over her eyes, she squinted and barely made out Chip’s form. He was spotlighting the two of them.
She glared.
Nothing.
“Hey!” she called out. “The ground’s that way.”
After several seconds, the light moved.
Bree whipped a smile back into place as she fixed her eyes again on Theodore. Only now, with spots dancing across her vision, she could only guess she was looking at his eyes. “What time?”
“Around four?”
Tuesday the ninth. Four. She could do Tuesday the ninth at four.
“I’d love to.”
A grating sound pierced her ears, and both Bree and Theodore swiveled to see Chip’s shadowy body dragging his shovel across the dirt. Even from her inexperienced standpoint she could tell he wasn’t actually trying to level the ground.
Well, that explained what kind of general contractor he was.
Bree spoke under her breath. “He’s new.”
Theodore nodded. Opened his mouth. Hesitated. “And it’s dinnertime. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten already?”
Bree paused. But of course it was insane to say she couldn’t go because she had to watch the crazy neighbor shovel. And besides, she hadn’t eaten. Two cups of coffee hardly counted as dinner.
Theodore’s expression and tone dimmed as the seconds ticked by. “Unless, of course, you have other plans.”
“No,” Bree said swiftly. “That’d be great. I just need to change.”
“You look terrific,” Theo said, smiling as if he hadn’t noticed she was practically in her pajamas.
Oh, but he really was a good man.
Her voice softened. “Just give me ten minutes.”
It wasn’t much longer before Bree had dropped the flowers on the kitchen counter, changed, and settled in Theodore’s whisper-silent Tesla as it turned out of her driveway. Two pleasant hours of conversation and three courses later, she returned home to walk straight into a lecture from Evie about flowers as she clipped the limp bundle and arranged them in a mason jar. There wasn’t even time to ruminate on the almost-kiss beneath the porch light before Bree found her hand—of its own stupid, stupid volition—reaching for the doorknob and breaking the moment.
Why had it reached for the doorknob?
This was the question that hounded her as she pulled the covers up to her chin in the darkness of her bedroom. Well, that and the sound of the alarm system beeping on downstairs. It reminded her of her very good point she’d been meaning to raise.
“Hey, Evie,” Bree called from her bed.
Evie grunted from the other bedroom.
“You do realize you’re going to have a problem when you cut the internet in your quest for off-the-grid domination.”
“The internet is a black cloud blocking the light of stillness,” Evie called back. “If you have a problem with me cutting the internet I pay for because of your obsession with the desensitizing clutter of your screen—”
“I wasn’t talking about my computer. Cut the internet all you want. You know I don’t use it.” She heard Evie turn over on the creaky bed. “I was talking about your security system. Good night, dear.”
She could practically see Evie in her oval-shaped bed staring at the ceiling, registering the fact that her beloved security system ran on wireless. And if there was one thing that could trump her obsession with simple living, it was her obsession with security. The woman had four locks on the front door alone to prove it.
A smile lingered on Bree’s lips as she drifted to sleep, the thoughts and objects of the day floating through her dreams.
Evie drifting on an ocean in her oval-shaped bed.
Yellow flowers.
Mason jars.
Pajamas.
Shovels.
An earthquake rumbled the ground beneath her feet, the pounding growing louder and louder, jars, pajamas, shovels all falling into the growing cracks in the earth.
Quaking.
Shaking.
Knocking her head against the—
Bree’s eyes popped open while she jerked up to sitting. Evie had a death grip on Bree’s arm and was shaking her like a rag doll.
“I’m up! Stop!” Bree hissed.
Bree pushed Evie, who currently looked like a frightened owl in her horn-rimmed glasses. Bree pointed to the bed and whispered, “Sit,” then reached behind the bed and pulled out her baseball bat.
Evie sat.
She hated when Evie did this.
At least twice a month Evie’s Apple Watch started vibrating, alerting her that some intruder had set off the motion detector above the front door. Some leaf, or squirrel, or sturdy gust of wind. The first time it happened, Bree realized exactly why Evie had lived with Nana for so long. She loved Nana, sure. Who didn’t? But Bree could guarantee it was also because Evie didn’t want to live alone.
Bree knew Evie would morph from her night-terrified self back into her grumpy self