My pace slowed as I recognized the pickup truck parked just off to the side of their driveway, where they kept their fishing boat during the summer. To my knowledge, Randall and Anna were in Arizona. They owned a place not too far from where my parents lived. Bella hadn’t mentioned Amber being home from college for Thanksgiving break, but it was possible.
Still, it didn’t explain why Kael’s truck was parked there. The front door opened, and I shuffled to the side, yanking on Meadow’s leash and hiding behind a tree. He stepped outside, toolbox in hand. Amber followed him with a blanket wrapped around her body and boots on her feet. Kael hoisted his toolbox into the back of the truck and turned toward her.
She stepped closer to him as if personal space meant nothing to her generation. Her lips moved, speaking words I couldn’t hear. Then she smiled, gazing up at him. He returned a smile and nodded several times.
They were standing too close for comfort—not how one would stand next to a guy who did something like hang a picture or fix a leaky faucet.
Amber took another step into him, leaving no more steps to take, forcing his back to rest against the driver’s door to his truck. He slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Amber spoke again. Kael lifted his gaze and glanced around. When he returned it to her, she lifted onto her toes and kissed him.
“What … the … fuck?”
He didn’t seem to move. I couldn’t tell if he kissed her back. It was too quick. He sure didn’t push her away or turn his head. I was in too deep. Really … I really did not want a boyfriend or a relationship. Just the sex.
Amber had to be … twenty, maybe close to twenty-one. He was thirty. I was forty-two. Overthinking the age gap didn’t work in my favor. That didn’t stop the anger from brewing. I wasn’t sure if my anger stemmed from him allowing her to kiss him. After all, we weren’t anything. He could’ve had sex with a different woman every night.
Maybe that was it. Maybe I was upset that he was having more sex than me. Nothing stopped me from finding other guys to have sex with.
Okay. That wasn’t true. Epperly had a population slightly under twelve hundred. And I knew just about everyone, and everyone knew me. It was basically like fishing in your own fish tank for dinner. Sure, there were single men in town, but once I took out the ones I would never have sex with, the ones that would never keep their mouth shut about it, and the ones I felt confident weren’t carrying an STD—it left me with two, maybe three options including Kael Hendricks.
Brian Hosier was an attorney in town. He divorced five years earlier. Craig hired him for things like our will and rental contract advice. He was in his late forties with a mostly full head of hair and jogged every day.
Mike Holmes, a fifty-something banker who lost his wife to breast cancer nearly a decade earlier, squeezed into the final spot. However, Mike had a gait issue. I remember overhearing Melinda, his wife, talking about him to a friend at the cafe. She said, “I married an old man, but he’s only thirty-seven. Why must he take such small, short steps? He’s average height. It’s just not normal or manly.”
Maybe he had a really big dick and walking too fast sent it swinging like a wrecking ball. That unlikely, but not entirely impossible, scenario was the reason I added him to the list.
Mentally tucking away my short list, I edged around the tree to stay out of sight as Kael drove toward the main road.
“Meadow …” I frowned as she squatted to poop just as the front door shut behind Amber. I reached into my pocket for a poop bag, but there wasn’t one. “Ugh!” I grimaced at the pile she left. Seeing only Kael’s taillights as he turned the corner, I kicked snow over the pile of shit and hightailed it toward the main street, deeming my walk to be over. When I turned the corner to head back home, Kael’s brake lights greeted me from the side of the road.
“Good morning, Mrs. Smith,” he sang with a cheerful tone while rolling down his window.
I continued walking toward home. “For some it is.”
“What were you doing? Spying on me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His truck tailed me down the street. “I saw you in my rearview mirror, hiding behind a tree when I left the Davidsons’.”
“Congratulations on your twenty-twenty vision, and I wasn’t spying.” I sped up my pace as if I could outrun his truck.
“Then what were you doing?”
“Making a list of eligible men in town to fuck.”