that his own hands had gone still, and he was staring into space, his attention no longer split. Ciara Malloy had filled his head, and he didn’t like it.
—as though she’d been touching him. The sensation had been eerily real. Her hand could have been resting on him. He’d liked her touch.
Too long without a woman, he thought irritably, while knowing he wasn’t going to do anything about it. He missed sex—damn, but he missed it. The idea of bar pickups and one-night stands held no appeal, though, and his couple attempts since Ginny’s death at having an ongoing lover hadn’t ended so well. Maybe in the big city there were women who only wanted a casual lover, but here in Goodwater, anyone he hooked up with started envisioning diamond rings and moving in. Since he couldn’t imagine wanting that again, well, he’d decided he could survive living celibate, as long as he avoided temptation.
Which meant it would be safest all around if he had as little to do with these new neighbors as possible.
Comfortable with his conclusion, Gabe reached for the saw. No reason the pretty mom and boy would be interested in him. They’d make friends soon enough, and he’d be nothing but the reclusive man next door, whose horses they happened to see out their kitchen window.
There might be a whisper of sadness when he thought of himself that way, knowing he’d end up like Ephraim Walker, a man who, toward the end, had had to depend on the distant kindness of people who didn’t even much like him. And Ephraim, at least he’d had a son.
But Gabe knew himself well enough to be sure he didn’t want to risk again the kind of devastation he’d barely survived once. He let the brief sadness go and concentrated on something that did give him pleasure—the texture and smell of fine woods, the miracles his hard work and skill wrought from plain-looking beginnings.
He was like the most ordinary of boards, he decided, solid, reliable, but nothing astonishing likely to spring out at the touch of stain or linseed oil, and that was fine by him.
* * *
CIARA REACHED THE end of a seam and grabbed her small scissors to snip the threads. Without the whir of the machine going, the silence of the house struck her.
If Mark had finished the reading she’d assigned him, he was capable of concentrating by the hour on drawing or looking up something that interested him on the internet. Still...it was awfully quiet.
“Mark?”
No answer, which meant he wasn’t in his room. She left the pillow cover she was working on sitting in a small heap on her worktable and went to check Mark’s bedroom anyway. Empty. So neat, it belonged in a model home, but that was just Mark. One argument she’d never have to have with him was over cleaning his room.
She headed downstairs, calling his name but receiving no response. The social-studies book lay closed on the kitchen table, neatly aligned with the square corners of the table. The worksheet beside it appeared to be filled out. She flipped it over to be sure he really had finished. Yep. Ciara felt a twinge of worry that it had been way too easy for him. And boring. If she found some reading on local Indian tribes, or early white settlement in Eastern Washington, maybe that would be more gripping than standard stuff about the executive branch of the federal government. But he did have to learn the basic stuff, she reminded herself, and she had to be sure he’d pass end-of-the-grade-level tests, which meant sticking to the standard curriculum, didn’t it?
A worry for later. All she had to do right now was get him through the last couple months of the year. Then she could plan better for eighth grade.
There was no reason to be concerned because he’d gone outside. It was a nice day, and he was mostly sensible. She could guess just fine where he was. Those damn horses fascinated him, despite the fact that they were refusing to come to the fence no matter how he waved carrots at them or tried to whistle like their owner did.
But when she stepped out onto the porch, she saw them peacefully grazing down the slope toward their own barn, and no sign whatsoever of her son.
“Mark?” she called again.
She gave brief thought to returning to work. What kind of trouble could he get in? Even if he’d wandered as far as the road—and why would he?—no more than a vehicle or two an hour went by. More likely he’d wanted to explore the back section of their land, including the creek, which should be safe enough. Yesterday she’d looked up the distribution of rattlesnakes in Eastern Washington and been relieved to find they were rare to nonexistent in this upper corner of the state.
Ciara went back into the kitchen, grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and popped it open. Maybe she’d walk toward the creek herself, just to be sure. She’d feel better to definitely know that he hadn’t left their property.
* * *
“HI. ARE YOU BUSY?”
Gabe straightened from the bin of boards he’d been sorting through and saw Mark Malloy standing at the entrance to his timber store. This corner of the barn, walled off from the rest but for a wide doorway, held his supply of solid boards, veneers and smaller pieces of exotic woods. This space had a ceiling, unlike the rest of the barn with its high rafters and loft that hung over what had been stalls. A dehumidifier protected his stock of wood.
“This barn is my workshop,” he said. “Yes, I’m working.”
“You don’t look like you’re working.”
“I’m choosing some pieces of maple for a particular job.” He didn’t know why he was explaining, but did.
“Oh.” The boy came to his side and gazed into the bin. Right away, he asked why Gabe didn’t just grab a bunch of boards.
Gabe found himself explaining his criteria for this and other jobs, again without entirely understanding himself. He didn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings, he told himself, but wasn’t sure that was exactly it.
Mark helped him carry half a dozen boards to his Felder saw.
“Your mom know where you are?”
“She was working.”
Lucky Mom.
“But she wouldn’t mind. She said I couldn’t go into the pasture, but she didn’t say I couldn’t visit you,” Mark confided with a winning smile.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Gabe asked, leaning one hip against a workbench. Or had school already let out? It occurred to him belatedly that Ciara might have driven her son today.
“I’m homeschooling.” The kid’s tone was odd, maybe stilted. “I went to school back where we used to live—you know, near Seattle—but Mom got mad at the school so she said she could be my teacher.”
Gabe knew he shouldn’t raise questions; all that would do was encourage the boy. But he was curious enough to risk it. “What grade are you in?”
“Seventh.”
“I see.” No, he didn’t. Did the mom want to give Mark an education steeped in religion? Or did she just not think it was fair for him to have to start at a new school so late in the year? “If you’re not going to school, you’ll have to find a way to make friends around here,” he commented. “It’s probably too late to sign up for Little
