write shit down. They know it and they just like to give me hell for it. So that’s how it all came about.”
She found herself smiling again. She could see family doing that, particularly brothers. Aleksei did seem to be a man who, on the surface, looked as if he could really take care of himself, but she could see he had the heart of a poet. She knew he read poetry. He never had her get those books for him, he always got them for himself, but she saw them. He seemed confident in himself, not someone ashamed or embarrassed to be caught reading poetry, so more than likely, it was about writing it, or just admitting how the nickname came about.
“Do you prefer Absinthe or Aleksei? Because that matters to me.”
He did look over his shoulder at her and something moved in his blue eyes. Something deep. He turned away from her before she could figure out exactly what it was, but her heart immediately accelerated at what she’d glimpsed.
“Everyone I care about calls me Absinthe. Aleksei died a long time ago.”
The sorrow in his voice had her reaching out to him. She pushed her fingers into his back pocket and kept pace with his longer strides. It was an intimate thing to do. Scarlet wasn’t the type of woman to ever take the lead when it came to intimacy between a man and a woman. First, it wasn’t in her nature, it wasn’t what she preferred, but more, she hadn’t been attracted to anyone in years. She was learning that intimacy and sex weren’t always the same.
Scarlet didn’t know what to think about that declaration. Aleksei died a long time ago. What did it mean? Everyone had a story. She wasn’t alone in hers. From the moment he’d come into the library and chosen that table far away from everyone else, looking so alone yet wanting to be that way, she had known there was a reason for it. She’d touched him deliberately, seeking to find out and yet she hadn’t been able to uncover his secrets.
Absinthe stopped abruptly, reached back and gently took her wrist to remove her hand from his back pocket, retaining possession as he pulled her up next to him, closer than she’d ever been, right up under his shoulder. She found herself staring at the natural arrangement of the tall redwoods. They formed a circular towering wall, with a thick mossy carpet covering the interior. The small “doorway” was two larger trees that were really one that had spread out and looked to have split at some time perhaps a hundred years earlier.
“This is incredible.” Scarlet stepped away from him, shocked. Trying to remember to keep her mouth from hanging open. She could see why he called it his cathedral. It was beautiful. There was even a kind of hushed silence around it, as if the wildlife respected the place. Once she thought that, then she heard the birds with their flitting wings and calls to one another—the chatter of the squirrels and the slide of lizards under the leaves.
“Isn’t it?” He looked pleased. “I hike a lot. I hoped you’d like it. I haven’t found evidence of other hikers around any of the times I’ve come.” He stepped past her inside the circle of the trees, taking her hand to tug so she followed after him.
“Do you worry about anyone finding your motorcycle?”
“It’s not that far from here and I’ve got it locked up.”
He sounded very confident. He handed her the duffel bag while he spread the ground blanket. “If you get cold, you let me know. I’ve got another blanket as well as this jacket.”
There was no wind in the trees. The top of the canopy swayed above them, and the trees creaked and groaned continuously, but where they were, the thick trunks were solid and unmoving. She found she liked the sounds. The notes were almost like music, a low symphony playing just for them. She sat on the blanket and pulled off the jacket, expecting to be cold. It was warmer in the forest than she thought it would be. The sun was out and had that same interesting strobing effect as it had on the road, the rays shining through the long branches of needles.
“It’s almost hot, but not quite.”
He nodded. “A perfect day.” He handed her a bottle of water. “You’ve got to be thirsty by now. I should have gotten you something to drink at