. “Are you putting in a fireplace?”

Locke poured a glass for himself. “A gas one.”

“That’ll be nice.”

He brought over her water and handed it to her as she studied the two openings to the left. One was clearly a door. The other looked like it should hold a window, but it was looking into a room. “What is that?”

“When it’s done? My office.” He motioned to the mock window opening. “I’m trying to decide if I want to close that up.”

Isa sipped her water as she took in the large windows covered by dark shutters on the far side of the office, visible through the opening. She turned back to the unfinished living room. “You’ll lose some of the light in here.”