Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(28)

My workout — which usually got me out of my head for a while — seemed more difficult than usual tonight because I couldn’t clear my head, couldn’t submit to my body and just let it do the work for a while. I couldn’t relax enough to successfully meditate, couldn’t shower or cook or eat or do anything without all my thoughts drifting back to one thing.

To one person.

Mallory Scooter.

It’d been more than a week since our walk down Main Street, the Christmas lights glowing around us as the girl I’d always been curious about showed me a little more of who she was. I could still close my eyes and see the excitement on her face as she bounced around her empty art studio, showing me where things would be, illustrating her vision so clearly that I could see it, too.

It was a new beginning, a restart — and I’d found that it also might have been a mistake.

The next day at the distillery, we’d established a new sort of friendship. She was more serious about her training, and insisted on starting over — including getting another solo tour with me where I described all the points of interest on the tour we gave to guests before she even agreed to shadow me again. The rest of the week, she’d followed all my tours, bringing up the back and taking notes as we went along. By Friday, she was chiming in from time to time, telling our guests little stories about her grandfather or dad that I didn’t know.

And we were getting along.

Gone was the combative girl who seemed hell bent on making my job training her miserable. She was replaced with someone determined to learn, determined to get along with everyone, determined to succeed in her role. I wasn’t sure if it was Mac chewing us out that had changed her mind, or if her father had come down on her, or if maybe — just maybe — it was that she really did feel bad for what happened and she wanted to make it up to me. Whatever the reason, Mallory Scooter and I were finally getting along, and falling into a groove I never would have guessed we could find.

The problem was that the more time I spent with her, the more she drifted from hating me to tolerating me — the more I wanted to be around her.

I found myself making excuses to have lunch with her — even though I’d assigned her a different lunch buddy each day to help her get to know more people at the distillery. I’d somehow always be there, at the same table, inserting myself in their conversation so I could hang out with her. She always shadowed my tours — even though I could have easily assigned her to other tour guides — and after the last tour was done, I was always finding some reason to keep her around in my office a little longer.

And now, she’d invaded my thoughts after I clocked out, too.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her studio, about the fact that she’d struck up some deal with her father that she didn’t seem too keen to talk about. I wondered if that was why she was at the distillery — if he’d agreed to buy the studio for her in exchange for her working at the distillery. It seemed contradictory, but at the same time, I knew Patrick had wanted Mallory to be a part of the family legacy for years, and she’d always been absent.

Maybe this was his way of exerting power over her.

I wanted to know more, wanted to know what she’d decided not to tell me that night. I also wanted to see her art — her drawings, her photographs, the pottery brought to life by her hands. Sometimes, she’d walk into the distillery with paint on her jeans or a smatter of clay on her cheek, and I was so desperate to know what she created, what inspired her, what she brought to life.

I wanted to hate her. And if I’d left things alone after that day she’d gotten us in trouble — I think I could have. But no, she had to apologize, and she had to take me on that walk, and she had to remind me why I had always felt some magnetic attraction toward her.

Mallory Scooter was unlike any woman I knew, and I couldn’t shake her from my thoughts.

I sighed when I realized I’d zoned out — again — thus missing the part of the documentary I’d rewinded to twice now because I couldn’t focus. I clicked the television off with a huff, resting my elbows on my knees as I looked around my small living room.

My house wasn’t much, but it was perfect for me. I’d embraced the minimalist life as soon as I’d moved out of Mom’s, opting for an old farm house built in the late eighteen-hundreds on the northeast side of town. I was about five minutes farther out than Mom, which made it easy to get to her and yet still far enough away from town that I had peace and quiet.

I’d done my best to fix up what I could when I moved in, keep the original wood and structure alive and well. Everything that existed in that little home had a purpose, and there wasn’t anything unnecessary — no décor, no expensive rugs or plants or pieces of art, no furniture that served more than a person or two. My home wasn’t made to entertain, it was made to live in.

My books had a home on the two shelves I’d built against the wall where the largest window was, the one that gave me a great view into my front yard and a way to see any cars coming down my long, dirt driveway. There was a television, a two-seat love sofa — where I sat now, and a coffee table that Dad and I had built at my camp’s father-son day when I was younger. There were a few family photos on the wall near the front door, and between the kitchen and the living room was a small dining table that sat four people max. The kitchen was small, too — with older appliances that barely got the job done anymore. I knew I’d have to upgrade them soon, but fought against it as long as I could. And in the bedroom was a simple bed frame, box spring, and mattress — plus one bedside table that was home to whatever book I was reading each night before I turned out the lights to sleep.