Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(30)

And Jesse is beside it.

Watching me.

The rest of my body jumps with my heart as I take him in, leaning against the back wall, legs crossed at the ankles like he’s been standing there for some time, tapping a silver tool methodically against his jeans. Even from here, those eyes feel like they’re penetrating my skin.

A strange sensation washes over me.

One I can’t identify. One I can’t say that I like.

But also one that I can’t say I don’t.

One . . . two . . . three . . . Who will win this staring contest? He doesn’t seem to be letting up. I let my hair fall forward a bit, in case he can see the red line from that distance, though I doubt it. This is just ridiculous. This is Dr. Alwood and Sheriff Welles’s—no, Meredith and Sheriff Gabe’s—son. Why would I not say hi? I hold my hand up in a tentative gesture. It’s not really a wave. And I wait.

Wondering.

For some reason, not breathing.

“Hey,” a panting Amber calls out, stepping out onto the cramped patio in her tall riding boots, startling me enough that I jump yet again. I never heard her come in. “How do you like it so far?”

I drop my hand. “It’s perfect for me.” And it truly feels like it is. Maybe this is similar to my previous life, after all. The horses, the mountains, the fresh air, the quaint little apartment . . . it feels like it fits me.

Amber grins—her typical wide, white-toothed, flawless smile. “Good. We had cleaners and painters come in this past week to fix it up. You wouldn’t believe the fuss Ginny made.”

If it’s anything like that day in the hospital, I think I can picture it. Which makes my heart instantly soften for the old woman, because that couldn’t have been easy. She really does mean well.

I can’t help but glance over at the garage, but I try to do it covertly. My smile falters when I see that Jesse is gone.

“That’s my brother. He barely comes out to say hi. He’s so in love with that stupid car.” She turns inside. I hear her mutter under her breath, “It’s probably stolen.”

My eyes flash as I trail her in. This is the sheriff’s son we’re talking about, right? “Really?”

“No . . . not really.” She sighs as she opens the laptop resting on the table. “My brother just does things that I don’t understand. Things that have made my parents’ lives harder than they need to be.”

“Your mom said he comes home on weekends sometimes?”

She starts hitting a bunch of keys, her fingers moving fast. “Yeah. Over the last few months, he’s been doing it more often. Before that, I hardly saw him.” Click-click-click. “I think something happened, with a girl he was dating. He told my mom that he was going to marry her, which is weird, coming from Jesse, who’s never gotten serious with anyone. I guess it didn’t work out.”

So he was in love with a girl. Is he still in love with her? “What was she like?”

Amber sighs as she scribbles some letters down on a pad of paper lying next to her. “Don’t know. Never met her, and good luck getting any information from him. Jesse isn’t much of a talker. All I know is that she was from Portland.”

Portland. “How far is that?” Have I been there before?

“A few hours. I did my nursing program there. Here . . . I used this laptop for school, but I have an iPad now so I don’t need it.” She pushes a scrap of paper forward. “I wrote the passwords and some basic instructions down, in case it doesn’t come naturally.” She stands and stretches her arms over her head in an exaggerated yawn, her checkered shirt riding up over her taut belly. “I’ve gotta run now. I picked up an extra shift tonight.”

“You work a lot, don’t you?” When I was in the hospital, there was hardly a day that went by when she didn’t stroll into my room with her scrubs on.

Her hands slap against her thighs as she drops her arms dramatically. “For now, yeah. I don’t have a boyfriend, most of my friends moved away from this town, and my father’s the almighty sheriff, so . . .” She throws her hands up in the air. “What else am I going to do?”

I wonder what it’s like to have Sheriff Gabe as your father. He’s only ever been pleasant toward me, but if being married to the sheriff is sometimes difficult, as Meredith said, then I can’t imagine what being his child must be like.

“Bamboo,” Amber suddenly fires at me. It takes an arched brow for me to clue in.

“Panda?” I finally answer, feeling silly. Dr. Weimer has me playing word association games with Meredith and Amber. They say a word and I say the first thing that pops into my head. It’s part of my therapy, to see if something will trigger a memory. I’m supposed to keep a journal of all the word combinations and bring them with me to my weekly sessions. “Why bamboo?”

Lifting the small fabric-bound notebook that Dr. Weimer gifted me—the cover smattered with colorful hummingbirds—off the table, she opens it and scribbles down the words for me. “Because the end table beside your bed is made of bamboo.” That’s how this game usually goes. Random, meaningless words plucked from my surroundings as much as out of the air.

So far, I have half a journal’s worth of words that have enlightened me about nothing.

Except that apparently I’m aware of a panda bear’s dietary preferences.