“We don’t want this to end like that,” he said. “Building things isn’t like doing a crossword puzzle. There’s a purpose to it.”
“There’s a purpose to crossword puzzles,” she told him dangerously.
“Which is?” he said skeptically.
“They build brain power.”
“But nobody gets hurt if they’re done wrong. If we don’t build this right, you could be up there in your hammock on a sunny summer day, sipping lemonade and reading romance novels, and the whole thing could fall down.”
“Romance novels?” she sputtered. Had she left one out last night, or was she just that transparent?
“It’s just an example.”
He saw her as a person who had filled her life with crossword puzzles and fantasies! And annoyingly it wasn’t that far off the mark!
But she was changing, but that made her wonder if it was true that nobody was going to get hurt from doing the crossword puzzle wrong. She was open in ways she never had been before, committed to living more dangerously. Rationally, that was a good way to get hurt.
She didn’t feel rational. She felt as if she never cared to be rational again!
“Show me how to hammer the damn steps down, and how to do it so that I and my lemonade and my romance novel don’t end up in a heap of lumber at the bottom of this tree,” she told him.
“Ah, ah, Miss Maple. Grade-five teachers aren’t allowed to say damn.”
“You don’t know the first thing about grade-five teachers,” she told him.
His eyes went to her lips, and they both knew he might know one thing or two. He hesitated and then surrendered, even though it wasn’t the marine way. “Okay, I’ll put the stringers and then show you how to put the treads on.”
In a very short while, she wondered how rational it had been to ask. Because they were working way too closely. His shoulder kept touching hers. He covered her hand with his own to show her how to grip the hammer. She was so incredibly aware of him, and of how sharing the same air with him seemed to heighten all her senses.
Alive. As intensely alive as she had ever been. Over something so simple as working outside, shoulder to shoulder with a man, drinking in his scent and his strength, soaking his presence through her skin as surely as the beautiful late-summer sunshine.
Before she knew it, they were at the top of the staircase.
“It’s done,” she said.
“Not really. At the moment, it’s a staircase that leads to nowhere.”
Trust a man to think that! It showed the difference between how men and women thought. He so pragmatic. She so dreamy. Amazing he had thought of the tree house in the first place!
Just to show him the staircase led to somewhere, she stepped carefully off the stair and onto a branch.
“Hey, be careful.”
She ignored his warning, dropped down and shinnied out on the branch. From her own backyard was a view she had never seen before.
“I can see all of Cranberry Corners,” she said. “This is amazing.”
And that’s what happened when you took a chance and lived on the edge. You saw things differently. Whole new worlds opened to you.
“You better come back here.”
She ignored him, pulled herself to sitting, dangled her feet off the branch, looked out the veil of leaves to her brand-new view of the world and sighed with satisfaction.
“If you fall from there, you’re going to be badly hurt,” he warned.
She looked back at him. He looked very cross. Too bad.
“In between romance novels, I try and squeeze in a little reading that has purpose. Do you know Joan of Arc’s motto?” she asked him.
“Oh, sure, I have Joan of Arc’s motto taped to my bathroom mirror. What kind of question is that? Come down from there, Beth. Now is no time to be quoting Joan of Arc.”
“‘I am not afraid,’” she said, wagging her legs happily into thin air, “‘I was born for this.’”
“Hey, in case you don’t remember, Joan’s story does not have a happily-ever-after ending.”
“Like my normal reading?” she asked sweetly.
“It’s not attractive to hold a grudge. I’m sorry I insinuated you might just read something relaxing and fun in between studying Aristotle. Get off that branch.”
She glanced at him again. He did look sincerely worried. “You’re the one who likes to live dangerously,” she reminded him.
“Yeah. Me.”
“You’ve encouraged me.”
“To my eternal regret. Beth, if you don’t come back here, I’m going to come get you. I mean it.”
“I doubt if the branch is strong enough to hold us both.”
“I doubt it, too.”
It was a terrible character defect that she liked tormenting him so much. Terrible. It was terrible to enjoy how much he seemed to care about her. Though caring and feeling responsible for someone were two entirely different things.
“Is it lunchtime yet?” Kyle called up the tree. “Hey, that looks fun, Miss Maple. Can I come up?”
“No!” she and Ben called together, and she scrambled in off the branch before Kyle followed her daredevil example. Ben leaned out and put his hands around her waist as soon as she was in reach. He swung her off the branch and set her on the top stair. But his hands stayed around her waist as if he had no intention of letting her go to her own devices.
“I’m safe now,” she told him.
But his hands did not move. They both knew that she was not safe and neither was he, and that what was building between them was as dangerous as an electrical storm and every bit as thrilling.
He let her go. “I’ll take Kyle and grab a bite to eat.”
She knew he was trying to get away from the intensity that was brewing between them.
“No need,” she said easily. “There’s lots of leftover pizza.”
And so even though surrender was not the marine way, she found Ben Anderson in her kitchen for the second time in as many days. The problem with having him in her space was that it was never going to be completely her space again. There would be shadows of him in here long after he’d gone.
And men like that went, she reminded herself. They did not stay.
And right now it didn’t seem to matter. At all. It was enough to be alive in this moment. Not to analyze what the future held. Not to live in the prison of the past. Just to enjoy this simple moment.
“Microwave or oven?” she asked of reheating the pizza.
They picked the oven, and while they waited she mixed up a pitcher of lemonade and asked Kyle about the program at the planetarium.
“Hey,” she said, catching a movement out of the corner of her eye. “Hey, put that back!”
But Ben had his prize. He held up the puzzle that she had tacked on her fridge the night before.
“Ah,” he said with deep satisfaction, and folded it carefully. He put it in his pocket.
“That belongs to me,” she said sternly.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“It